Erasure and Freedom

What happened next made everyone's scalp tingle.

That towering rock mountain, dozens of meters high and hard as steel, was suddenly and silently erased as if by a top-tier eraser.

From bottom to top, the entire mountain turned directly into a cloud of extremely fine grayish-white powder.

There was no great commotion, nor did much dust rise. The powder sifted down, merging into the earth, as though that mountain had never existed.

Where the mountain had vanished, only an unnaturally smooth depression remained, its edges still bearing traces that looked like crystallization after being melted by intense heat.

Chen Feng glanced sideways at that bizarre remnant, and his gaze finally turned solemn.

For the first time, a hint of seriousness entered his usual calm.

"Erasure?" Chen Feng murmured, as though pondering something.

"Not the explosive 'destruction' energy of a God of Destruction." Hit's voice remained unnervingly steady.

At some point, he had moved to stand directly opposite Chen Feng again, with only that newly flattened ground between them.

"It is merely the most basic form of 'decomposition.' Within the independent slice of time created by Time-Skip, I can seep my power into the most minute level of matter, completely dismantle its structure, and reduce it directly into the most fundamental particles. If that attack you avoided had struck you head-on—"

He stopped, but the meaning behind his words was more direct and far colder than any threat.

Hit's amethyst eyes stared straight at Chen Feng. There was no pride or showmanship in them, only pure fighting spirit and an assessment of his opponent.

Chen Feng slowly turned to face Hit.

The relaxed indifference that always lingered on his face faded completely, and his whole being became focused and serious.

That transcendent, detached air about him remained, but it had drawn inward and condensed, like a peerless sword still sheathed. Its edge had yet to reveal itself, yet the temperature around them seemed to drop by several degrees.

"You truly are strong." Chen Feng spoke in an even voice, as if merely stating a fact. "It seems I underestimated you."

Hit shook his head, and the hem of his tattered cloak swayed slightly with the motion.

"No, you did not underestimate me." His voice carried the calm and self-awareness tempered by time. "You simply... haven't gotten serious yet."

The air abruptly fell silent, as if even the wind had stopped.

The invisible pressure between them collided, warping and trembling the open ground between them.

This battle was about to enter an entirely new level.

Chen Feng said nothing. After a moment of silence, a faint smile slowly curled across his lips.

He lightly flexed his fingers, his knuckles giving off crisp cracks, as though some sleeping power had just awakened.

"You're right." Chen Feng nodded, his expression serious. "I truly haven't gotten serious yet."

Hit's pupils contracted, and for the first time, a trace of wariness surfaced in his usually icy eyes.

His entire body instinctively tensed, his fighting instincts screaming warnings—something was about to change. Change completely.

Chen Feng took a deep breath. There was no earthshaking aura, no transformation, not even a flutter of his clothes.

Yet within that single breath, his presence changed.

If Chen Feng had been like a deep pool a moment ago, then now he was an endless ocean—embracing all things, unfathomably deep.

The air seemed to freeze, the light dimmed, and the entire ruined arena began to fill with a heavy, soundless pressure.

For the first time, Hit truly felt oppressed—not pain, not fear, but a complete sense of helplessness and insignificance, like an ant lying on the ground and looking up to see the entire sky silently collapsing upon it.

"Ultra Instinct." Chen Feng's voice was utterly flat, every word striking Hit's heart. "I only used a tiny fraction of it just now."

Hit's pupils shrank to pinpoints.

"Now," Chen Feng said with a faint smile, devoid of mockery or arrogance, containing only pure serenity, "let me show you true Ultra Instinct."

The instant those words fell, Chen Feng's figure... vanished.

It was not that he moved too fast to be seen, nor was it an afterimage or an illusion. He had truly disappeared.

Not a trace of aura, energy fluctuation, or even the most basic sense of presence remained. It was as though he had been completely erased by an eraser.

Hit activated Time-Skip almost on reflex, slipping himself into the cracks of time and frantically searching for Chen Feng's whereabouts from the most extreme temporal perspective.

Nothing.

There was nothing anywhere.

The gap between time was utterly empty. It was as though Chen Feng had been completely erased from the coordinates of the entire world, leaving behind not even the slightest trace.

Then—a warm, dry hand, even somewhat casual, silently rested on Hit's left shoulder.

Every muscle in Hit's body instantly tensed like iron, and a bone-chilling cold shot up his spine.

He did not even have time to think. Driven purely by battle instinct, he spun sharply, his right fist filled with the power of Time-Skip as he blasted behind him with force enough to shatter stars!

His arm passed through nothing but a faint silver afterimage that was already fading away.

Chen Feng was already standing quietly on his other side, less than half a meter away. Even the hem of his clothes had not moved.

"Too fast..." It felt as though an invisible hand had clamped tightly around Hit's heart, cold spreading from within him to every limb and bone.

He had never encountered an opponent like this.

No, this had already surpassed the very concept of an "opponent."

He let out a low roar and pushed "Time-Skip" to its limit, his consciousness switching at breakneck speed between normal time and the gaps as he desperately tried to catch Chen Feng's movement trajectory.

But Chen Feng's movements had already completely exceeded the limits of his reaction speed.

All he could see were blurry silver flashes appearing around him—sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right; overhead one moment, leaving faint traces on the ground the next.

The flashes formed an irregular net, trapping him at its center, yet he could never lock onto the one true body.

"Are you looking for me?" Chen Feng's voice suddenly rang out.

Strangely, the voice had no direction. It seemed to come from the air, the light, and all around him at once—gentle, clear, and everywhere.

Hit gritted his teeth, cold sweat covering his forehead.

He decisively abandoned his vision and his usual sensing of energy, instantly closing his eyes.

A thousand years of life-and-death combat had taught him one thing—when every sense failed, the only thing he could trust was beast-like instinct.

He held his breath and sank his entire mind into an extreme awareness of his surroundings.

His skin caught the flow of air and shifts in temperature; his ears distinguished the faintest distortions in sound waves; his consciousness even extended outward, sensing the minute disturbances in space itself...

He stood motionless like a statue, using himself as the center of a circle to weave a field of perception sustained entirely by "instinct."

There!

Three inches behind and to the left, seven feet away!

The "density" of space had changed for an instant!

Hit moved.

Without hesitation or warning, his body shot out like an arrow released from the bowstring. He unleashed a vicious spinning back kick, striking precisely at that point.

Bang!

A dull impact rang out.

His ankle had been firmly caught in a hand—a long, powerful hand that effortlessly stopped the blow without even taking a single step back.