Chapter 1418: Honestly, Neither Did I

Elsewhere, Ethan was examining the changes inside his body.

After Vesperhart disappeared, a brief but abundant surge of time energy had entered him. It flowed through his existing time ability and quickly replenished what he had spent.

He looked down at Vesperhart’s body and sighed again.

A familiar presence approached from above.

Ethan looked up just as Seraphina landed with the others on her back.

"What are you doing here?"

He turned to meet them.

"Did you finish off Noxhart?"

Seraphina touched down, and the others dismounted one after another before gathering around Ethan.

"Of course."

One of them answered lightly.

"A weakling like Noxhart never stood a chance against us!"

The others nodded in agreement.

But they all knew it hadn’t been that simple. If the green smoke had been allowed to spread without limit, and Ethan hadn’t dealt with Vesperhart in time, it would have swallowed the entire battlefield.

While they talked, the tiny soul clinging to Seraphina’s claw slipped away.

It concealed its presence and crept along the ground, staying in everyone’s blind spot as it moved toward Vesperhart’s corpse.

"Having a nice chat?"

The cold voice came from behind them.

Everyone fell silent.

"Vesperhart," who had been lying dead on the ground, was standing again. Its movements were stiff, and the hesitation that had once filled its eyes was gone, replaced by nothing but coldness.

Time energy began gathering between its antlers.

But the power dispersed as soon as it took shape.

One look into its eyes told Ethan that this was no longer Vesperhart.

Everyone leaped away at once.

Seraphina spun around and brought one enormous claw down on "Vesperhart." Its shadow blocked off any retreat forward or backward, and the ground split continuously under the pressure of its descent.

Noxhart darted sideways.

A spatial gate opened beneath its hooves, and its deer body vanished from in front of Seraphina’s claw. It reappeared above her head, drew all four hooves together, and dropped toward her back.

Ethan was already moving.

Time energy surged from his body, and white wings unfurled behind him. He crossed the broken ground to Seraphina’s side and hurled the energy sphere in his palm toward Noxhart.

The sphere expanded between the three of them.

A massive time field formed around Ethan, Seraphina, and Noxhart.

Scattered stones froze in midair.

Seraphina’s attempt to pull away slowed to a crawl. Noxhart’s descending hooves hung just above her back. Everything inside the field had been slowed by the power of time.

Everything except Ethan.

A second energy sphere formed in his hand.

He aimed for Noxhart’s abdomen and threw it head-on. The moment the attack left his hand, he released the time field.

The normal flow of time returned.

Seraphina folded her wings and slid aside. Noxhart was still committed to its downward strike and slammed directly into Ethan’s energy sphere.

Ethan used the moment the field vanished to retreat, landing farther away.

White lightning danced along his arm, gradually merging with the time energy inside him. A new sphere took shape in his palm, compressing little by little as fine vibrations rippled through the surrounding air.

He had already experienced the power of white lightning combined with time energy firsthand.

This time, Noxhart would be the one taking the hit.

The others were moving as well.

Kaelira, Ataneya, Andona, and Seraphine took positions around the battlefield, gathering energy in their palms, tails, and weapons. Lights of different colors illuminated Vesperhart’s corpse while sealing off every path Noxhart could use to escape.

They wouldn’t give it another chance to split its soul.

Every attack was trained on "Vesperhart."

Ethan wasn’t as optimistic as the others.

Vesperhart had died right in front of him. Even the time energy within its body had dispersed. There was only one possible identity for the thing now standing in its corpse.

Noxhart.

That monster had an absurd number of abilities at its disposal: space, time, darkness, light, and countless other powers it had learned from across the world. Their encirclement appeared airtight, but that didn’t mean it could truly hold Noxhart.

In midair, Noxhart finally realized something was wrong.

Seraphina had already escaped the time field beneath it. Everyone else had taken up positions around it, and the energy gathering in their hands was growing brighter by the second.

Time had trapped it.

The realization sent a chill through Noxhart.

Spatial power immediately converged between its antlers. It forcibly compressed its other abilities into their purest form and poured all of that energy into the distorted space.

The surroundings began to shake.

The once-stable flow of the time field became erratic, while space collapsed inward along Noxhart’s antlers. The two forces crashed against each other, stretching and compressing the nearby scenery. Even Noxhart’s body split into several misaligned images.

Everyone had finished charging their attacks.

No one hesitated.

Energy spheres of different colors shot in from every direction, crossing the ground and sky before converging on Noxhart. The instant the first volley left their hands, everyone began gathering power for a second, giving Noxhart no chance to catch its breath.

Every one of them was fully alert.

But something still went wrong.

The first energy sphere entered the distorted spacetime zone and abruptly slowed. The light across its surface stretched into long streaks, and warped space dragged the attack off course.

Then the surrounding space began tearing it apart.

Layer after layer peeled from the sphere, shredding the intact attack into tiny points of light. Instead of fading, those fragments were absorbed by the spatial distortion and became fuel that sustained it.

The other energy spheres entered one after another.

With each new attack, the distorted spacetime around Noxhart swelled. Not only did their attacks fail to hit it, they made the chaotic region even more violent.

Meanwhile, the flow of time at its center gradually returned to normal.

Noxhart steadied its hooves and slowly opened its eyes. Spacetime had been torn apart all around it, but the small area it occupied was completely still.

"Didn’t see that coming, did you?"

It raised its head and looked smugly at the others.

"I’m still alive."

After a brief pause, Noxhart suddenly burst out laughing.

"Honestly, neither did I! Hahaha!"

It shook its head, and the energy sphere between its antlers swayed with the motion.

The power being broken down around it was drawn into the sphere. After passing through the spacetime turbulence, the energy from everyone’s attacks had lost its original properties, leaving only its purest form.

Now it was all feeding Noxhart.

The sphere grew brighter.

It wasn’t only absorbing the attacks they had launched. It was also drawing in residual energy from the surrounding area. Broken stones slowly rose from the ground, and the air spiraled toward Noxhart’s antlers in widening vortices.

Everyone’s expression turned grave.

Judging from the energy fluctuations alone, that sphere had already reached a terrifying level of power.

Elowen frowned, but there was little fear in her eyes. If anything, she looked exasperated.

She could see exactly what was happening.

Only a tiny fragment of Soulforce had taken control of Vesperhart’s body. Noxhart might possess many abilities, but it didn’t have enough power to push every one of them to its full potential.

More importantly, this body was already dead.

What did it expect to sustain it?

Noxhart soon discovered the same problem.

The energy sphere between its antlers continued to grow, but the Soulforce holding the body together was steadily fading. It searched the corpse for whatever power Vesperhart might have left behind, only to find nothing.

No time energy.

No lingering consciousness.

Not even a soul fragment it could use.

This was nothing more than a completely abandoned shell.