Chapter 916: Yamigetsu
The eighteen palms continued feeding more and more creation law energy into the enclosure, attempting to compress and overwrite everything within the contained space, while Arthur’s Destruction worked to expand and erase everything within that same area.
From a distance, it appeared as a massive orb of crimson gold light, with streams of silver light piercing through fractures across the orb’s surface.
The opposing forces ground against one another in a violent stalemate as the crimson gold sphere shuddered under the strain, its surface warping while layers of imposed creation law pressed inward, and the silver light inside resisted with destructive intent that refused to give way.
The space surrounding the orb distorted and fractured, layers of its fabric peeling apart as shockwaves rippled outward, ripping through drifting debris and tearing apart the remains of asteroids that had been drawn in by Valkalonex’s immense gravity.
Inside the sphere, Arthur clenched his teeth as the pressure climbed, the Annihilation Sphere shaking violently while opposing laws collided, every pulse of compression answered by a violent rebound that sent spiderweb cracks crawling across the crimson gold shell, silver light leaking through them in unstable bursts as the balance threatened to tip in either direction.
He channelled Lostvayne’s destruction to support himself, but even with the added power of the sword he could access after his recent growth in personal strength, he was only barely keeping the ball of light at bay.
The eighteen palms pressed closer and harder, forcing his Annihilation Sphere to contract inch by inch as they tried to crush him within it.
With how things were progressing, he was bound to lose this struggle, and recognising that, Celestia and Lostvayne immediately warned him.
[Master! I know you’re trying to avoid its analysis, but...!] Celestia began, worry threading through her tone.
[If this continues, it will crush you. You don’t have a choice,] Lostvayne added calmly, the words making Arthur click his tongue.
He immediately rerouted the cosmic energy flowing from his heart into his soul, and as the power feeding his Destruction Origin Core dropped, his Annihilation Sphere weakened, allowing Valkalonex to press into the opening as fractures spread around him and the sphere began to break apart under the force of the eighteen palms bearing down on it.
Valkalonex’s lower left arm lifted in the same moment, its elbow glitching and expanding as nine identical forelimbs emerged, each one manifesting several polygons of light atop its palm while preparing a follow-up attack aimed at Arthur.
That attack was never unleashed, however, as the energy Arthur had diverted from his Destruction Origin Core flowed into the second mass of conceptual power within his soul.
|Aspect Manifestation: Destruction!!|
Arthur’s irises both turned a deep crimson as an immense burst of destruction energy erupted from his body.
The instant the second mass of conceptual power fully awakened, the space around Arthur ruptured while crimson silver destruction energy poured outward in furious, spiralling waves, its force ripping through imposed creation like fragile glass as the crimson gold sphere shattered around him.
All eighteen forearms recoiled together, their palms blasted away from the collapsing sphere as the violent tide of destruction now surrounding Arthur scattered and erased every nearby trace of creation energy.
Arthur raised his gaze, Lostvayne roaring with power in his grip as the jet-black blade burned with silver light, and he swung it once.
|Oblivion Rend!|
The law of time bent to Arthur’s will, erasing the time his slash would’ve needed to reach its targets, and the temporal flow fractured, causing multiple instances of the same slash to appear at the same moment.
All eighteen mechanical forelimbs extending from the elbows of Valkalonex’s upper arms were caught by destruction simultaneously, with no interval to evade, their enormous structures blasted apart and erased under the compounded energy.
|Aspect Manifestation: Time!|
Arthur’s left iris turned a vivid blue, silver blood slipping from his nostrils under the strain of sustaining two fully manifested Aspects, though he ignored it completely as he imposed his will over temporal flow.
Within half a light-year of his position, everything slowed to an extreme crawl, space itself feeling heavy as moments stretched toward near stillness beneath the overwhelming Authority of the Aspect of the Concept of Time.
Valkalonex’s colossal body attempted to move, its mechanisms shifting as it tried to activate its Engine of Creation, but the massive gear behind it couldn’t complete even a single rotation, dragged into near immobility by the imposed temporal suppression.
Inside this slowed world, only Arthur and Rishia, whom he’d selectively excluded from the effect, could move freely.
Rishia immediately took advantage of it, drawing her bow and releasing a Candescent Edict: Rain, luminous projectiles pouring outward as she targeted the giant forelimbs still chasing her, several of them clutching fragments of a shattered planet while preparing to hurl them toward her as light law energy-infused meteors.
Her attacks tore through the ten remaining arms one by one, explosions of light shredding them before they could advance even a fraction.
While she worked, Arthur released Lostvayne from his grip, drawing in as much of the surrounding cosmic energy as he could and using it to fuel his Extreme Nothingness Authority.
He let go of Celestia as well, cupping his palms in front of him as he activated the technique born from nothing but his desire to achieve planetary destruction alone when he was only a Half-Deity.
|Extreme Nothingness Authority: World Collapse!|
Valkalonex’s planet-sized body was immediately engulfed by a crimson-silver bubble of light, which began shrinking, attempting to crush the colossus within it.
Arthur’s Temporal Aspect instantly deactivated as he couldn’t supply the cosmic energy required to maintain it, and Valkalonex resumed normal motion, its arms pressed inward by the constricting bubble.
The unique properties of the crimson-silver light slowly reduced the parts of the colossus’ arms that slammed against the bubble into dust, but each impact against the bubble created cracks in its surface, each sending backlash toward Arthur and increasing the strain as he fought to maintain the crushing force.
Arthur was now giving Valkalonex a taste of its own medicine, but it was clear to anyone watching that he wasn’t going to succeed in crushing the colossus’ immense body.
Rishia noticed this as well, and the moment she caught her breath, she dissolved her bow into darkness, dismissing her Coronant Regalia as she spoke quietly.
"Lord Aleksas. I seek permission."
For a moment, there was silence, then Rishia’s left-eye vision went dark as her Progenitor hijacked her sight and scanned her memories to understand her current situation.
It only took a second, and immediately after, she heard a reply echo in her mind.
’You have 1 minute.’
Following those words, she heard the sound of chains breaking in her head, and powerful purple lightning erupted from her body, the crackling sparks obliterating every asteroid around her.
Knowing her timer was already running, she didn’t waste time restraining the violent power and instead raised her hand, calling out.
|Manifest, Yamigetsu!|
Space tore open around her arm, and from that rift emerged a two-metre-long naginata with a curved scimitar-like blade, purple runes etched along its length.
As she gripped it, purple lightning coursed from the weapon into her arm, her aura spiking several levels.
Rishia moved before her fingers had even fully curled around the handle, her body tearing through space at relativistic speed.
Arthur barely registered her movement, even with his time powers, only noticing her when she was already mid-swing, the naginata raised high above her head, both hands locked on its shaft as she brought it down in a single, unadorned slash that carried no technique beyond pure intent.
In that instant, he exerted control over his Aspect, using Selective Destruction to remove her from the target parameters of his World Collapse.
The reason for this was so that the immense burst of purple lightning that split space itself, erupting from Yamigetsu, completely ignored the crimson-silver bubble surrounding Valkalonex’s body.
Or rather, it was more accurate to say the bubble ignored the lightning, letting it pass through and hit Valkalonex directly.
A blinding flash followed as the purple energy crawled across the colossus’s 30,000-kilometre-long frame in an instant, flooding every seam and breach, burrowing into its interior systems and frying mechanisms from within.
The lightning poured into the massive wound Arthur had torn open earlier with Extreme Nothingness: Chaos, exploiting the exposed pathways to push deeper and wreak further havoc, until fractures raced across its arms and the colossal gear mounted behind its back cracked under the cascading damage.
Arthur felt the resistance against his World Collapse weaken, and he did not hesitate to slam his palms together, forcing the crimson-silver bubble to constrict violently, every fragment of energy composing it crashing inward as it wrapped tightly around Valkalonex’s body.
The light from the resulting detonation engulfed everything in range, expanding outward with such force and intensity that it made hypernovae look cute, its brilliance visible across thousands of light-years, of course, only when the light reached those distances thousands of years later.
Every planet within 50 light-years was instantly vaporised, the sheer heat of the explosion turning solid rock into gas within seconds.
Planets in more distant systems fared little better, their atmospheres stripped away, oceans boiled off, and the cascading shockwaves tearing through space and time disrupted gravitational balances so violently that entire worlds were flung free of their stars’ grips, cast adrift into deep space as rogues.
It went without saying that such an immense explosion naturally drew the attention of the powers that be within the Infernal Dimension.
Some of the nearby Infernal Devil Kings who sensed the explosion and cared enough to turn their gazes in that direction were met with the sight of glowing clouds of hot gas and dust left behind from the destruction of several planets and the stars they orbited.
At first, their interest was minimal.
However, when they detected the divinity of Valkalonex, which remained present but unused because it already knew Arthur was a godslayer and divinity was effectively useless against him, these Infernal Devil Kings rose from their thrones.
Just which of the gods dared to make such a commotion in their Infernal Dimension?
That was the kind of thought running through their minds, at least until Berlal’s gaze forced them back into their seats without a word.
"I’m going to need Barda to rewind those planets," she said calmly, turning her attention from the Infernal Devil Kings back to the epicentre of the blast.
There, amid the aftermath, Valkalonex still floated in space, its enormous body visibly damaged but unmistakably functional, not far from Arthur and Rishia, both wounded and clearly exhausted.
Rishia then heard the familiar voice of her Progenitor echo within her mind once more.
’I’ll give you an extra minute. Use it wisely.’
