Chapter 584 - 538: Shattered Future
"The blood of time and fate flows through my veins. Every fiber of my being is their microcosm."
"Any disguise before me is but a self-deception."
He turned.
Like a god, he walked up to Shi Ming.
His face was impassive. He shrank down to Shi Ming’s height, staring indifferently into his eyes and at the Sword in the Stone, which had been frozen in place.
"The Sword in the Stone?"
"So you’re the one who drew the sword from Ten Thousand People Square."
"One hundred and twenty thousand years ago, you and I might have been friends. We could have stood shoulder to shoulder in the divine court, creating the most glorious civilization alongside all the people of the Primordial Star."
"But now..."
He looked past the Sword in the Stone, his gaze locked on Shi Ming’s eyes.
The Eye of the Divine.
Shi Ming stood perfectly still.
Golden and silver runes flashed across Candela’s body as he prepared to pull Shi Ming into the Gold and Silver Island. It was once his birthplace, but now it was his Divine Country.
But in the next instant, the frozen Sword in the Stone broke free. A powerful storm of Spiritual Power erupted once more. The greatsword, as tall as Shi Ming himself, ripped through the omnipresent golden filter and slashed at the giant’s waist!
Nirvana Skill: Zero!
Having seen through his Eye of Destiny that Candela had pierced his disguise, Shi Ming had kept Zero ready. This time, it wasn’t life or fate being reset—it was spacetime.
The omnipresent golden filter vanished like dry grass in a wildfire, completely erased. The golden runes on the left side of Candela’s body faded to a flat gray. The terrifying Sword in the Stone sliced through, aiming to cut him in half at the waist. Though the Time Giant hadn’t anticipated this, his combat experience was vast. The silver runes on the right side of his body flared to life.
Golden runes represent time.
Silver runes represent fate.
The Time Giant, Candela, dissolved into fine sand and escaped into the River of Destiny. Immediately, the Sword in the Stone, fueled by Shi Ming’s thirty million points of Spiritual Power, violently ripped open the River of Destiny. But the fine grains of sand scattered into different tributaries, using the river to disperse the deadly spiritual assault.
So long as destiny is not destroyed, the giant cannot die.
On Planet Iceriver, the colossal layer of sheer ice shattered, pulverized by the storm of Spiritual Power. The dust rose tens of thousands of meters into the air before fluttering down. The silver ice crystals and the silver River of Destiny shimmered in tandem—a seemingly romantic scene that had become a graveyard for ordinary Nirvana-level creatures.
Destiny Anchor!
Shi Ming seized the opportunity to press his attack!
’If I’m going to fight, I have to finish him within 1024 seconds!’
’If this drags on too long and Zero wears off, the Time Giant will be able to use his time abilities again. When that happens, I’ll have a hard time winning a battle of attrition against this nigh-invincible Divine Warrior!’
The tributaries of the River of Destiny lay shattered.
But in his Eye of Destiny, they were restored, flowing in an orderly fashion toward different futures.
[Tributary 1: Gold and Silver Era]
[Time has been erased, and the battle has evolved into a duel of destiny. As destiny’s favorite, Candela’s control over it is far beyond what Ron could ever hope to achieve. The Sand of Destiny and the Eye of Destiny are evenly matched for a moment. The 1,024-second nullification period slips away like sand in an hourglass. Once the golden power returns, the runes on the Time Giant’s body will begin to intertwine...]
[This is the Gold and Silver Era.]
[Probability: 38.12%]
[Tributary 2: Silver Twilight]
[...]
[Tributary 3: Quicksilver Dawn]
[...]
[Tributary 17: End of Time]
Every second counted in this battle. Shi Ming’s eyes scanned the various tributaries displayed by his Destiny Anchor ability. This Divine Warrior was truly powerful. So far, Shi Ming hadn’t seen a single tributary in the River of Destiny that was disadvantageous to him. Most of them had uncertain outcomes, ending with ellipses.
[Tributary 98: ...]
BANG—
Shi Ming had just selected a vaguely-worded but clearly favorable tributary of destiny. But the instant he locked it in, all the tributaries in his vision snapped and shattered into fine grit.
The grit re-condensed into a thick main trunk. The River of Destiny, with its many tributaries, now had only one main channel.
Nirvana Skill, Calamity Lock!
Innate Skill: Calamity’s Echo!
By using both skills at once, Candela could achieve an effect similar to Destiny Anchor. Calamity Lock, as its name suggested, found the most unfavorable future for a target. Calamity’s Echo, however, could replicate that future thousands of times over, massively amplifying the probability of what was once an insignificant tributary!
This was a clash of destinies.
But with it came an unforeseen change.
...
...
...
[The River of Destiny has its dignity too.]
[Destiny Anchor and Calamity’s Echo are in conflict. The manipulated River of Destiny does not know where to flow and has reverted to a state of primordial chaos. For a short time, it cannot be influenced by any skill.]
[Unless your eyes evolve into the Eye of the Divine.]
[A pity...]
[But perhaps this is an opportunity of a different sort. With both time and destiny banned from play, the battle has returned to its most primitive, purest form...]
Candela transformed back into the three-hundred-meter-tall Time Giant.
Only now, both the golden and silver runes on his body had turned gray. But his foundation as a pseudo-god remained, and the other trump cards he had accumulated over more than a hundred thousand years were more than enough to justify his title of Divine Warrior.
Shi Ming reverted from Ron’s Six-armed Giant form back to his own. Zero was still active, meaning the Sword in the Stone was unusable for the time being. The skill Bore manifested as thousands of parasitic worms crawling from his eyes. He activated both the Nine-Headed Sanctuary and the Extremely Evil Sanctuary. A thousand-meter-long Nine-headed Giant Dragon, covered in tens of thousands of writhing, evil tentacles, confronted the three-hundred-meter Time Giant in a brutal melee!
The more Candela fought, the stronger his desire for the Eye of the Divine became.
A fledgling, born a mere twenty-odd years ago, had gained power rivaling his own in such a short time after obtaining an Eye of the Divine—power enough to kill Ron with ease!
By comparison, his own talents as a Time Giant and all the power he had built were far inferior to that eye!
’The Eye of the Divine he possesses is indeed powerful.’
’But his foundation is still lacking.’
’He won’t be able to keep this up for long.’
’This battle will ultimately be my victory. The River of Destiny will recover soon, and his ability that sealed my time powers seems to have a time limit. As long as I can drag this out, the Eye of the Divine will be mine.’
seconds,
seconds,
seconds,
seconds...
’Almost there!’
Candela felt an irrepressible fighting spirit surge through his blood!
Across from him, however, Shi Ming reverted from his nine-headed state. Plates of mechanical armor materialized over his body, and his form of flesh and blood transformed, piece by piece, into a mechanical one.
’It’s time.’
Apocalypse Divine Artifact.
This was a creation of the gods. Never once activated since the day it was forged, it was hailed as walking divine punishment, a living apocalypse, the embodiment of the end, a future snuffed out.