Chapter 878: The Invasion [3]

Yuliya kicked off the shattered asteroid, launching herself at him in a blazing streak of fire and lightning.

Her katana ignited into a roaring inferno, and the blade was surrounded by spiraling crimson flames and coiling red lightning.

She swung in a savage overhead strike that split the space with a howling arc of plasma.

Zhao Tian met her head-on.

Their blades collided again, and the impact created a spherical explosion so violent that the surrounding asteroid field was blasted outward in all directions.

Chunks of rock the size of houses were sent hurtling like cannonballs.

But this time, Zhao Tian didn't retreat.

As their swords locked, a blue glint passed through his eyes as he used his domain 'Arcane Enclave.'

A perfect 10-meter sphere of distorted space-time expanded around him instantly.

The boundary shimmered like fractured glass and inside it, space folded and condensed, becoming heavier, while time slowed.

Yuliya's eyes widened the instant she entered the domain.

"Wha-?!"

Her movements, which had been blindingly fast, suddenly became sluggish.

The lightning around her body flickered erratically.

Even the flames on her katana burned slower and started warping unnaturally.

Zhao Tian, however, moved with absolute freedom.

Inside his own domain, he was the sovereign.

He twisted his wrist, forcing her locked blade downward, then drove a devastating palm strike into her sternum.

*THOOOM* The blow was amplified by condensed space energy and the moment his palm connected, the air around her compressed violently, crushing inward like a black hole's grasp.

BOOOOM-!

Yuliya was blasted backward like a cannonball.

She tore through massive meteors in, each one exploding into glittering dust clouds the instant her body smashed through them.

Her coat was torn, fresh blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.

Yet even as she tumbled, her red eyes were glowing with shock and delight.

"Space… and time?!" she gasped, stabilizing herself mid-space.

"You didn't just comprehend them you fused them into a domain! A self-created one at that!"

She laughed madly, blood staining her teeth.

"Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful!"

Even slowed inside the Arcane Enclave, Yuliya refused to yield.

She forcibly circulated her power, her crimson lightning flaring wildly as she burned her own lifeblood to resist the time-slowing effect.

Flames exploded from every pore of her body, forming a blazing armor of fire that pushed back against the spatial compression.

"GRRAAHHH-" With a roar, she forced herself forward inside the domain, with her katana raised high.

Zhao Tian didn't give her breathing room.

He dashed forward and his sword slashed out in a horizontal arc, the blade extended by condensed space into a twenty-meter crescent of energy.

At the same time, he punched with his free hand that caused the space in front of his fist to collapse, creating a devastating spatial implosion aimed at her chest.

Yuliya swung her katana with everything she had.

CLAAAANG-!!

The collision inside the domain was apocalyptic.

The shockwave was contained and amplified by the condensed space, turning the 10-meter sphere into a pressurized bomb.

*THHOOOOOOMMMM*

The explosion detonated outward the moment the domain's boundary was touched, shattering dozens of nearby meteors into fine powder in a single silent blast.

Yuliya was thrown out of the domain like a broken doll, spinning violently through space.

Burns covered her arms and torso, her beautiful black-and-crimson hair singed, yet her eyes were still burning with insane joy.

She righted herself instantly while breathing hard as blood dripped from her chin.

"Space-time comprehension at this level…" she panted, licking the blood from her lips.

Her aura surged violently.

Red lightning and flames merged into a single, cataclysmic storm around her body.

Her katana began to hum as she poured every ounce of her power into it "Then I won't hold back either!"

She vanished in a burst of crimson light, reappearing right at the edge of his domain.

"Haaa!" With a savage cry, she slashed downward with all her strength, and a single, perfect strike hurled at him.

The blade tore through the boundary of the Arcane Enclave, creating violent ripples across the space-time fabric.

Zhao Tian's eyes narrowed behind the mask.

He raised his sword to meet her ultimate strike head-on and his domain flared brighter than ever as the two supreme powers collided once again.

The space trembled.

*THHHHOOOOOOOOMMMMM*

The boundary of the domain buckled like glass under immense pressure.

For a fraction of a second the 10-meter sphere glowed blinding white, then detonated outward in a contained supernova of light, flame, and shattered space-time.

The shockwave was so violent it flung Yuliya backward at speeds that would have turned a lesser body to plasma.

She hurtled through the space like a falling meteor, trailing a comet-tail of crimson fire and lightning.

Her coat shredded at the edges and her hair whipped wildly, blood streaming from fresh gashes across her torso and arms.

She tried to stop her crash, slamming one palm down to summon a barrier of flames but the residual spatial compression from the domain made even that motion sluggish.

She crashed into a distant moon.

*THOOM*

Not one of the Elven Star's moons.

This was a rogue, unnamed rock drifting at the outer edge of the system; roughly 800 kilometers in diameter. Just dead stone.

Yuliya struck the equatorial plane feet first, and the impact was destructive.

*BOOOM*

A blinding flash erupted on contact, and crimson flames exploded outward in a hemispherical bloom as her body drove straight through kilometers of rock.

The moon shuddered, and massive fissures spiderwebbed from the point of impact in every direction.

But Zhao Tian was already there.

He had teleported again and appeared directly above the moon's fractured surface just as Yuliya tumbled free from the opposite hemisphere.

Before she could steady herself, he descended.

Clenching his fist, he drove a straight punch aimed at her with full strength.

'Fuck-' Yuliya crossed her katana in a desperate X-guard.

BOOOOOOM-

The moon simply could not withstand it.

Zhao Tian's fisted strike connected with her crossed blades, and the force transmitted straight through her body into the core of the moon beneath them.

A shockwave rippled outward from the point of contact.

Cracks that had already formed during her crash in the moon widened instantly into gaping chasms hundreds of kilometers long.

The entire equatorial band of the moon fractured.

The humongous moon broke in pieces.

Huge continental slabs of rock tore free, spinning slowly into the space.

The core, exposed for the first time in eons, glowed with sudden molten fire.

Gravity faltered, and debris fields began to form rings around the disintegrating remnant, glowing faintly with residual heat and lightning.

Yuliya was at the epicenter.

The force of Zhao Tian's blow drove her downward through what remained of the moon's crust.

She smashed through layer after layer.

*thoom* *thoom* *thoom*

She erupted out the other side again, coughing blood that instantly crystallized.

She spun in the debris field "You… broke a moon… with your bare hands…?" she rasped and her voice was hoarse from internal damage.

Fresh blood trickled from her mouth, "I've fought people who couldn't dream of that kind of raw power!"

Zhao Tian floated amid the slowly expanding cloud of shattered moon and his robes were pristine despite the chaos with his mask still perfectly in place.

"You wanted a fight," he said quietly. "You're getting one."

*swoosh*

He vanished again and reappeared directly in front of her.

He simply punched.

A straight, devastating right cross wrapped in spatial compression.

*THUUDD*

She blocked with both forearms as she channeled every scrap of lightning and flame into a desperate shield.

The punch landed.

Her arms buckled, and she was blasted backward again through the forming debris ring.

Chunks of moon the size of cities exploded on contact with her body, turning into secondary projectiles that rained outward in a deadly storm.

Yuliya tumbled, coughing more blood and her coat was in tatters.

Yet she still grinned.

Blood was staining her teeth and her eyes were blazing brighter than ever.

"Is that... all you've got... Honoured One?"

She forced herself upright amid the drifting rubble.

Her aura reignited, and lightning arced between her fingers in jagged webs.

She raised one trembling hand, summoning her katana back to her grip in a flash of red light.

"Then come," she uttered through bloodied lips.

"Finish it... or I'll drag you to hell with me!"

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I hope you guys liked this chapter!

I'll try to push out more chaps from now on