MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Chapter 629: Battered

Obsidian Rain

At Lilithra’s voice, space and time seemed to hold their breath. The void itself grew heavy and damp, and the heavens above split apart with a soundless rupture. From the rift, an unending deluge of pitch-black water cascaded downward, crashing with a force that felt capable of drowning an entire galaxy.

In an instant, the torrent condensed into an immense, obsidian wall.

Celestial fire javelins, thousands in number, rained down upon it, their brilliance vanishing as they struck. The impact sent shudders through space itself, while steam and a noxious black vapor coiled upward, saturating the void in a swirling haze.

The temperature surged, higher, and higher still, until it suddenly plummeted as Lilithra’s lips parted again.

Her chaos energy erupted, shifting fluidly from one element to the next.

Dark Zero

A killing frost surged outward, plunging the temperature to a depth that could freeze an entire sun. Waves of onyx ice tore through the void, expanding in relentless, jagged tides as if to lock all of creation in eternal stillness.

Anthony could already feel the encroaching chill, but without a heartbeat’s hesitation, he moved.

The crimson flames swirling around him flared violently, their radiance reaching a fever pitch. In the next instant, it erupted, unleashing a tidal wave of blistering heat that expanded in all directions, scorching kilometers of space without care for precision or restraint.

With an ear-splitting detonation, two opposing universal forces collided in a cataclysmic embrace.

Heat met cold.

Fire met ice.

Ember met frost.

Crimson met black.

Mana met chaos.

The twin storms of energy tore into each other, their impact spawning relentless ripples that warped and shook both space and the void alike. Temperature fluctuated in violent confusion, scorching one moment, freezing the next, as if reality itself could not decide which law to obey.

Through the swirling fumes and haze, Anthony’s voice cut through, steady, unyielding, his mana bending flawlessly to his will.

Black Hole

Space shuddered, fractured, and then folded inward upon itself, collapsing like a vortex into an impossible point. From that singularity, an overwhelming gravitational force erupted before him, stretching across reality as if intent on devouring all existence.

Instantly, the cosmos answered. Asteroids splintered, planets cracked, stars guttered, and moons were torn apart, each fragment inexorably dragged toward the abyss. Even suns, in their blazing defiance, warped and shattered beneath the crushing pull, their light snuffed into the devouring dark.

Lilithra’s eyes widened, not in fear, but in astonishment. She had witnessed black holes before; such attacks were not uncommon among the mighty. But the ferocity before her, the sheer depth of its pull, was unlike anything she had ever encountered.

The gravitational force seized her like an invisible predator, dragging her toward oblivion. Chaos energy surged from her core, weaving around her in layered waves, slowing the pull with sheer defiance.

With a thought, the ring on her finger flared, summoning a flawless orb into her palm. She didn’t hesitate. Her fingers closed, and the sphere shattered.

An incomprehensible tide of power erupted outward, the unleashed energy detonating with a magnitude beyond anything Anthony had ever witnessed. The blast tore across the void like the wrath of a dying universe.

But Anthony did not retreat. Behind the swirling abyss, his black hole devoured greedily, swallowing the surge, until its structure groaned, fissured, and then burst apart in a maelstrom of pure annihilation.

The unleashed force roared toward him, reality itself unraveling in its wake. Without a flicker of hesitation, Infinity unfurled, smooth, seamless, absolute, shielding him from the all-consuming tide.

Beyond, solar systems fell like dominos, collapsing one after another into nothingness, without even the faintest whisper of survival.

Anthony did not blink. His gaze cut through the dazzling tempest of chaos, piercing the storm as though it were nothing more than a veil.

His thoughts drifted back to the orb.

‘What a ridiculous amount of chaos energy… enough to destroy even my black hole,’ he mused. ‘She must have gotten it from that Demon King of hers.’

Through the swirling destruction, his Sense Dome locked onto Lilithra’s exact position. With a single thought, mana pulsed from him in a controlled wave, sweeping aside the cosmic dust that blanketed the battlefield.

There she was.

Lilithra stood amidst the ruin, her body battered nearly beyond recognition. Deep wounds carved through her flesh, black blood streaming freely. Half her face had been torn away, and two of her limbs were gone entirely.

But the blaze in her eyes burned with undiminished ferocity.

Already, her regeneration surged into overdrive, cells dividing in frenzied motion as bone, sinew, and flesh knitted together in mere seconds.

She had endured the brunt of the orb’s unleashed power.

That had been her gamble: to tank the devastating energy explosion rather than be consumed outright by the black hole. The cost had been severe, leaving her ravaged and broken… but nothing her relentless regeneration could not mend.

“HOW ARE YOU STILL STANDING? HOW? ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN?!” Lilithra’s voice ripped through the void, her tone a billowing storm of disbelief.

She could not fathom it.

She had been driven to this battered state after defending against her own attack, yet her opponent floated before her untouched, calm, composed, unshaken.

Her Illusion Eyes spell remained active, feeding her nothing but the unvarnished truth, urging her to accept what she saw.

“I told you to discard every assumption, every theory, every notion you’ve built about me,” Anthony said evenly, his voice carrying without effort across the void. “But it seems you didn’t listen. I can tell you spent an immense amount of chaos energy just to defend yourself from your own attack.”

Lilithra’s frown deepened. Anthony was right. More than half her reserves had been burned away shielding herself from the catastrophic blast, yet she had still emerged almost half-dead.

She needed space to drink some chaos energy potions, or to use one of her reserve artifacts to refill her core instantly.

But even if she restored herself to full power… would it change anything?

Her body appeared whole again, regeneration had mended torn flesh, knit bone, and erased every outward scar, but she could feel it. The lingering fractures within. Damage that even her regeneration could not repair without time… and an immense amount of resources.