Chapter 348: Back in Time

Seth felt confused; one moment he was above a reversing stream, and the next he was here. He squinted, glancing at his surroundings.

For a split moment he was confused before he recalled the image of Uriel dying out in a field...

His ears twitched and his head swung back; behind him was the whole crew of soldiers he had gathered, the six he had chosen leading the bunch.

Seth held his breath, taking further glances at the surroundings, and it was in this moment he realized... the past.

He was back in the past; how far back he wasn’t sure, but based on their current location, he’d say a few minutes back.

Seth was stunned for a few milliseconds, this... this just felt unbelievable.

Seth had an affinity with time, making him have a deeper understanding of how absurd the feat of reversing time was; it also made him realize there was more to his friend’s class than he currently could fathom.

After all, despite Seth being the energy bank of the whole process, the effect was still born of Uriel’s class, or more accurately, the constellation he was currently bound to.

Thinking about Uriel, his expression darkened with worry, he had to go now, but before he left...

"Gather up, I leave you six in charge. Advance steadily and beware of momentary ambush at all times. Follow the trail and remain vigilant — you never know where a defiled could pop out from."

The six nodded firmly, saluting Seth. Nodding, Seth dashed deeper into the foliage, blitzing past trees, corrupted beast monkeys, and the feline strains as well, paying no attention to anyone as he zipped along the astral trail produced by the astral boots.

His essence flowed with a starry, otherworldly cadence, Force Embodiment causing resonance with the boots, allowing the travel speed produced to be significantly higher than it used to be.

Defiled felines, billowing with mists of darkness, bolted right on his heels, these beasts reaching a mind-boggling speed, their cold blue eyes focused on Seth the whole way, their teeth baring as they rapidly closed in on him.

Seth squinted, glancing at all three monsters on his trail; he recognized them — he had killed one in the previous timeline, but these three seemed a lot stronger than the last one he had encountered, by a significant level.

’Wait, could it be?’ Seth was struck with a sudden thought, his eyes squinting as he took a fleeting glance at his pursuers for a split second.

’They must be the monsters he had encountered in the previous timeline, when he met Uriel dead.’

These guys had to be the culprits that tore Uriel and his entire group apart; there must be something lethal about them.

And Seth wasn’t in favour of finding out the hard way; he would be more comfortable and confident engaging when he knew what abilities these monsters wielded that made them so dangerous.

"Wait!" Seth suddenly realized he couldn’t recall when these beasts started this chase; they were like entities that had always been there since he started to run. Seth’s eyes took a quick side glance.

Suddenly catching sight of the darkness brewing around the monsters becoming thicker, their frames slowly dissolving down into the earth.

Seth felt a reaction from his soul — the Jack of all Trades class, or more accurately, the shadow travel class skill acquired under Wildlock, reacted.

"These bastards are of the shadow affinity!" Seth hissed in realization, his senses tingling with danger, the beasts vanishing from sight, and his shadow beneath his trail beginning to bubble.

Darkness churned around Seth as his gene skill, Darkness Avatar, was activated, shadowless entities bursting into movement right beside him.

His frame instantly began to flicker around, swapping positions randomly, as the shadow avatars sprinted in a chaotic pattern, unable to be anticipated or predicted.

Seth practiced shadow travel as well, hence why he had a deep knowledge of the subject and why he could easily handle an opponent with such an ability.

After all, the shadow ability was really lethal — this was what these monsters had used to launch a sneak attack on Uriel’s crew, straight up killing the most powerful in one go.

Unfortunately for these creatures, Seth had a similar skill and knew exactly how it worked; from three identical figures bolting through the tree line, it suddenly became two, with one straight up dissolving into darkness.

The two bodies running into the distance were actually shadowless, leaving the defiled with no room to attack, so they had no choice but to resurface out of the shadow and continue their hunt.

None of them could have imagined that stalking them from beneath their own shadows was none other than Seth, clad in his gothic black armour; his frame was nearly indiscernible in the pool of shadows.

Meanwhile, his gene skill, Force Embodiment, was activating at double efficiency, forming both shadow and death essence spontaneously.

His gaze deepened to a thick, royal-purple shade as his lips beneath his visor moved, "Death Zone!"

A faint ripple spread through the air; Seth had a few more limited uses of Death Sentence, and he never planned on wasting them.

A gray zone thick with the scent of death, the zone striking lethal debuffs against his foes, their speed instantly plummeting, the energy swirling around their frames beginning to dim.

Seth suddenly unraveled, bleeding wildly into the atmosphere, his will-borne ability, Chronostat, activating in a blink; his frame bounced out of the shadows, a beast’s shadow, to be exact.

His frame spun out, wielding the broad sword with a violent, lethal grace, tearing through the wind as it sliced into the foe’s hide from the side.

The thick hide reverberating and repelling the strike...

Huh? Not right...

Seth realized too late these guys seemed a lot tougher than the monkeys, probably Monarch-grade creatures.

Despite being weighed down by the effects of the Death Zone, the beasts retracted promptly, the target of Seth’s strike just now shrugging off the hit, its teeth bared as it hissed, its frame crouching low to gather force.

Seth’s finger snapped, the bronze sword blurring and being replaced by the grim spear, but due to the fact that the Death Executioner set was incompletely equipped, the skill weakened.

The debuff lightened, speeding up the monster’s reaction time as it pounced, its claws fully unsheathed, glistening as its drooling maw widened.

The monster threw its full weight into the attack, its claws digging into Seth’s neck, but before its head could gain its purchase—

A spear snaking through the wind pierced right out of its skull, having bolted in through the roof of its widened maw.

The advantages of telekinesis were truly unparalleled; Seth didn’t even have time to confirm the beast’s death and could only keep moving, the Death Zone skill slowly diffusing as Seth’s Executioner set remained incomplete without the weapon.

And Seth couldn’t equip the weapon back without sacrificing the spear, because set items had a limit on how many pieces could be equipped at once.

Seth streaked forward, going in for a quick kill...