NOVEL NEXT Chapter 104: Devour
Damien said nothing. Could not say anything.
This Time Lock was much stronger than before, cast with much firmer resolve and compressed time energy.
The man's gaze grew sharper. "You shouldn't exist."
The man studied him in silence. Then, without warning, his voice dropped to a darker edge.
"Show me again. Or die here. No records. No witnesses. Time erases everything."
He drew a dagger from the folds of his robe and swung it slowly and casually towards his neck.
His eyes gleamed in anticipation as he studied Damien with his eagle eyes and mana sense fully activated.
Even the tiniest twitch in Damien's mana would be noticed.
But he didn't expect that the first movement was not a physical or even an energy one.
It was from deep within Damien's mind.
[Hostile Time Energy detected.]
It was the system.
"About time." Damien muttered. He had been anticipating the system's response as soon as he realized that he was unable to break the Time Lock this time around.
[Awakening Necromantic Core.]
A wave of silent energy radiated from within Damien's chest. The mist around his feet responded, rising unnaturally, coiling upward like smoke from a flame that had no color.
His shadow twisted and stretched, warping across the ground in defiance of the lightless night.
Symbols appeared. Black glyphs that flickered into visibility across his arm, not painted or carved, but remembered into existence, drawn from something older than language.
His eyes began to glow a radiant black as energy itself began to grow clear in his eyes.
Across from him, the cloaked man took a step back, eyes widening.
"…Impossible," he whispered.
Damien's limbs, frozen only moments ago, began to move. At first slowly, as though pushing against unseen chains. Then smoothly, as if time itself no longer applied to him.
He took a step forward.
Time shuddered.
The pressure broke in a wave as his foot touched down, and for the first time, the cloaked man hesitated.
[Necromantic Core Integration: 17% Stabilized.]
[Time Countermeasure: Active.]
[WARNING: Opponent is ranked Class-S Temporal Archmage.]
[Victory Conditions: Survival.]
[All restrictions lifted.]
From the depths of Damien's soul, something dark and ancient stirred.
It was not power in the traditional sense. There was no flash, no roar, no dramatic surge. What emerged instead was death itself, pure and refined, unshaped by intent or form.
It crept outward from Damien's body like a sentient fog, flowing across the ground toward the cloaked man with slow inevitability.
The air around them dimmed. The shadows thickened.
The man stiffened and drew himself up. His voice grew sharp.
"If you won't explain, I'll take the truth from your corpse."
He raised his hand, fingers etched with runes that shimmered with condensed seconds.
The atmosphere twisted again, and spirals of frozen time formed around Damien. They encircled him like glass tunnels, warping light and space as they collapsed inward, trying to bind him in absolute stasis.
But Damien manipulated the death energy from within him with absolute ease and mastery, sending little bursts exploding at [Time Lock]'s critical nodes and causing the spell to disintegrate.
The Time Lock shattered.
The spirals of condensed seconds crumbled like glass struck by a silent hammer, fragments of frozen light disintegrating into the air. The cloaked man reeled back as if slapped by a wave of cold wind, his eyes flickering in disbelief.
Damien stepped through the remnants, death energy lapping at his heels like a tide of smoke.
He didn't hesitate.
There was no adrenaline. No rage. No fear.
Only stillness.
Within him, the Necromantic Core pulsed. Dark, deep, ancient.
With every breath, Damien could feel the system weaving itself into his thoughts and instincts. At 17% integration, he could sense his surroundings with an eerie precision. The cloaked man's mana. The fluctuations in the air. The trajectory of every movement before it even happened.
And most of all, the inevitability of death.
A twisted comfort.
The enemy raised both hands, forming layered time runes midair, folding spell after spell together with terrifying speed. His robe snapped in the mana winds as the air screamed with compressed energy.
"You 're a Devil Apostle!" the man snarled in recognition even as he unleashed a barrage of temporally-looped arc spells. They blinked in and out of existence, warping around time paths as they converged toward Damien's chest from all angles.
Damien exhaled.
He raised a single hand.
Black mist spiraled outward.
The death energy swarmed the time spells and began to consume them. Each looping arc touched the mist and faltered, aging instantly into decay. The air hissed with the scent of withered mana.
"What?! Decay magic? Your death energy affects even spells?" The man's eyes went wide. "This is impossible! Spells are blocked, not undone!"
He blinked and then Damien was there.
Not with teleportation.
Just fast. Calm. Controlled.
The necromantic glyphs on his arms lit up as he drove his palm into the man's chest, the impact infused with death energy that bypassed physical resistance. Bone cracked. Flesh burned from within as if aged by centuries in an instant.
The mage howled and released a wave of raw time dilation to push Damien away.
It worked—barely.
"No, you're not a Devil Apostle. Not even the Devil King is able to undo my Time Spells. You… You're something else… What are you? Which power is backing you?" He rasped even as his body began to age and wither.
Damien skidded back a few paces.
Blood trickled from his lip.
His ribs throbbed. His skin was burning from exposure to temporal backlash.
But his eyes remained clear.
The black energy around him deepened, condensing into thin threads that coiled around his limbs like spectral muscle. He raised both hands.
The enemy cast again—this time, a full-grade Temporal Overload.
A dome of compressed moments burst outward, distorting time so violently that even sound warped.
A normal mage would be crushed under its temporal distortion.
But Damien walked forward with his death energy swirling and twisting around it.
His mind saw through the folds and his death energy smashed each temporal node to pieces.
The 17% integration wasn't just a power boost—it was alignment.
His soul was aligning with the Cosmos, specifically with the aspect of Death.
To an extent, he was able to see all aspects of death, even the death of spells.
He stepped through the dome like mist through sunlight and launched a single strike.
No flash.
No roar.
Just a clean, direct blow to the heart.
His hand passed through the black cloak. Through enchanted robes. Through barriers. Through illusions. And drove his death energy directly into the mage's core.
The man gasped.
His body convulsed.
And then his flesh withered completely.
Veins blackened. Mana surged for one last desperate retaliation, but the death energy had already rooted inside, bypassing defense to touch his essence.
He died.
Standing.
The cloak drifted down around the empty shell that had once been a Class-S Temporal Archmage.
Damien stepped back.
His breath fogged with cold that didn't belong to this world.
The system chimed.
[Threat Terminated.]
[Core Integration: Stable at 17%. Further synchronization pending]
Damien looked at the corpse.
[Devour?]
"Yes." Damien said simply.