Chapter 467: The Heavens Shall Fall (VIII)

The domain pressed down on every surface of my body simultaneously.

It wasn’t painful… but it was damn annoying.

Just like the way deep water presses, not in one place but everywhere at once, finding every gap and sitting in it with patient, total authority.

My next step was slower than the one before it.

I noticed it instantly.

’…I’m at least twelve times slower.’

Seran hadn’t moved yet.

He was standing at the center of his rebuilt domain with both hands raised and his pale green eyes tracking me through the light sitting in every particle of air between us.

Well… he probably didn’t have to move at all.

The domain was doing the preliminary work for him, degrading my output steadily, feeding him my exact position in real time, eliminating every variable that had been working in my favor for the entire match.

He looked, for the first time since walking onto this platform, completely calm.

“…Different, isn’t it?” he asked, his lips curling up into a mocking smile.

I took another step.

Slower than the last one.

’The degradation rate is roughly four times what it was in the first domain. My divine energy is dropping faster than it’s recovering. If this continues for another two minutes, I’m going to start feeling it in my output.’

I raised the Heavenly Swallowing Sword.

Swoosh!

Seran threw the first strike of the rebuilt domain, light authority converging from six directions simultaneously rather than three, the targeting more precise now, the branches tighter, leaving gaps that were half the width of what they’d been before.

I moved through two of the six branches.

The other four hit me.

KOOM, KOOM, KOOM, KOOM!

“Kuughh!!”

I slid back across the platform, caught myself, and planted both feet.

’…That fucking hurts. But well… four out of six? That’s terrible… this Domain really counters me… if I were a normal god, I’d probably only be like five times slower or so, but not twelve!’

Fwip!

He threw the second immediately, not giving me the recovery beat.

I got the Heavenly Swallowing Sword up in time to intercept the largest branch, the blade’s edge biting into the divine authority and beginning to strip it the way it always did.

Except…

’Tsk! …It’s struggling.’

The Swallowing Sword was working as the divinity was being devoured.

But the density of the rebuilt domain’s authority was high enough that the blade was eating it the way a drain handles a flood, technically functioning but nowhere near fast enough to matter.

The branch I’d intercepted lost maybe thirty percent of its divine component before the physical force behind it overwhelmed the strip rate and hit me anyway.

“Ugh…”

Right shoulder… but it wasn’t as bad as the other consecutive four.

Still, I took two steps back from that one.

’…Do I need to use my Moon Mark on this guy?’ I gritted my teeth inwardly as, unfortunately for me, this wasn’t going to be my last fight at all.

I had one other opponent… from the Primordial Court, and that one… I really wanted to destroy.

’The sword can’t keep up with the density. It needs contact time, and the domain’s output is too concentrated for the contact time I can get mid-exchange.’

’…What can I do against this shit? I can’t properly use any other authority… and the Authority of Karma is still… quite small in quantity to be used right now.’

Seran watched me absorb the hit and stay standing, and something in his expression acknowledged it without celebrating it.

“Your sword is extraordinary,” he said, and he meant it.

“Against anything normal, it would be untouchable.” He lowered his hands to his sides, the domain still burning at full saturation around us.

“But this isn’t a normal domain anymore.”

He was right.

I took stock quietly.

Divine energy is sitting at roughly seventy percent and dropping.

Movement speed was reduced by twelve time I could feel it in every step.

The Heaven Swallowing Sword is functional but degraded in effectiveness against the domain’s current output density.

The domain’s light sat in the air around me like a second atmosphere, absolute and patient and getting heavier by the second.

Swip!

Another strike came.

I got one branch.

The Swallowing Sword stripped it partially, the divinity fighting back against the blade with a resistance it hadn’t shown in the first domain, and three more branches hit me in the time the intercept took.

Thump, thud!

I didn’t slide back this time, and instead, I went down on one knee… just like before.

The arena above the domain was completely silent.

The domain light pressed down on my shoulders with the specific weight of something that had been built by someone with nothing left to lose and had therefore been built without any ceiling on what it was willing to cost.

My divine energy read sixty-two percent.

Dropping.

The Heavenly Swallowing Sword was still in my hand, its edge still working, still stripping whatever it touched.

Just not fast enough.

Not even close to fast enough.

’…He genuinely got me.’

I totally didn’t expect him to be able to rebuild his domain… something that few people actually dare to do.

’…Alright. Think.’

’The domain degrades my divine energy passively. The longer I stay inside it, the less I have. The Swallowing Sword can strip divinity on contact, but the density here is too high for it to keep up with sustained output. My movement is compromised. Ranged options are non-existent because everything I throw gets eaten by the saturation before it reaches him.’

’Every second I spend thinking is another percent gone.’

’So. What does the domain actually need to function?’

I looked at the light sitting in the air around me.

’It needs me to be inside it.’

That was the whole architecture. The domain’s targeting worked because I was inside the boundary. The degradation worked because I was inside the boundary. The pressure worked because I was inside the boundary.

Everything the domain did required me to be a stationary target sitting inside its walls.

’So stop being a stationary target.’

’…But the boundary field is at the platform edge. If I go out of bounds, the match ends in his favor. I can’t leave the platform.’

’I can’t leave the platform horizontally.’

Fifty-nine percent.

’The domain is a sphere. Not a flat circle. It expands in every direction from its source, including upward. But domains have a generation point. They’re built outward from the user’s body. Which means the density is highest at the center and thinnest at the absolute outer boundary.’

’The top of the sphere is the thinnest point.’

’And the Swallowing Sword strips divinity on contact.’

’If I move fast enough upward, straight through the domain’s vertical axis, the blade running ahead of me stripping the density as I go, I can punch through the top of the sphere where the authority is thinnest. Outside the domain’s boundary, even for a half second, my divine energy stops degrading and my speed returns.’

’Then I come back down.’

’Straight down. Through the top. Through whatever Seran throws at me on the way in. Through the full density of the domain’s center.’

’And I hit him once before he can rebuild the targeting because the targeting needs a moment to reacquire a target coming from directly above at full speed with a stripping blade running ahead of it.’

’It’ll cost me. Coming back through the center at full descent with the domain at this density is going to hurt considerably.’

’But it ends the match.’

Fifty-seven percent.

’Do it now before it drops further.’

I looked at Seran.

“Fuuu… okay.”

“Okay, what?” He blinked in surprise.

I moved… straight up.

FWOOOOOSH!

The Heavenly Swallowing Sword drove upward ahead of me like a prow cutting water, its edge running through the domain’s vertical axis and stripping divinity in a narrow corridor directly above my path.

The domain responded immediately.

Light converged from every direction toward my ascending position, branches reforming and redirecting, targeting reacquiring.

Thump, thud!

Two branches hit me on the way up.

Left side and right hip.

I ignored both pain and damage and kept going.

Fifty-four percent.

The blade hit the upper boundary of the domain sphere.

The density here was thin.

Still more than the first domain’s maximum but thin enough that the Swallowing Sword’s stripping rate could actually keep pace with it, the edge drinking in the authority faster than the boundary could reinforce.

KRRRSHHH!

The boundary resisted for one full second.

I pushed through it anyway, divine energy bleeding out of me at an accelerating rate as I forced the crossing, the domain’s outer wall fighting the exit the way a pressure seal fights being opened from the wrong side.

Then I was through.

Outside.

Above the domain sphere, above the platform, the open air of the arena hits me like a pressure release after the weight that had been sitting on every surface of my body for the last several minutes.

My divine energy stopped dropping.

Now, my full speed and power returned.

“Fuuuuu…”

Just half a second…

Half a second is all I need…

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