I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1230: Distortion

Erend crashed back into the clash. Lightning and fire erupted from his body the instant he arrived.

"ROAR!"

His roar tearing through the sky as thunder detonated outward. Bolts branched and multiplied, weaving through frozen air and shattered stone as he joined Eccar and Aesa in a coordinated assault.

Eccar slammed into Zerathul first.

His massive body carried the power of the earth Magic. Earth pressure condensed around his claws and shoulders, turning his charge into a living cataclysm for any other being other than Zerathul.

Dark golden stone plates ground and shifted as he hit him, the impact releasing shockwaves that fractured the sky again. Entire layers of corrupted darkness that Zerathul tried to use to envelop him were pulverized, blasted apart into dust that could not reform.

Aesa followed next. Her cold power did not spread wildly. It focused.

Absolute zero surged in razor-thin arcs, slicing through space around Zerathul.

The ice did not merely freeze matter, it froze his motion. Darkness crystallized, his time power ripples locking solid before shattering into glittering fragments.

Frost crept across Zerathul’s armor, crawling along gold fractures and his sigils.

Erend unleashed everything from another side.

Lightning speared downward and fire braided through it, the two elements merging into an incandescent lance of destruction.

Thunder cracked so violently that the horizon flashed white. His attack struck Zerathul directly, engulfing the dark god in a blinding force.

For a heartbeat, it worked. Zerathul was driven back.

His aura flared violently as earth, ice, and lightning power burned into him at once. Gold fissures pulsed erratically, corrupted light spilling outward in jagged waves. His massive form was forced several lengths backward through the sky. The distortion rings tearing apart as pressure overwhelmed them.

Then the time around him moved. And also stopped.

The three Dragons felt it at the same instant.

Reality lurched around them.

Erend’s lightning attacks were frozen, its branching paths suspended like veins of light trapped in glass.

Aesa’s ice fractures also stopped, shards hovering still.

Even Eccar’s crushing momentum faltered, his forward motion dragging as if his body suddenly weighed impossibly heavy.

The sky fractured into overlapping moments.

Zerathul straightened. He did not move faster. He just made the world move slower.

Time folded around him, thick and viscous, bending toward his will. The attacks that should have torn him apart now crawled, their force stretched thin, delayed, so it became weaker.

Erend felt it crawl across his scales like cold hands gripping his spine.

"This is bad," he sent through their link, strain sharp in his voice.

"His control over this power is already precise," Aesa replied, her tone tight as she fought the resistance around her body. "He isn’t just stopping time around himself. He’s dragging us through it."

Eccar growled, forcing his body forward inch by inch. Stone screamed under the strain. "My body feels heavy! damnit!"

Zerathul raised one clawed hand.

The motion was casual, but time obeyed him.

With a subtle twist of his fingers, the suspended attacks unraveled. Lightning snapped backward along its own path and detonated harmlessly away. Ice shards lost cohesion and fell as mist. Earth pressure dispersed into meaningless force.

Then Zerathul struck. He did not attack their bodies. He attacked their moments.

An invisible but crushing wave rolled outward. Past and present collided. Erend felt his senses stutter, his vision splitting into overlapping frames of himself in various situations.

Aesa’s ice power weakened for a fraction of a second as her control slipped between instants.

Eccar felt his footing in the air destabilize.

The three Dragons recoiled instinctively, pulling back to avoid deeper entanglement.

Zerathul laughed.

The sound did not echo. It arrived late, then early, then all at once, from every direction. Creating a chaotic cacophony. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"You feel it now," he said with layered voices. "I will not merely use this power to simply destroy."

Pressure crushed down again, heavier than before.

The three Dragons regrouped, hovering apart now, elements flaring defensively instead of offensively.

Lightning snarled along Erend’s scales, ice reforged around Aesa’s wings, and Eccar anchored himself with deep grinding force to make himself stay afloat in the air.

—

From below, the other fighters could see that something had gone terribly wrong. The battle above no longer looked natural.

The sky flickered as if the space and time was glitching. Vast arcs of lightning froze, then snapped backward along their own paths.

Sheets of ice formed, shattered, then reformed in reverse before dissolving again. Earth power simply unwound, as though the attack had never been launched at all.

Fire bent strangely, burning forward for a second before retreating into nothing.

To the people watching from the ground, it looked unreal.

Aurdis felt her chest tighten as her eyes followed the impossible movements above. The Dragons’ attacks were being stopped, rewound, and erased.

"That must be the time power Erend talked about," Adrien said, his voice tense.

Fear settled heavily among them.

King Gulben’s expression hardened as he watched the sky distort again, the shapes of Erend, Eccar, and Aesa blurring and overlapping as if they existed in multiple moments at once.

"If this continues they will be worn down. I don’t think even Dragons can fight time power," the king said slowly. He turned to the ones beside him. "Do any of you know a way to counter this?"

Silence answered him at first.

Adrius and Lysander stood apart from the others, both staring upward with eyes unfocused. It was not because of fear but deep thought of Magic formulas, ancient theories, and rituals raced through their minds.

"Direct resistance won’t work. Time power ignores raw force," Lysander said.

Adrius nodded. "But it still interacts with reality. Which means it can be anchored."

Sylmira turned sharply toward him. "Anchored... how?"

"We need a seal," Adrius said.

Saeldir’s eyes narrowed. He stepped closer immediately, already thinking along the same lines. "Not a normal one we use."

"No," Adrius agreed. "Something layered. Something that binds the time, not energy."

"What kind of seal?" Sylmira asked.

Adrius looked between them, then toward the sky again.

"I’m planning on combining the Celestial Binding with multiple stabilizing spells," Adrius said.

Saeldir’s thinking for a moment. Then he nodded slowly. "That could work... if we synchronize it perfectly."

Lysander frowned. "The backlash will be big for us."

"It will," Adrius said evenly. "But it’s the only way to limit time distortion."

Sylmira clenched her fists, then nodded. "We can try that."

"Then do it. Whatever you need," King Gulben said.

Above them, the sky cracked again as Zerathul’s laughter rippled through overlapping moments.

Below, the Archmages began to move.

—