Chapter 945: Against Creation and Light [Bonus 10]
"Best me, if you can."
The moment those words left the ash dragon’s lips, Rishia had already fired a volley of arrows at him.
The four-fletched constructs of lightning raced toward the ash dragon at relativistic speed, but he merely raised a finger and said, "And there shall be light."
From the tip of his finger, a miniature star ignited, radiating intense light in all directions and consuming her arrows mid-flight, disintegrating them before they could reach him.
With the same left hand, he formed a knifehand and swung it to the side, deflecting Arthur’s blade as it sliced toward his neck.
Flashes and sparks followed as Arthur’s next 25 strikes, launched within the span of two seconds, were all blocked by the ash dragon’s hand.
After parrying the 25th strike, the ash dragon curled his fingers into a fist and punched Arthur in the stomach, then lifted his right hand to grasp Rishia’s Imperative Candescence arrow and crush it before it could explode in his hand.
A naginata blade descended toward his neck from behind, and without turning to see its wielder, he said, "Discarding your range advantage for melee combat?"
He weaved to evade Rishia’s slash, then lifted his leg and kicked the side of her naginata’s blade.
The sudden force applied to one end of the weapon threw Rishia off balance for a moment, but she quickly adapted, the darkness construct in her hands morphing as the side beneath the ash dragon’s foot became the butt of the polearm while the opposite end became the blade, and she used the force generated by his foot to swing the newly bladed side toward his face.
"Hmm, impressive," the ash dragon said, leaping back slightly to avoid her swing.
At that moment, the ground beneath him cracked open, and clawed hands reached out, attempting to grab his legs.
Space ruptured, and the heads of several monsters burst forth, all roaring as they unleashed powerful breaths of elemental law energy from their mouths.
Confronted with this, the ash dragon stomped his foot on the ground, releasing a pulse of cosmic light that incinerated the hands trying to grab his legs until they disintegrated, then snapped his fingers and unleashed another wave of light that not only dispersed the law energy fired by the monsters but completely obliterated their bodies, scattering blood and fragments of flesh across the hall.
"The fact that you believed these mindless beasts summoned from lower worlds could hold me even for a second insults my intelligence," the ash dragon said, turning his gaze and pointing a finger at Arthur, releasing a beam of light from it that collided with the tip of Arthur’s blade in a clash that flooded the entire hall with light.
He reached out with his palm and grabbed the beam of light he had fired toward Arthur, transforming it into a whip of light which he then spun and swung at Rishia.
Before the whip could reach her, the world around them turned monochrome, and the light whip froze in place.
Rishia closed the distance instantly, swinging her naginata at the ash dragon, who weaved calmly to avoid her strikes before releasing the frozen whip, parrying her naginata with his right palm and punching her chest, sending her flying backwards.
"Good move, I suppose. Even light, as fast as it is, cannot move if time itself is stopped," he said. "But you’ll need more than that to best me."
As he finished speaking, cracks spread across the monochrome world, and it shattered as colour returned, the whip of light reverting into a beam that coiled through the air toward Arthur’s position, forcing him to swing his sword to block the returning beam.
Arthur split the beam with an Extinction Slash from Celestia, then charged forward with Lostvayne, the world around him slowing as he activated his Temporal Aspect.
He dashed behind the ash dragon at the same moment Rishia dashed toward him from the front, her naginata sweeping toward the dragon’s legs while Arthur’s blade swept toward his neck simultaneously.
Their attacks seemed certain to connect, but a moment before impact, a flash of light erupted, and both their weapons cut through empty air.
The dragon they had aimed at was suddenly standing before the throne at the end of the hall, his hands crossed behind his back.
The two immediately turned toward him in surprise, unable to understand how he had evaded their strikes.
Seeing their confusion, the dragon chose to enlighten them.
"Did you forget my earlier words? I am before you as the embodiment of Creation and Light.
Your attacks were fast. Categorically, you’d be in relativistic territory, somewhere around 25, maybe 30% of the speed of light.
But as the embodiment of Light, I can become light itself and move at its speed.
And while I’m capable of reaching even greater speeds, I’ll limit myself to that for the sake of this trial."
Arthur and Rishia’s expressions darkened at his words, contrasting starkly with the ash dragon, who seemed to smile faintly as he clenched both fists and assumed a combat stance.
"You’re not finished, are you? If you are, then I suppose it’s my turn now."
By the time the sound of his words reached Arthur’s ears, the ash dragon was already delivering a kick to the side of his head.
Arthur ducked to avoid the attack and immediately countered with an upward arcing slash from Lostvayne, but before he could complete the motion, he sensed danger and teleported to avoid the beams of light that had pierced the empty space he had just occupied.
The moment his body reappeared elsewhere in the hall, the ash dragon was behind him, reaching out faster than Arthur could turn and gripping his neck from behind.
"I expected you’d do that," he said, flinging Arthur into a wall.
Spikes erupted from the dragon’s shadow at the same instant, but his body glowed with light that banished the shadows before they could reach him. He then turned toward Rishia, the glow around his body intensifying as beams of cosmic light shot toward Rishia’s Candescent Edict: Rain, colliding with each arrow she fired and neutralising them with bursts of cosmic light.
He tapped his foot on the ground, and spears of light erupted from Rishia’s own shadow, breaking the power of her Authority infused within it and dealing internal damage to her.
Rishia was still able to leap aside to dodge the spears, but before she could land, the ash dragon flashed behind her and delivered a high kick to her back, sending her face-first into the ground.
He swung his left hand to release a light slash that met Arthur’s Extinction Slash, then placed his right hand on Rishia’s back and said, "Stay down for a bit, Progenitor’s descendant."
Cosmic energy burst from his palm, encasing Rishia’s body in a sphere of bright light, and though she immediately tried to counter with her Authorities, the light moved faster than she could defend against, successfully sealing her within it.
The sphere began to shrink slowly, as though attempting to crush her inside, and Rishia had to summon every ounce of power she could to push back against the rapidly closing sphere.
Turning his gaze from Arthur to Rishia, the man extended his arms slightly to the side as he stepped forward.
"Now then, let’s have a chat about creation, young Progenitor."
As his words echoed, he clenched his fists, instantly coating them in the white light of cosmic creation, and in a flash, his fists collided with Arthur’s two swords in a clash that cratered the ground beneath them.
The shockwave from the impact rippled outward, shattering the hall’s windows and sending shards of glass flying in all directions.
Arthur poured more cosmic energy into his already active Anti-Divine Gravity Origin Core to reinforce the law energy around his blades, but it did nothing to prevent the ash dragon from headbutting him, then gripping his neck as he stumbled backwards and slamming him into the ground.
Merely touching Arthur with a hand doused in creation law energy burned his skin, inflicting him immense pain.
"Did you not hear a single word I spoke earlier? Your greatest strength against creation is the destruction you refuse to use because you fear it is weak against creation."
The ash dragon lectured Arthur calmly as he tightened his grip around the godslayer’s neck, launching into the air and flinging him down toward the ground while shouting, "Using the power of any law but destruction against me is the height of folly!"
Arthur spun violently through the air, but before he could hit the ground, he unfurled all his wings, using them like a parachute to regain some semblance of balance.
’Authority of Time: Temporal Imaging! Gravitational Attraction!’
The ground cracked and split apart, rocks rising into the air with immense speed and force, shooting toward the floating ash dragon, whose brows furrowed lightly.
Arthur landed on his feet at the same moment, swinging Lostvayne and Celestia one after the other, unleashing multiple Extinction Slashes that split the air as they cut toward the airborne dragon.
The dragon, however, snapped his fingers, unleashing a pulse of light that disintegrated the rocks flying toward him, simultaneously breaking the attraction force Arthur had generated around him, and dashed downward, weaving through the approaching Extinction Slashes to reach him in an instant.
Arthur teleported to avoid the dragon’s punch that pierced the ground, then immediately used his Temporal Authority to generate a projection of the ash dragon from when he had been airborne, positioned in the trajectory of the Extinction Slashes he had just avoided.
