CHAPTER 223: DRAGON AGAINST GOD

But Aiden chose to act first. Frankly, he wasn’t in the mood for a fight.

He whispered a single word. "Stop" and Time froze instantly.

Va remained locked in place with his fingers still forming that seal mid-motion. The golden scale beside him hung motionless in the air.

Within Rhyos’s temple, Lucina and the others watched through the gateway as Va suddenly stopped moving entirely.

Herxes leaned forward with confusion on his face. "What just happened? Why isn’t Va moving?"

Rhyos frowned as he stared at the frozen god. "I don’t understand either."

Lucina stared for a moment longer before her eyes widened in realization. She immediately slammed her palm against her forehead in frustration.

"Of course," she muttered.

Rhyos turned toward her sharply. "What is it?"

Lucina lowered her hand and gestured toward the gateway with annoyance in her voice. "We knew Thyrak’s vessel always possessed three of the dragon authorities: Destruction, Replication, and Space."

"But now it isn’t just three anymore. This vessel possesses Cronyssia’s Time Authority as well, and time has just been stopped for Va."

Herxes’s eyes widened in shock while Rhyos simply stared at the gateway without speaking.

Lucina’s lips curled into a smirk despite her earlier frustration. "Nonetheless, right now his power over time is definitely not at the level of the Dragon of Time herself."

She gestured toward frozen scale. "And that scale is already in play."

In that same instant, the golden scale beside Va suddenly erupted with fiery golden light that blazed brightly.

The time stop became undone immediately.

Time resumed its flow, and Va completed his hand seal without interruption as if nothing had happened at all.

This was the power of Va’s Law: "All things must return to their rightful state."

This was why he was called the God of Order.

A Law was a god’s personal ideology turned into a universal rule, reshaping reality so that the world and everything within it must follow that belief.

The strength of a god’s Law was at the very least Celestial Rank, and only a directly opposing Law or a Law cast by a higher god would suffice to counter it.

Of course, a Law would not affect anyone or any being above the level of the god who cast it, but right at this moment, Aiden was only an Adult Dragon and his authorities were also at Celestial Rank strength.

That made him and Va equals in terms of power.

If this had been Cronyssia herself standing here instead, Va’s Law would not have been able to overpower her time stop one bit.

The time variant Aiden showed no expression on his face as he raised his hand to cast another skill, but then he noticed something alarming.

His body had started disintegrating slowly.

Tiny particles of light began flaking away from his skin like ash drifting off burning paper, starting from his fingertips and spreading gradually up his arms.

The variant was an anomaly itself that should not exist in an orderly world. In an orderly world, there was only one version of a person at any given time.

And right now, Va’s Law was resetting that anomaly.

"The world refuses your existence, Vessel of Thyrak!" Va declared, his fingers still positioned in that hand seal as divine energy poured endlessly from the glowing scale beside him.

The variant didn’t react frantically even though its body continued disintegrating bit by bit.

Ever since the system had sent the variant a notification the moment the scale had ignited with fiery light: [Law Copied → "All things must return to their rightful state."]

A few thoughts had been racing through his mind, and he simply observed every minuscule detail of what was happening to him and around him with cold calculation.

That was when he discovered what could have been a weakness in Va’s Law.

The Timing.

His time stop skill had been undone shortly after the god’s scale glowed fiery, and it was only after that moment did his body start becoming undone.

There was another thing too: his body was taking much more time to disintegrate compared to how quickly the time skill had been countered.

A smile arched across Aiden’s lips as understanding settled fully into place. "Such awful timing," he said aloud.

And in that moment, with a mere thought, more time variants filled the space around them.

One appeared to his left. Then another to his right. Then three more above him. Then five more below him.

They kept coming, popping into existence one after another until dozens of identical Aidens floated around Va in every direction.

They all came from a timeline in that brief second between when his time skill had been undone and when his body had started disintegrating.

He chose that specific moment because variants summoned from then would have full knowledge of the battle so far without suffering any sort of disintegration yet.

This was also why he didn’t choose to make avatars instead, because they would have duplicated his current form, which was already disintegrating.

Va’s eyes widened in shock as he saw the sheer number of anomalies being created all around him in rapid succession.

Within minutes, there were over a hundred different Aidens floating in the sky, surrounding Va completely in every direction.

And of course, as suspected, none of the other variants had started disintegrating away yet either, which confirmed that Va’s Law was going to have to deal with each anomaly one after the other rather than all at once.

The new variants that came onboard immediately understood the situation upon arrival due to their shared timeline knowledge, and then they compounded Va’s problems even further by creating several more avatars each.

The number doubled instantly. Then tripled as more variants kept appearing and making even more copies of themselves until there were hundreds upon hundreds of Aidens filling the entire sky.

The original disintegrating Aiden laughed loudly as particles continued flaking away from his body. "Given how long it took you to affect me," he called out mockingly toward Va, "I wonder how long it’ll take you to affect all of them."

That was the last thing he said before eventually dissolving completely into particles that scattered on the wind and vanished into nothingness.

Va’s face contorted into a deep frown as frustration and anger mixed together on his expression.

Another variant had also started disintegrating away as soon as the first one passed, but the problem was clear now;

Each one was equal to him in strength, and resetting them in multiples wasn’t possible given their individual power.

The current variant being affected by the disintegration proceeded with laughter that sounded almost sarcastic, and all the other unaffected variants and avatars followed suit with their own mocking laughter echoing across the sky.

Now while some unaffected variants kept creating more duplicates, others began casting time stop again and again against Va repeatedly without pause.

They were using simple overwhelm tactics where Va had no other option but to continuously counter them with his Law or stop countering entirely and get stuck frozen within one of their collective time stops instead.