Time-Skip's Flaw

The timing of those three attacks was calculated to perfection. They struck almost simultaneously, sealing off every possible escape route around Chen Feng.

Up, down, left, right—every direction was blocked. There was nowhere to dodge.

No matter how fast his body reacted, he could not deal with trouble coming from three directions at once.

Yet Chen Feng did something Hit could not understand.

He neither retreated nor defended. He simply stepped forward—lightly, taking a single step.

That step appeared unhurried, yet it landed precisely in the only sliver of space within Hit's offensive.

Calling it a coincidence would have been far too generous.

Chen Feng slid through like flowing water, nearly brushing past the fist and sweeping leg. The fierce wind pressure sent the hair before his forehead flying.

At that very instant, he formed his fingers into a blade with his right hand and slashed diagonally upward. A blade of energy tore through the air and sliced toward Hit's throat!

Hit's pupils abruptly contracted. He desperately activated "Time-Skip" again, his body shooting backward.

But he was still just a fraction too slow—

Riiip!

The sharp sound of tearing cloth rang out.

Hit retreated several yards in an instant. Looking down, he saw a clean gash cut across the collar of his cloak, with faintly scorching residual energy lingering along its edges.

He reached out and touched the tear. A bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead along a streak of blood, dripping onto the shattered rocks beneath his feet.

Had he been half a second slower, that strike would not have cut his clothes—it would have cut his neck.

If Chen Feng's unfathomable power had truly landed, even if he survived, he would have been finished.

Hit raised his head and looked at Chen Feng.

Chen Feng remained as he was, his aura deep and heavy as an abyss, as though that life-and-death exchange had never happened.

The wind swept across the wasteland, stirring up dust that swirled between them.

"You..." Hit struggled to lift his head. Blood from his temple mixed with sweat and ran down his cheeks, dripping to the ground.

He stared fixedly at Chen Feng, his deep purple pupils filled with gravity and confusion.

All around them lay a shattered planetary surface. Stone pillars stood in the distance, and farther still, the pitch-black universe spread out like a massive curtain, with only a few lifeless stars shining coldly upon this place.

Chen Feng slowly withdrew his hand, the movement as light as brushing dust from his sleeve.

He stood with his hands behind his back, his white robes utterly motionless in the dead silence of the vacuum. His expression was as calm as stagnant water. Even dust and fragments drifting past silently halted three feet before him before sliding away.

"Hit, your Time-Skip is indeed powerful," Chen Feng said. His voice was not loud, yet it was as clear as if it had entered Hit's mind directly. "But fundamentally, it only allows you to move through gaps in time. It does not truly stop time. As long as someone can react at the instant you pass through—even if it is only one hundred-millionth of a second—your advantage disappears."

Hit said nothing. He merely knelt on one knee, his right hand braced against the fractured ground, his knuckles white.

He understood that Chen Feng was right.

Time-Skip had never been invincible. It merely carved out an extremely brief span of time for him to act.

But if his opponent's perception and reactions were faster than that span of time, then this ultimate technique was like a match in the wind—capable of going out at any moment.

And Chen Feng was precisely someone capable of such a thing.

"Again." Hit gritted out the two words, pushing himself up with one hand on his knee.

His combat suit was in tatters, exposing his solid muscles.

His aura had become somewhat unsteady, but his gaze was sharper than any blade.

Chen Feng shook his head slightly, his gaze falling on Hit's faintly trembling arm. "Hit, you are not my opponent."

"I know." Hit spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and straightened up. That cold, stagnant aura gathered around him once more. "But I still want to fight."

Chen Feng watched him for a moment, his gaze seeming capable of piercing through flesh and blood to see the flame within Hit's soul.

Then the corners of his mouth lifted slightly, revealing a faint smile.

"Fine." Chen Feng nodded. His voice remained calm, but it carried a note of consent. "Then I'll fight you once more."

Hit took a deep breath—though there was no air to breathe in the vacuum, it was more of an instinctive motion to gather strength.

The next moment, purple-black energy flames erupted from his entire body, fiercer than ever before! At the edges of those flames, space itself began to distort, refracting light into strange arcs.

He pushed "Time-Skip" to its utmost limit without holding anything back. Every inch of his body seemed to roar as he prepared for another outburst.

In the next second, the two figures began colliding wildly across the surface of the asteroid!

There was no sound.

The vacuum swallowed every impact and explosion whole.

All that remained was an intensely vivid sight—each clash sent rings of dark energy rippling outward, like stones thrown into thick water.

The ground was not cracked beneath their feet. It was pulverized into dust by pure force, with wave after wave spreading outward and carving radial zones of destruction.

The enormous stone pillars were swept by the force of their attacks and snapped apart, collapsing into shattered rocks and dust that filled the sky.

Hit brought every bit of combat experience honed through a thousand years of life-and-death battles to bear.

His attacks no longer followed any fixed pattern. Every punch and kick was precise and ruthless, coming from angles as tricky as venomous snakes striking from their holes, his changes of move as swift as lightning.

Hit had mastered Time-Skip to perfection—sometimes he flashed repeatedly through impossibly brief gaps, launching surprise attacks from utterly unreasonable angles; other times, he directly stretched those gaps, creating afterimages like clones and leaving his opponent dazzled.

His assault was like a meteor shower surging out of the depths of space—dense, violent, and almost enough to swallow Chen Feng whole.

Yet Chen Feng remained completely at ease.

His movements did not look fast; they even seemed somewhat leisurely. But every time, at the very last instant, he evaded Hit's star-shattering attacks with the smallest possible motion.

It was as though his body possessed a will of its own, moving lightly through the net of death woven by Hit. His white figure flickered unpredictably, utterly impossible to catch.

At times, Hit even suspected—Chen Feng had never been fighting seriously.

He was merely observing, calmly studying Hit's techniques with those tranquil eyes: how fast they were, and when they would reach their limit.

The feeling was like icy vines clutching his heart, making it harder and harder for him to exert any strength as the battle went on.

Hit roared, pushing his power to its limit wave after wave. His fists and sweeping legs nearly blended into a purple-black storm, yet they could not even touch the tips of Chen Feng's hair.

And Chen Feng still had not retaliated.

Relying only on evasions that bordered on precognition, he turned every one of Hit's attacks into nothing but air.

At last, the backlash from pushing Time-Skip to its limit appeared.

Hit's speed slowed by the slightest fraction, and a minute flaw appeared in his once-seamless offensive.

His chest heaved violently. Though there was no air in the vacuum for him to gasp, the trembling of his energy core and the quivering of his muscles had already exposed how close he was to his limit.

Just then—

Chen Feng finally moved.

This was the first time he had taken the initiative to attack.

There was no aura of gathering power, no burst of light, not even astonishing speed.

He simply took half a step forward, raised his right hand, and threw a punch.

The movement was so clear it seemed like slow motion, yet in reality it was fast to the extreme—so fast that even Time-Skip could not catch it.

That punch steadily pierced through Hit's final defense and struck him squarely in the chest.

"Bang!"

An incomparably muffled shock rang out—not through the air, but from the direct collision of energy and matter, making space itself tremble!