"Everyone, get back behind me!" Duan Li bellowed as soon as he felt the danger from the unknown presence within the cracked sky!
One has to remember that Duan Li was usually a carefree guy due to his overwhelming power. Therefore, for him to be feeling threatened by it was already an obvious sign that it was something beyond just dangerous!
"Supreme Elder?" Xeng Guan and the rest of the Extermination Knights snapped out from their daze after hearing his loud voice before retreating to Duan Li's back. Most of the Xian and Yuan experts also did the same thing as well.
After all, their years of experience told them that it would cost them their life if they do not listen, and the moment after, their fears became true!
BOOOMM!!
The gigantic claw from its left hand within the splitted sky swiped down, causing huge swathes of land being grazed down as if a chisel that was being driven through a wood plank forcefully, sending piles of mud, rocks and other parts of the regolith layer in the ground to be ejected into the sky!
As a result, three long gashes that spanned about ten kilometers long were formed in an instant, appearing like it was the work of mother nature herself for those who are non the wiser!
To make matters even terrifying, more than half of the combined army from the Xian and Yuan Empire that were previously only watching by the sidelines, were killed as they were inside the trajectory of the attack before!
"No!!" the experts from both empires cried out tragically.
To think that more than 500,000 soldiers out of their original 800,000 strong died just like that as if they were nothing more than some useless dirt..
This was an unprecedented loss they've ever had! Even when fighting against the unruly Song Empire, their total casualties only reached that level after they fought each other for a long time!
But that was an instant! It was crazy!
"What the hell is that thing?! I've never seen anything like it before!" they said fearfully looking at the outstretched hand with three long claws in the sky!
From a glance, they could already tell that the pair of scaly hands does not belong to that of a human's. In addition, the diameter of those hands was about 10 meters long and each of its three claws was about half of that size!
"The hand is about to attack again!" the experts setup their defenses using their most powerful skill arts when they saw the left hand twitching.
BOOOMMM!!
As the claws swiped down one more time towards their direction, the experts and the Extermination Knights closed their eyes. Somehow, they could feel that no matter how much they struggled, they will not be able to defend against that claw attack at all!
BOOOMMMM!!
Suddenly, just when they thought that they were doomed, a cold snort could be heard before a figure could be seen stopping the dreaded claws with a palm of his hand!
"Hmph." this figure had the other one of his hand behind his back. Looking like an expert that just stopped an attack he received from a child casually!
"S-Supreme Elder!" everyone widened their eyes in astonishment seeing this bewildering scene!
For such a powerful, nigh-impossible attack to be stopped with just a single palm of his..
Mama mia, how strong is the Supreme Elder to be able to do this?!
All hail to the Supreme Elder!!
...
"Haa.. haa.."
Meanwhile, contrary to his cool outward appearance, Duan Li was actually sweating profusely inside his helmet!
This was because he was almost killed!
While others might not realized it due to being overtaken by fear, the moment those claws swiped towards them, they were locked in place without being able to move their body, and he was deeply familiar with such feeling..
Spatial Arts!
After all, just a moment before, he was using the same skill on the Xian and Yuan experts himself to appear invincible!
As a result, this took him by surprise and even with his Martial True Instinct trying to move his body accordingly, it was unable to do so due to the spatial arts suppressing him!
It was only fortunate that the ability he had almost forgotten, slowing down time, courtesy from the golden mysterious pearl, took over the fabrics of time automatically and slowed everything down to a grind halt!
When this happened, Duan Li could finally see that the claws was already a meter away from killing him, so he subconsciously extended his left hand and used a palm attack to counter it!
'Nine Palms Slapping the Ocean!'
Duan Li used the full extremities of this palm arts without holding anything back. Therefore, when the total force behind this palm attack was compounded with the multiplier effect from the time being slowed down, the total might behind his palm attack was powerful enough to blow a whole mountain away into fine dust!
However, Duan Li found out that the time was still in a state of slowdown and this fact horrified him!
What does this meant?
This meant that his palm attack was not enough to stop the momentum behind the claw attack!
After all, time would only return to normal if his life was no longer in threat!
"How could this be?" realizing that he was still in a pinch, Duan Li set out another palm attack, then another and another!
After he executed a total of five palm attacks, only then did the time returned to normal, resulting in the current situation!
Of course, Duan Li would never forget to stay in his character that he was playing right now, so he struck a cool pose, reminiscent of an unperturbed expert that stood at the very top of the world's throat, even though his surroundings was being battered by countless meteors into a total destruction!
Shinggg!!
"Hmm? Interesting." a cracked voice echoed from within the shattered sky. Its tone was ethereal as if whispers coming from inside a deep cave!
"A lowly mortal from the thousand mortal worlds that could stop my claws?" this voice then chuckled with a scary vibe to it, as if a predator that could see them from their shadows while they were unable to sense him at all!
"Who are you? Why have you come to this world you wretched demon?!" Duan Li bellowed as if trying to drive out an evil entity!
Pu!
The sound of a choked person could be heard from within the cracked sky before the voice replied angrily, "Who are you calling a wretched demon? Insolent mortal, die!!"
BOOMMMM!!
The claws swiped down once more, but this time, with an even greater force when compared to before!
PENGGG!!
However, to the surprise of the unknown entity, his claw attack was still halted by the palm of the figure before him!
Impossible!
How can a mortal be this strong? That attack could wipe out an entire kilometers of landmass!
"Could it be?" a sudden thought appeared in his mind.
On the other hand, Duan Li almost had to catch his breath loudly after countering yet another attack from the claws!
"Damned being is too strong.. I had to slap it twenty times to finally cancel out the force!"
Despite the help of the compounding effect from the slowing down of time, Duan Li had used quite a bit more spiritual Qi than he expected!
It is a good thing that I can recover them all in a single breath.. or else, I might just die out of exhaustion..
"I see.. so it is you.. the source of the anomaly in the timeline!" the voice abruptly said, catching everyone's attention, especially Duan Li!
His eyes narrowed, Duan Li then questioned the unknown entity with a wary voice, "Anomaly in the timeline? You.. are you the artifacts of time?"
Duan Li recalled his conversation a long time ago with the Millennium Yidara Tree. The tree did mentioned to him that the artifacts of time would begin to appear once he changed the course of history!
Is this entity one of it?
"You know of the artifacts of time?" the entity paused for a moment before it chuckled sinisterly, "I was right! Since you know of it, you must be the source of it all and is doing it on purpose! With this much power in you, I can see how that is totally possible now!"
"But you are mistaken! Artifacts of time are simply the world's reaction to get rid of something that could potentially harm it! Think of it as a natural defensive system."
Duan Li nodded in comprehension.
"As for me.. I am the Guardian of time!" the entity proudly declared.
"Guardian of time?" Duan Li repeated the sentence as it was the first time he was hearing it.
"That's right! But you don't need to know much! Once I reported you to the Heaven's Court, all the recent havoc in the time space continuum will be finally answered!"
Heaven's Court?
Hearing this, Duan Li felt another waves of bad feeling in his stomach. He felt that if he let the other party go, there will be even bigger trouble that would be impossible for him to rectify!
"It seems that you know a lot of things that I wanted to know about.. stay!" Duan Li instructed with an indifferent tone which infuriated the entity that called itself the Guardian of Time!
"Insolent! I'll kill you and drag your corpse to the Heaven's Court myself!"
The two hands joined and clasped together to form the shape of a hand hammer before striking down towards Duan Li!
"Die!"
Rrringgg!!
...
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