The time I spent trashing this world was absolutely worth it.
This guy, I don't know who he is, but he is a very scary individual.
When I first met him, I couldn't judge his strength.
He wasn't even emitting a single shred of aura.
He is capable of hiding all that excess energy within him without any problem.
Something I was never capable of doing.
I had initially thought that he was just a weakling who got caught up in my mess.
But as soon as he unleashed that terrifying magic, I knew he was not a normal person.
That magic attack almost ended me in one swoop.
If not for the defensive measures I took, I would have surely died.
Even if I did not show it, a lot of my magicules were exhausted just from defending myself against that attack.
We are now caught up in a heated battle.
I usually just rampage around without the need to use any of my abilities. But this was a different case.
Ashura: 「『Tidal Wave』!!」
I needed to fight him with all my skills. Otherwise, I would just end up dying without putting up a fight.
He somehow got behind me in an instant.
The fact that I had to use my eye to see him otherwise I wouldn't be able to sense him troubled me.
I turned around and gave him a smirk to taunt him a little.
It didn't even seem to bug him as he proceeded to attack me with a magic bullet.
After underestimating him once, I wasn't a fool to do that again.
I was sure that he already knew about my magic nullification.
I also thought that he was just testing something out.
And I was right to believe so.
With his next attack, he actually severed my arm clean off.
I was extremely shocked to see such a thing happening.
Somehow, a mere wind blade of his had reached the ultimate level and became powerful enough to even affect my body, which could be considered as a high-level mythic grade weapon.
The shocking thing about it is the fact that he doesn't even have an ultimate skill yet.
Is this the power of the silver primordial?
He has not even reached the peak of his evolutionary path, and yet he is capable of fighting an ultimate spiritual lifeform.
I greatly underestimated you, it seems…
He summoned a strange blade. The color was oddly violet, and it radiated an attractive aura, but the intent of the blade said otherwise.
The blade somehow had a will of its own. The terrifying aura it released screamed nothing but pure death.
I felt a chill run down my spine as I looked at his weapon.
I was in no way willing to find out the result of receiving a strike from that sword.
This was shown when he suddenly appeared behind me and aimed for my neck—
Ashura: 「『Maelstrom Buster』!!」
—without a second thought, I used my ability to repell the attack.
He was forced back into a mountain.
I was sure that this would be enough to defeat him, but he simply came back at me, and we began to exchange a series of blows.
I infused my magic nullification skill with my attacks to eliminate any type of defensive barrier he planned to use whilst using my blows to send out deadly shockwaves with my attacks.
I never thought that I'd need to be strategic to ever fight an opponent.
But he quickly adapted to my strategy.
Tch. What an absurd fella he is.
A change of plan would do.
I began to manipulate vibration waves.
I also converted my aura into lightning and fired it against him.
If the earth vibrated, then I would create earthquakes, and if the atmosphere was vibrated, I would generate electrical discharges.
Creating vacuum waves became relatively easy for me to do when I began manipulating the airflow.
Although he manipulated space to sway most of my attacks away.
I managed to strike him with one of my lightning attacks when he got caught off guard by one of my created earthquake assaults, which sent him flying backward.
But he immediately responded with an attack.
He gathered a huge amount of spiritrons and fired it at me.
The power that attack radiated felt like an assault from millions of people with one goal.
I knew that it wouldn't be able to harm me due to my『Attribute Neutralisation』skill, so I was able to plan ahead for the next exchange.
This guy, he is not someone you should take lightly.
I don't think I need to hold back again.
Within our series of exchanges, he sent out a flash strike with his sword that let out an energy wave of destruction in the form of the incinerating flames of hell.
The damage was apparent. It neglected my impenetrable defense and dealt damage to my soul.
Seeing this, I knew what to do. He was one to continue growing, so I would stop him whilst I still could.
I'll definitely finish you now!
Ashura: 「That attack was really dangerous. I nearly died from that.
I guess I'm going to have to take you seriously.」
Sariel: 「Hahaha! Is that so? Well then, I guess there's no need for me to hold back anymore.」
After saying that, he decided to loosen any leash he had on his aura.
He unleashed his 『Demon Lord's Haki』, and the result?
Cataclysmic.
That is all I would describe it as.
The aura itself was nothing to laugh at as he destroyed the remaining nearby mountains that survived our battle, which was something that I could do with ease, but it was still an unnerving sight.
The thing that made it even more terrifying was the amount of killing intent that lingered in the atmosphere after he did it.
This amount of killing intent was a thousand times more terrifying than that of his mysterious blade.
It was on this day that I felt something I never thought I could feel...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Fear.
◇◇◇
This dude just went on to say something that would make any warrior lose hope immediately.
He was holding back? WHAT A LOAD OF BULLCRAP!!!
But the feeling is mutual, as I wasn't using my full abilities too. But that was different.
I used what I felt was good enough and ignored the useless skills.
But he, on the other hand, should have something capable of killing… what am I saying?
If enough energy was used, every single attack he launched would be capable of sending me to Veldanava.
I decided to release the aura I've been restraining along with releasing all the anger and deathwish I held for him.
He just kept on releasing his aura, so there's no need for me to keep my own controlled.
It'll only be a drag on my style.
He seemed to have been caught off guard by my action, but he immediately regained his composure.
Funny enough, he reduced the size of his figure, making it easy to target me whilst reducing the odds of my attacks hitting him.
It wasn't really gonna change much, but there were still the visible effects of this action.
He could move faster, but the damage was now more focused and quantified.
I dashed towards him within a moment's notice, with my blade in hand before I jumped up to avoid a fist aimed at me.
With a beautiful spin over his gigantic figure, I landed gracefully beside him, blade in arm and all.
Moving again, I aimed down for a strike to his head, but a quick counter was made.
They exchanged heads right before intercepting my attack with their sword.
It seems like one of the three heads was a master swordsman.
Their heads changed again to the one with green hair.
He launched a deadly fist filled with their insurmountable fighting spirit aimed at my abdomen, but I used the force produced from our sword clash to push my body backward.
They switched heads for the swordsman, and he manifested his swords on both hands before swinging them at me.
The speed of the great sword's edge, which length exceeded 10m, easily broke the sound barrier.
With each one of his slashes, the effect of 『All Creation Destruction』and『Attribute Neutralisation』were used.
This prevented me from using holy and dark attributes against him.
But who said I lost hope.
I used another physics magic I created sometime ago. I called it "Thermal Annihilation."
The process was simple. I just absorbed natural heat from the atmosphere using 『Life Predation』.
I could have used 『Gluttony』 but it would've simply devoured everything, magicules and all, which is not what I wanted.
『Life Predation』 might seem similar to gluttony's subskill 『Predation』, but they were quite different.
Gluttony would devour everything that could be devoured, but I can set a limit to 『Soul King』to only devour a particular matter.
Hence, all the heat produced from our fight was instantly absorbed by a violet orb.
Amplifying it using my 『Ultimate Authority』, I sent this heat sphere towards Ashura.
Sensing the danger of that attack with his 『True Eye』, he activated『Hardening Ability』and managed to come out of the attack unscathed.
Seeing that my magic was not working on him, I decided to fight him with physical attacks.
I imbued the effects of『Life Predation』onto my blade and appeared by his side to land a hit on him.
Even if the swordsman were to take charge, he wouldn't be able to block an attack from this angle with my speed.
And I was proven right.
The swordsman used 『Armour Destruction』, and he tried to break my blade, but I had seen this coming.
I used 『Space Severance』on him.
I learned from Sage-san that this skill was capable of separating the bond used to hold particles together using spatial magic.
Apparently, after gaining the unique skill 『Space-Time Administrator』, she received some info about infons.
It was a really useful thing to have at times like these.
Basically, infons are the smallest particles and are contained within all matter in the world, including souls and even skills.
Their mass is as close to zero as it gets.
They are unaffected by space and time and are thus able to transfer information in any situation with zero time difference.
Observing them is extremely difficult and normally only possible under certain conditions.
The ability to alter, combine, and abolish skills are examples of limited manipulation of infons.
Directly interacting with them is only possible as a digital nature and a requirement to move in the Stopped World.
I was mindblown by such a discovery.
But this discussion will progress on a later date.
I now had the ability to sever the bonds holding molecules together, which is what I applied to my strike.
Doing this, I successfully cut his arm off.
He looked stunned, but I ignored it and landed many strikes on him with the golden opportunity I received.
These attacks were not only space severing assaults but also soul deteriorating attacks as that is what my soul blade specialises in.
The attack was also amplified by my ultimate authority.
The damage was detrimental.
I was winning the fight slowly but steadily, so I decided not to stop my relentless barrage.
I went for another attack but was sent back by a shockwave produced from Ashura.
Ashura: 「*Sigh,* You aren't going to win using such cheap tricks, are you?」
Sariel: 「Hah! Silly you. In a life and death battle, saying such things is the heights of stupidity, you know」
Again, I shot out an accelerated particle beam charged with the densest of spiritrons.
Moving hundreds of times, the speed of sound, it was clearly a powerful attack, but…
He simply caught it by outstretching an arm and grabbing hold of it.
Alright. Another one.
The atmosphere was lit up due to the sudden light produced by the flame on my hand.
I had imbued the effect of my art on my arm, the blazing hell fire of Infernal Holocaust.
It was dazzling. A flash, then a loud bang resonated throughout the space.
I had dashed towards him to deliver a devastating blow, but in defense, our fists met.
My arm disappeared. He took no physical damage, but the spiritual damage was dealt.
We both took damage, but we easily regenerated.
Sariel: 「Damn! I've just damaged your unreasonably strong soul, but it regenerates after all...」
Ashura: 「Spit it out, bastard! I'm truly surprised that you'd wound me now...」
We were both annoyed.
I was angry at the fact that the damage was easily dealt with, but he, on the other hand, felt mad with the truth that he was taking damage.
We quarreled as if we were old rivals, then the intense battle resumed.
Ashura: 「『Seismic Waves』!」
Natural waves of destruction were summoned.
Size is power, but the common sense of a spiritual life form is different.
Ashura had taken a rather smaller form, merely the size of a 25m tall giant.
Energy density is the true power.
An energy wave with a force compressed to the limit can shatter any matter in the world.
This was the mechanics behind this ability.
This created an earthquake and other vibrations of the Earth.
The atmosphere roared with unbridled power as the immensely compressed energy wave rampaged throughout.
Even if it is a body compressed with the same energy level, it would have collapsed under the force of this attack.
But I was merely a demon with a lesser energy quality.
I would be destroyed over and over by this attack if countermeasures weren't taken.
It was an attack with a very large, widespread effect.
The atmospheric distortions bent and twisted all matter through and through, and the space quakes naturally did the finishing deed.
No matter how much space was bent, it would be useless in the face of this attack.
But my solution to this was simple:
Sariel: 「『Soul Collapse: Vacuum Haze』!!」
It was a dangerous move.
My material body was destroyed to make such a thing possible.
Normally, I would convert my physical form to a spiritual form with the sacrifice of magicules, but there was no time to spare.
It was as the name implied, a "Haze of Emptiness."
A violet cloud storm was created using my spiritual form, and with the effect of my 『Life Predation』, the heinous energy wave storm of destruction was devoured by this violet cloud haze.
He was in shock.
Ashura: 「Kugh?!」
It was simple to say with the mouth, but it was extremely difficult to do with the body.
My spiritual form was converted into a bright violet haze of emptiness imbued with the effect of 『Life Predation』 to devour anything and isolate them in the soul dimension.
It was a really dangerous offense-defense art.
I had played a dangerous bet and won, and I was really happy.
My physical form had been completely regenerated, and I was ready for another round of fighting.
I was about to make my next move but was stopped when I felt a strange sensation of being away from the world.
This was a technique of Ashura called 『Space Grasp』.
This ability was capable of expanding an interference wave within a limited range.
I tried escaping the limited range, but it was too late.
He had sealed the space. As mention earlier, his natural dominance over space and time outclassed mine by thousandfold.
Even if I tried, unsealing the space was impossible.
I was trapped in it, and the only thing keeping me away from death was time.
I was given the leisure of counting how many seconds remained for my death to occur.
Shit. This is bad, really, really bad!
It was too late to act, and a foreboding premonition was about to make an appearance for the very first time.
◇◇◇
After he confirmed that he had trapped Sariel inside this technique, he cut out the dimension, creating an isolated space.
Sariel: 「Huh?! What happened-」
Ashura: 「I got you now, Sariel. Take this! 『Quaser Break』!!」
A great space quake spread throughout the isolated space.
The space inside was filled with super dimensional vibration with Ashura as its source.
An irreversible and interfering destructive wave was generated, and it emitted invisible light.
Utilising 60% of his energy, Ashura proceeded to bring forth absorption light rays.
He converted his whole body into a pseudo-blackhole, absorbing and destroying all matter inside the isolated space.
No matter the kind of lifeform that got trapped in this space, if they received the interference of this overwhelmingly high energy concentration, it might be impossible to preserve their own life.
Not only would they be disintegrated, but they would also be swallowed into the blackhole and disappear.
The lifeform would naturally be used as replenishment for Ashura's existence.
It doesn't necessarily mean that he can absorb everything, so as a special attack, it can't be used continuously.
He had conviction on his ultimate assault so he decided to check the result.
The completely isolated space he created was closed together when he absorbed the light rays that radiated.
However, it seems some distortions remained in the dimension, affecting the real world.
It could be called a scar of transcendental destruction.
Although it would assimilate with the atmosphere and return to normal once time flows.
Ashura: 「That guy was scary.... I never want to fight him ever again.」
Sariel: 「Speak for yourself, that was really dangerous.」
Ashura was shocked once again beyond words.
Ashura: 「Y-You, how did you survive that!?!」
At this point, he was literally screaming due to shock.
His ultimate assault, which he had complete confidence in, was easily countered like an everyday problem.
The fact that he had not a single scratch made it even more absurd.
But it's a fact that can't be denied. Sariel had survived the attack.
Sariel: 「You are really strong, too strong for my liking. Hence, you'll have to perish here and now.」
In actual fact, what Sariel did was to escape that dimension.
The skill 『Dimension Leap』 allows the user to freely locate and travel to a location, even if it is in different dimensions or worlds, as long as there's a guide or connection to it.
So all he did was use Space-Time Manipulation to make a connection between the two dimensions, that is, the isolated space and the real world, before escaping there.
But if he wasted a second more, then he would have surely died.
The art Ashura used only needed a span of 3 seconds to start.
Hence, if time is not used properly, there will be no escape.
Sariel understood this and performed his own defensive measure before the time limit.
Ashura had another trump card named 『Time Stop』.
As the name implies, this art literally stops time, but for a total of 30 minutes, but the magicules needed to sustain this art are tremendously high.
He was unsure whether Sariel would be affected by time, so he decided against it.
Doing such a thing could cost you your magicules in a fight where you knew nothing about your opponent.
It would only serve to get disabled.
Instead, he decided to use an attack, which was sure to end the opponent, but his sense of reality was shattered by this individual.
He had depleted a lot of energy to perform high-level attacks in their previous round from before, but this was the biggest drain.
This art consumed up to 60% of his energy, and with his previous energy waste, he did not have enough energy to carry his mighty existence.
The magicules have begun to leak out because he does not have enough energy to sustain his existence.
This was a fatal symptom for a spiritual life form, which is often the case with demons and other such creatures.
It was the perfect moment. The time when all that was needed was an attack capable of sealing the deal.
It was time for judgment.
Sariel: 「Die. May the judgement of heaven fall upon you. 『Collapsing Heaven』!! 」
With that said, the entire sky above them shone with an unnerving amount of holy light.
The entire area was lit up as the holy energy pulsating through the atmosphere grew stronger every second.
This was something Ashura did not expect from him.
Sariel, whose magicule level was so low that it could be compared to that of a human, was performing magic that required about 90% of his magicules.
He, whose energy was about 50 times greater than Sariel's, was now standing helpless, watching someone else perform something that he could consider Godlike.
Seven giant pillars of light descended from heaven.
One by one, each of them landed beside him and scorched the earth.
The intense holy power was enough to erase spiritrons, but compared to other attacks, this one not only broke the bond holding infons together but also eliminated every single particle in its range.
The seven pillars that met the earth began to glow brighter and brighter to the point that it dwarfed every other light.
This attack was felt by the whole world, and everyone felt the intense power that came from it.
But no one was able to see it due to the intensity of the light and heat.
After a few seconds, the light died down.
The result was clear.
Sariel: 「I... I did it... 」
With his final words uttered, Sariel collapsed.
It was a reckless move he attempted.
He had already depleted his energy reserve to the point where death was the next thing.
His death was inevitable, but to him, it was also worth it.
Resting after the long and fierce battle, he was satisfied.
A well-deserved rest, in his opinion.
Before he could fully lose all consciousness, he saw a bright light envelope his entire body.
Everything that happened afterward was not recorded.
This day would later be a day the entire cardinal world would never forget.
The day that the silver primordial demon defeated the Mad Titan Giant and saved the whole world.
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Word Count: 「3690」.