Chapter 18

Chapter 18 - LOT - Unedited [Sorry for all the delays, am a bit sick. Took off yesterday. Working on 19, might get it out late tonight]

Jack’s right arm trembled, his head heavy as he focused on the incoming warrior. His eyes blurred slightly as he tried to track the dagger wielding foe. He charged forward and to the side as he prepared, pulling Jackal’s attention away from Little Seven.

Time was slowed successfully, but Jack felt as if everything was somehow slightly off. His body was in the midst of Awakening, his powers evolving and reaching their potential. As such, his control was unstable. He drew heavily upon his Spirit, using his near completion of the First Stage to enhance the strength and durability of his right arm, and of his legs. He left nothing for his sword, depending on it to be strong enough on its own.

*SWISH*

*SWISH*

Jack sidestepped a cross slash from the berserk warrior, feeling the two daggers just narrowly miss his body. As he stepped to the side, he raised his golden sword, Wyrmblight, feeling its reliable weight in his right palm.

*CLANG*

Jack’s sword knocked against the two daggers of his enemy. Immediately, Jack felt them begin to sink in, cutting through the metal almost effortlessly. His blade was immsearuabsly sharp

Jackal, even in his berserk state, frowned as he noticed this. Immediately he flicked his wrists, knocking Jack’s blade, and Jack himself, to the side in a deflection. He then jumped backward slightly, looking at the two white daggers in his hands.

They were nearly split in two, the metal cut cleanly.

“That’s a fine blade you have there.” Jackal’s voice was murderous as he glared at Jack. With a swish of his wrists, Jackal threw the two daggers at Jack and reached into his waistband, pulling out two new daggers. This time a faint layer of blue energy surrounded the daggers.

Jack dodged the thrown daggers with a slight movement, focusing on conserving energy. His lungs heaved as he moved, pain wracking his body. His left arm send an extra jolt of pain through his consciousness, as if to remind him his shoulder was cracked.

“Let’s see how long you can block for, child.” Arrogance and confidence filled Jackal’s voice, and for good reason. In terms of sheer physical strength, Jackal was far stronger than Jack. His Spirit was trained to a higher level, meaning he would outlast Jack, and his body condition was much better. All Jack had on his side was a masterful control of his body, and the ability to perfectly position himself to bear the minimum weight of attacks.

Jackal lunged forward again, this time holding his two daggers out wide, as if to try and hug Jack.

Jack raised the golden sword in his right hand directly to his center, and began to lean forward, preparing himself to dash.

Abruptly, however, both of them were disrupted at that exact moment. The world around Jack twisted, causing both fighters to freeze.

In the sky far above them, the Second Great Elder of the Impact Clan and the continents newest Swordmaster had clashed.

“You have crossed the line, Searing Swordmaster. The entire Clan will hunt you down like a dog, and do not think your leaving the Golden Flame Clan absolves them. You will never know an easy night's rest again.” The Second Great Elder’s voice was filled with rage, his lean body shaking. The air around him trembled constantly as he blasted forward, accelerating inhumanely quickly. A blue aura so heavy it was almost black covered his right leg as he led a trailing kick.

*BOOOOOOOM*

An enormous fireball of golden flames blasted out, a huge shockwave spreading as Jebraim blocked the attack, using his great sword to parry part of the blow. Behind Jebriam, a network of black cracks formed in the air. His own body wavered, parts of it morphing into golden flames, unable to block the full strength of the attack unless he was in his Formless State.

“Ah, you have just barely touched upon the Creation stage.” The Second Great Elder’s eyes were shrewd as he continued to speak, ignoring Jebraim’s silence.

“You won’t be able to cut through space again, not in your current state. You will die here, a suitable burial guard for the Fourth. If he hadn’t underestimated you… you damned murderer.” The lanky Great Elder clapped his hands together. As he did so, black cracks in space began to spread out from his hands, wavering in and out of existence. An enormous concentration of force began to form in the Great Elder’s hands, such that the air around it was distorted.

Jebraim’s glared coldly at the Second Great Elder, his eyes filling with rage as he saw the Elder’s preparations.

“You doddering old fool, how can you use such an attack here?! You will destroy this city!” He raised his greatsword above his head. As he did so, wings of fire formed on his back, giving him an angelic aura.

The Great Elder jumped forward once more.

“SILENCE. ACCEPT YOUR FATE!”

This time he launched a single palm strike, containing the massive concentration of force.

“Impact Series - Apocalypse.”

Jebraim cursed as he saw this, his eyes going red.

“You have forced me!”

“Sun Souled Sword - Wavering Strike.”

The warm sunlight formed on the edge of Jebraim’s greatsword. This time, however, the golden flames on his body melded with the strike, giving it a ferocious edge. As he prepared this attack, he coughed, slightly, blood spattering out of his lips.

He slashed forward.

His blade met the Second Great Elder’s hand.

A massive explosion, this one far greater than any previous, rippled out, with a final tone.

This explosion was charged with black cracks in space, the very fabric of the world fracturing due to these enormous powers colliding. It instantly blasted out several miles horizontally before crossing downward, descending upon the city.

The two figures that collided vanished, lost in the gargantuan explosion.

Quickly, this explosion began to spread into the city.

Jack looked up at the incoming explosion in his Slowed State, and saw his death.

It was as if hell itself was descending. The sky distorted, the clouds vanishing, as an Armageddon of fire descended upon Snowbank City.

His heart dropped as he looked at the collapsing heavens, panic and fear rushing into him. His emotions exploded to an extreme as he turned and looked at Little Seven, knowing it was impossible for him to save her, let alone himself. He completely ignored Jackal, forgetting about the previous fight of a moment ago.

This was true power. This was the peak Jack sought. Strength like this that could ignore all rules.

And in that moment, as his emotions peaked, Jack’s blood forcibly finished boiling and activating.

He had fully Awakened. A sense of calm returned to his body, a cool feeling of ease.

As his blood came to rest, Jack became aware of something.

There was a strange force in his body, in his soul. A cool and calm force, like a small ball of water. As he felt this, he instinctively knew he could tap into it, and in his mind he knew what this force was called.

Time Essence. The inherent force that warriors of the Time Clan could collect and activate, using their unique bloodline.

And as he became aware of the small ball of this force within his soul, Jack became aware of an enormous, massive ocean of this force. A collection so large it dwarfed the small ball of energy in his soul tens of thousands of times over.

All stored within the red scar on his face.

The death from above was mere seconds from Jack when he made this discovery.

Instantly, without waiting or testing, Jack drew hard upon this force, pulling on every single scrap of it.

The world around Jack began to slow.

One half speed, one third speed, one fifth, one tenth…

One hundredth.

One thousandth.

The world around Jack slowed to 1/1000th of its regular speed.

But Jack himself remained normal.

The figure of Jackal off to Jack’s left stood almost frozen, his face a mask of fear as he was turned to flee from the explosion. Corker, the tracker, was nowhere to be seen, having left earlier.

The Branch Chief lay on the ground, his condition unknown.

Little Seven lay a few meters away from him, her eyes closed.

Little particles of dust and debris floated, unmoving, in the air. Random sparks floated, nearby fires stood frozen, awe inspiring to look at.

The massive explosion that was just two dozen meters above Jack was still moving, its expansion so fast even in this slowed state it could not be completely frozen. However, its movements were extremely slow, less than a meter a second.

Jack took a step forward.

“Incredible.”

As he stepped forward, he felt the strange force he was drawing upon surround his body, changing things slightly. He frowned, not exactly sure what the force was doing. Whatever it did, however, it let him move forward unobstructed, even with time slowed down to 1/1000th its normal speed.

The world around him seemed to gain a slightly grayer tone, all the color around him dimming slightly in this extreme slowed state.

And as Jack moved, he felt the massive pool of Time Essence stored in his red scar lessen slightly. That slight amount, however, was many hundreds of times larger than the small ball of Time Essence he had in his own soul. Moving with time slowed so much required a huge expenditure of energy.

Jack ignored this as he rushed forward, reaching Diana in a moment.

“Little Seven!” Jack sheathed his sword as he picked her up. As he did so, his eyes opened wide with astonishment.

The little girl was normally lightweight, but when the world was slowed down to 1/1000th its regular speed, Jack found that when he picked her up she literally weighed almost nothing. It was as if he was picking up a feather.

Jack looked down at his arm in astonishment. A moment later, however, a realization hit him.

As soon as he touched the resting girl, the mysterious Time Essence he was drawing upon seemed to spread out and surround her. It made picking her up effortless.

As he noted that, Jack scooped the girl up and prepared to flee.

At the last moment, however, Jack turned to look at the unmoving Branch Chief.

The fighter had nearly died rescuing Little Seven. Jack owed it to him to try to save him too, if he still had a chance to survive.

Jack jogged over to the fallen warrior. He tried to check for a heartbeat before remembering the world was slowed down to 1/1000 of its regular speed, and that something like that would be pointless. He then picked up the middle-aged man, placing him on his other shoulder, and moving Diana to his injured one, wincing slightly. Thankfully, the weight of the warrior, just like that of Little Seven, seemed to vanish almost in entirety due to the mysterious Time Essence.

*CLASH*SH*SH*SH*SH*

A warbling, slowed down clash rang out, startling Jack so much that he almost dropped both of the unconscious humans on his shoulders. He froze for a moment, assessing the situation.

Roughly a hundred hundred meters from Jack, two figures had just collided, both of them smashing downwards into the ground in slow motion.

*BOOOM*

The sounds flowed into Jack’s ears in a slightly slowed state, distorted by time. Rocks and debris exploded from the ground, creating a small shockwave.

The dust from the explosion remained frozen in the air as the the two fighters came clear to Jack.

The lanky Great Elder, and the one that had injured his shoulder, Jebraim.

“What?! But time is slowed down so much… How can they move so quickly?!” Jack stared at the two warriors, for a split second.

The two warriors moved in slow, jagged bursts, ignoring the floating dust and debris. The great sword in Jebraim’s hand swung down slowly, but far faster than the rest of his body. Meanwhile, the lanky Great Elder moved in inhuman bursts, the direction of his body changing directly, in zig zag patterns.

Each of their movements, however, was very slow. At a slower speed than if Jack was walking. However, one had to remember that time was slowed down to 1/1000th of its normal speed. These fighters were, in actuality, moving incredibly quick.

The two clashed again, blasting off towards the south in slow motion, letting loose several more shockwaves. The ground beneath were they clashed was slowly exploding, great craters spreading outward.

All of this in the span of less than a few seconds in Jack’s vision, or less than 4-5/1000 of a second in real time.

The peak of strength in this world.

Those at the peak were excessively strong. So strong it defied reason.

Previously, Jack and the soldiers down below saw fantastic explosions and fights ongoing. None of them were aware, however, that the fighters in the air were holding back, due to the massive city beneath them.

As a result, when Jebraim launched a full powered strike, using strength that no-one was aware he had, he had managed to catch the Fourth Great Elder unprepared, striking him down.

However, even then, even with their attack strength lowered, none of the soldiers on the ground were able to visibly see the attacks the fighters unleashed upon each other. The movements of those at the peak of strength were far, far too fast. The clashes took the merest split of a second.

Even the Branch Chief had only been able to determine that Jebraim was a Swordmaster due to the aftermath of his attack, and the Branch Chief was a Rank A Hunter, albeit not a particularly strong one.

In fact, the longest part of each clash between these giants would be when the fighters paused to talk to each other.

Jack looked at the fading figures of the two fighting warriors, and then at the impending explosion above him. At this moment, he felt very small. However, he also felt incredibly determined. His desire to grow stronger only increased.

With a shake of his head, he cleared his mind and began to run to the north, fleeing the explosion, Branch Chief and Diana in arms, leaving behind a panicking Jackal to face the armageddon blast alone.