[MA] 353. Assistance (Patreon)

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[A/N: Chapters this week: 1/3

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Knowing the trick around souls didn't matter against Void Spawn, which rejected Laws regardless of where they came from. Regrettably, Voided Guardians were no different.

Shen had killed the goblin, and Reality had erased the turtle from existence. The dart was still recovering, and the snake was coming at him. That left five other enemies, and two of them simultaneously attacked from afar.

One of them was a massive raven. Even before the Law attacks, it was too big to move in the vault and remained perched on a corner, throwing sharp feathers from its massive wings against Shen. Long-range attack was a rare ability among Void creatures but not unheard of.

Now, the black smoke feathers moved astoundingly faster than before, surrounded by the Axioms of Wind. The Laws of Wind removed the air resistance ahead and propelled the feather from behind.

The other creature was a formless mass of black fog the size of Shen's fist. It usually moved around him, waiting for an opportunity to strike. It had yet to attack from afar, but it now threw projectiles made of the Laws of Light at him.

Sadly for them, as soon as the Laws left their bodies, they ceased to be. Shen had Law Superiority in the room. It didn't work immediately around the Voided Guardians because their Voided existence still had a repulsion effect there, but anywhere else was fair game.

Supposedly, their Laws should face Shen's for supremacy over the same region—without a willpower battle—but he didn't meet the Void Overmind again. He was both glad and disappointed at that; obviously, he didn't want to risk death, but having Reality dispose of Voided Guardians for him would be very convenient.

His own Path always triumphed against the Voided Guardians' Laws, so he suffered no rebound, but his willpower was spent little by little at every Law-fueled creation that left his enemies and disappeared when touching his Laws. That was new—and worrying. Not every C-rank had as much willpower as him. These Voided Guardians, after becoming capable of wielding Laws, could become terrifying foes in large numbers.

Shen had yet another critical report to make.

Regardless, he still had to deal with the raven's feathers. Fortunately, the pieces of the Voided Guardian that left its main body lacked its Axiom, so they were only as fast as before. He could dodge and deflect them.

While those two failed to damage him, the snake and two other creatures were attempting close combat. Shen still avoided the snake because he wished to prioritize his qi expenditure on the right foes. He ended up facing a three-legged creature with seven arms.

Each arm could grow longer or shorter at a moment's notice, wielding a complex web of strings. It and its web, which was part of its body, contained the Axioms of the Whip. Evidently, there was a pattern to which Axioms each Voided Guardian reached for. It might not perfectly match them, but it was never too different from the core of their purpose.

The creature immediately tried to surround Shen with its web. Its seven arms stretched above him, and its strings were pushed down. He swung his spear at the web, but the Laws of the Whip added elasticity to it. His spearhead's Extremity, which was supposedly absurdly sharp and capable of finding the path of least resistance, harmlessly rebounded from the string as if it was made of rubber.

That was a huge problem. It was understandable for the Axioms of the Mace to resist his spear, but the Whip?

That alone was enough for Shen to change his approach. Testing every Voided Guardian to decide which to kill first made no sense. The damn creatures were growing too fast. By the time he determined which was the most dangerous, even the weakest one might have already surpassed it.

He had to go all out and kill every Voided Guardian before they mastered their damn Laws.

The next victim would be the one trying to capture him. He activated the same technique he had used against the goblin. One word defined it: arm speed. He then used another method to push his spearhead's blades into the materialization of another idea: sharpness. His Path and qi compressed the blade from the outside, and his Extremity and True Boundlessness pushed into an infinitesimally thin blade from the inside. It moved with perfect Conductivity into the closest web thread and cut through—but with some resistance.

Shen didn't stop. He used another technique for leg speed and rushed to the creature's side. Countless swings cut its body into pieces and then finished its escaping sliver.

He continued. The snake was coming at him, and he cut it down from head to tail. He destroyed the sliver and moved on. The shapeless blob was coming at him after failing its long-range attack and was the next victim, swiftly followed by the giant bird. Even now, it still rained feathers on him, and dodging and deflecting them was a needless distraction.

Three remained: the dart and the two he had yet to face. As for his qi, he had less than thirty percent. The math was clear: he would fail to kill all creatures before running out of energy.

Shen tried to reach the dart because it was already injured, but unlike the others, it was running from him. Another Voided Guardian intercepted him, a human-sized bear.

It wielded the Axioms of Earth yet was still almost as fast as Shen at his peak movement speed. The Voided Guardians stats also hadn't stopped improving. They were now past the C-rank threshold, headed into B- territory.

Shen's spear struck against the bear's descending paw and pierced only a few inches before stopping. His saving grace was that although its movement speed was fast, it had something to do with touching the ground—the Earth, so to speak. Individually, its limbs were slower. So, he swung his spear against its paw and body until it, too, faded.

No other Void Spawn intercepted him before he finally struck the needle down.

At long last, only one enemy remained, but Shen had less than five percent of qi to deal with it.

The final Voided Guardian maintained the form of a high elf. It had stood still throughout the battle, watching from the side, floating one step ahead of the encroaching white mist.

It wielded the Axioms of Time.

Shen had never faced an enemy with a Law of Time in their Path. Time was an even rarer Axiom to comprehend than Space, but its uses were limited before mastering a Law. That Voided Guardian was the weakest of the bunch, though it had been left for last only because it remained as far from the battlefield as possible in the safe.

Shen didn't have the qi or the body to reach the creature before he ran out. He was forced to deactivate his techniques and use another one percent of qi to heal himself. Only four percent remained.

He approached the Voided Guardian at peak non-qi-fueled speed. His stats and Path were enough to move at hypersonic levels. And yet, that wasn't enough to prevent disaster.

Shen moved one step, and the creature gained an extra Law, Lightning. He moved another, and it gained Earth. It received the insights of each dead creature in the opposite order of their demise. Wind followed, then Light, Mace, Whip, and Darkness.

Shen took another three steps, and the Voided Guardian spoke. "Eight, not nine." It used Stangue, its speech sluggish, its voice deep but almost innocent like a child. "Wrong. Enough."

Then, it morphed. Until now, the Laws inside it hadn't mixed with each other. Suddenly, every one of the eight Axioms interwove into something that could only be called a Path.

A Void creature had a Path with eight Axioms that could be used as any Law from those Axioms.

Shen immediately yelled that information. Even if he died, the Alliance had to become aware of that. He didn't care about many people, but Alicia, Sai, Luthdel, and Liya were part of the Alliance. They would also suffer if these Voided Guardians walked freely—especially if they could grow even stronger.

"Voided Guardians made of black fog!" he shouted. "They can speak and reason! They can use Laws and form a Path!"

He went as far as using an entire percent of his qi so his screams could be as loud as possible. The mana walls didn't seem to even acknowledge it, though. It made sense. They had risen after he tried to tell the vault he had the authority to leave. The mana barrier was also in place to prevent him from interfering with the safe's enchantments. All sound was blocked.

Shen suddenly didn't feel as glad about being cut from his talent. He had never felt so lonely before.

The creature wasn't done speaking. "Assistance," it demanded, and the world heeded its call.

Time reversed. The seven slivers Shen had destroyed returned to existence. Right after, time was twisted. Infinite possibilities came and went in a split instant until all slivers grew into perfect copies of the high elf. And Shen meant perfect. They all had the same Path with the same eight Axioms.

Reversing time cost ridiculous amounts of energy and willpower. Destilating possibilities was even more challenging. Only peak B-ranks would have enough resources to accomplish what that Voided Guardian had just done. The Void was really cheating with those creatures that could use Laws without being beholden to the rules everyone else had to obey.

Shen couldn't feel the Laws of Time superimpose on his aura as it affected space under his control. He was surprised but not shocked. In hindsight, it was obvious that if one could move sideways through space to ignore spatial constraints, so could one move in a unique way through time to bypass some limitations.

There were only two issues with his inability to feel it. First, he couldn't try to fight it and have Reality kill that creature for him. Second, he feared the trick could bypass his innate soul defense. He guessed he would find out in this fight.

He was still running toward the Voided Guardian. He was only a dozen yards away from it and wanted to attempt to use his last three percent of qi to attack it.

Yet, the Voided Guardian was still not done. "Mana," it said, and mana came to exist in the room.

There was so much that it almost drowned Shen's senses. He now had to focus on pinpointing the creatures' location. Fighting like that would be a mess.

More importantly, such control over an Expression of Reality was unimaginable! It had created Energy at will! That, more than anything, was terrifying!

Still, he hoped. Would it also create qi out of nothing? That would be convenient.

It didn't. Instead, it said, "No. Energy benefits Reality. We consume." It raised its hand and closed it in a fist. "Entropy."

The mana barrier shook violently and shone brightly. It felt weaker but held. Shen's aura didn't. It ceased to be because no Law or Concept existed around him any longer. The recently created mana also disappeared.

There was no air, no up or down. His Law sense and Law vision detected nothing beyond the Laws inside himself and his items. Even the caldron kept existing in a way devoid of energy and Law, yet still not Void.

He was in a world with only the Aspects of Space, Time, and Will, and the Expressions of Change, Energy, and Sapience. Nothing else was allowed, especially Axioms, and even the Energy outside physical objects was unmade. The caldron had allowed itself to be changed.

Entropy tried to destroy Shen's very existence. His True Self trembled but ultimately continued existing, and so did his equipment. The creature wasn't strong enough to unmake anything anchored in physical matter.

Yet, it was still not done. "Mix. Uniqueness."

Once again, countless possibilities in the river of Time were explored in a split instant. The creatures' Paths were reorganized. Each one ended up with a single core Axiom, each different from the others, and the others became secondary.

Finally, at long last, the first creature pointed at Shen and declared, "Death."

That's when Shen laughed.

He was in a space devoid of "environmental" Laws of Reality. In other words, nothing could corrupt his soul if he injured it.

It had been a long time since he last used a domain, and he was dying to know how much better being C-rank and having his willpower would make it. Three percent of his max qi meant he couldn't push his domain outside his body, but he didn't think he could do that even if he wanted, anyway. The Voided Guardian's entropy would likely consume everything. That much qi was enough to cover his body and spear. That would suffice.

Shen willed it, and his Domain of Infinite Improvement came to bear for the first time, filling his entire True Self with Absolute Power and pushing his Limits with True Boundlessness on steroids.

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