Chapter 240: Small Radius
The figure watched in silence.
There was no urgency in his posture. No tension. Just quiet observation, as if the outcome had already been decided long ago. The rise and fall of power meant little to him.
Then, he spoke.
"The battle is already nearing its end."
His voice was low, calm, and absolute. It carried no doubt, no hesitation. The moment the words left him, the projection flickered slightly, reacting to his will.
He rose from the throne.
Its movements were slow and deliberate, but the entire chamber reacted. The walls pulsed stronger, the air thickened, and the surrounding death affinity condensed toward him as if answering a silent command.
"It is time... to reap the harvest."
A single step forward.
The shadows beneath him stretched unnaturally, rising up like living things. They wrapped around his form without resistance, swallowing him completely as if he had never been there.
The throne remained empty.
And in the next moment, he was gone.
****
Back on the battlefield, Famine and War felt it instantly. The surge from the domain snapped back into them, then vanished just as fast. Their eyes locked onto Adam as his domain collapsed completely, leaving him exposed.
For a brief moment, both creatures hesitated. Nothing about him had made sense from the beginning. A being who could match them, trade blows, and even suppress them with a domain... yet now, suddenly, that same power was gone.
But hesitation lasted less than a heartbeat.
Their thoughts aligned in a fraction of a fraction of a second. The conclusion was simple. The creature was exhausted. The domain had drained him. This was the opening they had been waiting for.
They moved.
Famine lunged first, its body twisting unnaturally as countless hooked tendrils burst outward. They spread in every direction, slicing through the air, aiming to tear Adam apart from all angles without giving him space to escape.
At the same time, War surged forward. Electricity exploded around its form, condensing into dozens, then hundreds, of crackling projectiles. The air distorted as they hovered, locked onto Adam before launching forward alongside its charge.
For Adam, time slowed.
He stood mid-motion, caught in the aftermath of his last attack. His domain had dropped at the worst possible moment, leaving him seemingly defenseless. Every incoming strike was lethal. Every angle covered. No escape.
At least, that was what it looked like.
Adam’s expression didn’t change. His breathing stayed steady and controlled. He wasn’t a master fighter. Not in the traditional sense. Everything he had gained came from stacking power with equip, pushing limits, and surviving encounters he shouldn’t have survived. Real combat sense only came from experience.
And in all those fights, he had learned one thing.
How to bait.
The moment Famine’s tendrils and War’s projectiles entered his range, everything flipped.
The domain surged back to life.
A crushing pressure exploded outward as Asura’s Domain reactivated instantly, cutting off their connection, severing their power mid-attack. The tendrils faltered. The lightning flickered. Both creatures froze for the smallest fraction of a second.
It was enough.
They had stepped too close.
And this time... Adam was ready.
****
Adam had already decided the outcome the moment his domain began to collapse. The instant he felt Asura’s Domain draining the last of his essence, he didn’t hesitate. He cut it off himself, abruptly and completely.
It looked like a mistake.
To Famine and War, it made perfect sense. They could sense the flow of essence inside him. They knew exactly how much remained, and more importantly, how much was required to activate that domain again.
And what they sensed... wasn’t enough.
There was still essence in Adam’s body, yes. Enough to sustain the domain. But nowhere near enough to trigger a full domain activation again.
That was the rule they trusted.
Activation demanded a massive surge. Sustaining required far less. The difference was absolute. So when the domain vanished, and Adam stood exposed, their conclusion was immediate and unquestioned.
He couldn’t bring it back.
That belief sealed their decision. Charging him while he was off-balance, right after the sudden deactivation, was the perfect move. No creature would willingly drop its greatest advantage in the middle of a fight like this.
It didn’t make sense.
And that was exactly why it worked.
What they didn’t account for, what they couldn’t even perceive, was the method Adam had been refining in silence. The one advantage he had built through his ascension to the master rank and the reason he had survived until now.
His absorption technique.
The All-Encompassing Technique.
It wasn’t just efficient. It was absolute. One hundred percent absorption. No loss, no waste. Wild essence, ambient essence, even unstable fragments drifting in the air, everything was taken in and refined instantly.
And more importantly... it left no trace.
The surrounding essence didn’t ripple or shift. There was no visible disturbance, no surge that could be detected. To anyone observing, nothing had changed. Adam still looked drained, still at his limit.
But inside, everything was different.
In the exact moment Famine and War committed to their attack, Adam had already begun absorbing. The essence flowed into him silently, rapidly, rebuilding what had just been spent without alerting either of them.
By the time they crossed into his range, he had enough.
Enough to activate Asura’s Domain again. Enough to flip the battlefield in a single instant. Enough to turn their perfect opening into a fatal miscalculation.
And that had only been the first part of his plan.
Because reactivating the domain wasn’t the end.
It was just the setup for what came next.
Reactivating the domain had never been the real goal. That was only the trigger. The true second step of Adam’s plan came immediately after, executed without hesitation the moment Famine and War stepped fully into his range.
He compressed it.
Instead of letting Asura’s Domain expand outward like before, Adam forced it inward. The entire field shrank violently, condensing into a tight radius around him. Every drop of essence was packed together, dense and suffocating.
He didn’t have the luxury of waste. The essence he had just recovered was limited, carefully gathered in silence. Spreading the domain wide again would drain him instantly. Keeping it small turned every bit of power into something sharper, heavier, and far more lethal.
And now, they were trapped inside it.