Super God Academy: Kabuto

The void above the Divine River Ruins had been cleaved in two by a crimson aurora curtain. On one side of the curtain, Tsukasa Kadoya faced off against two Void Emperors; on the other side, the bloody battle between the Allied Forces and the Void Army continued. But Tsukasa Kadoya could no longer concern himself with either side. Either of the two beings standing before him was capable of destroying a fleet with a mere gesture, and he had to confront both simultaneously.

Kunxu hovered in the void, its enormous body, like that of a cosmic whale, completely still. Only the deep blue scales on its body seemed to breathe slowly, each breath creating visible ripples in the surrounding void. Its three pairs of dark blue, swirling eyes stared at Kadoya Tsukasa, their gaze devoid of hostility or killing intent, containing only a faint curiosity, like scrutinizing an ant.

Youluo stood beside Kunxu, the alluring woman's upper body leaning against a dark purple void. Her slender fingers toyed with a strand of energy, her eight limbs slightly curled, the void toxins at their ends condensing into tiny droplets that shimmered dangerously in the darkness. A cryptic smile played on her lips, and her cold eyes reflected Kadoya Tsukasa's image.

"Little bug," Youluo spoke, her voice sharp yet drawn-out, like the high-frequency vibration of insect wings, "You alone, trying to stop both of us? Do you think you're too strong, or do you think we're too weak?"

Tsukasa Kadoya shrugged, casually waving his camera. "Neither," he said, his tone as nonchalant as if he were chatting. "I just felt it was too unfair to the people on the other side to send both of you into battle together. So—" He raised his camera, aimed it at Kunuko, and pressed the shutter, "I'm here to give you guys some fun."

*Click.* The sound of the camera shutter echoed in the void. Kunxu remained silent. It simply turned its massive body slowly, its three pairs of dark blue, swirling eyes shifting from Kadoya Tsukasa to the aurora-like curtain that bisected the battlefield. That gaze pierced the curtain, landing on the battlefield on the other side—on the allied warriors struggling in the bloody battle, on the void army surging with cracks, and on the dark purple figure manipulating space.

"Interesting." Kunxu finally spoke, his voice deep and resonant, like an ancient echo from the deep sea. "You can cut space to this extent, even to the point of isolating my mental perception. You are indeed not a being of this universe."

Tsukasa Kadoya neither denied nor admitted it. He simply stood there, his magenta suit gleaming faintly in the starlight, a signature smile playing on his lips. But his hand, the one holding the camera, had knuckles that were slightly white.

Youluo moved. Not to attack, but to probe. She raised her slender hand, her fingertips flicking lightly in the air. A wisp of dark purple energy shot out like a living thing, heading straight for Kadoya Tsukasa's face. The wisp was extremely thin, almost invisible to the naked eye, but Kadoya Tsukasa saw it. He didn't even dodge, merely tilting his head slightly. The wisp grazed his cheek, exploding into a dark purple flower in the void behind him—the terrifying power of void toxins blooming in space, enough to corrode an entire star field.

"Not bad." Youluo smiled, a hint of genuine interest in her smile. "Again?"

Tsukasa Kadoya didn't give her a chance. His figure vanished abruptly from his spot, not by teleportation, not by acceleration, but by—the Aurora Veil. A magenta light exploded beneath his feet, engulfing him completely. The next second, he was already beside Yura, the camera in his hand having somehow transformed into the Decade Driver, the transformation card held between his fingers.

"Kamen Ride—"

"Wait." Kunxu's voice rang out, not loud, but instantly drowning out Kadoya Tsukasa's sound effect. There was a strange power in that voice, not a mental attack, not an energy suppression, but a kind of more essential authority, like the rules themselves.

Tsukasa Kadoya froze. Not out of fear, but because he realized his fingers couldn't press the transformation card. Not because he was bound, not because he was frozen, but because—he "didn't want" to press it. Kunxu's voice influenced his will, not through coercion, but through a deeper, hypnotic method, making him "forget" for a moment why he needed to transform.

Yuluo didn't miss this opportunity. Her eight limbs shot out simultaneously, each tip of which was coated with a drop of void poison powerful enough to corrode space. Eight dark purple trails intertwined in the void, forming a net of death that enveloped Kadoya Tsukasa.

Tsukasa Kadoya didn't dodge. He merely raised his camera in front of him just before being hit. Click. The shutter sounded again. But this wasn't an ordinary shutter click; it was—Attack Ride. Magenta light erupted from the camera, forming a solid light shield that blocked all eight poison attacks. Yuluo's limbs scraped against the light shield, producing a piercing screeching sound, and dark purple sparks flew everywhere.

Using the impact, Tsukasa Kadoya drifted back several steps, creating distance between himself and the two emperors. His camera had returned to normal, but several small, dark purple scratches appeared on its magenta body. "That was close." He glanced down at the camera, his tone still nonchalant, but his eyes became serious.

Kunxu looked at him, something seeming to flicker slightly in his deep blue, swirling eyes. "You're not here to fight," Kunxu said, his voice as calm as still water. "You're here to buy time."

Tsukasa Kadoya didn't speak. But his silence was the answer in itself.

In the Emerald Galaxy, silvery-white feathers danced in the void, turning the entire galaxy into a silver snowfield. The Earth Royal Warriors, covered in the Feathers of Time, were moving forward at an almost absurdly slow pace. The colossi's pace had shrunk from thousands of meters per second to just a few meters per minute; the power that once crushed stars was now sealed within their massive shells by time itself. The Earth Devouring Worms stretched their serpentine bodies into thin, dark yellow lines in the void, traces of their struggle against the slowed time. The tide of the Zhenyue Soldiers froze into a still sculpture, each statue maintaining its charging posture, yet unable to advance any further.

Lin Yu hovered before the rift, his hands trembling slightly. Not from fear, but from the drain. Manipulating time came at a price, and on this battlefield, there was far too much time he needed to control. Every falling feather of time consumed the meager amount of time essence he had brought back from the time loop. That essence wasn't infinite; it was visibly slipping away, like grains of sand in an hourglass, falling one by one, never to be retrieved.

But he didn't stop. He couldn't stop. Because deep within the crack, that figure was slowly emerging.

The moment the serpent emerged from the rift, the entire Emerald Galaxy seemed to tremble. Not from fear, but from resonance. The natural, unbreakable connection between the Earth's royal family and all matter of mass allowed the serpent to feel the pulse of this galaxy from its very first step out of the rift. The drifting meteorites, the burning stars, the rotating planets—all were sending it a silent call.

Its size surpassed that of any colossus, its coiled body resembling a mountain range stretching across the void. Countless pairs of massive claws at the ends of its appendages gently traced patterns in the air, each movement leaving deep, unhealable cracks in space. Its body was covered in constantly flowing, dark yellow rock armor, from the cracks of which shimmered with a magma-like light—the unique energy of the Earth's royal family, resonating with the planet's core. Its head resembled a mountain peak, with a single, enormous eye ablaze with earthen-yellow flames atop its forehead.

That single eye was now staring intently at Lin Yu.

"Time manipulation," the serpent spoke, its voice deep and resonant, like the movement of the earth's crust, like the growth of mountains. There was no anger, no surprise in its voice, only a faint, scrutinizing curiosity. "You are the first being in this universe to make me stop in my tracks."

Lin Yu remained silent. He simply continued releasing the Feathers of Time, one after another, the silvery-white feathers drifting from his palms towards the Earthly Royals whose cracks were slowly appearing, towards the colossal body of the Serpent. But the feathers vanished the moment they approached the Serpent. Not because they were destroyed, but because—time itself had ceased to flow around the Serpent. Not stopped, but distorted and deformed by the Serpent's immense mass, like a giant gravitational field twisting light, distorting the flow of time.

Lin Yu's pupils contracted slightly. He knew what this meant—the serpent wasn't immune to time manipulation, but rather its very existence was enough to distort time. It didn't need to fight the Feather of Time, because the Feather of Time couldn't even touch it.

"Interesting." The serpent repeated what Lin Yu had just said, and the yellowish-brown flame in its single eye flickered. "You little thing, you're quite interesting."

It raised a limb, its massive claw pointing at Lin Yu. "I'll give you a chance," the serpent said, its voice still deep, yet carrying a rare hint of leniency, like that of an elder to a junior. "Leave now, and I can pretend nothing happened. This star system belongs to me. Your life belongs to you."

Lin Yu looked at Hui and remained silent for a moment. Then, he smiled. The smile was faint and gentle, yet it carried a stubborn tenderness that Hui could not comprehend. "This galaxy," Lin Yu said, his voice calm as still water, "is not mine. So I cannot give it to you."

He raised his hand, palm up, and silvery-white light danced, intertwined, and swirled at his fingertips, finally coalescing into a silver wing of light, larger than any of the previous Feathers of Time. "But if you insist on taking it, then I can only—"

The light wings unfold.

"I'll let you stay here a little longer."

Silvery-white light burst forth from the wings, transforming into countless fragments of time feathers that swept towards the snake like a blizzard. These feathers were no longer falling snowflakes, but rather like sharp blades, each carrying the purest laws of time that Lin Yu had brought back from the closed loop of time.

In the serpent's single eye, the earthen-yellow flame flickered violently. It sensed it—the feathers weren't trying to slow down its time, but rather to tear it apart. Not to slow it down, but to make it "age." To make it experience thousands, even millions of years of time passing in an instant, to let its body decay, weather, and turn to dust in the long river of time.

The snake stirred.

Its body suddenly unfurled in the void, countless pairs of appendages lashing out simultaneously, their giant claws tracing countless earthen-yellow trails in the air. These trails intertwined to form a massive net, keeping the Time Feather Blizzard outside. The instant the feathers collided with the trails, countless sparks of silver-white and earthen-yellow burst forth in the void—a clash, an annihilation, and mutual cancellation between time and mass.

Lin Yu's face grew even paler. His hands trembled violently, and the silvery-white light at his fingertips became unstable, flickering like a candle in the wind. A trickle of silver blood seeped from the corner of his mouth—a sign that his internal source of time was being overdrawn.

But he didn't stop. He couldn't stop.

The serpent's single eye peered through the swirling feathers of time and landed on Lin Yu. Within the earthen-yellow flames, something seemed to flicker faintly—not anger, not killing intent, but a complex emotion that even it itself could not fully comprehend.

"Interesting." Hui uttered the word for the third time, his voice carrying a faint, sigh-like quality. "It really is interesting."

It retracted its appendages. The earthen-yellow trail dissipated, and the Time Feather blizzard, now unimpeded, surged toward the serpent like a tsunami. But the serpent neither dodged nor resisted; it simply hovered there, allowing the feathers imbued with the laws of time to fall upon it.

The moment the feather touched the snake's body, the constantly flowing, dark yellow rock armor began to change. It wasn't weathering, nor decay, but rather—it became thicker and more solid. The snake's aura didn't weaken; instead, it intensified.

Lin Yu was stunned. Then he understood—the serpent wasn't giving up, but rather absorbing. It was absorbing the time laws he released, converting them into its own mass. For the Earth Royal Family, time wasn't a weapon, but nourishment.

In the serpent's single eye, the earthen-yellow flame burned even more fiercely. "I told you, you're not the first being to make me stop in my tracks." The serpent's voice echoed in the void, carrying a faint, triumphant tone, "But you are the most interesting one I've ever met."

It raised one of its appendages, its massive claw pointing at Lin Yu. "As a reward," the serpent said, "I'll let you be the first to see—the true power of the Earth Royal Family."

It opened its enormous maw. A yellowish-brown light erupted from it, not as an attack, but as a summons. Deep within the rift, countless even larger, more ancient beings, seemingly as old as the universe itself, were awakening.

Lin Yu looked at the earthy yellow light, and at the countless ancient beasts, hundreds of times larger than giant statues, that slowly emerged from it. A bitter smile slowly crept onto his lips.

"This is... troublesome," he said in a low voice.

The silvery-white feathers of time still danced in the void, but this time, they could no longer stop the dark yellow torrent.