Jack didn’t panic. His punches couldn’t reach the enemy, but that was fine—throughout his many years of fighting, he’d developed some versatility. He had more ways to harm opponents than ramming his knuckles up their nose.
Think, he told himself.
The opponent wasn’t omnipotent. If he could just spread out his aura of entropy to cover the entire room, Jack would age and die. The only reason he hadn’t done it yet was that he couldn’t—his power wasn’t infinite, so that powerful darkness could only cover a small area. If this man was the scheming kind, which he probably was, the area he could cover with his darkness was larger than what he’d shown so far, preparing a trap for Jack. He should be careful.
Jack had several ideas he could try. Each had a low chance of success, but when put together, he was confident at least one would work. He just hoped it wasn’t the suicidal one.
The other man didn’t just sit there. He charged, falling onto Jack like black death. Jack drew back. His four-armed battle form and Thunderbody worked in tandem to vastly increase his speed, making him way faster than his opponent. Dodging was easy for now, at the price of consuming a lot of energy. He couldn’t go on forever.
Jack ducked, dodging a claw-shaped palm of darkness, then jabbed out of his own. Darkness appeared over his opponent’s chest to cover the strike—yet, a green shadow carried on, penetrating the darkness to strike the heart. The opponent paused—his eyes stirring.
The Fist of Mortality was a soul attack Jack had created back at the Old Cathedral, after experiencing a thousand mortal lifetimes in the Mortality Chamber. It was a mental attack, meant to steep the target in rich emotions and stun them. He hadn’t used this move a lot in recent years, but it evolved in pace with his Dao of Life, maintaining a decent level. Most importantly, as it wasn’t physical, it couldn’t be stopped by entropy.
While the dark man was stunned, Jack didn’t lose time. He released a quick Meteor Punch right at his face—aiming to finish this in one strike. The opponent’s eyes flashed with mirth. Darkness materialized before his face to stop Jack’s fist, then he reached out with his other hand, attempting to grab Jack’s arm. He succeeded—a terrible sense of weakness filled Jack for a moment before he could retreat. By the time he yanked his arm free—he was the stronger party, after all—he could sense that several decades of his lifespan had evaporated. It didn’t really matter, his current lifespan measured tens of millennia, but it was a terrifying concept. If the other man could grab onto him for more than an instant... What would happen?
“Nice try,” the dark man said, “but, unfortunately for you, Entropy is mostly a concept of the soul. If your physical attacks can’t touch me, soul ones definitely won’t.”
Jack chuckled. “I thought as much. But it couldn’t hurt to try, right?”
“Not unless you wanted those decades.”
“I can spare a few.”
“Good, cause I’m about to take them.”
Jack found himself smiling. This was a difficult battle with the possibility of long-term damage—so why did he enjoy it so much? It was nice to face a decent opponent, for once, instead of fools with weak Daos who just happened to possess tremendous cultivation.
Spacetime warped around Jack—not teleporting, just accelerating him. He reached the opponent and locked space around them both so none could move. He pulled his fist back. Intense suction erupted. The dense Dao flew into his fist, compacting further and further like a brewing bomb. Purple light erupted. A sharp whistling sound filled their ears.
“Fool!” the dark man exclaimed, gathering layers upon layers of darkness before him.
“If I can’t sneak past your Dao,” Jack said, charging this move to the limit, “I’ll just overpower it. Supernova!”
He shot it forward. The world exploded. Jack flew back, smashing into the far wall and forming a massive crater. The cracks spread all the way to the other side, letting glimpses of the colorful void slip in.
He forced his eyes open. Did I get him? he wondered.
As they knew what would happen once he did it.
A black hole was the combination of Space and Death. Entropy was Time and Death. The two Daos were similar in composition, and also in power. Of course, the dark man’s expertise was significantly higher, but it didn’t matter. As he pushed his entropy into the black hole, destabilizing it, there was only one possible outcome.
A black hole didn’t wane with time. It expanded.
Jack chuckled, blood dripping from his lips. “Checkmate,” he said.
The black hole in place of his fist grew rapidly. It quickly became much larger than he’d ever seen it before, even larger than the one which had destroyed Crownbeast’s sturdy body. At that size, he couldn't control it. He dislodged it and flew back, crossing his four arms before himself. The dark man retreated as well, summoning walls of darkness to defend. Both created new space in their attempts to escape.
Their speeds were great, but this close to a mature black hole, they seemed slow.
Space and Time fell into the black hole, finding certain death. Black foam spread outward. The artificial black hole, only stabilized by Jack’s Dao, quickly spun out of control. It sucked in everything except for the two cultivators and exploded.
The impact was cataclysmic. Far, far exceeding the Supernova from before. The walls of the room blew outwards as if made of straws. The colorful void shuddered, this entire part of the interdimensional sea warping around itself like stormy waters. Jack was struck by a tremendous shockwave and blown backward, into a region where time and space were meaningless, where his physical form was maintained through willpower alone. His bones snapped like matches. His lungs bled. He struggled to maintain consciousness—to lose himself here meant certain death.
The black foam had invaded Jack’s body. It crushed his bones into dust, wrecking his flesh, tearing through his organs. Even his brain was assaulted. The Life Drop released all its remaining energy in an attempt to save him, guided by the desperate efforts of Venerable Saint Thousand Shell, but it was a losing battle. The lack of reality didn’t help.
Jack snapped into focus. With a single feat of willpower, he forced the interdimensional sea into three-dimensional existence, then took a step to cross it all. Since spacetime held no sway here, one step was the same as many. He reappeared on a piece of brown stone floating through the colors, a leftover of the previous hall, its enchantments giving it a semblance of spacetime on which Jack could survive. He collapsed against it, barely large enough to accommodate his body, as his body battled to remain alive. The black foam exhausted itself and was purged, but many injuries remained. Slowly, regeneration took the upper hand—Jack would survive, though he’d come closer to death than he’d wanted. He was also exhausted.
A set of dark feet settled on the same stone. “I died,” said the other man with a smile. He looked pristine, even his white robes immaculate. “The enchantments of the Hall can reconstruct this body, but the previous one died. It fell to the chaotic spacetime flows of the dimensional sea. I didn’t think it was possible, but you won.”
Jack chuckled, turning around to lay on his back, arms extended on either side, almost grabbing the other man’s ankle—there wasn’t much space here. “Well fought,” he replied.
The man’s smile remained. “The Hall wouldn’t let you die, you know that. The battle would end if I depleted half your lifeforce. Yet, you still destroyed it, risking true death for a shot at victory. Was it worth it?”
“Obviously.”
“What if you hadn’t made it?”
“That would be fine. I exist to strive for the peak—dying in the process is an acceptable result.”
The dark man chuckled. “Have you figured out who I am?”
“From the very start. You’re Axelor, the Old God of Entropy—or, should I say, just God. You don’t look very old. I assume a fragment of your real self given a mortal mind and placed in the Hall of Trials to test challengers?”
The God chuckled. He took a seat beside Jack, legs crossed beneath him. “Let’s have a little chat,” he said. “There are some things you should know.”