My Goblin System : Levelling up with my SSS Class Devouring skill-Chapter 336

Richard fired age acceleration desperately, decaying the shadows, but it cost him precious seconds and enormous energy to break free. And the moment he did—

"NIGHTMARE PROJECTION—TERROR INCARNATE!"

Richard’s vision filled with personalized horrors drawn directly from his subconscious fears, from the nightmares he’d had during meditation, from the deep anxieties he’d accumulated over three hundred years of existence.

He saw himself dying alone and forgotten, his three centuries meaning nothing.

He saw Chronus turning away in disgust, calling him weak, choosing a new champion.

He saw the other demon lords pointing and laughing at his failure.

He saw his name being erased from history, his accomplishments forgotten, his entire existence amounting to nothing but a footnote in someone else’s story.

The psychological assault hit him harder than any physical attack could have. Three hundred years of accumulated pride and ego and carefully constructed self-image crumbling under the weight of existential terror.

"No... no no no..." His voices were panicking now, the centuries of composure shattering like glass. "Get out... get out of my head... STOP!"

"PHANTOM STRIKE!"

Satou’s attack bypassed Richard’s temporal shields completely because it operated on principles that existed outside normal causality. The blade cut through Richard’s side—not deep, but deep enough—and the Void Fang essence activated.

A section of Richard’s torso three inches wide and four inches deep simply ceased to exist. Erased. Removed from reality. No blood because there was nothing there to bleed from. Just a perfect void where flesh and bone and organs should have been.

Richard screamed again—all his voices creating that terrible chorus of agony—and staggered backward, one hand moving instinctively to the wound and finding nothing but empty space.

"How... how are you touching me... my foresight should... I should see everything..."

But he was starting to understand the horrible truth.

Satou wasn’t trying to outspeed the foresight. Wasn’t trying to attack faster than Richard could react to information received five seconds in advance.

He was making foresight irrelevant.

Richard’s technique was powerful—genuinely powerful, one of the most dangerous defensive capabilities in existence.

But Satou had systematically identified and exploited every single weakness in it.

And now Richard was bleeding, damaged, soul-wounded, and genuinely terrified for the first time in decades.

But he wasn’t finished yet. Not even close.

His glitching form stabilized slightly as he pulled himself together through sheer force of will. His hands began glowing with temporal energy again, brighter than before, more intense than before.

"You think..." he gasped, all his voices speaking through pain and exhaustion, "you think I’ll just... accept this? Accept defeat?"

The temporal energy intensified further, becoming almost blinding.

"If you want to kill me... you’ll have to do better than this!"

He thrust both hands skyward, and power erupted from his body in a pillar of pure temporal energy that punched through the ceiling and kept going, shooting into the night sky above the monastery like a beacon visible across the entire city.

"CHRONUS!" Richard’s voice was amplified a hundredfold, carried by temporal magic, echoing across dimensions. "MASTER! I CALL UPON OUR BOND! LEND ME YOUR STRENGTH! HELP ME DESTROY THIS ENEMY!"

Satou felt it—the connection between Richard and Chronus activating like a circuit completing, power beginning to flow through their shared soul-bond across vast distances, from demon lord to champion.

Vast energy flooded into Richard’s body. Not his own power. Not his own reserves. But Chronus’s personal strength, the accumulated might of a being who’d existed for millennia, channeled through their soul connection directly into Richard’s form. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Richard’s wounds didn’t heal—Existence Erasure couldn’t be reversed even by a demon lord’s power—but his temporal magic intensified dramatically, exponentially, becoming something far beyond what he’d shown before.

His time dilation accelerated from five-times normal speed to six-times. Then seven-times. Then eight-times normal speed, making everything around him appear to crawl while he moved at impossible velocity.

His temporal perception sharpened from five seconds of foresight to six seconds. Then seven seconds. Then settling at a full ten seconds of perfect precognition, letting him see a full ten seconds into the future with crystal clarity.

His age acceleration beams doubled in power, then tripled, becoming capable of aging stone to powder in seconds rather than minutes.

This was Richard at absolute maximum capacity, boosted by a demon lord’s direct power, burning through centuries of shared life force with every second but achieving heights of temporal manipulation that shouldn’t be possible for anyone below demon lord tier.

"Now..." all of Richard’s voices spoke in perfect synchronization, amplified by Chronus’s power, "now let’s see how you handle THIS!"

"TEMPORAL ACCELERATION—ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM!"

Richard moved, and he was fast. Faster than Satou had ever seen him move, faster than should be physically possible, moving at eight-times normal speed with demon lord power enhancing every action.

He crossed the distance between them in a fraction of a second and attacked—weaponless but still deadly, his fists carrying three centuries of martial arts experience and enough temporal energy to age anything they touched.

"TEMPORAL ECHO—LEGION MANIFESTATION!"

Suddenly there weren’t just multiple glitching versions of Richard overlapping in one position. There were dozens of Richards, each one a temporal echo that was fully real for the fraction of second it existed, each one attacking independently, each one moving at eight-times normal speed.

It looked like Richard had somehow multiplied himself into an army, like Satou was facing thirty or forty opponents simultaneously instead of one.

"AGE ACCELERATION—SATURATION BARRAGE!"

Temporal beams fired from every Richard simultaneously, dozens of them, firing in all directions, creating zones of rapid temporal decay scattered throughout the entire library section.

Stone crumbled where the beams hit, aging centuries in seconds. Wood rotted to dust instantly. Even the air itself became stale and dead, oxygen molecules breaking down as they were artificially aged.

The environmental destruction was catastrophic. Entire bookshelves collapsed as their structural supports decayed. Parts of the floor gave way entirely, creating holes that dropped into the level below. The ceiling developed massive cracks as supporting beams rotted.

"TEMPORAL STORM—REALITY BREAK!"