“What?” Jared gasped. His pupils shrank to pinpoints, the revelation smashing into his thoughts like a tidal wave.
Time Deceleration had not only failed, it had become ammunition for his opponent. Somehow, the giant was twisting Jared’s own mastery of time into a weapon against him.
Lightning cracked through the gloom, and Jared had no time for conscious thought. The fist racing toward him was a comet of raw force, its wake ripping the air to shreds before it ever reached his skin.
“Five-Element Sword Force, guard me!” Jared shouted, the words tumbling out like a battle drum.
Five intertwining streams of color burst from his body and wove themselves into a glittering net of sword energy that bloomed in front of him.
At the same instant, his Golem Body sealed him in a shell of radiant metal.
He hammered both heels against the stone, launching into a blur of footwork that dragged every last ounce of speed from his muscles in a desperate bid to sidestep that uncanny punch.
Boom!
The net met the onrushing fist. For less than the span of a single breath, they held, then detonated into shards of dying light.
Jared twisted, but the shockwave still kissed his shoulder.
Crunch!
White-hot pain flared as bone caved, his left shoulder folded inward, the agony so sharp it stole his breath. He spun through the air like a broken doll, scarlet spraying from his lips before his body hammered into the ground and skidded.
“Jared!” Sylvia’s cry cut through the storm of debris.
Her ice-blue sword flared, becoming a streak of winter lightning that swept toward the giant, every snow-white petal of frost it summoned aimed at buying Jared a single heartbeat.
“Out of my way, insect!” The giant did not even bother to look at her.
With lazy disdain, he flicked a broad palm behind him. The gust that roared forth bent space itself, time inside that wind seemed to clog and curdle.
Sylvia’s sword charge hit the distortion and slowed as if it had plunged into quicksand. The radiant edge dulled, its brilliance aging before her eyes, power leaking away like sand from a shattered hourglass.
Thud!
The warped gale slammed into the blade, ripped it from Sylvia’s fingers, and pitched her backward. Blood spattered from her mouth.
Neville lunged and caught her, yet her face had already blanched to parchment and her pulse fluttered.
“His power… It erodes time itself…” she managed, eyes glossy with shock.
Neville’s jaw locked, his fists clenched so hard his nails carved crescents in his own palms. He yearned to charge, but if Jared and Sylvia were swept aside so effortlessly, he knew he would only add another corpse to the field.
All he could do was trust in Jared, trust that somewhere behind the battered young fighter stood a master greater than any of them had yet seen.
Across the ruined ground, the Soul Devourer watched with growing delight, savoring the scene like a cat toying with mice it had already decided to eat.
Jared struck the earth, bounced, and forced himself upright. He didn’t bother to wipe the blood from his lips. Firestorm rage boiled in his chest, but a glacial shard of reason held it in place.
Time… His command of time nascence runs deeper than mine…
My Time Deceleration won’t hurt him. Worse, it might be turned, speeding his blows instead… Sylvia’s strike was decayed by that same power… Could it be…
A terrifying hypothesis coiled through Jared’s mind, cold as midnight and twice as heavy.
The giant closed the distance again. No feints, no flourish, only a brutal fist arrowing straight for Jared’s face. The blow carried the promise of annihilation, as though it meant to explode his skull like overripe fruit.
Gritting his teeth, Jared unfurled Time Deceleration and hurled his Holy Light Fist, golden, righteous, blazing to scour all evil. He needed to feel, at point-blank range, what was going on with the giant’s Time Law.
A deafening hum shivered through the hall.
In the heartbeat before their knuckles met, that higher-order ripple of Time Law surged again.
Jared poured every shard of spiritual sense into that splinter of eternity, desperate to seize the mystery. And then he saw it.
At the brink of impact, the skin of the giant’s fist glimmered, and, impossibly, time inside that inch of space flowed backward. It was not acceleration, nor slowing, but a localized Time Reversal, the ruthless rewinding of reality itself.
The loop lasted less than a hundredth of a breath, yet its horror was boundless.
That microscopic rewind yanked Jared’s Holy Light Fist from its apex back to its first spark, stripping away every ounce of momentum.
The giant’s punch, unburdened by the lag, crashed into the weakened light with merciless precision.
The outcome was expected.
A wet explosion of air and blood burst between them.
The golden fist shattered; Jared’s technique vanished as though it had never existed. The same time-warped force hammered his chest, caving bone and spirit alike.
