Shadow Over the Heavenly Throne-Chapter 65: I’ll show you what the eighth stage truly means

In an instant, as the blue light of the ring faded, a fan appeared in Yllara’s hand. She hadn’t even opened it yet — merely allowed it to exist, as if summoning this weapon marked the end of some illusion. The fan was light, yet its presence stirred the air with such force that a cloud of dust was blown off the arena.

At that same moment, the wound on her body began to reverse.

Literally — as if time had turned back. Skin, muscle, and blood returned to their place, vanishing beneath her robes in the reverse order they had been damaged. Burns disappeared, steaming blood retracted into her body, and the smell of charred flesh dispersed into the air.

Veynessa stared in disbelief. This... was familiar. Similar to what she had seen from Kaen when he healed Calista.

Yllara, as if reading her thoughts, smiled faintly.

"I may not look like it, but I was the one who taught Kaen the Law of Time," she said, her voice soft but filled with bitterness. "I was proud when he grasped it. And then... that monster surpassed me so effortlessly, I began to wonder who was really the teacher."

She raised the fan.

"To reach the eighth stage, one must at least partially understand one of the Laws. Most comprehend a shard, a fragment, a vague idea. I managed to grasp the Law of Gravity. And in its shadow — to a certain extent — the Law of Time as well."

The audience held their breath.

The elders leapt from their seats.

"That... that’s Yllara’s fan..." Elder Maerion whispered, his voice barely a breath.

"Magnificent..." added Fenthar, his eyes sparkling like a child’s. "It’s been decades since we last saw time techniques with our own eyes."

"Mhm," Theron agreed. "If even a fragment of what we’ll witness helps refine my own understanding of the Laws, then it was worth coming today for that lesson alone."

"Maybe I’ll finally find a way for my shadow to move independent of the light," Maerion added with a quiet smile. "If I understand how time bends gravity, maybe I can break through my own stagnation."

Beside the elders, Calista clenched her hands around the railing. Her gaze was locked onto the arena, filled with tension and growing unease. Yllara’s fan, now in her hand, stirred something deeper than mere worry — it was a mixture of fear and awe. Nothing had happened yet, and Calista already felt something immense approaching. She glanced at Veynessa, as if trying to silently warn her to stay alert.

Yllara spread the fan open. On its surface, constellations glowed — as if she held a piece of the night sky in her hands.

Veynessa instinctively raised her sword and activated — a slash from Astralis Vow.

"Moment Lock ," Yllara whispered.

Everything froze.

The technique Veynessa had activated — a slash from Astralis Vow aimed at Yllara — halted in midair. Literally. Suspended halfway, as if torn from reality.

"Fan of Reversed Flow," Yllara said, her voice like a timeless truth, known by only a few.

Veynessa trembled. She tried to comprehend what had just happened — only moments ago she had launched an attack, and now... now the world looked familiar, but something had changed. Panic flickered in her eyes when she noticed a subtle, trembling distortion in the air over the same arena spot.

She had been pulled back a few seconds in time — to the moment when she was just about to attack. But something was wrong. This time, when she took her first step, her foot fell into an energy vortex that hadn’t existed in the previous timeline. A spiral-dense gravitational field yanked her violently to the ground.

Yllara must have prepared it in advance — precisely where she knew Veynessa would be sent back. She wasn’t just manipulating time, but gravity too, synchronizing both Laws like a master pianist merging sounds into a chord of death.

Veynessa struggled to draw her sword, trying to cut through the vortex, but each strike from Astralis Vow scattered uselessly, as if sliding along invisible layers of reality. Her knee trembled, and her back arched under the crushing pressure.

Gritting her teeth, she gathered her remaining strength. With one determined strike, she slashed through the center of the vortex, dispersing the gravitational anomaly. She rose from her knee, her body shaking with exertion, but she didn’t stop. She lunged forward, trying once again to attack Yllara.

Astralis Vow sliced through the air — but before it reached its target, Yllara raised her hand and uttered the familiar words:

"Moment Lock ."

The strike froze mid-flight. Just like before. History repeated itself with brutal precision.

Veynessa stood motionless, eyes wide in disbelief.

"No... impossible..." she hissed through clenched teeth, realizing her attacks were now futile.

Yllara watched from afar, her fan spread, her gaze as impassive as eternity.

Veynessa clenched her jaw and changed tactics. If ranged attacks didn’t work, she had to close the distance. She dashed forward, accelerating over a short range and aiming a strike directly at Yllara’s torso.

The slash sliced through the air — but Yllara was no longer there. The fan twitched subtly in her hand as she turned her hips and slipped out of reach with almost dance-like grace. Another swing — again, nothing. Yllara’s movements resembled a shadow — always one step ahead of the blade, as if she knew the sequence of attacks before they happened.

Veynessa struck from the left — Yllara vanished from the path. A downward strike — it met only air.

Her opponent moved smoothly, calmly, effortlessly. Veynessa’s breath grew heavier, and her attacks became more frantic. Each move was met with a response — and Yllara’s answer always came first.

Then Veynessa saw it.

The air around Yllara shimmered unnaturally.

Time.

Time around her flowed more slowly. From Yllara’s perspective, every strike looked like it was happening in slow motion. She could analyze everything before it happened.

In one motion, Yllara spun in a half-circle, using the momentum of her dodge. Her fan turned into a sharp line of Qi, and with a sweeping motion amplified by gravity, she struck Veynessa in the side.

The younger warrior’s body was thrown into the air, flung several meters away. When she hit the ground, her body slid across the cracked stone of the arena. Veynessa reacted at the last moment — she plunged Astralis Vow into the ground so forcefully that the blade pierced the stone plate, halting her momentum. Her entire body tensed like a bowstring, and the strain nearly dislocated her shoulder. But she stopped. She gasped for air in shaky breaths, barely able to stay upright on one knee.

The audience followed every movement without blinking, as if even breathing could disrupt the rhythm of the battle. The elders stood in silence, their gazes filled with awe and calculation. Calista didn’t move a muscle — her fingers gripped the railing until her knuckles turned white. Only Kaen’s eyes shifted slightly, tracking trajectories most couldn’t perceive. His face was expressionless, but the golden glow in his pupils revealed total focus.

Veynessa tightened her grip on her sword’s hilt, but her arms lagged behind her commands. She saw Yllara’s fan slice through the air. She heard the whistle of energy. She even felt its weight approaching her skin. But when she tried to dodge, her body reacted too slowly — as if reality flowed slower for her than for her opponent.

Before she could take a breath, time around her trembled again. A pulse of energy rippled through the arena, and a familiar feeling of dislocation overwhelmed her senses.

She was pulled back — again. This time, the energy vortex awaited right beside her. She was dragged into its epicenter with such force that her body scraped across the ground like a rag doll. The crushing pressure tore open the skin on her back, and a scream burst from her throat — not of pain, but from the sheer, brutal force she had gathered within.

Astralis Vow flared again and cut through the vortex, dispersing it with a powerful, violent slash. Veynessa stumbled out of the gravitational field, bloodied, arms trembling, and chest rising unevenly. She gasped for breath, her hair plastered to her forehead, legs barely holding her up. But when she raised her head, there was no desperation in her eyes — only pure fury and unyielding determination. Her gaze, locked on Yllara, burned with a promise of victory, no matter the cost.

In the stands, Sylphia struggled to contain her emotions. The sight of the bloodied, shaking Veynessa stirred something deep within her. She clenched her hands on her knees, eyes fixed on the arena, her heart pounding wildly. She knew her mother as resolute, composed, always smiling — but now her body was battered, and her eyes were filled with fury and fire.

Yllara lifted her gaze. Her eyes met Veynessa’s for a moment, and though she said nothing, the corners of her lips rose ever so slightly. That fire — that fury shining in the younger woman’s eyes — deserved respect.

She sighed quietly to herself, letting her fan drop slightly.

"I would have liked to fight a bit longer," she thought. "But this Law... it’s terribly demanding. Time devours Qi like a bottomless well."

She glanced at her hands, feeling the familiar tremor of exhaustion. The fan still glowed, but its light was slightly dimmer than at the start.

"Time to end this."

Yllara narrowed her eyes.

"Out of respect for you... I’ll show you what the eighth stage truly means."

She raised the fan above her head in a slow, ceremonial gesture, as if summoning something ancient, older than the arena itself. Its edges gleamed like blades suspended between dimensions, and threads of broken light shimmered in the air.

Yllara took a deep breath, as if closing a Chapter — and spoke in a low, resonant voice:

"I shouldn’t have treated you like a student. Now you’ll get a lesson as an equal."

"Decree of the Frozen World."

In a single instant, reality shattered.

Time stopped.

Waves of air froze in place. Sparks of Qi that danced in the air ceased to flicker. Every breath, every thought, every fragment of motion — was trapped in timelessness.

The stands fell silent. Sylphia had her lips parted mid-breath. Calista — her hand clenched on the railing. Veynessa — with sword raised and gaze burning with determination.

But only one person moved.

On his throne, Kaen tapped his finger lightly on the armrest, once, then again — a subtle rhythm of anticipation. A faint smile appeared on his lips, and his eyes gleamed with a dim light.

Yllara took a step forward. Her fan dipped slightly to the side, and her movements were so quiet and precise that it seemed she was walking across the surface of frozen time. She did not rush. Every motion was deliberate, as if she were celebrating her absolute dominion over reality.

She walked toward Veynessa like someone who had no need to hurry. Like someone who had already won. Her gaze was calm, confident — the gaze of one who had become the ruler of this world.

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