Chapter 2349: Your Universe values you more than I thought.

"That is quite commendable.

Also quite foolish."

Nux narrowed his eyes, Zylarith, on the other hand, just grinned.

"Allow me to show you how."

He spoke as he raised his hand and just then—

Reality itself screamed.

The dimension began to twist, the void trembled violently, his surroundings now covered with dense Chaos Energy, ready to pounce on him and devour him whole.

Nux stood in the middle of it all, his golden eyes fixed on Zylarith, who was still smiling at him.

"Don’t die."

Zylarith spoke, then, he lowered his hand and the world around Nux changed.

His body froze.

Zylarith didn’t stop time, neither did he trap him inside space, he did not have that power, what he had however, was far worse.

Something inside Nux’s body began to... go wrong.

His bones trembled, then they shifted, for one instant, his skeleton forgot its own shape, his spine bent in a direction it should not have been able to bend. His ribs moved apart as if they had never been connected. His arm twisted because the very meaning of "arm" was disturbed.

Nux’s body shivered in agony, but never once did Nux let that pain come out of him in the form of a scream. He suppressed it all, and even as his face turned pale, he continued to glare at Zylarith, while at the same time, trying to understand what was happening to him.

"Heh."

Zylarith grinned.

He knew Nux was in pain, he knew he was suppressing it, to not give him the satisfaction of seeing him scream.

So he accepted the challenge.

"Let’s see how long it takes me to make you scream."

He waved his hand again and—

CRACK

A sharp crack rang out from inside Nux’s body.

His eyes turned red from pain, but he didn’t scream, but Zylarith wasn’t done either. He continued to wave his hand like a concertmaster and—

CRACK

CRACK

CRACK

Those loud, agonizing cracks echoed throughout the Universe, again and again and again.

Nux’s bones were moving in angles they had never moved in before, but Nux too, was someone who had trained with Vyriana, pain from broken, twisted bones was something he was familiar with.

But the issue was—

Zylarith could see that as well.

So he changed his methods, now, he didn’t just target his bones, he started targeting his blood, he stopped it from flowing forward and reversed its flow, then, he made it flow in different directions at the same time, some of it rushed toward his heart, some rushed away from it, some froze inside his veins, some just burned, some turned so heavy that his vessels burst.

Zylarith was messing with his body in a way that shouldn’t even be possible.

"Khawwrrkkk!!!"

Nux spat blood.

But that spat-out blood did not fall either—

It rose.

Then it scattered into red mist before returning to his mouth and forcing itself back inside, turning Nux’s face red, while his body shivered in pain he had never experienced before.

"Ughh."

He groaned, barely stopping himself from screaming.

Zylarith watched him with the same smile, then—

"Body is order."

He commented coldly.

Nux’s muscles tightened, his nerves exploded with pain, some of the pain did not even come from wounds he had, they came from wounds that had not happened yet.

Burns, stabs, force strong enough to crush his body, pressure directly on the soul, all of them arrived at once.

"Aagh..."

Nux’s body shook, he let out a light scream, so low that only he could hear it.

His skin split open, blood ran down his arms, chest, neck, and face. His healing kicked in, closing his wounds, but that only worsened the torture as Zylarith simply opened them again, this time, with even more precision, with... even more pain.

"Aaghhh..."

Nux screamed, this time, somewhat louder, still not enough to satisfy Zylarith.

That was a groan, not a scream.

So Zylarith twisted his organs, his heart forgot its rhythm, his lungs forgot how to breathe, his stomach forgot its place, his eyes started seeing what was behind him, his ears began hearing what was happening inside his body, his skin felt like it was being burned and frozen at the same time.

Chaos was one of the strongest Primordial Forces, one of the most dangerous ones, what it could do to one body was far, far scarier than what most people understood.

This was also the reason Zylarith was as feared as he once was, even the other Infinities wouldn’t let him have this level of control over their own bodies.

After all, with everything that was happening—

Their body would have simply stopped being... a body.

For any other being, even an Infinity, let alone letting out a scream, this would have been a direct end.

But not for Nux.

Because even as he was subjected to this torture, even as his head lowered, even as blood dripped from his mouth while his body inside was turned into a mess that couldn’t even be understood—

His eyes burned so strongly that it looked terrifying, so much so that for a moment, even Zylarith narrowed his eyes.

That was when, against all odds, Nux stood up and once again, he began walking forward.

Zylarith waved his hand—

CRACK

Nux’s left leg bent wrongly, the bone inside it snapped, twisted, and tried to tear away from the rest of his body, but Nux, with his eyes still on Zylarith—

CRACK

He forced it straight with another crack, then, he took another step.

Zylarith tried to reverse his blood again, Nux used sheer force to pump his heart and set the flow straight again, even if it meant bursting some of his veins.

Just like that, Nux, forcing himself through all that pain and his eyes still on Zylarith—

Forced his body straight.

"You didn’t scream."

He admitted.

"That went beyond my expectation.

Your Universe values you more than I thought."

Nux, without saying anything, wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand.

His skin was still being torn apart, his body was still being attacked from within, but his eyes never left Zylarith, glaring at him as he forced his broken legs to balance his weight.

"That body is not merely strong. It is not even a body in the normal sense."

Zylarith commented, studying Nux like he was a test subject.

Nux couldn’t care less, he just moved and this time, he did not rely on Space or Time, he pushed his body forward through sheer Might, his speed tore through the distorted reality and he appeared right in front of Zylarith, surprising even him.

Zylarith tried to break the concept of direction again, forward became backward, left became below, near became impossibly far, but to Nux and his physical strength, none of it mattered—

He pushed through it all, cracking the space around him through sheer force, forcing the distorted direction to accept him and—

BOOOOOOOOM

He punched.

The ridiculously strong force scattered Zylarith’s body into dust, that would have been the end of the battle but—

Zylarith’s Soul Form scattered like smoke, the enormous force passed through him, ripping through the empty space behind Zylarith.

"Interesting..."

Zylarith commented.

Then, the sheer force that Nux had released, that was travelling in the form of a shockwave, turned back, Chaos in the void had caught it and changed its shape into black-violet spears.

Nux’s expression changed as those spears dashed towards him, he tried to move away, but the Space around him was distorted, Time Flow was a mess, and his body... it couldn’t move as quickly.

Pierce Pierce Pierce Pierce

The spears struck his chest, shoulders, stomach, and legs, piercing into his flesh. Nux was pushed back three steps.

"Ughh..."

He groaned in pain as direct Chaos made an even stronger mess inside his body, he looked down at the spears buried in him, gritted his teeth from pain and then—

He clenched his muscles and...

Shatter

The spears shattered.

Zylarith reformed above the battlefield as if nothing had happened and that encounter alone was enough for Nux to realize it—

Physical Force did not work on him.

He noted it down.

Zylarith was doing the same, his eyes were studying Nux with even greater interest—

"To be able to keep advancing even when movement itself rejects you."

Again, Nux did not react—

He disappeared.

Zylarith frowned, not expecting him to move right this instant, his eons of experience told him that even the strongest of warriors needed some time to gather themselves after suffering through such agonizing pain.

But Nux didn’t.

This time, he used Space and Time together. The dark battlefield folded, Nux reached Zylarith instantly.

Or at least...

He should have.

But the next instant, Zylarith raised one finger and—

"Sequence."

Time broke.

Nux arrived before he moved, then he moved after he arrived, then the arrival itself lost its place.

The Space opened in ten different directions, and Nux’s body was dragged into all of them at once.

His right arm appeared above Zylarith.

His left leg appeared behind him.

His torso remained below.

His head flickered between three positions.

For an instant, Nux was scattered all across broken space.

And Zylarith—

His eyes watched it all with the same cold interest.

"Position."

He commented as the Space collapsed.

All the separated parts of Nux’s body were forced back together violently—

"Khawwrrrkkkk!!!"

Blood came out of his mouth.