Theron offered no reply. He merely turned, the emptiness in his eyes locking unblinking on Jared. The instant that vacant stare found him, Jared felt an icy spike slide into his chest.
A threat like none he had faced crashed down on him, every hair on his body standing rigid, as if the air itself had grown fangs. The danger felt sharper, crueler, than anything the Soul Devourer had shown so far.
He had known the Soul Devourer was stronger than on level six, but he had never imagined the fiend could summon a monster of this magnitude.
“Mr. Chance, be careful! This one… This one is utterly bizarre!” Neville Contreras shouted, voice strained by the same crushing weight.
Cold dread surrounded Neville. The giant‘s aura was so formidable and suffocating that Neville found his lungs cramped, his heart hammering hard against bone.
Beside Jared, Sylvia tightened her grip on her long sword, Heaven Gate energy racing through her veins, ready to strike the moment fate demanded.
Jared pulled one deep breath, swept every stray thought away, and fixed every shred of will on the giant before him. He sensed at once that this opponent stood worlds above the Five Shade Demons he had slain.
“Kill!” The single syllable clanged from the giant’s throat like steel on stone.
An instant later, he moved. No thunder of aura, no howl of demon wrath, only one simple step. Yet that step shredded distance itself; from over a hundred meters away, his ancient, scarred fist now hovered before Jared’s eyes.
Fast. Indescribably fast. So fast it slipped beyond the limits of Jared’s spiritual sense, blurring past thought itself.
Though the blow had not yet landed, the condensed fist pressure already stung Jared‘s face. Air detonated around him with rolling thunderclaps, shredded into empty shock waves.
Too fast!
An earthquake of terror thundered through Jared’s chest. Instinct short-circuited every rational thought. He poured every shred of his colossal spiritual power into the Dragonslayer Sword and whipped the blade across his body in a desperate guard.
A metallic concussion boomed, so loud it could have cracked the heavens. It sounded like twin mountains colliding, the air itself shrieking under the impact.
The shock raced down the sword and into his arms. Agony lanced through muscle and bone. The skin between thumb and forefinger split open, blood spraying in crimson arcs.
The blow flung him like a rag doll. He punched through several stone pillars, then slammed into the rear wall of the grand hall. Masonry exploded, a cloud of dust billowing toward the vaulted ceiling.
“Jared!” Sylvia cried, her voice fracturing as terror blanched her face.
“Mr. Chance!” Neville shouted, his usual battle-hardened calm shredded by raw panic.
Both Sylvia and Neville stood rooted after their shouts, faces drained of every trace of color.
The tiny flame of hope that had begun to stir in the disciples of the Nethergate Sect sputtered out as though doused in ice water.
Across the rubble, the Soul Devourer curled a merciless smile, as if he had predicted this outcome from the very first clash.
The dust thinned. Jared dragged himself from the cratered wall, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Inside, his energy churned violently. Every organ felt bruised, rattling against his ribs.
Such brutal force… And that punch was…
He frowned, realizing the strike had carried more than speed and strength. A sinister pulse of law had brushed him, slowing his body by a hair’s breadth, and that sliver had proved devastating.
Is… Is Time Law interfering?
A flash of understanding knifed through his mind.
The giant, his eyes hollow and lifeless, stepped forward again, unleashing another seemingly simple yet devastating fist when he saw Jared could still stand.
“Time Deceleration!” Jared roared, bracing himself.
Raw time nascence energy erupted from him in rippling waves, seeking to drag the seconds around the giant into a sluggish crawl. Then, the impossible happened.
The moment the Time Deceleration field touched the giant, the aura around him shimmered.
Jared felt the time nascence power melt away like frost beneath morning sun, devoured and rewritten by an even deeper, more primordial force.
No, it’s not just devoured!
Inside the Time Deceleration zone, the giant’s fist lurched faster, ripping through the air like lightning unleashed. Along his knuckles glimmered a faint sheen, an afterimage that looked disturbingly like time itself running backward.
