Chapter 239: Unfathomable

?Talitha didn’t hesitate. She threw her entire weight backward in a frantic, desperate leap, abandoning all pretense of footing as the dense tangle of primordial chains slammed down into the exact patch of earth she had occupied a microsecond before. The sheer impact shattered the stone flooring, sending up a billowing, suffocating cloud of dust and grey shrapnel.

?’What in the absolute hell is this creature?!’ Talitha thought, her heart hammering against her ribs as she scrambled backward mid-air:

’How on earth can an ordinary A-Rank Awakened release this level of overwhelming strength?! And what are those chains—they don’t behave like normal constructs!’

?Her frantic mental calculations were abruptly cut short.

?A soft, melodic voice whispered directly beside her ear, and a breathtakingly lovely face drifted effortlessly into her vision.

?"No one is permitted to assault my big sister and simply walk away from it." Juliana murmured, a cool, unbothered smirk playing across her lips.

?".....?!"

?Mid-retreat, Talitha froze. Her eyes bulged in pure disbelief as she stared straight into Juliana’s smiling face, before her gaze drifted downward in slow motion to the young woman’s hands. Two faintly glowing daggers were already tracing an invisible arc through the air, drifting steadily toward her chest.

?’This speed defies all logic! She is only an SSS-Rank mage—her agility shouldn’t even register in the same league as my Ex-Rank speed... No, wait! It’s not her physical movement speed; my entire body has been locked in place! I can’t twitch a single muscle, not even an inch... Has she poisoned, paralyzed, or stun me? That’s impossible, my body feel entirely unobstructed and clean. Wait... Can she actually manipulate time itself?! That’s impossible!’ Talitha’s eyes widened to their absolute limit.

?"Get back here right now!"

?A heavy, spectral hand suddenly materialized out of the air, hooking firmly into Talitha’s shoulder. With a violent jerk, it yanked her body back, pulling her clear of the trap—though it was a fraction of a second too late. As she was dragged backward, the faint glint of Juliana’s daggers grazed lightly across her chest.

?The phantom grip hauled Talitha straight into Draven’s space, where he caught her by the shoulder to steady her trembling stance:

?"Are you unharmed?" he asked, his brow furrowing with genuine concern.

?"Yes, My Lord... I am fine. Thank you," Talitha panted, lifting a shaking hand to press against her chest armor, a deep frown carving itself into her features.

’If I hadn’t instinctively equipped my armor in the nick of time, that strike would have carved straight through my sternum... Who on earth would ever imagine that those two ordinary-looking daggers are both true Mythic-Tier artifacts?’

?She paused, suddenly feeling a strange, damp sensation trickling down the side of her chin.

?"Huh? What is this wetness?" Talitha dragged her fingertips across her cheek, lifting her hand to inspect it. A smear of bright crimson stained her skin.

?"Blood?" She blinked, utterly bewildered.

?"No... This isn’t fake. I don’t feel any damage beneath my skin or organs, but my vital health reserves are rapidly draining away... This is a bleeding debuff effect. Yet I only registered her moving once, and I successfully deflected the blow." She muttered, her eyes clouded with deep, anxious confusion.

?"It appears that within the boundaries of her domain, she commands absolute sovereignty over the flow of time." Draven explained, his voice dropping into a grave register as he kept his blue eyes locked on Juliana. "To your perspective, she executed a single thrust; but inside her temporal field, she could have unspooled a hundred distinct attacks."

".....?!"

?Talitha blinked hard, taking a full step back from Draven before activating hee blessing. Instantly, a brilliant wave of blue fire surged outward, enveloping her body in a healing shroud that instantly cauterized her latent injuries and purged the lingering status debuffs:

?’If what My Lord suggests is the absolute truth, why didn’t she finish me off right then and there? Even though I’m Ex-Rank, she possesses dominion over her domain—she could easily have executed me on the spot... It’s glaringly obvious. They are simply terrified of the catastrophic retaliation that will rain down from the Ancient Family if they kill us." She nodded to herself, finding a twisted sort of logic in the restraint.

?Armed with that self-assuring reassurance, she straightened her posture, pointed an accusing finger across the clearing toward the two women hovering above, and raised her voice:

?"Do you wretched women have any idea who you are addressing right now?! I am the Chosen Knight of the Third Son—"

?Draven reached out, pressing a heavy hand down on her shoulder to force her arm back to her side: "Don’t bother, Talitha. It’s an utter waste of breath; these people couldn’t care less about the prestige of my family," he said flatly, his gaze never leaving the duo.

?"Eh?" Talitha froze, her mouth slightly agape.

?Are there genuinely Awakened existing in this era who treat the Genesis Ancient Family like common dirt?

?She stood entirely speechless.

?Draven, meanwhile, kept his sharp gaze fixed squarely on Juliana:

?"To manifest a temporal domain so absolute that even an Ex-Rank’s perception fails to register its deployment... In practical terms, she can trap virtually any adversary in her frozen pocket, including veteran Ex-Rank fighters, and that’s merely one facet of her abilities. But the truly absurd element is her speed. No matter how I evaluate her energy, she is only a mage—yet her physical acceleration eclipses an elite SSS-Rank assassin class. She isn’t just a generational prodigy; she’s an outright combat anomaly." He muttered grimly, before slowly shifting his head toward Kelly.

?"As for the second woman wielding those chains... her mechanics are even more unsettling. Those chains number over two hundred thousand, yet despite sharing a unified spiritual energy, they do not function as a singular hive mind."

?"Huh?" Talitha stared at him blankly.

?Draven’s brow furrowed deeper, a thin sheen of nervous sweat beading along his hairline: "Every single one of those chains possesses its own localized consciousness. They obey her commands implicitly, yet they act with autonomy, perfectly capable of initiating independent offensive strikes or intercepting incoming attacks without her physical intervention... She is the literal definition of a one-woman army. With that single skill alone, she could bottleneck an entire legion of men without ever lifting a finger; and that’s before factoring in whatever hidden skills she has yet to unveil."

?He let out a slow, heavy breath, staring at Kelly and Juliana with undisguised wariness:

?"These two are walking natural disasters."

?"It appears the little fly actually possesses a functional brain," Juliana mocked lightly, hovering in the air beside Kelly with a casual smirk while lazily twirling one of her daggers between her fingers.

?"You insolent—!" Talitha snapped her head back toward Draven, her fists clenching until her knuckles turned white: "My Lord! They may boast unusual tricks, but if the two of us coordinate and go all out without holding back, there is no way they can secure a victory against us!"

?"You are entirely correct; I am not personally intimidated by these two females, but..." Draven trailed off, slowly turning his head away from them to stare fixedly toward the sky of the city:

?"I am deeply unsettled by the man who accompanied them... The density and purity of his spirit energy is so terrifyingly profound that it leaves me entirely speechless. To describe such an entity, I can only find a single appropriate word: unfathomable."

?The exact millisecond those words left his mouth, a crushing, apocalyptic wave of pure, concentrated killing intent erupted from within the city, washing outward like a physical shockwave across the entire wilderness and instantly stealing the breath from Talitha and every single awakened soldier present.

?"An... An entity surpassing Ex-Rank?!" Talitha was stunned.