Villainess X Villain: They are obsessed with each other!

Chapter 303: Chapter: 302 River of time.

In this world, it was said that every living being carried its own River of Time.

Humans, Zlycons, beasts, insects, birds...anything that possessed life flowed through its own invisible river from the moment it was born until the day it perished.

No one could see these rivers with the naked eye, yet their existence was accepted as one of the oldest truths of the Time Path.

As for things without life, the explanation was far more complicated. Mountains, oceans, stones, and even the air itself possessed no river of their own.

Instead, they were influenced by the countless Rivers of Time surrounding them, moving according to natural laws that no scholar had ever fully understood.

Those interactions were so intricate that even after thousands of years of research, they remained little more than theories.

Every answer discovered only led to a hundred more questions, pushing the mysteries of time further beyond humanity’s grasp.

The world itself served as the great channel through which every River of Time flowed.

Every living being advanced along that channel together, bound by the same universal law from birth until death.

Altering the direction of one’s own river was unimaginably difficult, while forcing it completely outside the world’s channel bordered on the impossible.

It wasn’t merely difficult because of the mana required. Reality itself rejected such an act.

The laws governing existence naturally resisted anyone attempting to leave the path established for them.

Only those who had transcended ordinary humanity and stepped into realms far beyond mortal understanding could briefly accomplish such a feat, and even then, only for the shortest of moments.

After all, what happened to water separated from its river? Without the channel sustaining it, it gradually disappeared.

The same principle applied to a living being’s River of Time. Remaining outside the world’s flow for too long invited destruction.

It was a power that defied logic, but one that demanded an equally terrifying price.

Yet that brief separation was enough.

Even a single instant beyond the ordinary flow of time granted abilities that no rational mind could explain.

It was upon this impossible principle that the ancestor who had left behind the Time Path inheritance of the Hayes clan had built one of his greatest creations.

During the countless memories he had passed down, every theory, every experiment, and every failure had been laid bare before Kavin.

Although the world Kavin had come from possessed no such concept as a River of Time, understanding it hadn’t proven particularly difficult.

His ancestor had painstakingly explained every detail through memories that felt less like lessons and more like lived experiences.

It was almost as though Kavin himself had spent centuries researching time alongside him.

Among those countless creations stood one spell above the rest.

Time Dilation.

It was one of his ancestor’s signature techniques, a spell feared throughout the world during his lifetime.

Rather than accelerating the body, it accelerated the River of Time belonging to its caster, allowing them to experience several moments while the rest of the world experienced only one.

To everyone else, the user appeared impossibly fast. In reality, they simply existed outside the ordinary rhythm governing everyone around them.

His ancestor had repeatedly warned that the spell tampered with an absolute law and should never be treated lightly.

Only those who had reached the Infinite Core possessed enough mana to sustain its overwhelming burden without destroying themselves.

Attempting to cast it below that realm bordered on suicide.

Kavin, however, had never been particularly fond of accepting impossibilities.

If his mana wasn’t sufficient, he would simply borrow more.

That single thought had eventually led to the birth of Event Horizon.

By reaching into his own future, he could seize mana that did not yet belong to the present while simultaneously pushing the physical burden of the spell onto his future self.

It was reckless, dangerous, and utterly irresponsible, but it transformed an impossible spell into one that could barely be used by someone at his current level.

A helpless smile formed across his face.

”Sorry, future me... it looks like you’re going to need a very long vacation.”

The thought lingered only briefly before his eyes settled upon Lyra.

She had already destroyed every weapon launched by Magic Arsenal and was rushing toward him once again, icy mana gathering rapidly around her hands as another spell neared completion.

Her blue eyes remained firmly locked onto him, prepared to prevent him from casting anything further.

Kavin no longer cared.

Without wasting even a fraction of a second summoning another weapon, he activated the spell.

Time Dilation.

The River of Time flowing through his body violently accelerated.

In the next instant...

The world slowed.

Not because time itself had stopped, but because Kavin’s personal river now surged far faster than everything surrounding him.

Every movement became painfully clear. Lyra’s footsteps, the gentle flutter of her silver hair, the gradual formation of the spell within her hands, even the frost drifting through the air unfolded with incredible slowness before his eyes.

Then the price arrived.

A sickening crack echoed through his body.

His left arm shattered.

At almost the same moment, his left leg fractured beneath the overwhelming strain placed upon his body by the accelerated flow of time.

Agonizing pain exploded through his nerves, threatening to break his concentration.

He didn’t hesitate.

”Left arm. Left leg. Two days into the future.”

The injuries vanished.

His broken bones instantly returned to normal as though nothing had happened, while the unbearable pain disappeared alongside them, waiting patiently for the moment they would inevitably manifest two days later.

The instant his body recovered, Kavin vanished.

To Lyra, it was as though he had simply ceased to exist.

He crossed the remaining distance in what felt like a single step, appearing directly before her before she could complete the spell gathering within her hands.

Without slowing, he reached toward her throat, intending to seize her neck and end the battle before she could react.

Another crack.

His right arm broke.

The accelerated timeline was beginning to tear his body apart faster than even he had anticipated.

His expression remained calm.

”Right arm... seven days into the future.”

The fracture disappeared.

Strength immediately returned to his hand.

Without losing even the smallest fraction of momentum, his fingers closed around Lyra before she could retreat.

There wasn’t enough time left within the spell to snap her neck as originally intended. The burden on his body had already reached its limit.

So he chose the next best option.

Twisting his waist, Kavin drove his leg into Lyra’s face with every ounce of strength remaining within him.

The instant the kick connected...

Time returned to its ordinary flow.

A deafening explosion erupted across the arena as Lyra’s body was launched away like a cannonball, tearing through the air before crashing violently into the frozen arena floor with enough force to send cracks racing across the battlefield.