Chapter 498: Your time is up
The mist of frost and residual lightning slowly frayed around Konstantine, revealing a field of ruins where the ten dragon-lions once stood.
The sorcerer remained motionless, his gray lance planted in the white marble whose golden veins now seemed to bleed solar light. Facing him, Leo, the Constellation of the Lion, was no longer smiling... His expression had turned into a predatory neutrality far more terrifying than his initial contempt.
The air around the God began to bubble, not from heat, but from the sheer density of his murderous intent that crushed the surrounding reality.
"You survived my creations, mortal..." Leo began, his voice resounding like the death knell of a dying world. "You are not completely without skills..."
Without the slightest warning, without even a perceptible impulse of mana for ordinary senses, Leo moved. A translation of reality so pure that the space between them seemed to cancel itself.
Konstantine instantly activated his < Eye of Spirit >, trying to dilate time to analyze the movement. However, even with his brain accelerated by the mana of the 13th constellation, he only perceived a white blur streaked with red. He tried to step back, his muscles screaming under the effort of the reaction, but the Constellation was already there, a mass of muscles and divine power dominating his vision.
Leo extended a hand toward Konstantine’s shoulder. The gesture seemed slow but possessed a gravitational inevitability.
"Useless to step back mortal..."
Leo’s fingers closed on Konstantine’s left shoulder. The pressure was such that the dark armor and protection runes shattered in a hiss of broken glass. Then, with a sharp movement, without any apparent effort, he pulled.
The sound was atrocious: a tearing of flesh followed by the sharp crack of the humerus giving way under the traction.
Konstantine did not even have time to scream before Leo tore off his left arm. The blood sprayed the immaculate marble.
"Aaaarggh"
But Leo did not stop at this mutilation. Taking advantage of the shock wave of pain that paralyzed the sorcerer, he pivoted his massive body and delivered a violent kick to his torso. The sole of his divine boot, loaded with several tons of gravitational pressure, struck Konstantine’s plexus with the force of a meteorite impact.
Konstantine was torn from the ground, his ribs exploding from the inside while his sternum sank into his lungs. He was hurled across the sanctuary, his body spinning on itself like a disarticulated puppet, before crashing against a Corinthian column more than fifty meters away.
The millennial stone pulverized under the impact, and the sorcerer fell heavily into the debris, his left arm missing and his chest now nothing but a mass of crushed flesh.
’Shit... my heart is no longer beating...’ thought Konstantine, his vision tinting black while the < Mystic Arts: Adaptation > struggled to maintain a spark of consciousness amid the agony.
Leo advanced slowly, Konstantine’s left arm still held between his fingers, tossing it to the ground with indifference.
"So this is the instrument of the Antichrist?" Leo asked as he approached, his amber eyes shining with disappointment. "A creature that breaks as soon as you touch it a little too hard?"
Konstantine, his face smeared with blood, traced a Mudra with his remaining right hand, his fingers trembling with an uncontrollable spasm.
"< Mystic Arts: Time Inversion >!"
A golden and silver aura, of a purely esoteric frequency, suddenly enveloped the sorcerer’s body. The spectacle that followed defied the laws of nature. The blood spilled on the marble seemed to come alive, returning to the gaping wound of his shoulder. The arm lying on the ground volatilized into particles of light to rematerialize instantly on Konstantine’s body. The bones knit back together in a clamor of inverted cracks, and his lungs reinflated as the trauma to his chest faded.
Konstantine stood up, panting, his new left hand clenching on his gray lance that he had just reinvoked.
"Impressive..." noted Leo, his eyes narrowed by new curiosity. "You manipulate time to erase my traces? Very well. I will simply break you faster than you can heal."
The fight resumed more fiercely, but this time the dynamic changed radically: Konstantine was literally being walked over...
Leo no longer used monsters or long-range attacks. He engaged in hand-to-hand combat of divine violence. With each step he took, gravity increased around Konstantine, making his movements heavy and laborious. The sorcerer tried to dodge, but Leo predicted every trajectory.
The Sun God brought down his right fist. Konstantine crossed his arms to parry, activating his < Adaptation > to the maximum. The impact was such that the sorcerer was driven into the ground up to his knees, the marble cracking for dozens of meters around him.
"Breathe, mortal!" roared Leo.
He seized Konstantine by the throat and lifted him as if he weighed nothing, before slamming him violently to the ground. The sorcerer bounced on the slabs, but before he could stabilize, Leo was already above him, delivering a series of punches that were nothing but pure gravitational destruction.
"Shit... I am not in his league..."
Konstantine did everything to survive. He used his Mudras to create micro-vacuum barriers between each impact, but the barriers burst easily under Leo’s fists. His face was now nothing but an open wound, his clothes reduced to tatters.
’< Adaptation >... I must adapt faster...’ he thought desperately, feeling his heart heat up to the limit of explosion.
He made a quick Mudra, projecting a wave of < Targeted Attraction > toward a distant column to transport himself out of the God’s reach. He slid on the marble, spitting out a tooth and a flow of golden blood.
"Why do you struggle?" Leo asked, walking calmly toward him as the sanctuary trembled under his steps. "Antichrist shaped your existence, let me end it cleanly."
Konstantine smoothed his blond hair back with a trembling hand, a mocking smile, though bloody, stretching his lips.
"You talk way too much, shitty constellation." he replied in a hoarse voice.
He joined his hands, activating his most esoteric Art.
"< Mystic Art: Aegis of the Void >!"
A sphere of void formed around him, temporarily neutralizing Leo’s gravitational pressure. But the God made only a gesture with his hand, and an explosion of pure telekinesis struck the sphere, cracking it instantly. Leo appeared again in front of him, his long white hair floating like a crown of flames.
He seized Konstantine’s gray lance and broke it between his fingers as if it were a twig. Then, he seized the sorcerer’s face.
"Your time is up."