"Pffft!!"

Blood sprayed from Yumo's mouth as the arrow pierced through her shoulder.

The burning sensation from the wound, combined with the holy power suppressing her Shadow power, made her brows furrow tightly.

This is...?

What Mengxi had mentioned...

One of the twelve forms of the Staff of Truth - the Bow of Finality, Karoti...

That woman?

Hiding in the shadows and taking potshots?!

She could sense her presence, but... only for an instant? Then it vanished the next moment?!

Staring in the direction the arrow had come from, the confidence in Yumo's eyes was gone, replaced by deep unease and unprecedented confusion.

"What... what the hell is going on?!"

But before Yumo could figure out the situation, another terrifying pressure came from behind! As her eyes contracted and she twisted around to counterattack, a spear suddenly pierced through her neck! At the same time, Maya's presence appeared once again in Yumo's sensory field.

D-Damn it!!

The instant she sensed that presence, fierce light blazed in Yumo's eyes as she spun around violently, trying to attack or return all the damage to Maya. But just like before, the moment after Yumo detected Maya's location, her existence vanished again from Yumo's perception.

???!

"Where... where'd she go?"

Looking at the empty void behind her, the desolate star field, Yumo's crimson eyes trembled uncontrollably.

Though Yumo lacked combat experience, the Abyssal Lord's powerful battle instincts kicked in, and she immediately shifted her attention behind her!

"There!!!"

With those words, the charged Abyss Emperor Cannon suddenly fired!

Unfortunately, Yumo only hit empty space.

"Wrong. Over here."

As the voice reached her ears, Yumo frantically looked up. But it was too late - the arrow from the Bow of Finality had already pierced through stars, torn through the bloody butterfly swarm, and stabbed deep into Yumo's shoulder. Blood splattered everywhere in an instant.

But Yumo had no time to care about her wounds.

All she wanted was to return the damage she'd just suffered back to Maya.

But just like the previous times, Maya disappeared without a trace after her attack, leaving Yumo alone, floating in the star field with a grave expression.

However, unlike the previous times, this time Yumo's eyes caught an infuriating fact.

After shooting the arrow, Maya had directly entered a spatial portal?!

That...

That's a spatial portal? Seems like it's also one of the Staff of Truth's transformation forms?

Called... called the 'Golden Gate'?!

Right, that's it!

When she'd just left the trial space earlier, this same thing had sent her to earth!

No wonder this woman's presence kept appearing and disappearing!!

So she attacks once, then teleports away?!!

"Fuck!! That's so cheap!!"

At this moment, Yumo, who always taught children to be elegant and polite, couldn't help but curse. Feeling both furious and helpless, she bit her lip hard.

What... what do I do now...

I Can't use my authority...

...

Meanwhile, in a quiet star field several hundred light-years away, Maya floated there, unhurriedly reconstructing golden arrows with destructive aura at her fingertips. Slowly closing her eyes, a trace of helplessness gradually surfaced on her face, with a hint of contempt seeming to grow within that helplessness.

Sigh

Yumo, oh poor Yumo.

Should I say this is just like you?

You really think you can handle me with just the power of authority?

You're underestimating me too much, aren't you?

"Hahaha~ You silly girl, have you really forgotten? Who gave you this power? Sigh... You're as adorable as always. So adorable I almost can't bear to discipline you~"

Maya let out several bell like laughs.

As the Holy Maiden currently managing Alliance affairs, Maya's level of caution was obvious. Before implanting that highest grade Abyss seed into Yumo, she'd considered a very serious problem.

What if Yumo couldn't fully control the seed and lost control?

Maya certainly couldn't create an existence that might escape her control.

Therefore, she had thoroughly considered how to deal with Yumo before creating her.

Yumo's insanely extreme recovery ability and terrifying mana pool were indeed troublesome, but meaningless to Maya - after all, she'd fought plenty of opponents with truly infinite stamina. What made Yumo truly terrifying was the horrifying authority that came with her highest tier seed - Causal Reversal. The ability to return all attacks to enemies the user designated.

Whether physical attacks, magical attacks, mental attacks, or even negative effects - everything could be reversed.

With this ability, even if Yumo lacked combat experience, she could crush most powerhouses. Even most Lv9s and Abyssal Lords weren't her match.

However, no matter what kind of authority, no matter how broken, they all had weaknesses - this was an iron rule of this world.

As the one who granted Yumo the seed, as the Holy Maiden possessing the Eye of Revelation, Maya knew this authority's characteristics and weaknesses perfectly.

Heinotim had also figured out Causal Reversal's weakness earlier, but he was wrong.

Yumo didn't need to take attacks with her body to return them - the reason she loved getting hit was mainly because of that masochist Momo's personality.

Causal Reversal's true weakness was its time limit, and... the need to select a target.

The time limit wasn't hard to understand. After Yumo's body took damage, she had at most five seconds to use Causal Reversal's power to reflect the attack. Otherwise, once the wound became an established fact, it couldn't be rewritten or reversed. As for selecting a target? That meant choosing where to transfer the damage - this target needed to be within Yumo's Shadow power coverage range, an existence Yumo could sense.

Only then could she establish a damage reversal circuit through her authority's power.

This meant that as long as one withdrew from her sensory field after severely injuring Yumo, breaking this connection, Causal Reversal would be nullified.

Yes, this condition was harsh.

Lv9s could exchange thousands of blows in a second - five seconds to reflect? More than enough. As for escaping Yumo's sensory range? Even harder - with 90 million energy units, Yumo's sensory field coverage was even larger than Maya's own.

But this condition wasn't difficult for Maya.

She could do it with the Staff of Truth's teleportation form - Golden Gate - Opec.

Indeed, Yumo could return damage to her before taking the attack. But possessing the Eye of Revelation and able to predict Yumo's movements, she could completely prevent Yumo from detecting attacks. By the time Yumo realized the attack, her body would already be severely injured. And when she wanted to reverse the attack, she would have already withdrawn outside her sensory field through the Golden Gate.

After five seconds passed, Yumo couldn't reverse the attack.

Yumo could immediately reverse attacks, but when Maya saw such a future, she just needed to stop attacking.

...

Gazing at the arrow condensed in her hand, an almost imperceptible trace of heartache flashed through Maya's golden eyes.

But quickly, this emotion was covered by a chilling murderous intent.

"Little one~ let me see how long you can hold out~"

The next moment, the Golden Gate opened again... Then, destructive arrows from the Bow of Finality shot continuously at Yumo from all directions.