MIGHT AS WELL BE OP Chapter 975: Temporal Erasure

Amid the swirling fog of debris and ruin, while Aaaninja systematically shattered each of Lucian's strikes in turn, the warrior materialized like a specter, seeming every bit the flawless killer spawned from the abyss, his katana slashing ahead at Aaaninja's midsection as he aimed to cleave the fighter straight through the body in one lethal slash.

Yet Aaaninja's gaze whipped around toward the threat as if he'd anticipated this exact turn and lingered in readiness for it, his features steady and frosty while he triggered Temporal Slip and Reverse Causality together. Right then, he faded from his position, weaving once more through the layers of time and space, melting away from reality like a wave sinking into tranquil depths, and in the wake of his vanishing, Reverse Causality exploded outward at once, homing in on Lucian's skull with ruthless certainty.

Yet Lucian evaded the trap, dissolving himself as he glided through the barriers of space like a creature darting smoothly through currents, elusive and seamless. The instant he rematerialized in his fresh spot, Aaaninja had already materialized there too, as if peering straight into what lay ahead, his arrival striking with eerie accuracy, but prior to Lucian reacting or shifting, Aaaninja unleashed yet another technique; Stasis Field.

Power surged wildly from Aaaninja's essence like an exploding sun, radiating in a growing dome as all things across several hundred kilometers seized up completely, energy streams, blood circulation, light beams, tiny specks, atoms, quivers, even noise, all locked in stasis as if the cosmos had been halted by some invisible force. Lucian froze solid too, with just his mind still racing, his form locked in motionless limbo like a sculpture etched from the fabric of being.

Aaaninja wasted no time, advancing as the lone figure allowed movement in that instant, the only presence free to operate in a realm plunged into quiet, but as he bridged the gap, an unforeseen twist occurred, one he hadn't foreseen, one Lucian had plotted well ahead.

In the following beat, the whole Stasis Field crumbled without warning, time lurching back to life with fierce backlash, clouds drifting anew, illumination streaming once more, sunbeams dancing over the heavens, specks humming back to motion, but power didn't return, it just halted as if some other force had meddled, and truly, another power had.

Lucian had unleashed a technique of his named Null Field.

His timing for unleashing it proved flawless, accurate to the tiniest sliver of a moment. Null Field wiped out every form of power in a set radius, whether power, whether Devotion power, whether Taste power, as long as it counted as power, it got nullified without mercy or defiance. And the second he invoked this technique, Aaaninja’s Stasis Field fell apart totally as the power needed to hold it had been made void and absent.

Aaaninja, who had held the upper hand with Lucian seemingly cornered just a heartbeat prior, saw their positions invert with harsh suddenness, the tides turning so abruptly it bordered on ridicule.

Right away, dark bolts of electricity snapped fiercely around Lucian's hand and frame, slithering like animated coils of ruin, and with colossal might he thrust his fist forward in a ruinous blow, the strike slamming dead-on into Aaaninja’s abdomen with a world-shaking blast that rent the atmosphere, his form launching from the ground before getting hurled back savagely as his structure buckled inward like flimsy parchment in a gale.

Agony screamed through his thoughts and frame like alarms, his flesh ripped wide and sundered as the hit landed without barrier or softening. His healing surged to life right away, wounds and torment fading together, tissue mending seamlessly as if no harm had struck, his form contorting while he planted his heels into the soil and gouged furrows through rock until grinding to a stop.

Lucian paused not a single instant, materializing in front of Aaaninja once more, his boot hurtling at the fighter's chin from the flank, sheathed in raw electricity. With yet another massive clash, Aaaninja's skull jerked sharply aside, his frame hurtling laterally like a fading comet hurled through emptiness, slamming through the breeze with bursting power.

Lucian could wield his forces even without drawing on power because among the myriad gifts he'd duplicated was one that permitted it, bestowing him an extraordinary liberty that ignored standard bounds and made usual barriers irrelevant.

As for Aaaninja, he got pushed into defending against the barrage, he tracked the assault plainly, his Eyes Of Genesis following every tiny shift since it demanded no power to detect such simple material events, but his frame lacked the required velocity to evade. He required power or Blade Will to accelerate, but Lucian had cut off every link to those wells completely, stranding him in a mere bodily condition.

His chin bones shattered, molars ripped from their sockets, scarlet fluid gushing from his lips in heavy rivulets, but damage held no surprise for him, suffering was a familiar companion he'd long mastered with grim tolerance, yet deep down he realized this couldn't drag on, he grasped that Lucian's Null Field technique carried a duration limit, still he refused to bet on that doubt, he needed to deploy another option.

Lucian bridged the space between them anew, his katana already whistling at Aaaninja’s throat as he surged to finish it for good without pause or mercy, for this was Aaaninja, and Lucian understood clearer than most the wild feats the man could summon from thin air if granted the slightest chance.

Aaaninja's sense of the world and flow stretched impossibly as his surroundings dragged to a crawl, existence turning thick and burdensome, his Eyes Of Genesis flaring vividly as Lucian's lightning-wrapped katana neared his throat, and he stood mere heartbeats from losing his head.

Aaaninja had no alternative, to prolong this clash he must invoke something he'd held back, something saved just for Anthony; his Eyes Of Genesis... or more precisely, a power concealed within them, one that bypassed power needs, but drained life force. Though Lucian's Field treated life essence as power and thus ought to block it, Aaaninja’s Eyes Of Genesis shrugged off that barrier like a trivial hurdle, defying the limit outright.

Aaaninja's mouth opened gradually as he uttered, Temporal Erasure.

The second those words escaped him, Aaaninja sensed a chunk of his life force evaporate at once, a frigid void creeping over him as decades were torn away without pity.

Temporal Erasure let Aaaninja wipe out chosen happenings, items, or even individuals utterly from the flow of history. The toll on his life varied by what he targeted, and right now Aaaninja had forfeited millennia of existence, since his erasure focus was direct and total, Lucian Darkheart.

In the beat that followed, Lucian Darkheart faded from being, no grand display or ripple effect, no blast or warp, no hint whatsoever, he just dissolved as if he'd never been, because he truly hadn't anymore. He'd been utterly removed from history by Aaaninja, his trace scrubbed from the chain of events.

And thus, Lucian Darkheart got wiped out and banished from existence.