Chapter 426

Chapter 426
## Chapter 426

### Masquerade (4)

The Executioner shuddered involuntarily the moment his vision locked onto a pair of mismatched eyes.

As soon as he registered his own instinctive recoil, he ground his teeth together, the muscles along his jaw tightening into rigid knots.

‘…Did I actually just… flinch? Me?’

It made no sense. It was completely intolerable.

He was the Executioner, the unrivaled champion of the Heaven’s Turn Society.

There was no way he could be intimidated by an opponent in his own realm of power—especially not when he had stood before the Master himself without showing a single hint of fear!

‘…No, it was nothing more than a brief stumble in my focus. The sheer absurdity of the circumstance simply caught me off guard.’

Reassuring himself with that thought, his eyelids narrowed into a slit. He kept his gaze locked tightly onto the individual wearing the beast mask while taking another step forward.

He rapidly parsed the environment, hunting for the underlying cause of that fleeting moment of vulnerability.

‘…Only his eyes are moving. The remainder of his form is entirely locked in place by frozen time. But how… how did he manage to synchronize with my specific timeline without making any physical contact?’

It was then that a specific detail caught his attention.

The bizarre, unsettling pressure his adversary had been radiating moments ago…

…had rippled outward, seeping into his own immediate perimeter and invading the vacuum around him.

‘…Is this strange energy responsible for the shift?’

He couldn’t confirm it for certain yet, but he recognized that he didn’t have a single second to waste.

This unpredictable anomaly was currently restricted to his enemy’s gaze… but there was a distinct possibility it could spread further.

And if that boundary expanded…

‘…This might turn into a genuine problem. I need to settle this immediately.’

Before the situation spiraled completely out of his control.

He shifted his tactics on the spot.

His primary objective had been to overpower his target and force him to yield intelligence… but the luxury of time had vanished.

He had to wipe him out entirely, even if it meant exposing himself to a degree of danger.

A blistering, volatile energy resembling liquid magma began to pool and swirl within his right palm.

‘…I wanted to avoid pushing my physical limits within this isolated timeline… but there is no other choice. I must erase him and exit this space.’

As he forced his internal power to surge, his physical form—which had previously sustained his signature trait without any noticeable strain due to his superior advancement and demonic biology—began to register signs of an impending overload.

He had pushed past a fundamental restriction, and now, the unyielding decree of true time was starting to exert its pressure on him as well.

‘…I will claim at least one of his arms!’

If he could manage to slice away his limbs sequentially, even a freak nature possessing godly physical responses would be utterly incapable of countering.

Furthermore, the deeper the structural trauma, the more sluggish the cellular recovery would be.

He would be fully capable of manipulating him like a broken, defenseless plaything.

*Whoosh—!*

His hand, cloaked in that blistering, magma-like radiance, tore straight through the beast mask and plunged deep into the colossus’s torso, spraying dark crimson into the air.

Yet, his features did not twist into a look of victory.

Given everything his opponent had displayed up to this point, the giant should have twisted away at the final millisecond to mitigate the lethality of the strike…

‘…Did he choose to absorb the blow on purpose?… Hold on!’

The revelation struck him a fraction of a second too late.

His fist, buried deep inside the colossus’s ribs, was suddenly restricted by a sudden, violent contraction.

Skeletal structures expanded at a visible rate, locking like a heavy metal cuff around his wrist, while dense, corded tendons coiled around his forearm like heavy iron links. Then, muscle fibers began replicating without limit, acting like a rapidly setting resin that bound him to the wound.

The agonizing, destructive force within his hand was actively triggering rapid cell death and decay… but the sheer density of the flesh had succeeded in delaying him for a heartbeat.

And that single, fleeting window…

…was all that was required.

*Grab!*

“Kuhut! I’ve got you—!”

…Harley’s massive palms locked down onto his trapped limb, completely cutting off his path of retreat.

The stalled flow of existence began to stir once more, sluggishly at first, before…

[“Kuh— You… absolute freak! No matter how absurd your cellular mending is, you cannot walk away from a ruined core! Did you truly sacrifice a vital area just for a counter?!”]

…snapping entirely back into its natural rhythm.

The beast-masked giant stood with a massive cavity torn into his torso, while the demon remained anchored in place, unable to yank his arm free.

[“Ha! You cannot pin me down indefinitely! Do you genuinely believe I am some amateur who cannot fight without my primary trait?!”]

*Goooo—!*

A pitch-black, suffocating fog akin to a lethal plague burst outward from the Executioner’s frame.

Though he was actively maintaining his specialized trait, his true preference lay in the raw, dark corruption he had spent centuries cultivating.

Even an entity with Harley’s ridiculous survivability could not hope to best him while dealing with a ruined heart and shredded internal networks.

“Khahaha! Vital areas? What vitals are you talking about?”

Harley, however, had not thrown his life away blindly.

“What a bizarre turn of events! I actually took the time to shift my insides around earlier!”

[“…What did you say?”]

“I felt like trying a new layout… Khaha!”

In reality, the strike had missed every single critical target.

His heart, his breathing organs, his digestive system…

…none of them remained in their natural biological positions.

They had been systematically shifted and buried in entirely different sectors of his frame, down toward his lower torso and upper legs…

As if he had designed this entire exchange from the beginning.

‘…Ugh, I knew the physical feedback felt entirely wrong… I completely misjudged him, didn’t I? I permitted myself to be distracted by his bizarre physical makeup.’

The Executioner finally pieced the truth together.

This aberration was not merely a human with a few strange traits.

He did not even conform to the foundational anatomy of a standard upright lifeform.

He had allowed himself to be misled by basic assumptions, even after consciously noting how abnormal his enemy truly was.

*Rumble!*

The two combatants stood locked together, their opposing pressures slamming into one another with catastrophic force.

No, it transcended mere energy.

[“Unclench your filth! Get off me, you parasite!”]

“Khaha! Don’t pull away now, comrade! I live for this exact type of friction! Let us enjoy ourselves!”

[“You insignificant…!”]

“What seems to be the issue? Weren’t you begging for a gamble involving our very lives? A genuine conflict, a brutal grinding of flesh, spirit, crimson, and slaughter! Kuh! A proper arena for real warriors!”

It devolved into an immediate, messy melee—their limbs weaving together, wings and tail structures striking out blindly, their physical masses colliding repeatedly.

Just as he had asserted, the Executioner was a lethal threat even without relying on his time-manipulation tricks.

His sheer martial history, his searing pressure, his demonic physical resilience, and his very frame acting as a lethal instrument…

…made him an exceptionally dangerous adversary.

“Now then—”

Unfortunately for his ambitions,

…his opponent happened to be an absolute master of this exact style of engagement.

Much like a standard striker trapped in the suffocating embrace of an elite grappler, the demon twisted and thrashed in a desperate bid to sever the connection… but Harley, who had tuned his entire existence toward raw physical supremacy, simply absorbed the incoming trauma. His massive frame weathered the blunt force as his hands tightened further, systematically grinding down his opponent’s structural integrity.

“…Why don’t we take a quick bite before we push forward, shall we?”

[“Ugh—! You degenerate!”]

You’ve gone and worked up my appetite.

Harley’s jaw split impossibly wide, exposing rows of uneven, razor-like teeth that clamped down hard into the demon’s dense armor plating.

—

This was far from his first encounter with an individual capable of stalling the progression of time.

He had broken through such a phenomenon once before, during his life-or-death engagement with the Master of the Heaven’s Turn Society.

‘…The specific execution varies, but the underlying theory remains identical.’

During that past conflict, he had managed to exist within the Master’s paused pocket of existence by utilizing the divine essence that surged into his grip via his sacred blade.

‘…This is no different from that instance.’

He had merely swapped out the divine essence for the bottomless insanity of the abyss, and instead of a direct channel through a weapon, he relied on spreading spatial corruption.

Naturally, achieving this would have been an impossibility without that prior success—his historical feat of synchronizing his existence with a far more terrifying entity.

‘…Furthermore, the threshold to interfere is considerably lower, given that this individual operates within a similar tier of power.’

To be highly precise, the Executioner’s signature trait did not actually halt the universal clock.

If that had been the case, his alternate manifestations scattered throughout various planes of existence would have instantly detected the shift.

His capability allowed him to step entirely outside the standard river of time.

While the practical result seemed nearly identical on the surface, from a magical perspective, it left a distinct vulnerability—a crack through which one could meddle and drag him right back into the standard flow.

‘…And the physical toll it exacts must be immense. He undoubtedly triggered his demonic transformation specifically to handle the structural stress.’

Heinrich silently monitored the chaotic exchange between Harley and the Executioner, his vision narrowing slightly.

*Rumble—!*

…As the pair collided once more, their conflicting pressures creating a localized shockwave, a tempest of volatile force rippled outward, warping and fraying the boundaries of the pocket dimension.

Even this concealed domain, built with extreme precision by a mid-tier transcendent utilizing a collection of complex runic tools and ancient relics, was beginning to strain under the sheer scale of their power.

‘…He secured a critical hold, but the enemy isn’t going down without a vicious fight.’

The Executioner, his right limb completely pinned, was being forced to endure the horror of Harley’s teeth tearing into him.

Yet, despite finding himself at such an extreme disadvantage, he refused to concede.

He went so far as to sever his own trapped limb entirely, immediately triggering his specialized trait to slip away the moment Harley’s jaws snapped down to swallow him whole.

‘…And his arm reformed in the blink of an eye. He will be far more defensive going forward, meaning the exact same ploy won’t succeed a second time… Even so, the fact that Harley is building a baseline immunity to his methods is a massive victory.’

That developing immunity extended directly to the temporal stall itself.

Because of that rapid adaptation, Harley was now capable of keeping his mind completely functional throughout the duration of the paused state, even if his muscle groups weren’t fully capable of locomotion just yet.

It was a functional breakthrough, the initial milestone toward his ultimate objective.

‘…Acquiring a natural defense against time-altering phenomena and engineering solid counters.’

That specific pursuit was the primary reason Harley had demanded this solitary duel.

Heinrich possessed the means to eliminate the Executioner without much delay.

However, Harley—whose entire nature was anchored to the concept of the Avatar and its boundless capacity for evolution—was far better suited to absorb the lessons of this brutal rehearsal.

‘…The ultimate authority of the Master of the Heaven’s Turn Society is almost certainly tied to the manipulation of spacetime itself. It is a massive stroke of luck to analyze the Executioner, a far weaker imitation, before we are forced to stand against the source.’

The Executioner found himself with no alternative but to repeatedly cycle through his temporal trait just to survive Harley’s relentless, suffocating pressure.

Harley’s physical form was becoming increasingly shredded as the duel dragged on, the price of his imperfect immunity visible in every fresh wound… yet his internal metrics for calculation and adjustment were climbing exponentially.

“Khaha! You actually know how to swing! Why were you keeping all this energy to yourself? Let’s keep this momentum going, partner!”

[“Ha! A bottomless well of recovery… What kind of aberration am I dealing with?”]

“Look who’s talking, you’re literally a demon! We’re cut from the same cloth!”

[“I will detach your skull from your shoulders on the next pass. Let us see if that mouth of yours can still run when it’s rolling on the floor!”]

By constantly utilizing his personal trait, the Executioner was managing to dictate the tempo of the fight.

It became clear that a specialized trait of that nature was the ultimate tiebreaker, even when two entities possessed comparable raw strength.

Harley, unlike his foe, did not have access to that brand of mystical shortcut.

“Look at him struggle… desperately clinging…”

Heinrich, watching the engagement from a safe vantage point, let out a quiet, dismissive laugh.

The concept of that struggle felt entirely artificial.

‘…He doesn’t actually desire a true gamble with his life; he merely craves the shallow excitement of artificial danger.’

The very nature of his opponent’s capability revealed a massive internal hypocrisy.

To possess a flawless, guaranteed emergency exit while simultaneously boasting about a life-or-death conflict?

It was no different from strapping into a roller coaster with multi-layered safety mechanisms while screaming to pretend one was in actual peril.

‘…Perhaps that exact security is the only reason he can bring himself to court hazardous scenarios.’

He cast a final glance over the duo before looking away entirely.

Both entities possessed absurd levels of endurance, meaning the conclusion would not be reached anytime soon. There was no practical reason to waste his attention tracking every individual blow.

Heinz the Second, who possessed the sight required to track the threads of consequence, was more than qualified to keep tabs on the progress.

“Now then…”

Harris was already deep into deciphering the spatial boundary, employing his refined Eight Trigrams Flight Technique (Modified), an approach uniquely tailored to dismantling structured barrier arrays.

Simultaneously, his other magically inclined manifestations, Hans and Horus, were lending their intellectual weight to the task.

“…I should clear out the remaining clutter.”

His sacred blade flared to life with blinding brilliance, manifesting a colossal edge composed entirely of concentrated divine energy.

Behind him, three pairs of pristine wings unfurled to their full limit, shedding a pure radiance that completely burned away the lingering demonic corruption polluting the immediate vicinity.

A few of the hidden watchers, who had been completely hypnotized by the high-level clash occurring across the field, shifted their focus toward him, their eyes widening in sudden terror.

“I need to expedite this. There are still six targets remaining on the field.”

He surveyed the lingering enemies, offering a relaxed shrug of his shoulders.

This marked his first genuine deployment utilizing the form of an angel—an entity originating from an entirely different reality.

—

“…What exactly is unfolding here…?”

Ahn whispered to herself, her voice trembling with sheer awe as she took in the sudden transformation of the battlefield.

She had pushed the boundaries of her Fate Manipulation out of pure, unadulterated desperation… but the resulting reality defied all her expectations.

‘…The Masquerade?’

She had previously been thoroughly startled by Ken’s capacity to feed them details, as his access to live intelligence network data completely overshadowed anything her faction could gather.

Yet this development transcended anything she could have anticipated.

‘…He is capable of matching the Executioner in a direct clash? And there are multiple entities of that caliber here…?’

She swallowed hard against the sudden dryness in her throat.

A tiny ember of optimism, which she had long assumed had been completely snuffed out by despair, began to spark to life once more deep within her chest.

And as if answering the sudden shift in her internal outlook,

*Whoosh—*

…a cascade of blinding splendor, a brilliant, celestial aura,

…and a divine being, descending gracefully from the heavens,

…made his presence known upon the field of battle.