Chapter 1413: That’s Not How You Use Time

Ethan opened his eyes and reached out, catching the sphere in one hand. Violent time energy spread from his palm toward his arm, but the spatial energy he had just stabilized kept it from entering his body.

He twisted his wrist.

Space folded inward, swallowing the sphere. A moment later, space split open behind Vesperhart, and the same attack shot out at its original speed—straight toward its back.

"Dad! You’re finally awake!"

Auri immediately ran to Ethan’s side and pointed accusingly at Vesperhart.

"It hurt all of us! Beat it up!"

Ethan looked at her, then at the injuries on the other three girls. The exhaustion in his eyes quickly gave way to something colder.

He reached down and ruffled Auri’s hair.

By the time his hand left her head, another white energy sphere had already formed in his palm.

"It gave me one, so I should return the favor."

Ethan pushed the sphere forward.

"Only fair."

The white orb flew toward Vesperhart. It contained not only Ethan’s white lightning, but also the spatial, time, darkness, and light energies he had just finished sorting out. The different powers maintained a delicate balance within the sphere, leaving a multicolored trail behind it.

There were now two energy spheres headed for Vesperhart.

The smaller one in front was its own attack.

The larger one behind it was Ethan’s return gift.

Vesperhart ignored the first sphere and focused on the larger white orb closing in from behind.

It could already tell that an ordinary shield wouldn’t stop that attack.

If it couldn’t block it, then it would meet it head-on.

The circular outline behind Vesperhart finally began to change.

A hand extended from its center.

Then came a second, followed by a third.

The three hands, each a different length, pointed in different directions. Numbers from one to twenty-four lit up in sequence around the rim, and each number sent a tremor through the surrounding air as it appeared.

The battlefield gradually fell silent.

Branches stopped swaying. Debris suspended in the air slowed to a halt. Crushing time pressure spread from the clock behind Vesperhart, and even Auri and the others began to breathe more slowly.

Ethan sensed the change and looked at the four girls.

He didn’t need to say anything.

They understood.

Four different energies lit up at once. The girls transformed into streaks of light and entered Ethan’s body one after another. Fairy energy, white lightning, and the other powers spread through his limbs before converging in his chest.

Vesperhart stopped holding back as well.

The massive clock behind it fully took shape, and all three hands began to move. Keeping its eyes on the two approaching energy spheres, Vesperhart stamped its hooves against empty space and crossed the path of both attacks in a single step, appearing directly in front of Ethan.

Its antlers stabbed toward his chest.

But Ethan was no longer the man who had barely been able to resist its time power.

Dense spatial light flared in his palm as time energy covered his body. Just before the antlers touched his clothes, the distance between them stretched sideways, and Ethan followed a separate flow of time out of the attack’s path.

Vesperhart’s antlers struck nothing.

The surrounding darkness came alive, surging toward it from above and below. As Ethan retreated, he formed another white energy sphere, compressed the lightning inside, and launched it straight at Vesperhart.

Clouds also began to appear across the battlefield.

One.

Then two.

More and more emerged, each maintaining some kind of connection with the others.

Combined with space and time, the cloud ability Ethan had dismissed as useless finally revealed its purpose. As he studied the clouds scattered across different positions, the confusion in his eyes gradually faded.

So that was how it worked.

Vesperhart showed no sign of panic.

The massive clock behind it slowly began turning backward.

The scattered stones were the first to return to their original positions. Next came the darkness surging toward Vesperhart. Ethan’s clouds vanished one after another, and the white energy sphere he had fired retraced its path to his palm, reverting to its unreleased state.

Even the attack returned through folded space flew backward and settled between Vesperhart’s antlers once more.

Everything around them returned to the moment before their clash began.

Only Vesperhart remained unchanged.

It stood exactly where it had been, retaining all its memories and judgments from their previous exchange.

The reversal caught Ethan completely off guard. Only after the surroundings stabilized did he trace the lingering time fluctuations in his body and reconstruct what had happened.

Every move he had set up had been erased.

He would have to start all over again.

However, the energy he had spent had returned to his body along with the reversed time. His palm was full of power again, while his spatial and darkness energies had reverted to their unused states.

Ethan flexed his fingers and looked at Vesperhart again.

"That’s not how you use time."

He couldn’t command nearly as much time energy as Vesperhart, but time wasn’t the only power at his disposal.

Space, darkness, light, and all the other abilities he had just acquired could be combined with it.

The clocks in Vesperhart’s eyes stopped.

That wasn’t how to use it?

It slowly spread its four hooves apart, its gaze turning cold.

How about this, then?

Vesperhart took two steps forward.

The flow of time beneath Ethan’s feet changed. He immediately used his spatial power to flash sideways, but Vesperhart didn’t pursue him this time. Instead, the massive clock detached from its body and slowly rose into the air.

The higher the clock climbed, the larger its shadow grew.

Its three hands began to turn.

A powerful pull emerged from the center of the clock face. The residual energy across the battlefield was the first to move. White lightning was stripped from the air, while scattered darkness drifted upward. Then every remaining trace of power changed direction, forming multicolored streams of light that poured into the massive clock overhead.

The trees stopped growing.

The clouds began to thin.

Even the energy flowing over Ethan’s body was dragged outward by the force.

The massive clock was absorbing every power in the area.

And all the energy it stole was feeding the time power gathering within it.

A spatial doorway opened in front of Ethan.

There was no light beyond it, and no end in sight. Darkness spread against his body, concealing every energy fluctuation. He took one step backward and vanished from the battlefield completely.

Silence returned.

Hidden deep within the darkness, he looked up at the massive clock hanging over the battlefield while energy continued gathering in his palm.

"Is Vesperhart about to fire another laser?"

He was quickly proven right.

Vesperhart’s eyes had both transformed into clock faces. Their hands rotated in alternating patterns, scanning every inch of the surrounding space. The enormous clock overhead turned slowly as well, concentrating all the energy it had absorbed at the center of its face.

The moment anything unusual appeared, the fully charged attack would come crashing down.

"Ethan!"

Standing in the middle of the battlefield, Vesperhart sent its voice in every direction through the fluctuations in time.

"When did you become such a coward? Come out!"

Ethan remained still within the darkness.

The energy sphere in his palm continued to compress. Layer after layer of white lightning wrapped around it, illuminating the small gaps between his fingers.

"You won’t be saying that once you’re dead."

He hadn’t put much thought into the remark.

But the instant his voice traveled out, both of Vesperhart’s eyes turned toward one patch of darkness. The massive clock overhead adjusted its angle, and the time energy gathered at the center of its face finally found an outlet.

A laser tore through the darkness, shooting straight toward Ethan’s hiding place.

"Had to jinx myself."

Ethan cursed under his breath.

The attack was already upon him. There wasn’t enough time to fully open a spatial doorway. He could only hurl the energy sphere he had been charging toward Vesperhart, then form a second, smaller sphere in his other hand and press it into his own body.

White light spread from his chest.

His body broke apart into countless black particles that scattered into the darkness in every direction.