[MA] 312. Fabric of Existence (Patreon)

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[A/N: Sorry I'm late. Releasing a book is more time-consuming and tiring than I remembered.

Chapters this week: 2/3

Next chapter: In a few minutes] ‎

It took Shen a few instants to understand what had happened. He didn't feel homesick anymore, and while he was still in that Stillborn Phaspace, the world he felt around him wasn't as unstable as a moment ago. The Voided Continuums and Law Exclusion Zones were no longer shifting countless times per second.

Previously, he had felt like a photosensitive commoner holding his breath in a nightclub run by overly enthusiastic light show lovers. Now, he was wearing sunglasses on a hilltop, surrounded by empty air as far as his eyes could see.

Even the analogy surprised him, and he quickly knew how it was possible: his mind was suddenly way too free and exploring its creativity.

Shen was still fighting, and he would still die. Probably. But he would die feeling freer—feeling Truly Boundless.

He smiled and let go of the firm control over his Law senses.

The myriad of superimposed Voided Continuums and Law Exclusion Zones no longer mattered. They went from as tiny as ants to as big as mountains all around him, and there were innumerable holes in his Law senses, but they were no longer insurmountable obstacles.

His instincts weren't enough to make sense of it and fill some gaps with what he felt from other Laws, but Shen's instincts had also been pulled into his True Self. So, he could share his conscious mind with his subconscious and let his instincts work better without direct input. Although it took some of his processing power away from his thought ability, it was nowhere as bad as the pressure the Wild Shift had caused on his mind and soul. Even with less focus to use on his fight, he would fight better.

More importantly—and he couldn't stop himself from feeling and getting happy at it—he could fight freely in a world that felt Truly Boundless to his senses.

His Law senses expanded to a new range of three miles. He felt everything inside. He was his Path, and his Path was all around, so he was everywhere. No enemy could hide from him, not even those he had previously believed to be invisible. They were there, hiding in the folds between every Law, mixed with Concepts in a strange and unique way a stressed mind couldn't notice.

It gave him such a brilliant idea that it might even prove to Abbav once and for all that he deserved to leave this place alive.

Shen still lacked qi to kill all those enemies, and his mind was still pressured by multiple factors—the time ring, being on a farm, Abbav's soul pressure, and having to work around the holes in his senses. He couldn't kill all those Void Spawn. Lacking arms and legs—he suddenly noticed he had unwittingly lost his good leg—didn't help, either. He would eventually fall.

Yet, he found his aura now covered his entire Law sense, too—and he would go out with a boom.

Shen willed it, and the world became Extremity.

Extremity came from the Axioms of the Spear, and Shen couldn't materialize Spears with his aura. But he had chosen it because he would materialize it in a way no Void Spawn could avoid, even if they were in a place that excluded Extremity or the Spear.

Shen pushed his Law into the folds of that Stillborn Phasespace, similarly to what he had just felt the stealthy Void Spawn do. He attached the Law of Extremity to the very Stillborn Phasepace! He could only do that because one perfectly fitted the other.

That tiny space was an Extremity of Reality itself if looked at from the proper perspective. It was also an Extremity of the Void, a place where its nothingness was so pushed to the Extreme that it became something.

The Law took hold, changing all within range. The air grew different. Not heavier, but filled with meaning.

The Void Spawn were the embodiment of repulsion for Reality, so they also repelled his Law. Shen's very willpower received a painful backslash at that, and he was forced to shrink his Laws' reach to only one mile, or he would faint. He wasn't happy about that, but it didn't matter much because he didn't even have enough qi to cover that range, anyway.

On the bright side, his focused and willful application of a Law was considerably more difficult for the Void Spawn to repel. He had attached the Law to that place's very fabric of existence, and so he had managed to turn space itself into a Law-filled weapon against the Void. He wasn't using metaphysical Energy to fuel the attack, so he couldn't kill any creature, but he could push them as if he were using physical objects against them.

Shen wouldn't be able to do that anywhere in Reality—but here, it worked.

Any creature weaker than D-rank shrunk to the size of a peanut while keeping its forms, speed, and strength. The D-ranks shrunk to half their sizes. The C-ranks became about 10% smaller.

That was a convenient way of assessing every nearby Void Spawn's tier without using qi. Shen had not heard anything about it and guessed the military would rather no one did it. It made fighting the creatures more challenging. They became smaller, thus harder to hit, and could group better. It was more sensible to ethereally push a Law on the enemy without forcing the Law to materialize to assess their strength.

Whatever the case, Shen enacted the final step of his plan.

All his remaining qi left his body and shot straight at the closest C-ranks, except a few particles for him to stay conscious.

Shen could gain more AP by killing the weaker Void Spawn with a single qi particle each. However, the military regulations were very strict about it. Killing the Alliance's enemies netted AP, but all sorts of trouble would happen if a C-rank ignored the considerably harder-to-kill Warriors to farm some Scouts and weaker creatures for AP. In this specific situation, where other C-rank Guardians were fighting for their lives, Shen was obligated to help them deal with the real threats to their lives, not the weak enemies.

When he started his final attack, 2% of his qi remained on his dantian. Unlike his Law of Extremity, his qi wasn't linked to that Stillborn Phasespace. Without a physical object to give more power to the attack, he would have to waste more energy than usual to injure and kill his enemies. Shen had to use about 0.001%—relative to his entire qi pool, not what remained—on each strike like this to ensure it would injure a Warrior, and it took at least 10 and up to 50 strikes to kill each C-rank creature.

His attack happened incredibly fast. His qi particles were like an omnidirectional shockwave, filling the air like countless projectiles aimed at the enemy. He couldn't control his delivery perfectly, and some of the total qi was wasted killing weaker Void Spawn.

The remaining energy struck true. Shen's mind went on overdrive as he sent 50 attacks against each Warrior. The attacks were tiny groups of qi particles, like bullets, strengthened by the Extremity filling everything.

The lines of 50 strikes flew to the Warriors. As each "bullet" hit its target, the next came right after, going deeper into the enemy until the existence of Law-filled Energy inside them exceeded their repelling threshold.

36 Warriors ceased to exist, and enough qi particles remained for Shen to strike 10 others before his energy was spent entirely.

In theory, it would be better for him to keep fighting physically. He could've killed at least ten times that many C-ranks with his remaining energy.

In practice, he wasn't sure how much HP he had remaining, but he could tell he was on the brink of death. The slightest mistake might spell his doom, and he was bound to make a mistake. Even with his less burdened mind, the enemies were still too many. He would still get hit—and in fact, Shen just got hit right now and was pushed back a few yards, forcing Xun to reposition himself to help Shen.

The truth was, Shen was burdening the other C-ranks more than assisting them, and whatever small value he added might disappear at any moment. This sudden attack would ensure he had used his energy to the limit. He wouldn't die—or, hopefully, pass out—with remaining qi. Nothing would be wasted.

He only wished qi crystals were available at the System Store, like mana crystals. Then, he would've been able to do much more. Alas, no cultivator seemed to have a similarly convenient way of recovering their qi.

Shen's sudden attack also revealed the Void Spawn's power within a mile to his superiors and gave them a brief reprieve. Considering the Wild Shift had just ended, the respite might help them acclimatize better to the environmental change.

He stopped using the Law of Extremity on the world and kept fighting, but only to survive, not to kill. His spear fended off strikes, but he never counter-attacked. It would be a waste of time because he didn't have the qi to injure any Void Spawn.

The immense value of Liya's training and the wiseness of this tactic, an essential part of drow group fighting, became evident when another tentacle hit him a few moments later.

Shen felt something push him into unconsciousness while simultaneously healing him from a strike that should've been lethal.

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A deep male voice shook the entire Void Farm like thunder as soon as Shen was rescued. "Every trainee is now dead or unconscious. This Expeditionary Training is officially over. This Farm will be destroyed by other Guardians. You three are to return at once."

There was a moment of shocked silence from Xun and Uya at the unknown person giving them orders. The surprise was quickly replaced by anger and unwillingness.

"What?!" Uya yelled in rage. "Who is that fucker, Commander?! This AP is ours! Ours! We fought for it!"

Zyn smiled sadly. He agreed with the sentiment. He had 20% qi remaining, Xun had 15%, and Uya 10%; that was enough to reap a more bountiful harvest on this farm before they had to leave, especially now that the Wild Shift was over. But he had his orders.

"We can't clear this place alone, Staff Lieutenant," the First Lieutenant said as he disengaged and approached his subordinates.

Uya only became angrier at that. "Stay away from me! We can keep fighting and leave at the last moment, Commander! I need the AP!"

Zyn helped Xun kill the C-rank he was battling and remained close to Uya, but not too much. Taking a Guardian from free AP was always dangerous. Guardians were modified for extra aggressiveness, after all.

Troops refusing such orders was something so ordinary that it was often considered only a medium offense despite them going against direct orders.

"Don't worry, Staff Lieutenant," Zyn said. "The Alliance is undergoing a Calamity. There will be plenty of opportunities to gain AP elsewhere."

"It still doesn't make sense, Commander!" Uya insisted. "Why must we leave now?!"

The thunderous voice said, "Because of this."

A black lightning bolt crossed the skies and landed in the middle of the three Lieutenant. No, it hadn't been lightning, but a creature. A biped Void Spawn landed with a knee on the ground and was surrounded by dark lightning.

It slowly stood up, ending up twice as tall as Zyn. All other Void Spawn in the farm turned into smoke. However, instead of dissipating, the black smoke instantly shot into the newcomer and was absorbed by him.

The next moment, the black lightning bolts surrounding the creature shot outwards. Millions of them. Each of them became a goblin-sized C-rank Warrior.

Zyn's heart froze as he took in the Emissary and its Cohort.

He couldn't kill an Emissary even at his peak, much less as he was now. It was theoretically only C-rank, but so close to B-rank and surrounded by so many Warriors that a B-rank was needed to kill it. Captain Abbav or Major Tazus would deal with this.

How many Guardians had the Emissary killed to get to that farm? Had the A-rank saved everyone on that creature's way?

The voice added, "The Void didn't take kindly to a Guardian using a Stillborn Phasespace as a Pathstone to materialize a Weapon Law. This Emissary pushed through the nearest Tear."

"Fucking Shen caused this?!" Uya furiously barked. "He again?!"

"No," the voice replied. "Lieutenant Shen is not to blame for his ignorance. The Calamity and the lackluster background analysis he was subjected to are the culprits. He would've been given different training had Major Tazuz known about his means. People will be punished this day for not doing their job properly. Now, Lieutenant Uya, you can leave or die from greed. I'll stop hiding your almost-treasonous existence from the Emissary after three seconds. You better be out of that Farm by then. I have more important things to do than babysitting stupid subordinates."

Zyn didn't hesitate for even an instant before grabbing Xun and moving at peak speed toward Uya. She wisely didn't try to resist him as he also grabbed her and used one of his most expensive artifacts to escape that place within the timeframe he had been given.

The Stillborn Phasespace shrieked under the might of the B-tier artifact that ripped it open and brought the three C-ranks to safety.

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