Phaethon raised his right hand high, as if holding up the weight of the entire world.
Then, aiming at Phainon who had just steadied himself below, he violently hurled the amber meteor, condensed with the power of the entire land!
The meteor tore through the air, bringing with it a dull roar like billions of thunderclaps exploding simultaneously. Wherever it passed, space was brutally squeezed into visible folds!
Phainon's pupils sharply contracted. The shadow of death washed over him like ice water.
He roared wildly, elevating the power of the Destruction path to its limit without reservation. His feet rooted themselves into the shattered ground as if taking hold. The "Dawnmaker" in his hand erupted with skyward black-red flames.
From below, pouring all his strength into the strike, he thrust the Dawnmaker toward the sky-covering meteor!
BOOM——!!!!!!
The black-red sword light of Destruction and the orange-red amber meteor collided violently!
At that moment, it was as if two stars had crashed head-on!
The power of Destruction, like the greediest locusts, frantically eroded and disintegrated the meteor's structure. Massive chunks of amber peeled away like rain and annihilated.
Finally, under Phainon's all-out burst, the entire colossal meteor was disintegrated from within by the power of Destruction, exploding into a sky-full of golden rain scattering in all directions!
But as the price... Phainon breathed heavily, his right arm trembling slightly, his wounds split open, golden blood flowing down the sword hilt. The Dawnmaker in his hand was so heavy he could barely hold it. Simply blocking this strike had nearly drained most of his strength.
"Once... isn't enough?" Phaethon, hovering in mid-air, murmured calmly to himself.
Immediately, a second amber meteor, no less in size, took shape above him at an even faster speed!
It wasn't over!
Phaethon spread his arms wide, as if embracing the entire world's power of Preservation.
Beneath him, the endless amber earth once again responded to its sovereign's call. An even more massive, even more terrifying amber torrent, like an awakening dragon, surged upward. Above him, it didn't simply condense into a sphere, but began to take form——
Swords of amber, each nearly ten kilometers in length, their blades flowing with destructive orange-red light, arranged neatly across the sky like weapons of the gods judging all creation! Wherever the sword tips pointed, all things fell silent.
"Fall."
Phaethon pointed the Judgment of Shamash in his hand calmly toward Phainon at the bottom of the pit below, as if delivering the final judgment.
SWOOSH—SWOOSH—SWOOSH—!!!
Those several kilometer-long amber greatswords, along with that newly condensed meteor dozens of kilometers in diameter, simultaneously fell toward Phainon!
Before the attacks even truly touched the ground, the terrifyingly extreme wind pressure, like an invisible giant palm, once again tore deeper and wider ravines into the already shattered earth, as if the entire Amphoreus was groaning under this strike!
Phainon gritted his teeth, wanting to try the same tactic again, to withstand it with his Destruction sword light.
But the sword light he slashed struck the meteor's underside and only slightly slowed its descent!
The power of Preservation flowing on the meteor's surface was too vast and heavy, and the group of amber greatswords following closely behind, carrying the tremendous force capable of tearing apart stars, bombarded the meteor continuously, stacking destructive kinetic energy, pressing Phainon, sword and all, forcefully down toward the ground!
BOOM——!!!!!!
The earth experienced an unprecedented violent tremor! Phainon's feet instantly sank deep into the amber. With him at the center, web-like cracks crazily spread out for thousands of meters! He supported himself with all his might, his bones letting out piercing groans of unbearable strain.
Finally!
RUMBLE——!!!
A massive circular crater, like a meteor impact, violently exploded!
The shock wave, carrying crystalline debris, spread in a circular pattern, sweeping everything flat.
At the deepest part of the crater bottom, Phainon knelt on one knee. He tried to stand again using the "Dawnmaker" inserted into the ground, but every bone in his body let out painful moans, and every breath carried the rusty smell of blood.
In his blurred vision, up in the sky, one new meteor after another, along with greatswords, were being relentlessly condensed and shaped again under the action of cold, indifferent rules... as if without end.
Realizing this terrifying sight, Phainon's eyes instantly cleared.
He was completely suppressed, in this home territory of Phaethon's, his resistance seemed so futile.
...
On the other side, Cyrene had not been idle either. She no longer hesitated, raising both hands high, pushing the authorities of Remembrance and Time that she held to their limits!
"Flowing time, respond to me! The miracle of Time, manifest here!"
The void of Amphoreus shook violently. A magnificent river of time, composed of countless historical fragments, flowing memories, and data code, surged forth!
In the river, the silhouettes of Amphoreus's countless cycles were reflected. Countless well-equipped armies from different eras, different civilizations, were rapidly solidifying!
Their blades were drawn from their sheaths, armor shining, banners flying, like an army of heroic spirits crossing the river of time, about to step out of the waves, to drown that aloof figure in the sky with the torrent of numbers and history!
However, facing this about-to-form army of thousands, enough to overthrow several civilizations, Phaethon merely glanced calmly, his eyes showing not a ripple of emotion.
He casually clenched his right fist, but his target was not Cyrene, nor that vast army. Instead, it was aimed at the river of time itself, surging endlessly in that nothingness—
"Overconfident."
In his low murmur, he violently swung this seemingly casual punch forward.
"BOOM!!!"
CRACK——!!!
A clear sound of cracking, as if ringing in the deepest part of everyone's soul, came through!
The originally surging and roaring river of time, containing infinite possibilities, along with all the solidifying armies from the past within it,
Under this punch of Phaethon's, aimed at the "itself," was like a punctured illusion, instantly frozen, stalled, and then completely dissipated like smoke!
The entire river of time, under this punch of Phaethon's, completely fell into silence.
On the physical appearance level, Phaethon's punch seemed to have destroyed the entire river of Time.
But on another, more essential level concerning the composition of the Amphoreus world, a force originating from the path of Erudition, along invisible data links, violently crashed into the core system of Amphoreus as the "Scepter."
The command of this punch precisely targeted and forcibly uninstalled the program that supported Amphoreus's history and time flow—the "Time" program.
Therefore, the real reason the river of time dissipated was that Phaethon, with the highest authority, from the world's foundation, deleted "Time" itself!
But don't mistakenly think that Phaethon's punch didn't have destructive power on the physical level.
The part of the Amphoreus sky that faced Phaethon's fist wind had already shattered inch by inch, like a broken mirror!!!
Massive cracks, spreading to the edge of vision, tore through the sky, and what was revealed behind the cracks was not the vast starry sky, but a glaring, chaotic, crazily flashing static electronic screen!
As if the world's basic program had completely collapsed, reached the end of its life, unable even to maintain its disguise.
At this moment, the apocalyptic scene was completely frozen:
The sky was a shattered snow screen.
The earth was dead amber.
In the air, amber greatswords continuously condensed and Phaethon, hovering between the shattered sky and the destroyed earth, surrounded by the judgment greatswords about to fall, his eyes calm, like a god about to destroy the world.