Chapter 2993: Ruler-Class Curse: Fleeting Youth

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Dark Realm, Gelid Alps, Snow Elven Region, Frosell District, Frosnow City

With all my might, I could finally see the incoming Snow Elf’s form, enough for my naked eyes to tell it was a male snow elf, a full fifty miles into the frozen border shared by the Frosell District and the High Snow District.

My raw, natural speed hadn’t been quite enough to cut him off initially, so I had to dynamically manipulate the surroundings—making use of the elasticity meaning of the space rule to compress the fabric ahead of me and snap it backward, giving myself a violent, explosive boost now and then. I wasn’t actually slower than the new King; it was simply that he had a massive, desperate head start from the capital.

As we closed the final distance, neither of us slowed down. We stubbornly rushed at each other at maximum velocity without a single notion of stopping or getting out of the way, ensuing a game of chicken in which neither participant had any intention of backing off.

In the last few seconds before impact, the distance closed enough for me to catch a clear glimpse of his face. Looking into his eyes, I saw the intense, unhinged look and the thick, crimson veins popping wildly across his eyeballs. I could tell he was enraged to the point of absolute madness. He wasn’t playing a tactical game of chicken to test my resolve; he genuinely wouldn’t have backed down for anything in existence. He was flying on pure, manic instinct, planning a complete massacre starting with anything that stood in his way.

Not wanting to play around with this maniac, I instantly activated one of my Ruler-class curses: Fleeting Youth.

It was a devastating curse that caused the victim’s body to age faster the faster their speed. Based on my calculations, if the Snow Elf didn’t slow down, I wouldn’t even have to fight him; I would be colliding with his decayed corpse. With his current, space-tearing velocity, the kinetic-to-temporal multiplication factor was simply too massive—so extreme that not even his vast, resilient elven lifespan could cash the astronomical bill the curse was drawing.

However, to my surprise, just as the curse took hold, one of his elven armor set’s armguards suddenly shattered into a million glittering pieces.

The artifact had acted as a sacrificial proxy, unleashing a violent backlash that ripped through the casting medium. The Ruler-class curse inside my primordial spirit shuddered, just about to disperse into absolute nothingness from the sheer force of the rebound.

Refusing to let die, I instantly tapped into my reserves, mobilizing a massive amount of pure curse energy that I had painstakingly extracted from primordial energy long ago in preparation for battle against the Faith Order cult. I flooded the fracturing curse structure, nourishing Fleeting Youth right back to its original, peak state, and forcefully redirected it straight back onto the Snow Elf.

This time, there was no defensive treasure left to save him.

The curse latched on completely. In a fraction of a second, his youthful, pristine elven visage violently withered. His long silver hair turned to brittle ash, his firm skin sagged and cracked, and the vibrant divinity fueling his peak momentum rapidly deteriorated.

Yet, his manic momentum was already locked in. An instant later, I slammed directly into his heavily aged, weakened self.

BOOM!

Even with his decayed physical state, the sheer residual kinetic energy of our combined velocities detonated like a dying star. The shockwave fractured the local reality, and we both were violently thrown backward by the absolute force of the collision, tumbling through the ruptured skies of the borderland and crashing heavily into the snowy plains.

The impact sent a violent tremor through the basin, triggering a massive, roaring avalanche on the surrounding hills that began to bury the valley in millions of tons of cascading ice.

I didn’t waste a single second. I immediately shot back into the sky, hovering above the chaos to look down at the deep snow crater where the dying Snow Elf had landed.

To my surprise, the Snow Elf was frantically moving his trembling, withered hands. He was pulling out multiple Ruler-class elixirs from his spatial storage, chugging them down his throat like they were ordinary water in a desperate attempt to revert the effects of the Fleeting Youth curse.

The raw, potent medicinal efficacy of those legendary drafts clashed violently with my curse energy. After chugging down a dozen of those priceless elixirs, the severe decay finally reverted back. He no longer looked like a dying old man on the verge of turning to dust, but he didn’t look as young as he was earlier either. It seemed he had completely run out of those Ruler-class elixirs.

Eyeing me with a volatile mix of wariness and residual malice, he slowly shot back up into the sky.

This time, however, his flight speed was visibly decreased. It had finally occurred to his frantic mind that his defensive royal armguard had failed to completely block the curse, and that the horrific spell was still actively ticking in his system—accelerating his aging in direct proportion to how fast he traveled.

The cold realization of his own mortality did what his conscience never could: it finally forced his manic anger to subside. He floated there, his breath ragged, his power severely diminished, and he spoke, demanding in a raspy voice, "Who are you?"

I looked at the Snow Elf, who was covered in Ruler-class items and an incredibly complex Ruler-class armor set from head to toe. There were so many high-tier items in his attire that it was actively taking both me and the Hive Spirit a considerable amount of processing power to analyze them. Using my Soul Pupils, I strained to determine what each individual piece did and how they resonated together as a synchronized set combo.

It was clear to me right then and there: I had reeled in a big fish.

Not only was he absurdly wealthy, but he possessed a genuine Ruler-class foundation. It wasn’t entirely surprising for some of the older, deeply rooted Semi-Ruler class forces to harbor one or two actual Ruler-class beings hidden away in their lineage. However, having a single powerhouse was still far from enough to automatically elevate their entire faction to a recognized Ruler-class force in the eyes of the Dark Realm.

But all of his wealth and gear aside, what truly drew my absolute, undivided attention was something hidden deep within his core.

My Soul Pupils focused past the armor, past his cursed divinity, and locked onto a shifting, alien luminescence.

"You ingested a fragment of the Frosell Realm’s will," I blurted out, unable to completely hide the astonishment in my voice.

This was my very first time witnessing a living being actively digesting a realm’s will fragment in real time. Both the Deviant Devil and the Elder Anesthesia Dragon had ingested quite a number of realm will fragments in their histories, and even the plague egg I had acquired from Belphegor contained one. But they had already digested them. I had never seen the process occurring inside a living host until now.

There it was, tangled directly within the Snow Elf’s divinity, almost entirely devoured and assimilated.

As a hybrid celestial myself, I felt a sudden, visceral wave of discomfort wash over me at the sight. I had no idea why, but watching that celestial will being aggressively broken down and digested by his elven divinity reminded me vividly of the first time I had ever seen a dismembered corpse.

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