[MA] 351. A Strange Experience (Patreon)

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Similar to what happened to the fog, Reality's Laws and Shen's aura couldn't occupy the same space as the Voided Guardians. That meant his Aura-Material Suppression was useless here. Indeed, as he approached the first enemy, the water jets around him never pushed against his foe. The water ceased to exist right before touching them because, like C-rank Void Warriors, their existence rejected Laws, including the ones used to manifest the water. Likewise, Shen couldn't form a continuous jet between himself and any creature because Reality couldn't link with them.

He used his Aural Realm and was pleased when it partially worked, just like it did to Void Warriors. On the one hand, his aura overlapped with the creatures, forcing his Path's Laws into occupying the same space as them. On the other hand, he felt no willpower striking against him, so he wasn't suppressing his enemies. Furthermore, even inside his aura, they were still immune to anything he tried to do without using energy.

Shen didn't know how his Path could superimpose with Void Warriors without killing them. He still needed to use Law-enhanced qi to damage C-rank Void Spawn. His Aura-Material Suppression still didn't work, either. His Aural Realm was a mysterious ability.

The good news was that it would serve as a scouting tool. Any inch of space in which his Path's Laws overlapped with a Voided Guardian felt unique and tainted, like having a weird taste in his mouth. His aura gave him a lot more precision in detecting his foes than the gaps they formed in his normal aura and Law senses.

The familiar results when using his abilities gave Shen confidence. He could fight them. Probably. As long as defeating them didn't require mastered Laws.

What didn't give him confidence was that the white fog also blocked his Aural Realm. He did not want to touch that thing. Even testing it with mind-disconnected qi projectiles would have to wait until he was done with the Voided Guardians and could take it slow—unless he had no alternative.

The fog scared him; there was no other way to phrase it. The Voided Guardians felt similar to Void Spawn, albeit both less and more solid somehow. The fog felt like something that could consume Shen upon the slightest touch.

The one hundred and sixteen Voided Guardians had started as high elves, but they quickly changed after they became fog. When Shen approached, the one he attacked first stopped moving. Its legs grew thicker, and its entire upper body became sharp spikes that elongated quickly toward him.

His spear, filled with qi and his Path, touched his foe for the first time. There was no impact. The spearhead cut through the black smoke as if it were genuine smoke. The cut-off gas dissipated into nothingness.

Shen's weapon kept going and cut other spikes. He was on high alert and watched closely what happened to each "limb" after his spear cut them. Unsurprisingly, his enemy used the most obvious trick any experienced fighter would expect in this situation.

Shen cut a spike, but not entirely; a tiny line was left untouched. The Voided Guardian made it look like it was dissipating, but as Shen approached, the gas retook a pointy shape and moved toward him faster than the other spikes.

So, Shen also used the most straightforward trick to deal with an enemy like that. He held his spear's shaft with both hands and rotated it like a fan. The sharp spearhead wasn't needed to destroy the spikes. Even before he reached his foe's body, his attacks crossed the damage threshold that killed the creature.

As its body dissipated, however, an invisible sliver smaller than a nanometer shot toward the white mist. Shen wouldn't have felt it without his Aural Realm. He brought his spear upon it, and the thing imploded.

Shen had never seen a Void Emissary but had learned about them. When one appeared, it consumed all nearby Void Spawn not linked to it, strengthened them, and respawned them as its Cohort. Shen had feared the caldron or its mist might have multiple special functions, including one like that. The fog felt thirsty, so it was expected to consume things—and not only those coming from Reality.

If Voided Guardians could also respawn after being absorbed, this would be an impossible battle without his Aural Realm.

But Shen did have the Aural Realm. The moment he destroyed the escaping speck, the white mist throbbed like a heart, and a ripple spread throughout the vault. Even the mana layers surrounding the room shone brighter as if paying a high cost to resist that.

As soon as the ripple came into existence, Shen's senses let him know there was more to it than the mere shaking of matter. It felt similar to how Sinaht had used his Wind to move faster than fast. It evidenced the mist did things that only those with mastered Laws should be capable of.

Shen could only defend himself and hope for the best. He surrounded himself with qi, water jets, and a hold over the Laws around him again. On top of that, a quick analysis of the ripple allowed him to detect precisely how it trembled, and he forced his True Self to shake at the directly opposite frequency.

The outcome was a strange experience. The frequency made his Law vision change. His mind expanded, and he saw something he couldn't comprehend. The Law fragments in sight became impossibly "deeper," for lack of a better unit of measurement.

He avoided looking at himself to prevent confusion and self-doubt about his existence. Yet, the glimpse at the corner of his eyes showed his True Self was much "deeper" than the Voided Guardians. He was like an impossibly "long" cuboid, while they were thin squares. That should have implications he wasn't remotely ready to start contemplating.

Shen realized he was seeing through the "walls" of phasespace, into the fourth spatial dimension.

One of the walls, however, blocked his sight. Or rather, eight—no, ten, no twenty—infinitely "deep" blue walls of pure mana surrounded everything. While the space in the vault was vastly more extensive than Shen could usually see, it was blocked in every direction, no matter how many dimensions were involved. The ripple was stopped whenever it reached any of those walls.

The weird part was that the caldron and the mist felt even "deeper" than the mana barriers. In fact, they superimposed in multiple places, yet Shen was still sure the mana was blocking the caldron and fog. That and the high number of walls suggested that he was seeing more than four spatial dimensions, but his mind could only make an effort at making sense of so many things—if he could even call that "making sense" of it.

As the ripple moved, all Law fragments collapsed into themselves and ceased to be for a split instant before returning to existence. That worried Shen, but he could do nothing except what he had already done. The ripple bypassed his defenses, which looked as "thin" as the Voided Guardians, and came at him from a direction he couldn't comprehend.

When it touched him, who was vibrating at an opposing frequency, it normalized his mind. Once more, he saw only the regular three-dimensional space around him.

Yet, the ripple's "depth" wasn't the only unique part of it. Phasespace wasn't enough to explain how Sinaht could move faster than fast. The high elf hadn't disappeared from standard space, so he hadn't stepped "sideways" and then returned.

Something beyond Shen's understanding struck against his True Self like a hammer smiting a stone. His mind froze from the impact. His True Self was stretched like a rubber ball, its limits tested. A little more, and his entire being would've shattered.

But he ultimately held.

Shen was sure that the soul of anyone without a mastered Law to counter that attack or a True Self to withstand it would've at least been heavily damaged. Even then, he wondered if C-ranks would know how to counter it. He doubted Sinaht did.

The most worrisome part was that the attack looked like a mere instinctive "scream" of anger or a backhanded slap at someone who dared to act against the fog. It should be much more potent than that. Shen became even more resolute about not touching the thing until he killed the Voided Guardians.

Speaking of them, the ripple froze them in place just like it had done for Shen, but longer. That was a rare respite for him; his True Self was really a wonder. He swiftly started killing the ones nearby, getting rid of seven before they broke from their daze.

Those seven creatures' final sliver of existence also remained frozen when they died. Shen destroyed them, too. The mist throbbed for each of them but didn't "scream" again. It had learned that it would only help Shen.

However, the fog's expansion speed doubled. It came at a cost; dozens of tiny cracks started appearing every instant in the cauldron. Unfortunately, quick math told Shen that over half the object would still be in a perfect state when the mist filled the entire room.

The other one hundred and eight creatures resumed their rush against Shen. He noticed with interest that the ones on the opposite side of the room avoided the fog, too. Returning to it would probably at least temporarily unmake them, as Void Emissaries did to Void Spawn. The Voided Guardians had enough self-awareness not to want to do it until after they were defeated and needed a way to survive.

Some creatures were growing larger, and others smaller. The next one Shen faced turned its arms into a sword and shield. It was unwieldy, but unlike the spikes, the shield held against a direct attack. A three-inch hole appeared in it, but Shen's spear was stopped.

Shen could try multiple workarounds, but many cost too much qi. He had enough to kill the Voided Guardians if most of them worked, but he still worried about the mist. He would rather keep some energy in reserve.

So, he went with the simplest way to bypass that defense: he sidestepped the creature and struck its back. It wasn't fast enough to follow him and soft in the back. His spear pierced deep, and he widened the hole with rotating qi. His enemy died, and he quickly destroyed the escaping sliver.

The fog pulsated, and the next Voided Guardian was upon Shen.

These creatures were like Void Spawn that had just stepped into Reality. They were growing and learning. That was excellent news; it gave the Alliance some time to react after a Voided Guardian revealed itself by morphing.

Shen killed twenty before they started presenting a challenge. Their speed increased gradually, eventually reaching between C and C+ agility. Their entire bodies also hardened, surpassing C+ resistance. They likely had to prioritize their growth direction and had chosen a more robust defense.

Yet, the uniform stat growth between individuals was unlike that of Void Spawn. Every single Voided Guardian became as resistant and quick as the other. Unfortunately, they shared Void Spawn's learning ability; everyone was learning together how to be a better fighter.

Shen's elite combat training and experience were enough to let his spear continuously pierce and kill over half the creatures. Eventually, however, only thirty-six remained, and they didn't die as easily.

Every Voided Guardian was now as fast and resistant as a peak C-rank. They weren't as strong as Sinaht, but close enough. They had grown into specialized groups of three, and each group covered for the other. A group had better defenses, another better attacks, yet another had tentacles to hinder Shen's movement, and so on. Shen was surrounded, two creatures from each group constantly attacking him while the third waited in reserve. If needed, an injured creature swapped places with the replacement.

That had been way too fast. Void Spawn took longer to learn to fight so well. Shen's previous joy at Voided Guardians not keeping their Guardian knowledge when they turned was crushed.

What were these things' limits? Could they learn more? Could they eventually learn how to use Reality itself against its dwellers?

Impossible, right?

Right?!

Just as Shen thought it, one of the goblin-sized creatures, wielding two daggers of black fog, shone brightly. The Laws of Light around it twisted and bent. That felt absolutely evil to Shen, even worse than Void Energy. That should not happen. Ever.

An instant later, the creature exploded.

Shen didn't even have the time to feel relief at the failure before all of them twisted some of the Laws of Reality surrounding them. The damn things bypassed his Aural Realm, too; there was no willpower involved in what they were doing. At least none that Reality could identify and force to face Shen.

Most of them exploded soon after.

Nine of them didn't.

Shen suddenly found himself facing Void creatures that could wield the power of Laws.

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[A/N: I don't think you fully understood what I meant when I said things would speed up after we dealt with that minor Luthdel business =P]

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