Cursed Immortality

Chapter 1135: The Mantis stalks the Cicada! (3)

"Bygone Emptiness!"

The declaration fractured the stillness, and a cataclysm surged forth. It wasn’t an ordinary cataclysm; this one seemed to bring forth a timeless destruction that could annihilate anything!

Every point of Destin Saint’s existence, past, present, and future, collapsed into a single collapsing line, and fragments of void, which remained for epochs, bled into the attack.

Screams of unseen laws echoed; the very causality seemed to have been ignited. The void attempted to erase not a moment, but the notion that Destin Saint ever existed.

The attack crashed upon him like the memory of a dead cosmos’ final heartbeat, and yet, Destin Saint sighed.

A soft, almost disappointed exhalation, while everything around him was being annihilated at an unimaginable degree.

A sigh soft enough to be mistaken for resignation, but upon hearing it, even the Void quivered subtly.

"Sigh... a disappointing yet determined outcome...!"

Destin Saint’s tone was gentle, almost pitying, yet layered with a sharpness that sliced straight through the attack’s intent.

It carried the weight of someone who had seen the conclusion of a story countless times and felt nothing but regret that the act never changed.

The moment those words drifted outward, the infinite darkness spasmed, the void-eye splitting open in raw disbelief.

Almost instantly, a howl erupted, not from a tyrant in control, but from a wounded beast whose certainties had been mutilated.

"HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!?"

Immortal Nimrod’s voice, usually smooth and chilling like a whisper from a dead star, warped into something unhinged. The void-law around him surged and collapsed erratically, as if the Void itself was convulsing in humiliation.

Fragments of the collapsing space churned violently, yet Destin Saint stood amidst the destruction like a stubborn spark refusing to die. To Immortal Nimrod, that spark was worse than a threat, for it was an insult.

His flames writhed wildly as he genuinely looked like a madman unable to crush a roach that jumped willingly beneath his heel, yet refused to die, no matter how many times he struck.

Destin Saint spoke again, his flickering light tilting as if observing a pitiful beggar covered in filth.

"Now, now, don’t be mad. Although I admit your law of Void has reached an unimaginable profound degree, almost touching the boundaries of its final concept...however, I’m still an Arcanist!"

His voice grew sharp, mocking, almost pitying, like a surgeon explaining to a delusional patient why their dying body refused to obey them.

"But just being an Arcanist doesn’t mean your concept of Void isn’t enough to destroy this fragment of mine. Rather, you seemed to have forgotten something, or you wanted me to forget and fall into your trap."

Hearing that, the void subtly shifted, trembling in disbelief and fury.

"A pity. You almost succeeded...but almost still means you failed, because you still underestimated ’us’."

The moment Destin Saint’s voice trailed off, a mystical foreboding descended, subtle yet suffocating, like the moment before a prophecy manifests.

The void-eye froze for a heartbeat, and Immortal Nimrod said nothing. Not because he chose silence, but because his calculations had begun to collapse one after another.

Destin Saint pressed on, mercilessly, "Well, you failed to make me panic enough to flee and then failed again to make me believe this space has merged with the Void."

The void-law stuttered unnaturally, like a cosmic heart skipping a beat.

"Oh, and your biggest failure..." The light around Destin Saint sharpened into a blade of inevitability, "...is that you didn’t succeed in making me forget that despite being close to the ’Layer of Abyssal Void’, this is still the border of ’Layer of ’Shadow Expanse’, which means it is still part of Zodiac Plains. So, I’m still outside the Void!"

A detonation of pressure rocked the boundary. Immortal Nimrod’s purplish flames jerked violently as the first accurate indication that panic had finally stabbed through his arrogance.

But it was just the start because the next moment, Destin Saint spoke a single line, a line that did not echo, but unwound through the void like a law revealing itself:

"Nothing escapes the eyes of destiny—not a lie, not a secret, not even the Void’s shadow!"

The words carried a law that wasn’t spoken but remembered, and the atmosphere twisted with the prelude of something that did not belong to eras, realms, or even existence.

Behind Destin Saint, a silhouette appeared, but it wasn’t fully formed, nor could be seen fully like a phantom that broke understanding simply by existing.

It was a hyperboloid, ever-shifting, ever-still, like an impossible hourglass that changed shape and yet never changed at all, a geometry of inevitability that defined outcomes rather than measured them.

The moment Immortal Nimrod saw it, the void-eye constricted violently as the purplish flames collapsed inward.

His avatar’s hood snapped back as if struck, while his composure, scheme, and ancient calm...all shattered.

"Y–you can use... IT???"

The disbelief was naked in his words, as if it were the scream of someone watching their final, hidden calculations disintegrate before them.

However, Destin Saint didn’t answer because the time for answers had passed, and now that he had gotten everything he wanted, he didn’t need to answer anymore.

At that moment, his presence changed from a flickering remnant to a figure of pure inevitability as if he had stepped out of all possibilities and become the author of them instead.

Without hesitation, he spoke the first concept of...Fate!

The concept of Fate was mystical, ancient, and primordial, and comprehending it was nigh impossible even for most of the Gods, for it was a concept that rewrote itself the moment one tried to grasp it.

"The Inevitability of Fulfillment!"

The moment the concept manifested, creation screamed like the groan of an ancient script being rewritten at the root.

Thereafter, the merged space, the false void, the stretched boundary, and finally the endless black behind Immortal Nimrod...all shattered instantly!

The void-eye, which had expanded to engulf realities, shrunk violently, snapping back into its prior scale as though forced by an omnipotent editor.

In a blink, Immortal Nimrod’s avatar and Destin Saint’s faceless silhouette stood again on the boundary line between the Layer of Shadow Expanse and the Abyssal Void!

The Void behind Immortal Nimrod seethed, however, no longer in dominance, instead, in hatred and disbelief as its gaze fixed upon Destin Saint as though glaring at the one thing it could not devour like an inevitability!