The Almighty Ring

On the battlefield, a ranged attacker would be a prime target, second only to healers. Sylphy changed her objective swiftly and snuck around the entire battlefield to approach the sniper. The sniper, whose eyes were glued into the ultra long-ranged scope, did not realize Sylphy approaching. Since she had only appeared in the battlefield once, he had assumed that the girl had gone into hiding, aiming for the next target, and he was ready to shoot when she reappeared.

With care, Sylphy made her way down to the island and was only a few feet away from the sniper. When she was a few inches away from him, she burst out and thrust her dagger deep into the man’s heart.

“UGH!”

The sniper grunted as warm blood splattered everywhere. The Valium in the dagger quickly reacted with the man, sending a violent burst of energy, causing him to die.

Jiang Fei, who was observing the entire scene was mildly surprised.

“Huh, he’s human.”

“Something’s not right,” Nina quickly chimed in. Based on the trajectory of the shot, its aiming, and the distance from whence it came, the sniper could not be a novice. He was able to lock down Sylphy just as soon as she appeared and take the shot even from that distance. It was a feat no ordinary human could achieve.

Even so, the effect of Valium burning through the man’s veins like hot lava was real. Even a Level 5 Metahuman could be killed being stabbed in such manner. What happened next was something even Jiang Fei could not believe. He had seen things, things that were so complex and advanced that one would even say it’s magic. But what happened to Sylphy and the sniper was completely unexplainable.

The dagger, with Sylphy’s hands pushing from its hilt, was coming out of his back. Sylphy was seen retracting the dagger from his body. If one were to observe without attention, one would think that the battle was over and Sylphy was simply pulling the dagger out. What Jiang Fei saw was different. Sylphy’s expression was frozen in place, and her movement was odd and unnatural. The movement of the dagger was not of being pulled out but it was as if a rewind button had been pushed. Like a video being played backward, her entire movement completely mirrored the second the dagger had been thrust into the enemy. All the blood that was splattered everywhere floated back into the man’s body and the opened wound disappeared as if it had never been there.

“Captain! I am detected energy reading of the Core of Time!” 0543 blared.

“F*ck! Bella, head for Sylphy! She’s in trouble!” Jiang Fei roared in panic. He had finally understood what was happening. If the sniper was using the Core of Time, it would explain how he was able to reverse everything that happened to him. He was able to control the flow of time in an area around him!

The man had been careless, letting Sylphy sneak behind him. But, as a Level 5 Mutant, he was still able to hold off being killed by the Valium inside of him. In just that second, he was able to activate his domain ability and the Core of Time. Everything was rewound to one second ago. One second was all it took for Sylphy to kill the sniper, and one second was more than enough for the sniper to do the same to Sylphy.

Isabella might be hostile toward Sylpy, but that hostility was akin to a family feud. The two of them were still Jiang Fei’s allies and she would not let anything happen to her own.

As soon as Isabella left the battlefield to help Sylphy, the grand masters had it hard. Even though Isabella was unable to kill a single Mutant, she was still drawing the attention of more than two-thirds of the Mutant forces. Now that they were free to fight, the grand masters were slammed hard. All sorts of energy beams were targeted at the grand masters faster and harder.

One of them got careless and fell into the enemy’s Temporal Prison. Without Isabella helping them to break it open, the poor grand master instantly became the target for all cannons. Others tried to help but the Mutants were just as quick to react. That imprisoned grand master used his domain ability but was still taking too much damage from the constant bombardment of energy beams.

“Interesting…” said the sniper as he retreated from Sylphy. With the power of the Core of Time, time had reverted to when he was completely unharmed.

Poof!

Sylphy vanished from sight once more. However, as soon as she did, a beam of yellow energy flashed from the side and encased Sylphy in a cube-shaped Temporal Prison.

“Using light bending techniques and energy camouflage is useless against me. Hmph. You’re like a frog trying to show off its jumping skills in front of a kangaroo! You best crawl back to your owner!” said the sniper as he laughed menacingly.

“Damn you!” Sylphy roared. Of her plethora of skills, every single one of them were specialized for assassinations. She had no skills for an actual fight.

Just then, Isabella zoomed toward him, breaking the sound barrier several times that the sky roared her arrival.

“Reinforcements? Bring it,” said the sniper as he felt the presence of Isabella. Even though Isabella was clearing stronger than the other Level 5s, the man wielded the power of the Core of Time. He had no reason to be afraid of her.

He turned around to accept the oncoming attack. However, he had gravely underestimated her powers and was punched away as a result.

“Oh ho! You have an energy core as well! Do tell, is it the Core of Life or the Core of Power?” said the sniper as he grunted slightly. His arm was completely removed from his body. However, it was only temporary. A faint light flashed around him and his arm came back to his shoulder. All the damage inflicted on him was negated with just a single use of his power.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Isabella snarled before launching herself on to her enemy.

“Tsk, tsk. How feisty. You need to calm down and take a breather!” said the sniper. He must have fully mastered the power of the Core of Time. How else could he fully control the flow of time around him? When Isabella was coming close, her every movement became dull. The man was able to control only a small area around him, rendering it slower or faster, according to his will. In that area around him, Isabella could not even touch him when the sniper had landed more than enough blows to kill her.

However, all powers of the Cores were equal to each other. Even though the sniper could completely stop Isabella’s attack, his attack could never penetrate the powerful scale armor.

If the sniper had been dealing with other weaker opponents, he could simple accelerate the time around his enemy, causing them to die literally of old age in just a second. However, when faced with an equal power level enemy, he could only bring out so much power to control a mere one second. Isabella’s defense and attack were so powerful that even if he had the utmost control over time, he could never truly harm or kill Isabella.

Knowing well that she could never truly kill the sniper, Sylphy went back to the battlefield. Her assassination skill was brought out to its peak then. As soon as she appeared in the battlefield, her blade had already tasted the blood of her enemies.

Sylphy had appeared behind a Mutant but just as the blade managed to carve a tiny chunk of flesh from his shoulder, the Mutant dodged it to avoid further damage. With everything he had, the Mutant pushed the contaminated blood to his arm before pulling his arm off entirely. Even though he had lost an arm, causing him to lose more than half of his combat power, he was still alive and that was all that mattered to him.