Chapter 704 Religion (2/2)

But even as everything returned to how it had been in the beginning, Fattrovi did not use Ultra-powers he was familiar with, instead replicating Joshua's own attacks that he was unacquainted with in retaliation. He stretched out his hand and point toward Joshua to induce an invisible gravitational force, just as Joshua, who kept his memories despite temporal regression did the same thing—focused lasers was unleashed as focal lens identical to Fattrovi's before appeared, the focused ray emanating as both sides attacked with their opponent's moves.

This time, however, the battle was extraordinarily horrific. Both sides threw away all restraint and began to unleashed their destructive powers through lasers, flames, lightning, frost, acid, and the like. Fattrovi lifted a piece of the earth through psychokinesis and threw it at Joshua, while the warrior compressed a mountain into something the size of a house and threw it in the opposite direction at fifteen times the speed of sound.

The piece of earth was evaded, and it drew an arc over the air before crashing into the ground. Continental plates over thousands of miles hence shattered, sinking directly to the depths beneath the earth's mantle and quaking the inner region of Simboa into shambles.

Time was rewound again and again, but amidst the unbridled violent assaults, the world was trampled like a toy. The earth's crust was distinctly split, the continent sinking, while gravity and electromagnetism clashed at each other as weapons. With Joshua's Steel Strength and Fattrovi's Ultra-powers, the Simboan continent was flattened repeatedly or crumbled into massive craters. There were even fragments that floated in the skies above and formed one floating island after another, the countless unbelievable sights appearing at the center of the world.

With the use of endless Steel Strength and Authority, the once indestructible mountains and lithosphere were mere butter and cookies. And Joshua and Fattrovi were virtually two normal humans who lived in a realm created from paper and butter, their every move would destroy the balance of ecosystems throughout the world, wiping out civilization and turning all intelligent creations into nothingness.

And through the consecutive reverting of time, Joshua finally realized the conditions for Fattrovi to have time retrogress.

The Time Turner was unquestionably formidable, and what he meant by 'can't come up with a way' to handle him was not really a lack of solutions, but that Fattrovi was merely being conscious of a certain boundary. Whenever that boundary had been encroached, no matter how the battle against Joshua had progressed, he would hesitate to revert time so that the battle restarted.

And that boundary—if the warrior did not guess wrongly—was the survival of the Soul Puppets, and it was such a vital element for Fattrovi that it may even be beyond destroying himself.

”You care a lot about those Soul Puppets, don't you?”

Joshua noticed a slight change in Fattrovi's stony visage when he uttered those words, the outer shell that had frozen in isolation over thousands of years finally twitching. However, the Time Turner promptly lifted his scepter and pointed at Joshua—in that instant, Joshua felt the molecules that formed his body began to animate violently as if they were about to split or trigger a nuclear chain reaction. Although Joshua quickly stilled the surge, there was no question that if the did not still it, the huge puppet would instantly become the greatest nuclear fireworks in Simboa's history.

Blocking the enraged blow from his opponent, Joshua looked toward the spiral tower and scanned the entirety of the huge building, catching the complex and mysterious runes as well as streamlined energy patterns inside. It was a technique Fattrovi developed from millennia of research, and there was no question that he was a genius from that aspect alone, able to single-handedly drive the advancement of the world. Still, that was not the critical point—focusing his gaze, Joshua found a lithe figure.

It was a Soul Puppet that wafted behind the window of the tower and resembled a little girl.

At the moment, she was silently watching the skies and the battle between Fattrovi and Joshua. She felt no fear despite the greatness of their attacks, her eyes never once leaving Fattrovi, showing a reverent and worshipful gaze from the depths of her heart.

Noticing that, Joshua finally diverted some attention to observe the details around Simboa.

The death battle between the two with no regard for all life around them was apocalyptic. At the center of Simboa, tens of thousands of Soul Puppets were dashing wildly to flee the burning soul factories, escaping the heart of the battle—but as Joshua tore the earth's crust without restraint to create meteors for bombarding Fattrovi, rolling sear ignited all things around it.

No matter how fast the Soul Puppets were, they could not outrun a shockwave moving above the speed of sound. Their metallic bodies were melted into free-flowing molten iron upon the ground, while those that were more heat resistant kept running even as they were turned into fireballs, although they too soon dropped to their knees, motionless.

Fattrovi, moved away from Joshua's mass wave slash, leaving the solid mass wave to keep extending behind him and finally striking the eastern mountains of Simboa. Devastative mass impact destroyed everything at once as a terrible earthen calamity triggered, the mountains hence falling like dominoes while great earthquake that trembled a considerable portion of the continent. In a dozen seconds, the mountains distinctly crumbled into ruins, the earth was flattened, leaving only debris and magma over hundreds of miles.

The earthen constitution over the entire east was destroyed, the once tallest peak now disintegrated into shatter debris around the place—just like every Garden Zones of the Soul Puppets over hundreds of miles.

At once, just as Joshua expected, Fattrovi's unfettered expression became a scowl, and he clenched his scepter to revert time once more.

But unlike before, Joshua slowly grasped his patterns.

After another exchange, and a land filled with scorched earth and debris, Fattrovi tried to rewind time again.

This time, seventeen stars in the skies dimmed.

”Religion.”

Just as Fattrovi was about to rewind time, Joshua spoke softly atop the hot winds emanating from the magma. ”I understand now—the Soul Puppets cannot be wiped out, and that is the minimum requirement for reverting time.”

”You are the god of the Soul Puppets; you require religion.”

”I sensed your divinity. That might be the reason you can revert time.”