Chapter 332: Original VS Clone
Facing Allen in his Godspeed domain, the clone didn't even need to use his eyes to track the vanished movement trajectory. His body, every muscle, every nerve, bypassed his consciousness to execute the most perfect, energy-efficient evasion or parry a thousandth of a second before the attack arrived.
In the eyes of Hedin and the others, all they could see were streaks of black lightning madly weaving and crashing around the humanoid sun, each impact bringing a world-shaking boom.
But every time, the attacks merely grazed the edge of the white-gold flames, completely unable to truly strike the main body.
Seeing this, Hedin's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty, and he muttered under his breath.
He knew better than anyone just how fast Allen was after activating his magic. It was an absolute speed that would move even Ottar.
And speed taken to the extreme is power. The destructive force brought by that Godspeed impact was enough to instantly kill even a Floor Boss.
But no matter how fast the speed or how strong the power, it was useless if it couldn't hit.
The reaction speed displayed by that "Aiden" had completely exceeded his realm of understanding.
Although Allen's Godspeed attacks could never truly hit the "Aiden," the City's Fastest's mobility indeed pinned him firmly in place.
And this was exactly what Aiden needed.
As the final syllable fell, Aiden's incantation was finally complete.
Lord Ravager—Godification initiated.
Ignoring the intense metamorphosis his body was undergoing, Aiden backhandedly gripped the Godslayer: Surtr.
In the next instant, he turned into a streak of pure white flame that tore through space. His speed was so great that it faintly rivaled Allen with his magic activated.
Boom—!
The Godslayer: Surtr swung down with overwhelming force. The clone's hollow, incandescent eyes shifted slightly, and the flame sword in his hand blocked horizontally by a hair's breadth.
The two extremely high-temperature blades violently collided.
Sword aura formed a ring, instantly slicing open the earth. The two homologous yet unyielding high-temperature flames fiercely clashed and compressed, ultimately triggering a world-destroying explosion.
However, within this chaotic explosion capable of melting steel, a silver-black bolt of lightning ignored the tearing shockwaves.
It was Allen.
Like an assassin hidden in the storm, he appeared in the clone's blind spot like a ghost. His silver spear, carrying the screech of breaking the sound barrier, thrust straight toward the back of his head.
But in the instant the spear tip was about to touch his hair, the clone didn't even turn his head. His neck muscles merely twitched, and his body tilted slightly at an anti-human angle.
The spear light brushed past the clone's ear. It missed.
Not only that, but without any sign of an incantation, without even parting his lips, a terrifying sound wave capable of shattering eardrums violently detonated with the clone at its center.
Instant magic casting.
Caught completely off guard, Allen was hit head-on by the berserk sound wave.
He was blasted away like a cannonball, tumbling continuously in mid-air before slamming into the distant rock wall with a loud crash, completely buried by the collapsing rubble.
But Aiden seized the thousandth-of-a-second opening Allen had bought.
"Get the hell—down!"
Aiden gripped the hilt with both hands, squeezing out the power within the Godslayer sword without reservation.
On the blade, the originally blazing white-gold flames were compressed to the extreme, even stirring up strands of violent black-red electrical arcs around the spine of the sword.
The heavy sword carrying the black-red arcs slashed down, ruthlessly smashing against the crossguard of the clone's flame sword.
The immense force elicited a teeth-setting twisting sound from the clone's arm. He was blasted away at a slant like a meteorite, heavily smashing through several towering peaks.
The moment of impact, a giant pillar of flame akin to a nuclear detonation erupted into the sky, swallowing the entire mountain peak along with the clone's figure.
"Hey, hey, hey... you've gotta be kidding me, right?"
In the distance, Hermes tried hard to hold down his traveler's hat, which was being lifted by the heat wave. The towering pillar of flame reflected in his widened eyes.
Although he voiced his disbelief, the corners of his mouth curled up uncontrollably, forming an arc filled with fanaticism and excitement.
Asfi and Ryuu looked at each other in dismay.
Even the "Versatile" and the "Gale" couldn't hide the shock in their eyes at this moment. The super-spec combat power Aiden was displaying had completely exceeded their common sense.
"That kid... was he always this strong?"
Alise couldn't help but click her tongue, subconsciously touching the hilt at her waist.
She remembered clearly that not long ago, she and Aiden fought back and forth in a death match, even ending in mutually assured destruction. She'd bet her intuition as the Crimson Flower of Justice that Aiden definitely didn't have this level of strength back then.
She even suspected that Aiden simply hadn't awakened this absurdly overpowered magic at the time.
But Aiden, in the center of the battlefield, knew very well that the fight was far from over.
The clone couldn't possibly die this easily.
After entering the Lord Ravager state, not only did physical functions undergo a qualitative leap, but fire resistance reached an unimaginable state of absolute immunity.
Moreover, the most terrifying qualitative change brought about by deification was the extreme compression of incantations.
Super-short chants were compressed into instant casts with no wind-up, and long chants were shortened to a few syllables.
In other words, Silentium Eden, which could immunize against all magic, was now a wind-up-free instant skill in the clone's hands.
Any thought of killing the opponent with long-range magic was futile.
Under these extreme conditions, there was only one way to defeat the clone—by engaging in real, physical melee combat and hacking him to pieces.
However, this was exactly the most despair-inducing point.
The clone, in the Ultra Instinct state, had completely non-human melee capabilities.
Physical reflexes completely overrode consciousness. No matter the angle or speed of the attack, that body could execute the most perfect, optimal reaction.
Coupled with the high temperature that turned the surroundings into a furnace, ordinary adventurers didn't even have the right to get close.
Even Level 5s like Ais and Bete could only act as precarious foils in this kind of battle. The slightest misstep would likely result in instant death.
Only Ais, whose speed had reached its peak, could barely disrupt the clone's rhythm, creating a sliver of an opening for Aiden to attack.
But that was it.
The slaughter between Aiden and the clone had completely entered its climax.
───
For Advance Chapters:
> Patreon.com/NegativeTranslations