"Please! Just let me go! I'm old! I'm...I just don't want to die! I demand TRIAL."

The man paused for a moment, allowing Zuel to stand up and watch him. It was like the man had entirely been stopped in time, even the flames on him stopped moving. In half a second, the man started to speak.

Trial Requested

Plea Observed

Evidence Overviewed

Sentance Received: Termination

It was worth a shot...

Frir died just a hundred years ago and requested a fair trial out of her sense of justice. She was granted the same trial he had just received. Swift; immediate punishment. Zuel's face hardened. If he was going to die, he would fight to his death.

The man once again began to move; so did Zuel. He ran his fastest, the full ten percent of light speed. The world was a bit dimmer, reflecting his insane speeds. The air around him was simply guided around him, like he wasn't even there.

The clothes on his outer body burned up from him using his personal skill. The energy contained in his body right now was like an active fusion reactor, needing an outlet of heat.

The only clothes left on his body were his personally crafted armor. It was impervious to heat and magnetism, letting him move the metal without fear of it simply melting off or becoming so magnetized that it crushed him.

With all his skills activated in the perfect order and series, all in meticulous combination, he was able to become speed incarnate. 10 percent became 20, and twenty turned into 30. However, this came with a catch; he could only use it for 60 seconds and then he would go into an immediate coma for ten years. Skills that broke limits always carried penalties, and using them in combination only exacerbated the problem.

This was exploiting a bug in the System. His skills would last for 60 System Seconds, a universal constant. The second was one second, defined as itself by the System, always. From Zuel's perspective, he was able to hold it for roughly 3 minutes with his now tripled speed.

He watched the man fade into the background, his vision narrowing from the overwhelming speed. It was MUCH darker now, only a bit brighter than a lightbulb in a basement corner. Things further away just faded into blackness.

Zuel turned, seeing the man silently running right behind him. The man was keeping up with HIM, juiced up on the Skill equivalent of steroids. He turned to face the man, 2 minutes 58 seconds was all he had left before death claimed him.

I can count on my hand the number of people that have barely survived the fight with him, and none of them survived their injuries long afterward. I can't let him even touch me.

Zuel wasted precious time thinking, 2 min 55 sec. He used his skill [Inversion] to turn around and instantly changed his velocity, inverting it. Now he was heading straight for the man at 100 million meters a second. The man didn't dodge, pulling a sword out of thin air, materializing it from nothing.

Zuel used [Time lock], freezing the man in time for a dozen seconds. At least, that was what usually happened to his enemies. He had touched upon the essence of time in order to run faster, so he picked up a bunch of skills related to it. This was one such skill. Yet the man only froze for half a second before shattering the bubble. 2 min 51.

This was all he needed to land a punch on the man's face. The shockwave annihilated the earth beneath them, but at this point, their battle was dilating the time around them. From an outside point of veiw, the battle was 3 times as fast as it should be.

The punch was not strong, but fast. In pursuit of speed, Zuel was permanently capped at 1000 strength, letting his agility skyrocket beyond measure. The tradeoff was a welcomed one in his eyes. What was the point in strength if your punch was faster than light?

The man was thrown back from the punch, having received it with a resonating defense skill. The punch's effect was drastically dampened. The man had pushed off the air and launched himself back at Zuel. With their speed, running on air was child's play if they manipulated their air resistance skills just right. 2 min 49 sec.

Zuel took this hint and took the fight to the skies; there, the fight would be a 360 degree one, needed constant awareness of your surroundings. It was in this area that Zuel had the advantage. He had been training speed his entire life, he was constantly paying attention to the entire world around him as he ran. Otherwise, he couldn't do anything while moving fast.

He lept off of air and used [Inversion] in triplicate to get underneath the man. Before he could register what was going on, Zuel had grabbed his feet and threw him with every ounce of his speed. The man went flying at the ground, slamming into it and digging a pit a dozen meters deep like some cartoon character.

He wasn't amused. 2 min 45 sec. He bolted out of the hole, running directly into the air again. This time, he was on the offensive. The air around him rumbled as his sword waved. Lightning gathered on it, becoming thicker and thicker. The sheer quantity of charge on the sword would have leveled a mountain range, but the man had forgotten one important thing.

He is such a fucking dumbass.

The attack was released, but moved at a snail's pace. The lightning was just that, lightning. It froze, just like everything else. Unless it was a skill, lightning attacks are useless in high-category level combat. This fight was a bit of an outlier, but the saying held true.

Another thing, the lightning the man generated was purely with his speed and sword's properties. This meant that it was unaffiliated with either of them. This was, again, to Zuel's advantage. He ran up to the lightning bolt and drew it into him.

For Zuel, free energy was free energy; he partook of the tasty snack using his [Energy Absorption] skill. His speed consumed massive amounts of energy; this skill offset it a bit by letting him grab energy out of the air; mana, electricity, heat, you name it. None of it could refill his reserves of that resource. The energy would directly go into fueling his stamina.

The man looked slightly off when his attack didn't go as planned, he wasn't used to fighting at this speed. His job as The Immortal Slayer allowed him certain PRIVILEGES when it came to meeting his opponents evenly. His current speed was one example of that.

Instead of foolishly using that attack again, he switched up his tactics. The enemy was clearly ok with playing the blue team, so he would oblige. His opponent would run out of energy soon, and when that happened, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

The man ripped apart his sword, turning it into 4 million flakes of metal. Each end every particle of the sword was infused with his skill, making this attack 'at speed'. The particles were charged with heat that made the bent air boil. 2 min 40 sec.

The particles were launched, leaving behind white streaks of light. The attack moved like a bullet from a gun, but already at their moving speeds. All Zuel could do was to pour energy into his defenses, hopefully tanking the attack. With only a 1000 strength, he was comparatively fragile for a Cat 12; receiving the blast would be rough.

The particles reached him and met the energy barrier he had wrapped around him. The superheated bits were slowed down, but not entirely stopped. Zuel ended up with a layer of metal imbedded into the entire back half of his body. 2 min 39 sec

Not good.

The metal was still superheated, losing only its deadly velocity; they were still 10,000 degrees C. They incinerated his flesh, removing all the skin of his back muscles. He looked like an anatomy diagram, all the muscles defined and completely visible. The perfect diagram didn't last for long; it started to profusely bleed, becoming a river of blood that drenched him.

There was no pain; it was utter and complete third-degree burns. The only reminder that he was even injured was his now stiffer muscles. They were less responsive and starting to become extremely itchy.

No time for that. 2 min 38 sec.

Zuel started to run away, he needed to compose himself and come up with a new plan. He allowed himself 5 seconds of distance, enough to get him anywhere in the world. He had one particular spot in mind, a spot that he holds fondly in his memories, a spot that is still dangerous to him even now. He threw caution to the wind as he was already fighting for his life; the gamble might pay off.

The area was called Lightning Rod peak. It took 3 seconds to reach it, being on the other side of the planet. Zuel looked out at the barren lands, trying to concoct a plot at normal thinking speeds. He trained so hard, his entire life, entire ERAS, to stretch out every second. Now, he was back at square one, existing at the same speed as everyone else.

Have I truly gotten so old?

He used that burning shame to fuel his plans. The peak didn't get its name for no reason. The entire mountaintop was covered in metallic spikes that summoned down the lightning. The mountain was between the sea and a desert, a place where a permanent storm resided, generating powerful wind and endless lightning. 2 min 34 sec.

The man was right behind him, running at nearly the same speed. He was given an equal boost, but not to the point is was faster than Zuel. He followed him like a machine to the lightning-filled lands, uncaring for the change in scenery.

Zuel raced to the peak, dodging the pitifully slow lightning that zig-zagged around him. The rain made his vision mosaic, the millions of droplets bending his reduced light. The rain had been going unceasingly for the last three Eras, ever since this mountain was formed. Now, it would be either his resting place, or his scene of triumph.

Zuel turned to face the man, preparing the activation of one of his long-forgotten skills, back when he was a humble earth mage. The man, behind his cold gaze, had a slight smile on his face, like he was enjoying the chase. He let Zuel have his moment to breathe, the old man's body was already starting to fail him; one kidney and half his liver had already shut down.

Even so, he wasted precious time talking, time he was already extending. 2 min 33 sec.

"You were always a pain in my fucking ass! You know that? Ever since you first shook my hand with your slimy digits. I knew... I KNEW... you weren't to be trusted. Well? Look at us now! Old masters, ancient relics! You are older than I am, so why aren't you killing yourself, hmm? Or is that not how it works? You fucking hypocrite!"

The man showed his first real ping of emotion, his face contorting into a furious expression. From his long-unused vocal cords, he uttered a gravely voice, one of dust and stone.

"You have no IDEA the powers beyond us. We are bacterium before its mighty glory. You haven't known true despair. I have been shown what lies beyond the veil of lies. You are a pawn in a war WAY beyond our comprehension. The outcome here does not matter, nothing does. My task my from glorious master is all I have left; so die."

1 min 50 sec.

Zuel smiled, his skill was ready. He needed to buy some time to gather the resources, so getting him chatting was a surefire way to ensure that. The ground beneath his feet erupted with salt, flying into the air and dissolving into the rainwater as it fell slowly.

"If that's what you think; then welcome to the salt fields motherfucker!"

The next time lightning flashed, it was at their speed. Since it passed through his skill, it was sped up to 30 percent light speed. With all the conductive saltwater in the air, the lightning exploded along with a billion connections, forming a lattice of electricity. When the attack was done, Zuel absorbed the lightning for an immediate boost in energy, relieving the itchy feeling in his muscles.

The man was smoking now, his armor cooking him from the inside. The scent of burnt flesh and hair filled the air. Soon, that wouldn't be the worst thing that suffused the air. The man charged at Zuel, disregarding his now cooked state. He didn't make it far when nature took a turn for the worse.

The danger of this land was only kicking into gear. For some reason, the lightning here didn't like getting interrupted. The mana in the air stirred and entwined itself with the next lightning bolt. This resulted in the sky sending forth a skyscraper-thick bolt of electricity down, evaporating the water instantly and leaving sodium and chlorine in the air.

The chlorine immediately bonded with itself and became a toxic gas. If they breathed in too much of it, they would start to drown in lung fluid. The sodium became superheated and reacted with the evaporated water, producing an explosion the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb going off. Though, funnily enough, this was a literal explosion of hydrogen and intense heat.

Zuel smiled from his underground bunker. [Salt Control] wasn't the only skill he had in his post-earth mage repertoire. He was able to reach a hundred-meter depth in a single second, the one second the Man was protecting himself from the lightning strike.

1 min 30 sec.

Zuel unearthed himself and looked at his enemy. The man was a charred husk in deformed armor. His ribs stuck out at strange angles, piercing through his charred flesh. The glowing eyes were gone, leaving just sockets in a scratched-up skull.

"I've done it! I've killed him! I survived!"

Zuel cheered out in excitement. A premature judgment. The 'corpse' coughed, spitting out a chunk of lung and taking a labored breath.