Boom!
Magic power of two different attributes spread out, the skyward-rushing magic power even widening the hole above.
Charles and Lucius's forearms crossed against each other, their colliding gazes seeming to spark.
What Charles had just said to Lucius wasn't just to provoke him into direct combat - it was a principle that remained valid even in other supernatural worlds.
Just as Shinigami battles were competitions of spiritual pressure, and ninja battles were competitions of chakra, it was merely a different name for the same thing.
The reason everyone viewed Asta as the most important hope was precisely because his anti-magic was the only power that could ignore this rule and possibly create impossible miracles.
Charles's own magic power was strong enough to forcibly burn through Lucius's time magic. But similarly, Lucius's magic power was also strong, so Charles was also caught in a hard fight.
Time magic, soul magic, dragon slayer magic - the effects of these top-tier magics were weakened to an extremely low degree. What the two were now competing with was pure raw strength.
Although he had long known it would be difficult to find any flaws in his opponent, Charles still had to admire Lucius's combat ability.
It seemed the connection between Lucius and Julius's two souls was closer than he had imagined - even the experience Julius had accumulated on his path to becoming Magic Emperor was shared.
Charles and Lucius continuously moved around this vast underground space while exchanging attacks and defenses.
Charles threw a punch, the bursting flames crumbling a large section of the mountain wall behind.
Missing with one strike, Charles immediately moved, drawing a curved line of fire in the air as he left a series of time spheres behind him.
Lucius followed closely, his fist in magic power state directly hitting Charles's crossed arms, the impact tearing apart even the air.
Blazing flames wrapped around the pair of Noble Phantasms, blocking Lucius's soul magic from the outside. Charles raised both hands and sent Lucius flying, but just as he wanted to pursue, four time spheres had already surrounded him.
"Time magic really is convenient magic!"
Charles sighed like this. In the previous exchanges, Lucius had seized the initiative everywhere, relying on his time magic.
Julius had said his time magic was magic that stole others' time, binding opponents with time freezing and aging people with time acceleration - these were indeed powerful attack methods.
But time magic had other uses too, namely predicting the future. Lucius was using this ability to react to Charles's attacks in advance.
This ability was undoubtedly quite useful, but for Charles it was just too disgusting. But it was only... disgusting!
"Flame Dragon's Wing Blade!"
Charles raised his hand in a palm strike, compressing all the flames together. As Charles swung his arm, flames swept out wildly, cutting apart all the surrounding time spheres.
Lucius still underestimated Charles. Charles had encountered all kinds of opponents on his journey. Naturally there were those with similar abilities too.
Whether through foresight or mind-reading, he had encountered quite a few abilities that could predict opponents' moves or intentions.
Charles had experience dealing with such opponents.
"Predicting the future? Then let's see if your foresight can keep up!"
Charles said this as Dragon King Martial Body began. In just an instant, Lucius lost track of Charles's figure.
In his foresight, Charles would close in for a rushing attack. But almost at the same time the foresight activated, Charles's fist had already struck.
The punch force mixed with flames sent Lucius flying heavily like a cannonball.
Lucius finally understood Charles's countermeasure. The ability to predict the future was indeed powerful, but his own reaction had limits.
Even though he had achieved a breakthrough in life level using purified devil power, that limit still existed.
Since the foresight ability was hard to crack, as long as he exceeded that limit, even if he could foresee the opponent's next actions, his body would still be hit due to being unable to react in time.
Lucius stopped his retreating body, his expression toward Charles becoming ugly.
"I have seen all possible futures of this world, and none match the current situation.
Yuno's strongest future should have been a world where the Spade Kingdom never rebelled and he steadily trained throughout. But he has now become stronger than even that future.
The others are the same. No future existed where Noelle could become this powerful. Fuegoleon should have been killed by Patry, and the elf race should have been completely wiped out.
This world is actually a world I never foresaw."
Taking a deep breath, Lucius continued, "When changes began appearing, I was thinking about where things went wrong. Initially I believed the cause was Asta.
The only difference in this world was Asta who possessed anti-magic. He is this world's most unreasonable existence - life without magic power simply cannot exist. So he affected my foresight.
So I determined that Asta was the flaw in my planned perfect world. I don't mind telling you, my next step in the plan was to erase this flaw.
But later I discovered another special existence!"
Saying this, Lucius raised his hand and pointed at Charles, his tone extremely serious, "That's you! Although you're extraordinarily excellent, because Asta's abnormality was too severe, I kept overlooking you.
In all the worlds I foresaw, your existence was never there. Like Asta, you are someone who shouldn't exist in this world!"
Charles's eyebrow twitched. He really didn't know Lucius actually had this kind of ability.
But it was also his bad luck - such a powerful ability but he encountered Asta's anti-magic and was directly locked down. And for this, Asta had even provided cover for him for a period of time.
Charles smiled, "So that's how it is. Then what do you plan to do?"
Lucius spread his arms, "Of course I'll eliminate you, who are also an abnormality!"
Saying this, Lucius also burst out with amazing speed, appearing in front of Charles like teleportation and throwing a punch.
Lucius had accelerated his own time, using this to dramatically increase his speed.
Charles didn't give ground, also throwing a punch. This exchange was particularly loud, even making the castle above shake.
"You said you foresaw all futures, right! But what we've always been doing is creating new futures."
Charles said this as surging flames made even his dragon scale scarf flutter, and his fist directly sent Lucius flying.
Lucius crashed heavily into the rock wall behind, then foresaw Charles's pursuit.
Charles heavily stepped on the rock wall, directly smashing out a web of cracks. Lucius, who dodged out somewhat disheveled, showed no change in expression and again approached Charles to launch a counterattack.
The battle... erupted once more!
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