Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 333: "Butterfly Effect"

Each butterfly detonated like a miniature star, blasting apart the bodies of the space beasts and leaving only drifting remnants behind.

One after another, the butterflies continued their rampage, devouring, detonating, and dragging more of the enemy into oblivion with every burst.

The defenders of the Amphitheatre flinched, not just at the destruction, but also at the sheer unreality of what they were witnessing.

Jamie’s ’Privileges’ to control ’Creation’, ’Reality’ and ’Destruction’ rewrote the ASB’s attack, warping reality and converting bringers of death to life, creating transient lifeforms whose only reason to exist was to die—and to take their targets with them.

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

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[Level Up]

Notifications flooded Jamie’s vision, each slain space beast feeding him an avalanche of EXP. The Space Beast Kings, in particular, yielded the most.

Many of them were already wounded from their battles with the Race Kings, and Jamie’s butterflies, ever-hungry, targeted those injuries, sinking their venomous jaws into the exposed flesh before detonating.

With more than a hundred of these luminous predators exploding on each of the weakened beasts, their bodies were torn apart, and the destructive energy tore through the energy layers surrounding their souls—completely killing them.

Jamie’s level continued to climb, each increase refuelling his expended energy, as though preparing him for what was coming next.

After all, the undead ASB wasn’t going to give up after just that.

Two colossal nine-ringed magic circles, each as massive as the ASB’s head, materialised on either side of it, and from them erupted a deluge of crackling purple ’lightning’.

This space-devouring ’lightning’ zigzagged violently through the vacuum as it raced toward Jamie, forcing him to act faster than planned.

The space before him compressed, shrinking the distance between himself and the oncoming destruction.

’Eclipsing Strike!’

Cosmic destruction energy flooded Jamie’s arm as he threw it forward, unleashing an azure beam of energy straight at the incoming ’lightning’.

The two attacks collided in a blinding burst of light and cosmic energy, shockwaves exploding outward and reaching even the distant Amphitheatre faster than light.

Jamie’s destructive energy tore through the ASB’s attack, continuing its course toward the creature’s head. But the twin magic circles beside it shifted, first moving forward, then sliding towards each other, before merging directly in front of the beast’s head.

An additional ring of light glitched into existence around the newly combined circle, which rapidly expanded into a vast shield, intercepting and completely halting Jamie’s attack.

Roaring, the ASB hurled the massive shield forward like a weapon, now wreathed in purple destructive energy that blazed with the intensity of a living flame.

Jamie pulled his arm back again, the blood on his knuckles vanishing as his body instantly regenerated the damage he had sustained.

|Second Privilege: Space.|

He launched another punch, his fist crashing directly into the colossal shield of destruction, which spanned light years in diameter, shattering it into countless shards of light on impact.

’Black Star.’

Every fragment of light was pulled toward his hand, coalescing around his clenched fist. He then compressed the energy within those fragments to its absolute limit, forcefully infusing his own cosmic energy to push it beyond the limits of what the fabric of space was built to withstand.

As such, the fabric of space broke down catastrophically, birthing a black star that devoured all matter around it, even the light emitted by distant stars.

’Void!’

A disk of swirling dark-blue energy formed around the black star, and Jamie threw his fist forward once more, hurling it toward the undead ASB.

In response, the enormous creature arced its body and brought its tail sweeping forward, cracking through the vacuum like a whip cloaked in blazing purple destructive light.

**———!

The ASB’s tail and the black star collided in silence.

There was no blinding flash or thunderous detonation, just silence as the void energy effortlessly removed the ASB’s tail from existence.

Then, a moment later, the black star violently expelled all the energy it had devoured in a muted eruption of dark-blue light, completely obliterating ’existence’ within the blast radius.

Left behind was a jagged, uneven patch of glitching white.

The moment Jamie sensed the patch, he immediately conjured a veil of reality around it to cover it up.

But his actions were a second too late.

Many who were spectating the battle from afar had already ’looked’ at that blankness that was the absence of existence.

It was a rupture where the collision of the destructive and void energies had resulted in the absence of everything, including light, matter, energy, or anything that could be perceived.

In essence, there was nothing to look at, but just having one’s eyes turned in that direction invited a variety of consequences.

Their brains, bound to interpretation and pattern recognition, could not comprehend the nothing before them. Their minds tried to ’fill in’ what they saw, but failed, causing disorientation and instantaneous mental breakdowns.

Had Jamie not acted when he did, those onlookers’ perceptions of reality might have been permanently damaged.

For those who had been fortunate enough to be unable to see past the dark-blue eruption of light and catch a glimpse of the nothing before Jamie covered it up, they could only look on in shock and confusion as those who had all clutched their chests in fear, their eyes watering as they were gripped with existential terror.

|RRRAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHH!!!|

"!!"

"?!"

The ASB shattered the silence with its thunderous roar, snapping the stunned onlookers out of their confused dazes, and forcing everyone to remember their predicament was still grim.

All eyes turned to the beast, catching sight of its lower body spewing thick, black blood in every direction, spraying through the vacuum like a fountain.

Its tail was gone—erased from existence—leaving behind fragmented pieces of decaying flesh and shattered scales scattered along the jagged rim of the vanished portion.

One of the Vampire Kings narrowed his eyes at the sight. His mind wasn’t on the ASB’s wounds, but on a different memory.

He remembered the overwhelming pressure he’d felt days ago when John had appeared in the Amphitheatre. The power that had made him question whether he even deserved to exist before it.

To his understanding, Jamie should have power superior to that.

So why...?

His voice escaped his lightly parted lips in a mutter. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Why hasn’t he completely destroyed that thing already?"

The last word had just echoed when a foreign Race Empress, one of the few who had been unfortunate to glimpse the patch of non-existence, whirled towards the vampire.

Her eyes were wide, filled with frenzied panic as she seized the vampire by the collar and screamed.

|Are you insane?! You think we’ll survive if he uses an attack strong enough to kill that thing in one shot?!|

Her voice, filled with pure fear and fury, rang out across the area, and a heavy silence followed.

Those who had been wondering the same thing suddenly found their words caught in their throats.

Among those few who had seen through the eruption of light caused by the black star’s collapse before Jamie’s void erased the ’existence’ there, they wondered what the result would be if Jamie unleashed that kind of annihilation across the ASB’s entire body.

What kind of nothing would be left behind?

And what would that mean for the Pinecone Galaxy?

The structural integrity of the galaxy might not survive such force unless it were perfectly contained.

Even though they knew Jamie should have the control needed to contain such an attack and could direct it perfectly, it was a risk no one wanted to take.

Thus, the current situation fell into an odd lull.

Questions began to arise in the minds of many.

If Jamie wasn’t going to obliterate the ASB in one move, then what was his plan?

Why engage it at all in this way?

What exactly was he trying to do?

The answer was simple: he was buying time.