The Heavenly Martial Empress Returns: An OP Xianxia Returnee LitRPG

Chapter 22: Chronomancer

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BAAAM!

A massive and bulky blazing titan fell over a landscape covered by ice. The enormous giant of over three hundred meters was covered with countless wounds. Its entire body was bleeding, and its head burst open, revealing the crushed brain inside.

“Huh? And this was a Level 5000? This was too easy.”

A young man with short black and gray hair laughed, his sharp blue eyes analyzing the corpse of the titan. His aura of magic distorted not only space but time itself. A gray-colored, semi-transparent sphere of pure compressed time essence flowed endlessly.

He wore blue robes decorated with many golden drawings, and his hands wore dozens of bracelets and rings, further boosting his stats and imbuing him with a variety of useful skills. His neck was decorated with over twenty different necklaces, and his single staff was made of combining thirty different staves together using the Synthesis Facility on Floor 40 of the Tower.

“T-This damned monster…” A bulky blonde man glanced from the distance in utter shock. “Oi, Joseph! Did you kill that thing on your own?! I thought we were going to work as a team?”

“My bad, my bad. I just did a little trick, and it dropped dead.” Laughed Joseph. “It’s hard to contain my powers, you know? Since I entered the tower, I have yet to face someone capable of withstanding my powers. Can you help me dismantle it?”

“Sure, fine… Let’s go, guys.” The man sighed, walking with the rest of the Chronomancer’s party.

As he watched them work for him, because they knew they couldn’t just go against someone so powerful, he sat down over a chair he brought outside of his Inventory Ring. After that, he took out a tea set from a world known as Zipangu and started drinking the rich green tea.

“Well, this is nice.” He sighed, smiling pleasantly. “I’ll get to Floor 50 in a flash with these new Skills I gained.” He silently glanced at his Status, his Level was over three thousand, yet he had slain a monster over five thousand! The level difference meant nothing to someone who could easily destroy most people’s perception of logic.

Joseph comes from a distant world, one that was called Apex by many: the world of Acacia, a world of Sorcerers, Magicians, Wizards, Warlocks, and Mana Cultivation. Utilizing Mana, these magicians cultivated an Inner Magic Circle. Joseph here had reached the top ten in this world, becoming well known as the “Chronomancer of Beginnings and Ends.”.

Since the Tower appeared inside Acacia, there has been a lot of chaos, and the order of the world slowly started to crumble as monsters invaded through Gates. Joseph and the other ten strongest Sorcerers of Acacia used all their strength to push back the incoming Apocalypse and decided to delve into the Tower, to grow even stronger and reach the summit so they could save their world from destruction.

Amongst all ten of them, Joseph was the strongest and also the youngest, the only person in the entirety of Acacia to have been born with the Elemental Affinity of Time. He was a Chronomancer, a powerful sorcerer only theorized in legends.

With his power, he climbed the Tower with ease; in just a year, he had already reached Floor 40, and his magic and skills continued to develop and become even stronger thanks to the System.

“Hmm, I am short on Credits though.”

He was checking his inventory, looking for his next step toward becoming even stronger. He needed a few hundred million credits to synthesize many materials and items together and forge himself a new set of robes and accessories. Despite being so strong, Joseph was obsessed with power. The exhilarating feeling that the Tower brought to him compared to his original world couldn’t be compared to anything he had ever experienced.

More power, more stats, more skills, and more levels! He couldn’t have enough; even as he destroyed everything on his path from the very beginning, he wanted more and more and more. His mind and personality were slowly warping away from what they once were.

[The Tower God {Scholar of the Stars} asks for your help.]

[The Tower God {Grandfather Of Time} asks you, his Avatar, to hear the plea of his youngest son.]

“Hm? What is it now? I’m busy, you know?”

Joseph sighed as he saw the gods' messages, and then something was shown. His eyes instantly widened as he saw the tremendous bounty given to a single woman who has yet to even climb out of floor 1.

“What the…? Almost a billion Credits?!”

Grandfather of Time was his benefactor, a powerful Tower God that belonged to Floor 90. It was very rare for such gods to even pay attention to beings below Floor 50, but Joseph was an exception; his growth was ridiculous, and the Grandfather of Time already knew he would soon become a Tower God himself.

Therefore, he didn’t spare resources, skills, equipment, and Credits to help him grow even faster than before. Joseph was already aware of the Tower Gods' intentions, though, and he was mostly using him to get stronger without the intention to ever join him.

However, this new offer they showed in front of him simply couldn’t be ignored anymore.

It was a bounty to a single person in the Tower, a woman known as Bing Xue, who had destroyed the tower’s church of light and had also destroyed many of the dark cults on the first floor, which maintained the neutrality between both of the Gods existing there. They were so furious that they placed all their savings into a bounty to finally kill her. Aside from the almost a billion Credits, they offered over a hundred items and riches.

“These Gods of the first tower are sure rich. I thought they were beggars, but look at this! They had their little treasury, huh?” Laughed Joseph. “And Bing Xue, is it? She doesn’t seem hard. I guess she’s strong, yeah, slightly like me, huh? She might come from some sort of Martial Arts world. Those guys were all pushovers, though, and died instantly most of the time. Hmm…”

He continued reading her information and the kill list she had; it showed several foes she had killed recently, including three Level 1000+ Players, all Avatars of lower floor gods. Joseph shrugged at that; he had slain a Level 5000 monster with ease; he couldn’t care less how strong she was; she simply couldn’t be stronger than him.

“This looks so easy! Alright, I’ll get going then. No time to lose, as they say, hahaha!”

Joseph laughed at his lame joke as he quickly grabbed a scroll from his inventory, which instantly teleported him to Nexus City on Floor 1. He walked through the crowd of people hurriedly, looking for the woman of the bounty. He activated a myriad of searching and location skills, finally finding her.

“There you are, Bing Xue.” He walked silently towards where she was, and then, with a simple word, “{Chrono Stasis}”

The world itself stopped moving. Time itself weaved to his will; everything froze. The world’s colors disappeared as time stopped, becoming gray. A world of black and white. He walked slowly towards the woman, looking at her and admiring her beauty, without even paying attention to anybody else by her side.

“As I imagined. As strong as you are, nobody can go against the power of a Chronomancer.”

“Bing Xue, right?” He laughed. “I’ll be taking your bounty now.”

Bing Xue stayed still as he glanced at her, gently caressing her face with his hand. She couldn’t move in this Domain of Stopped Time. It was absolute power!

“Now… {Time Steal}”

FLUOSH!

A gray sphere of Time Magic was conjured, touching Bing Xue’s body and then beginning to literally steal her time. Joseph used this in most battles. It rapidly aged anybody it touched, weakening them and decreasing their stats.

Once it drained its lifespan completely, the target would usually crumble down into dust and disappear. It was a powerful instant-kill attack, though against the strongest monsters who had thousands of years of lifespan, it took a couple of minutes to work properly.

Yet Bing Xue, no matter how many minutes passed, did not age and did not lose her lifespan.

“You sure have a lot of lifespans... More than a Blazing Titan, a Divine Monster…” He muttered, beginning to find her amusing. “Maybe I should hurry.”

He quickly summoned two, three, four, five, ten, and twenty more spheres. Yet no matter how much they tried to steal her lifespan; it seemed as if she had an endless amount. She was not bound by the concept at all!

“What’s going on?! Why is she not crumbling into dust?!” He quickly swung his staff at her, shaping it into a huge scythe. “{Divine Scythe of Time}!”

SLAAASH!

A powerful slash reached her. This attack was capable of cutting the time and soul of anyone it touched into countless pieces! A lethal skill that Joseph used to end fights when he got too bored.

Yet…

BOOOM!

As an explosion of time magic engulfed Bing Xue, nothing happened again. She was unmovable, unbreakable, and completely indestructible. Joseph started scratching his head, unable to understand what was happening.

“No, wait, she probably just has a lot of stats thanks to skills or titles.” He sighed. “Well, maybe if I…”

“Are you done yet?”

“Huh?!”

His eyes widened as he suddenly saw something utterly terrifying. For the first time in his entire life as a powerful Chronomancer, someone was moving through his Chrono Stasis Domain.

Bing Xue’s gray eyes suddenly regained their light, bringing forth the world with countless beautiful, bright colors, almost blinding the man.

“W-What is this?! You…! How can you- AH!”

Joseph only grew madder as he saw the woman’s hands grasp the fabric of time itself so tightly and strongly that cracks spread through his entire domain.

“I sat down to see, to watch what you would try to do to me.” She said. “You see, I have yet to meet someone at your Level, but it seems it was all rather mundane. What you can do is nothing but mere tricks. Your “Time Magic” does not truly manipulate time; it simply creates an illusion. And that illusion… I can break it.”

Crack, crack… CRACK!

“You can break it?!”

Joseph’s entire ego was slowly falling into pieces after finally, for the first time in his entire life, meeting someone capable of countering his time magic! And the first thing she did was ridicule him and talk to him as if he were nothing but a toddler?!

CRAAASH!

The Domain broke, time quickly resumed itself, and Joseph instantly flew away, far away from that woman. Dozens of gray-colored magic circles appeared around his body, encompassing him and forming a barrier of Spinning Time. Anything that touched it would have their bodies shredded by the power of Time!

“Come here, boy, we are not done talking.”

Bing Xue appeared above him in a single second; he was not even able to discern how fast she moved. His sharp eyes were directed at her as he summoned a gigantic hand made of pure Time Essence, which he attempted to use to trap her within a Cage of Time, which would slowly devour her Vitality and Mana!

“Pathetic little tricks.”

However, Bing Xue simply released a shockwave from her body, and the hand that Joseph summoned quickly disappeared into nothingness. And his barrier shattered into pieces. His much frailer body then received the immense pressure and force of Bing Xue’s complete Primordial Venerable Intent, so strong it made his internal organs burst, making him vomit blood constantly.

“Guuuaaggh…!”

As he screamed in agony, he fell from the skies. His wounds, constantly regenerated by the power of time, fused and merged into his Soul and Physique.

“G-Get away from me!”

Fear.

Joseph, the almighty Chronomancer capable of slaying Monsters three thousand levels above him, was feeling fear!

The woman in front of him wasn’t a human.

Whatever she was, she simply wasn’t bound by the same logic he had worked with his whole life!

“Your magic is simply the illusion of moving time. You choose a space within time and attempt to mold it; you can trap others within it, but it truly doesn’t stop anything. The world around you continue to move forward. As mercy for your poor and inexperienced soul, I will show you what truly manipulating time is about.”

The flowing golden rivers of time within Bing Xue’s Inner Realm shook, their entire contents suddenly rushing outside of her Inner Realm, fusing into her clothes and her body, and transforming her completely.

Joseph was caught aghast as he attempted to conjure magic to stop her. Thousands of beams that could easily slay Level 5000 monsters were fired at her.

Yet!

“{Primordial River of Time Arts}: {Time Regression}”

Time truly regressed backward, and all of Joseph’s attacks were canceled, as time moved before he even conjured them!

“What?!”

Joseph gasped again, incapable of believing what he had experienced.

By facing her, he finally realized something.

He was nothing but a frog in a well.

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