WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 192 - Oblivion (17)

Time is the only resource given equally to everyone.

No matter how wealthy someone was, no matter how much power they held, they had to live through the same 10 seconds as a beggar. No matter what one did, it was physically impossible to live 11 seconds within 10.

However, it was possible to live those seconds at a different density.

In the same 10 seconds, a sprinter could run 100 meters.

In the same 10 seconds, a boxer could shatter my jaw 10 times.

Depending on one's effort and sometimes talent and the wealth one possessed or the people under one’s command, a gap could be created even within the same span of time.

Decay had expanded that gap tens of thousands of times.

'Cognitive deceleration.'

While I took one step, he could take thousands.

While I realized one thing, he could realize thousands.

Whatever I attempted to do, Decay had the time to carefully consider my intent, make a decision, and respond.

Which meant the current situation probably seemed rather absurd to Decay.

"...I didn’t feel it at all.”

Decay looked down at his shattered ankle in surprise.

It was because I had immediately crushed his foot the moment the battle began.

"You indiscriminately struck at everything around you…No, you aimed precisely for my ankle.”

In truth, I had aimed for his neck.

The margin of error was simply too large. Still, I pretended it had been intentional and sneered.

"How does it feel to be caught by a turtle?”

"I can’t say it’s pleasant.”

Decay, smiling bitterly, disappeared.

I quickly extended my Tide Sense, but all I saw were faint afterimages spread through the surroundings.

Like a drop of dark ink falling into water.

Within those much darker traces, something flew toward me.

"Ugh!"

A massive block of ice. But it meant little.

-Craaaaaack!

The armor of water pressure around my body was an invincible barrier that prevented anything from touching me. The overwhelming mass compressed the ice instantly, turning it into a thin stream of water that flowed across the ground.

However—It didn’t stop at just one.

-Crack, boom, crunch!

"..."

Even the faint afterimages of Decay that I could barely perceive disappeared behind the exploding ice.

Noise piled upon noise, and more noise piled on top of that. My opponent was throwing ice at an absurd speed, like a machine gun, forcibly triggering my water pressure again and again.

Amid the constant explosions, I felt my body gradually growing heavier. Realizing Decay’s intention, I frowned.

'He’s trying to make me exceed my limit.'

Only a few seconds seemed to have passed. But from Decay’s perspective, dozens of minutes must have gone by.

During those dozens of minutes, he had forced my water pressure to activate without rest. His goal wasn’t to make those attacks land, but to make me get consumed.

Watching me endlessly crush the blocks of ice, Decay slowly opened his mouth.

"Battles against Great Worlds are often compared to a siege.”

If things continued like this, the one who would be crushed by the burdens and die would be me. Before I could even find a solution.

The sky darkened.

Sensing something was off, I looked up. Floating directly above me was a mass of ice so enormous that it was almost impossible to believe.

"A properly constructed world is itself akin to a massive fortress. So…the method of assault must be approached in the same way as attacking a castle."

And with Decay’s quiet mutter, the ice began to fall at an absurd speed.

Even accounting for gravity, the velocity was simply unnatural.

I couldn’t dodge it. Gritting my teeth, I clenched my fist. Crushing a mountain of that scale at once would bring about overwhelming burdens on myself as well, but I couldn’t just stand there either.

-Cruuuuunch!

Slowly getting crushed, the massive chunk of ice was compressed into a small sphere and rolled along the ground.

"Kgh, urgh..."

Feeling the pressure tighten around me, I tried to calm my spinning head. Meanwhile, Decay’s faint afterimage watched me and spoke with a strangely relieved tone.

"In that sense, you’ve built quite a sturdy wall.”

The endlessly deep Abyssal Sea.

It was certainly a dreadful shackle, yet at the same time it was also my strongest weapon.

Simply unfolding that Realm made most enemies fall to their knees.

The problem was—

Even though I had been spreading the Abyssal Sea around me this entire time, the method simply didn’t work on that guy.

From the beginning, Decay didn’t actually exist in the same timeframe as I did. And because of that, he minimized the influence the Abyssal Sea had on him while tightening the shackles around me even further.

"Which will happen first, I wonder. Me being crushed by your burdens or the other way around?”

"..."

It felt like a blade pressed against my throat. The difference was—

That blade had already struck him once before.

-...Crack!

"...?"

Suddenly, Decay’s blurry afterimage suddenly became perfectly clear.

He looked perfectly fine, as I expected.

Except for one place.

"Well then. The second time.”

Decay glanced at his hand. It was twisted horribly, as if it had been shoved into a hydraulic press and pulled back out.

He didn’t seem to feel much pain, judging by how calmly he spoke.

"...Impossible. You can’t catch up to me.”

"Right. I can’t see you. I don’t even know where you are.”

No one was foolish enough to be struck by an arrow fired by a sloth.

You would simply walk behind the sloth. It would take ages for it to turn around and aim again.

But an arrow fired blindly toward the sky had pierced his ankle.

Once might be dismissed as luck. But when it happens twice, even he would start sensing that something was wrong.

"What? You don’t know how I did it? Take a guess.”

I had no intention of revealing my secret.

I only mocked him to make him hesitate and hold back.

Decay slowly nodded in acknowledgement.

"Indeed. I suppose I’ll have to find out how you did it.”

-Crack!

With a sickening cracking sound, Decay’s hand exploded.

Dark red blood splattered down, bone fragments scattering everywhere. For a moment, I couldn’t even understand what had just happened.

"?"

I hadn’t done anything.

Decay had simply blown up his own hand.

"...What are you doing?"

"It’s the only method I can use right now.”

The blood that sprayed from his hand didn’t fall straight to the ground. Instead, it slowly spread outward.

Only then did I realize his intention and frowned.

"I’ve heard that life exists within the world of the Three Calamities.”

"..."

While scanning the surroundings, Decay suddenly fixed his gaze on empty air.

-Thud

A small piece of ice formed and slowly sank to the ground.

Inside the shard was a curled-up anglerfish, trapped like a fossil.

"So this is what you were using.”

-Those guys already knew about the deep-sea creatures. I had used them in the battle against the Lump.

Decay realized that I was using the deep-sea creatures somehow, so he spread his own blood through the Abyssal Sea, intending to observe the current with his eyes rather than relying on the flow itself.

By noticing the slight disturbance where the blood drifted through the current, he froze the invisible deep-sea creatures.

The reason he discarded his hand…was because it was already ruined.'

It was a chillingly precise decision. No matter how crushed it was, an ordinary person would never decide to abandon their own hand.

But the moment he recognized that the limb was already too damaged to be useful in battle, he immediately discarded it and turned it into mere bait.

"You had them charge from afar. Quite the interesting method.”

"...Yeah."

He smiled, seeming sincerely impressed.

Decay’s Extreme Frost gradually slowed the thoughts of any living creature nearby.

That meant my only viable attack was to keep the deep-sea creatures waiting as far away as possible and send them charging in at timed intervals, aiming for his neck.

'Two bullets left…'

There were four deep-sea creatures bound with my threads. Any fewer and I wouldn’t be able to choose creatures strong enough to deal meaningful damage to Decay.

One had already been spent. The one I used earlier had been affected by Decay’s cognitive deceleration and was now swimming within the same timeframe as me.

If the two remaining bullets, racing toward him from afar, failed to deal any proper damage, then there would be no method left.

Even worse, my trick had already been exposed. As if aware that victory was approaching, Decay casually toyed with a chunk of ice.

"Still, something is strange. These creatures should not be beings that obey your commands—”

Suddenly, Decay stopped speaking.

He had seen the thread wrapped once around the deep-sea creature’s neck.

For a moment he stared at it as if frozen—

"...Puppet?"

He muttered the word as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

"How are you using Puppet’s burden?”

"?"

I tilted my head.

I had already concluded that the reason Scarlet Abyss was so obsessed with the Abyssal Sea was because it was something that could eternally seal and exploit the worlds of the Upper Tiers. Because of that, I had assumed Decay would naturally know about it.

But it seemed Great Void had hidden that fact from him.

In that case, there was no reason for me to explain it to him either.

No, rather, this moment of confusion was my only opportunity.

[Neck.]

I quietly delivered the command to the two deep-sea creatures waiting far away.

"You’re mistaken.”

"...What?”

I stared at the slightly confused Decay and spoke.

"This isn’t your revolving lantern.”

Enemies existed everywhere, and they were constantly targeting me.

Above, below, beside me. Day or night made no difference. My Tide Sense always had to stretch thousands of meters outward to detect threats that might come at me.

Because by the time a threat appeared in front of me, it would already be too late.

"—This is the Abyssal Sea.”

After calling the deep-sea creatures, I contracted the range of my Tide Sense.

I restricted it to an extremely narrow area less than 10 meters around me.

"Ugh."

I had thought narrowing the range would lessen the burden, but the opposite happened.

It felt a lot worse. Within this cramped space, Decay’s blood drifted through the water like something swimming freely in the sea. My own strands of hair and hundreds of thousands of tiny floating particles beyond that all invaded my mind at once.

I gritted my teeth and endured it. I had to go further.

"If my thoughts are slowed by 600 times…”

"...I don’t know what you’re trying, but it’s too late.”

"...Then I’ll just accelerate them that much more!”

Inside my slowed perception, Decay’s blurred form began to gradually become clear.

The steps he took started to register within my Tide Sense.

The shards of ice flying toward me at incredible speed began moving at the proper speed that water resistance would allow.

My vision turned red. Blood had stained my corneas.

But in that fleeting instant, not even a full second long…

I could determine the direction Decay was about to move.

Crack.

"What?"

Seeing Decay freeze in place with a startled expression, I became certain.

I got him.

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