My Goblin System : Levelling up with my SSS Class Devouring skill

Chapter 331: Chapter 331

The blade missed his heart but carved through his shoulder instead. And the Void Fang essence activated.

A sphere of Richard’s shoulder—roughly two inches in diameter—simply ceased to exist. Not cut, not destroyed, but erased from reality. Richard looked at the wound and screamed.

There was no blood because there was nothing there to bleed from. Just a perfect spherical void where flesh and bone and muscle should have been.

”My shoulder! You ERASED my shoulder!”

Satou didn’t give him time to process the injury. He attacked again, combining abilities in ways Richard had never encountered.

Shadow Manipulation filled the entire library section with absolute darkness. Perfect Stealth made Satou completely undetectable within that darkness. Shadow Step let him move through the black space at will. And Dark Vision let him see Richard perfectly despite the lack of light.

Richard was effectively blind, fighting an invisible opponent in pitch darkness.

His temporal perception was feeding him warnings about attacks, but the data was confusing. When Satou moved through shadow-space rather than normal reality, causality became uncertain. The future temporal perception showed was unreliable.

A blade materialized from the darkness, slashing at Richard’s back. He spun, blocking on pure instinct, his temporal reflexes barely fast enough.

Another blade from the left. He parried.

Another from above. He dodged.

But they kept coming—Shadow Blade strikes from impossible angles, each one potentially fatal if it connected. Richard was defending desperately, his three hundred years of combat experience the only thing keeping him alive.

He fired age acceleration beams in all directions, trying to age the darkness itself and force Satou out of concealment. But Satou simply Shadow Stepped away from the beams, repositioning constantly.

Richard changed tactics. If he couldn’t see his enemy, he’d force the enemy to reveal himself.

He created a massive temporal distortion—a bubble of accelerated time centered on himself. Everything within twenty feet began aging rapidly. The stone floor cracked and eroded. Wooden bookshelves rotted. Even the air became stale and dead.

The shadow darkness Satou had created couldn’t survive the temporal assault. It began decaying, thinning, letting light back in.

Satou appeared as the darkness dissipated, standing fifteen feet away, unaffected by the temporal field because he’d stayed just outside its range.

”Clever,” Satou acknowledged. ”But you’re burning power faster than you can sustain it.”

It was true. Richard was breathing hard now, the combination of soul damage, the Existence Erasure wound, and maintaining maximum temporal output was taking its toll. Sweat ran down his face. His hands trembled slightly.

But he wasn’t done yet.

Richard screamed at the top of his lungs ”I won’t fall to some upstart who’s barely lived a year!”

He launched himself at Satou with time-dilated speed, moving so fast he became nearly invisible. His temporal sword—though damaged from previous Void Fang contact—still had killing potential.

Satou met him head-on.

Shadow Step let Satou dodge the first strike. Shadow Blade parried the second. Shadow Bind tried to grab Richard’s legs but the temporal warrior aged the tendrils before they could restrain him.

They clashed blade-to-blade repeatedly, each exchange creating shockwaves that cracked stone and shattered glass.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

To observers, it looked like an even match—two powerful beings trading blows with neither gaining clear advantage.

But careful observation revealed the truth.

Satou was landing more hits. Not by much—maybe one in ten exchanges resulted in contact rather than one in twenty. But it was enough. Small cuts appeared on Richard’s arms and legs where the Shadow Blade grazed him. Each cut resulted in tiny erasures—fragments of flesh ceasing to exist.

Richard’s temporal sword was deteriorating. Each time it contacted Satou’s Void Fang-enhanced blade, more of the weapon eroded. What had started as a pristine three-hundred-year-old enchanted weapon now showed gaps and fractures.

Richard’s temporal magic was flickering. The soul damage from earlier Soul Strikes was affecting his concentration. His time dilation wasn’t as smooth—there were moments where his speed stuttered, where the temporal enhancement failed for split-seconds.

Satou, meanwhile, was showing no signs of slowing. His regeneration was healing minor injuries almost instantly. His shadow magic reserves seemed bottomless. His movements remained crisp and controlled.

The tide was turning, slowly but inexorably.

Richard recognized it too. Panic began creeping into his attacks, making them less controlled, more desperate.

He fired age acceleration beams wildly, not aiming precisely but trying to saturate the area with temporal energy. Satou Shadow Stepped through the barrage, appearing and disappearing, untouchable.

Richard created temporal echoes again, trying to confuse Satou’s targeting. But Satou’s Dark Vision cut through the deception immediately, identifying the real Richard and ignoring the after-images.

Richard activated his chrono-shield and time dilation simultaneously, creating a defensive zone where he moved at quadruple speed while everything approaching him slowed. It was a powerful combination, nearly impenetrable defense.

Satou studied the technique for three seconds, analyzing its structure.

Then he countered it with something Richard couldn’t have anticipated.

Nightmare Projection combined with Soul Strike.

The psychological attack hit Richard’s mind while the soul damage struck his essence. Because both attacks targeted internal aspects rather than external ones, they bypassed the chrono-shield completely.

Richard’s vision filled with horrors—personalized fears drawn from his own psyche. He saw himself dying forgotten and alone. Saw Chronus abandoning him for a better champion. Saw the other demon lords laughing at his failure. Saw three hundred years of accumulated pride and honor dissolving into mockery and shame.

And beneath the psychological assault, void energy was eating at his soul again, damaging the fundamental essence that gave him life.

Richard screamed, his concentration shattering. The chrono-shield failed. The time dilation stuttered and died.

He stood there, temporarily defenseless, his mind reeling from the double assault.

Satou attacked with ruthless precision.

Shadow Step brought him inside Richard’s guard. Shadow Blade slashed across Richard’s chest—not deep enough to kill, but deep enough that the Void Fang essence activated along the entire cut.

A line of Richard’s chest simply vanished. An inch-wide strip running from his left shoulder to his right hip ceased to exist, erased from reality.