Chapter 720: Time Trap

Watching the tree shining with radiance behind Lingyun, Westcott's pupils constricted. Although he did not know the true origin of this tree, his intuition was warning him frantically that this great tree was dangerous—extremely dangerous, terrifyingly dangerous. If he let his guard down, he would absolutely die!

"Is this your trump card? It truly astonishes me!" Westcott said, gritting his teeth at Lingyun while bracing against the immense pressure on his body. "Could this tree be the legendary Tree of Life of Kabbalah?"

"Well, perhaps!" Lingyun spread his hands. He also did not know what the spiritual power within this sword had become after his Source Power sublimation, but he could be certain of one thing: its might was definitely far greater than before.

"However, if you think you can deal with me just by conjuring up a tree like this, that is truly naive!" Ignoring his injuries, Westcott pushed his spiritual power to the limit, and an overwhelming darkness surged out from the Demon King of Nothingness, attempting to swallow this entire world.

"Suppress!"

Lingyun plunged the Long sword in his hand into the ground and pressed his hands together over the hilt. The great tree behind him emitted rays of light that enveloped the entire space.

Upon touching these rays, the terrifying darkness was continuously Lacerated, then broken into small pieces, and finally completely eradicated.

"This feeling—how long has it been since I last encountered it!"

Looking at the great web composed of light in the sky, Westcott frowned deeply; clearly, he found the light released by this great tree to be very troublesome. Most importantly, after this great tree appeared, he discovered that the difficulty of his power eroding this space had increased significantly, as if the entire world had become solid.

The stalemate between light and darkness ultimately ended in the defeat of the darkness. The darkness released by the Demon King of Nothingness was continuously compressed under the light, eventually shrinking to Westcott's side and forming an incomparably powerful dark barrier around him.

"To think that this kind of power could actually neutralize the power of the Death Demon King, which can reduce all things to nothing." Although Westcott was at a disadvantage, his expression did not change in the slightest. "However, you absolutely cannot defeat me in a short time, and behind me is the Spirit Vein of a world as my backing. What do you have?"

Westcott laughed loudly. Behind him, a phantom of Earth faintly appeared, though that Earth looked extremely eerie, shrouded entirely in boundless darkness and crimson.

"Comparing consumption? I think you must be joking!"

Lingyun sneered. Westcott had the spiritual power of the entire Earth as support, but he had the Cloud Realm as support. Relying solely on the power of this world's Earth to contend with the power of the Cloud Realm was a pipe dream.

"Hm, that's not right!" Suddenly, Westcott's brow furrowed violently. He discovered that he was actually feeling a trace of weakness.

This sensation astonished Westcott; he actually felt his spiritual power beginning to show signs of insufficiency. Under normal circumstances, this was absolutely impossible; after all, the spiritual power he possessed now was the spiritual power of the entire world. How could such a phenomenon occur?

"Could this be another trap set by the Swordsman?" Westcott looked at Lingyun, who had no expression of anxiety on his face, and his heart stirred.

Under his careful sensing, he finally discovered that the space of this world seemed somewhat wrong! Every time he wanted to destroy the space, Lingyun would intervene to stop him.

"Hah!"

Following a roar from Westcott, the darkness shrouding him erupted violently, forcibly tearing small fissures into the light released by Lingyun. Immediately, the darkness transformed into a long whip and struck heavily into the Void.

The Void could not withstand the strike of the dark whip and shattered into countless cracks in an instant. The cracks spread continuously, finally extending throughout the entire space. In the end, the whole space collapsed, but the scene that was revealed made Westcott gasp.

After the false space shattered, he and Lingyun appeared in another void space. In this space, apart from the area where they stood being blank, looking into the distance, the scene was extremely eerie; countless objects were floating in the Void. Taking a closer look, among these things were Gnomons, Sundials, Clepsydras, Oil Lamp Clocks, Hourglasses, Armillary Spheres... every tool Westcott knew, and those he didn't, everything that could be used for timing could be found among them.

Further beyond these floating objects was an unknown band of light. The band of light had no visible beginning or end, yet it encircled this world. And those things used for timing seemed to be drifting out from the band of light.

"Click-clack—"

The sound of a clock ticking reached Westcott's ears. Westcott looked up, and a trace of shock could not help but appear in his eyes. In the sky, a giant Pocket Watch was suspended. The Pocket Watch looked extremely exquisite, with countless mysterious patterns and runes carved onto its casing. A portion of the interior of the Pocket Watch was exposed, and one could see countless dense, tiny gears, interlocking and rotating rapidly.

However, what caught Westcott's attention most was that what was moving on the Pocket Watch was not the Second hand, but the hour hand!

"This Pocket Watch is problematic!" Westcott realized the abnormality of this clock at once. The power of the Demon King of Nothingness surged, blasting toward the direction of the Pocket Watch.

"Ha, it seems it has already been discovered!" Lingyun chuckled, pulled the Long sword from the ground, and swung it forward.

Countless rays of light formed a Light Shield in the sky, blocking the power of the Demon King of Nothingness. The hour hand of the Pocket Watch in the sky continued to move tick by tick; every time it moved one tick, Westcott could feel the power within his body weaken by a fraction.

"What on earth is this thing?" Westcott asked, gritting his teeth.

"This is the Time Trap I set. You might as well enjoy it!"

This Time Trap was set by Lingyun when he used his own spiritual power to create this world. He knew that the spiritual power Westcott possessed was on par with Takamiya Mio; if he wanted to defeat him in a normal way, it would not be an easy task. Thus, when Lingyun unfolded this world, he simultaneously activated his Zafkiel, enveloping this world within it. The function of the Time Trap was to replace the Second hand with the hour hand. In other words, one Second passing in this world was equivalent to one hour passing.

However, Lingyun did not activate the Time Trap the moment Westcott entered this world; after all, Westcott's vigilance was at its highest then, and he would have been most likely to notice something amiss. At the same time, the special ability possessed by the Eternal Miasma Prison would also pose a huge threat to the false world he had pre-arranged.

It was not until later, when the Eternal Miasma Prison was severed by Lingyun and Westcott was severely injured, forcing him to directly activate his most powerful Demon King of Nothingness, that Lingyun quietly activated the Time Trap. At that moment, almost all of Westcott's attention was on him, which was why he did not notice that the time in this world had changed. Finally, the appearance of the Tree of Life of Kabbalah directly masked the aura of the Time Trap, preventing Westcott from noticing the Time Trap operating at full power.

The Time Trap fulfilled its purpose, directly making one Second in this place become one hour, causing Westcott's spiritual power to be consumed rapidly and leading directly to a state of insufficient spiritual power. And this situation was enough to write the final chapter of the battle.