My Goblin System : Levelling up with my SSS Class Devouring skill-Chapter 332

Richard collapsed to his knees, blood trickling from his mouth, staring at the void where his chest had been. The wound was fatal—he knew it. Minutes, maybe seconds left before his body gave out completely.

But his mind was racing, calculating, refusing to accept defeat.

I can’t lose. Not to him. Not to a goblin. There’s one technique left... the forbidden one... but the cost...

His eyes moved to Satou, standing over him with that damned Shadow Blade still active, waiting to finish it.

No choice. I use it or I die anyway.

Richard’s expression hardened with resolve. "I didn’t want to use this," he muttered, speaking more to himself than to Satou. "This technique drains life force directly, burns years off my existence with every second it’s active. Every moment it’s maintained costs me decades. But with what’s happening... I can’t take chances."

His hands began to glow with temporal energy, brighter than anything he’d shown before. The light intensified, became almost blinding, the air around him crackling with power.

"Sorry, Lord Chronus," Richard whispered, his voice carrying genuine regret. "Forgive me for what I’m about to do to our shared existence. Forgive me for burning through centuries of our life."

Then he activated it.

Temporal Overload: Chrono-Break. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Energy erupted from Richard’s body in a wave of pure temporal power. Not a gradual buildup but an instant detonation—reality itself screaming in protest as time fractured around him.

BOOOOOOM!

The shockwave hit everything with apocalyptic force. Bookshelves weighing hundreds of pounds were thrown backward like leaves in a storm. Stone pillars cracked from the force, massive cracks spreading through the ancient masonry. Windows shattered throughout the entire monastery, glass exploding outward in glittering cascades. The floor beneath Richard’s knees didn’t just crack—it shattered completely, spider-web fractures spreading outward in all directions like a frozen explosion.

The very air turned white with displaced energy, temporal distortion making it shimmer like heat waves.

Satou was thrown back twenty feet, his Shadow Blade dissipating from the disruption, his dragoblin body slamming into a wall hard enough to crack the stone and leave an impact crater. He felt ribs crack from the force, felt the air driven from his lungs.

But more than physical damage, his instincts were screaming.

Danger. DANGER. DANGER.

His combat instincts—honed through absorbing Vegeta’s warrior mindset, refined by Merc Assault’s assassination techniques, sharpened by the Ancient Dragon’s Wisdom—were all screaming at him louder than they ever had before. This wasn’t just dangerous. This was potentially lethal. Whatever Richard had just activated could kill him if he didn’t act immediately.

Satou activated Enhanced Perception and Omniscient Nightmare Vision simultaneously, his enhanced senses cataloguing the threat. He could see it now—Richard’s temporal magic had gone beyond anything he’d shown before. This was a suicide technique, burning life force for power, but it was genuinely dangerous.

He pushed off the wall, ignoring the pain from cracked ribs. Regeneration - Legendary was already working, bones knitting back together, but it would take precious seconds.

Seconds he didn’t have.

Shadow Step activated instantly, teleporting him across the space toward where Richard still knelt. His Shadow Blade reformed mid-step, the void-enhanced edge aimed directly at Richard’s neck. One clean strike and it would be over—

Richard disappeared.

Satou’s blade cut through empty air, the Void Fang essence creating a vacuum where Richard’s neck had been a microsecond before. The erasure effect carved a perfect circular hole in the stone wall behind where Richard had been, matter simply ceasing to exist.

Where—

"Behind you."

Satou spun, and what he saw made him understand why his instincts had been screaming danger.

Richard stood fifteen feet away, but he wasn’t... stable. His form glitched and flickered like a broken image, like reality itself couldn’t properly render him. Multiple versions of Richard occupied the same space simultaneously—one Richard slightly to the left, another to the right, a third a second behind, a fourth a second ahead, all overlapping and shifting. The effect was disorienting to look at—like watching someone exist in multiple time states at once.

When Richard spoke, his voice came from all the versions simultaneously, creating an overlapping echo effect that made it sound like a chorus speaking in perfect but slightly offset unison.

"I hate to admit it, but for you to force me to use this technique... it means you’re far stronger than me." The words came from multiple mouths at slightly different moments, creating a wave effect. "You would have killed me just now if you’d struck earlier, before I activated Chrono-Break. But you hesitated. Wanted me conscious for your Devour ability. Wanted to absorb my power properly."

Richard’s glitching form smiled, and all the versions smiled at slightly different moments, creating an unsettling ripple effect.

"That hesitation cost you everything. Because now I don’t just see attacks before they happen—I see them five full seconds before they happen. Every movement you make, every ability you activate, every decision you commit to—I see it all five seconds in advance. You can’t surprise me. Can’t outspeed me. Can’t touch me."

The multiple voices speaking as one created an eerie, otherworldly effect that made the hair on Satou’s neck stand up.

"You stand no chance of defeating me now. I’ve transcended normal combat. I exist five seconds ahead of you in causality. By the time you act, I’ve already countered three moves ahead."

Satou stood completely still, his eyes studying Richard’s glitching form with Enhanced Perception and Dark Vision. His tactical mind—enhanced by Enhanced Intelligence, Tactical Thinking, and Ancient Knowledge—was processing the information at superhuman speed, calculating options, measuring the threat, formulating counters.

Richard had become genuinely dangerous. The five-second foresight combined with his already formidable temporal magic created a nearly unbeatable combination.

Nearly.

Then Satou smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant expression. It was the smile of a predator who’d just decided to stop playing with its food.

"Do you think I was fighting you seriously all this while?"

Richard’s multiple forms all shifted slightly, confusion evident across all the overlapping faces.