[MA] 417. An Actual Challenge (Patreon)

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Killing Void Spawn required Energy, usually in the form of physical matter. That was an issue when fighting them at the edges of Reality, where their influence could affect a cultivator's ability to absorb qi. Undoubtedly, part of the purpose of the Void Insertion Points was to cause trouble for the upcoming battle.

But they had failed, so nothing prevented Shen from pulling qi into his body—or pushing it into the world.

His qi suffused every cubic inch of his domain, as did his Path, both in the form of Laws and Concepts. Any D-rank Void Spawn or weaker was instantly turned into fading smoke. Sadly, the C-rank creatures resisted even when Shen focused on pushing his qi into them. A lot of qi might do the trick, but accumulating that much would take time, and he couldn't condense enough Energy projectiles fast enough to kill every foe.

Instead, Shen formed a spear of a ton of heavily compressed qi and engaged his enemy in close quarters.

It worked. His qi spear struck a five-yard humanoid Void Spawn and went deep. He cut the creature up and down, left and right, and it died.

And so Shen kept going deeper into the enemy army, killing every Void Spawn on the way, the C-ranks in close quarters. The stronger creatures concentrated further away on the incoming group, with only some scattered in the first half. The B-ranks were exclusively in the second half.

Shen soon became unimpressed by the C-ranks' strength and aimed for stronger prey. Those weaklings posed no risk to him. Moreover, Treespire had enough of early C-rank cultivators to deal with that menace, if it could even be called such.

The B-ranks might be another story.

Less than a tenth of the millions of Void Spawn were C-rank or stronger, almost ten thousand of which were B-rank. Shen doubted the few hundred B-rank defenders could destroy them before they caused collateral damage. Although he didn't care about said damage, E'livia did, especially if the sect lost members or the Garden City was destroyed. So, Shen would do his best to help prevent that.

The issue was that the rules about engaging Void Spawn were clearly cut. Unmastered Laws could kill C-rank Void Spawn, but not B-rank ones. You needed mastered Laws for that, and Shen was lacking in that department.

Or was he?

Un'Re could be turned into a B-rank weapon containing mastered core Laws. Shen wouldn't take the spear out of his soul where anyone could see it, but he didn't need to.

He reached a fifty-yard-tall octopus-shaped Void Spawn and kept his hand in a knife shape. He materialized Un'Re inside his Persona's body. The spearhead replaced a few fingers—which was slightly painful. A careful observer would be able to notice something in his hand, but Shen was deep in the mass of Void Spawn, most of which were now reaching Treespire. He doubted even B-ranks could identify that blade tip as Un'Re as long as he didn't give Treespire a clear view.

Well, their domain would definitely notice Un'Re, but they hadn't deployed it. Even E'livia had brought her to a small fifty-feet bubble around herself. She didn't kill weak creatures like Shen did, either. The meaning was obvious. The sect would allow weaker members to engage weaker enemies to hone themselves. Domains gave a sense of protection that might affect their progress.

Shen didn't care about the sect's improvement—or even E'livia's feelings on that subject.

He hated Void Spawn.

He would kill any he could.

He punched the B-rank creature before him. Un'Re pierced it. He got inside it, which was actually pushing Reality into it, and started killing it from the inside.

It soon faded into dark smoke and dissipated.

Shen found that way too easy. A B-rank creature should be faster, stronger, and more resistant than that. He guessed these Void Spawn hadn't been in Reality for too long. They would improve throughout this battle.

He turned to the next giant creature, killed his way to it, and killed it too. And the next. And the following one.

After he killed the fifth B-rank, he encountered some resistance. The hundred-yard-tall three-headed lion-shaped Void Spawn was faster than him and knew how to dodge. His punches couldn't reach it, so he Backstepped and was soon killing another creature.

Another three B-ranks after that, he faced an actual challenge.

The hundred-yard-long loong—an elongated, wingless dragon—dodged his attacks as if he were a child throwing punches at a martial arts grandmaster. No matter which techniques he used, he couldn't get to it. The few long-range qi attacks that struck it didn't cause any damage.

So, Shen used the Absolute Horizon to command the loong to slow down.

It didn't work as intended. His willpower seeped into the Void the creature was "made of." Void Spawn actually pushed Reality into specific shapes; they were made of literally nothing. His mind harmlessly went through nothingness.

That was a logical conclusion to his action, yet it felt wrong to him. He was confident his Absolute Horizon could be used against the Void Spawn.

Oh! It struck him. He had gone at it wrong.

Shen willed the Void Spawn to cease to exist, and his mind found purchase. But he didn't go all the way. He could tell he lacked the willpower to unmake a B-rank Void Spawn like that.

So, he used his domain creatively. He willed all of Reality touching the creature to improve. At the same time, he used his Absolute Horizon to push that improved Reality against the creature in an attempt to expel it from existence.

It worked.

It only took a hundredth of his willpower reserves, and suddenly, the B-rank Void Spawn simply popped out of existence. It ceased to be. Reality reclaimed the space the creature had been denying, which even released a kind of "existential ripple" that traveled as a metaphysical shockwave and destroyed every Void Spawn within a few hundred meters regardless of rank. Even another B-rank was killed like that.

Shen smiled. That was neat.

He focused on the next B-rank in his domain—

He never felt the B-rank cultivator teleport right beside him—not with his Laws, not with his aura, not with his domain. In fact, he couldn't even see the leather-armored green imp as it appeared before him—not with his regular sight. But his Allvision could, and he dodged the angry, flaming trident it tried to impale him with.

The creature was surprised at his dodge for a split second, then deployed its domain, taking control of the local Laws to make its strike stronger and Shen's defenses worse. The imp had four Laws, all mastered. It was also significantly faster than Shen, who could do nothing to dodge the new strike. Obviously, it had been lazy in its previous attack, counting on its sneakiness to do the job.

Shen used the same trick he had used with Pagarti: he willed the creature's soul to be destroyed using his Absolute Horizon.

He lacked the power to accomplish that, but it was an attack meant to confuse. It worked, its trident slowing down just enough for Shen to dodge again and counterattack with a punch. The imp dodged the punch, but not Un'Re, which left Shen's arm and shot faster than Shen could move. It pierced the imp's B-tier black leather armor and drew blood. The assassin-wannabe instantly teleported away.

Un'Re didn't teleport with the enemy. Shen swiftly put it back into himself and looked around. There were Void Spawn all around him, and a quick glance at Treespire—where an intense battle was taking place—didn't allow him to notice anyone looking in his direction.

That was both a blessing and a curse. No one had noticed Un'Re, but he really could use a B-rank's help right now.

Shen didn't dare to try his luck there anymore. He had exhausted his tricks against the B-rank. The imp had teleported away only because it got frightened by the unexpected attacks, not because it was endangered. Un'Re had been unable to go further than an inch in the imp's body before being stopped by its resistance.

The imp's domain disappeared with it, and Shen turned to flee as fast as possible. He stopped killing Void Spawn and retracted his domain to make his passage less obvious. He ran away like a madman.

Heavens, he really needed to master his Laws so he could start dealing with B-ranks!

The imp was treacherous. It allowed Shen to reach midway through Treespire before it teleported before him again, already midswing. The trident pierced his robe...

...and stopped two inches inside him.

The C+ robe's enchantments were partially responsible, and his One Self did the rest. It wasn't easy to harm him. The imp's trident was a C+ weapon, and the mastered Laws empowering it could do little to make it better. It didn't even reach B- quality.

Also, the imp didn't use its domain like Pagarti had, proving E'livia's words about the City Lord's domain being superior. Alas, Shen was still incapable of winning in the meta-battlefield, and a second strike was coming for him before he could even begin to attempt anything to protect himself.

The second attack pierced the exact same place as the first one. The three holes reached two-thirds into his body. His soul, mind, and entire Self suffered.

Shen managed to deploy his domain then and did something that was likely very stupid: he wilded the improved B-tier Un'Re inside himself and cut Reality apart.

Pain was a concept Shen was becoming very familiar with. Opening a whole to the Void inside his One Self gave the word "agony" a new dimension. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. He could barely tell what was going on.

He did feel half the Heavenly Lightning inside himself disappear, probably to pursue the dragon who had come for him the last time. But other than that, there was only misery. It didn't help that the trident struck him again, this time stopping midway to his back and turning up to impale him.

At last, a B-rank sect member intervened. A domain covered Shen. Something exploded.

Everything turned dark as he lost his sense of self.

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⁂

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Shen woke up on his back, half his body in warm water. He could see through his eyelids but opened his eyes all the same to look around while he felt the world.

He was on a shallow pond in a thick C-tier jungle. E'livia was crouched beside him, all her wings cut off. An angry scar ran from her right eye to the left of her chest. It wasn't healing; a Path with mastered Laws had prevented it.

Only pieces and bits remained of her armor, and the clothes below hadn't fared any better. Most of her privates were visible, but she was fully focused on looking outwards through the heavy vegetation.

They were being hunted.

Shen's Allvision let him see what was hunting them: imps. A dozen of them, all B-ranks. It was a miracle E'livia had managed to escape them and even survive an attack.

Shen hadn't used his Infinite Improvement in the battle against the imp because he doubted it would help; there was an element of instant improvement involved, but it took some time. He couldn't improve fast enough to save himself right as he was being fatally injured. However, the imps were currently having trouble detecting E'livia and him, evidencing she was using a secret technique of some sort to hide them, though he couldn't see it—probably because of the pre-mating ritual's link. They would take a moment to get here.

He had time now, and E'livia was hurt because of him—and still, she was doing her best to protect him. That was all the trust he needed towards her to sacrifice a bit of potential for her—and, well, for himself too, because he would also die if the imps got to them.

Shen allowed his domain to improve him to infinity—or as close as it could get.

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