[MA] 354. Surrounded by Nothingness (Patreon)

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[A/N: Chapters this week: 2/3

Next chapter: Saturday]

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Liya had limited how much information she shared with Shen about domains. She had been constrained by military rules on what she could reveal. As she had stated, a domain was technically a Path pushed out of your body with Energy, but it was also much more.

A domain was a Path condensed into a single-minded desire, driven by emotions and willpower, then fueled with Energy to affect Reality. Shen's will was absolute inside his domain—unless opposed by something strong enough.

Now, he decreed himself to embody Infinite Improvement, and it became his new Reality.

Part of his Improvement happened instantly. Power flooded his body and flowed through his veins. All his yet-unattained potential was achieved.

Every single part of Shen was pushed to his unrealized limits.

Shaft directly boosted his resistance stat, and Extremity pushed Shen's agility. Both crossed the C- threshold and made strides in the C level, stopping midway to C+. No Law directly acted on his strength, which also improved, but less than the others. It stopped shortly after reaching C.

Still, regardless of the stat, he instantly acclimatized to them. His mind was part of the whole with his True Self, but without his domain, there would be some tests involved. Instead, he could immediately use the full power of his stats.

Extremity wasn't only involved in his agility boost. It pushed everything to its extreme. If domains had a core Law, Extremity would be his, even more than True Boundlessness. The latter was the lack of boundaries, while Extremity acknowledged limits but sought for them to be the most extreme representation possible.

That wasn't to say True Boundlessness didn't help. It had been critical in the establishment of the domain. However, in the domain itself, it was more effective in loosening boundaries. It allowed him to push further than without it.

Killing Weapon aimed to turn Shen into the perfect killing machine. Its most significant impact was on his intellect. He instinctively analyzed his previous clashes, determined optimal attacks—also assisted by Conductivity—and improved his killing techniques to fit his situation and his stats.

Gentle Breeze assisted in subtly evolving everything so the improvements could happen together without bumps. The Law was crucial in a way it had never been before. His Laws wanted different things, like Extremity wanting everything to immediately reach its peak and Shaft desiring permanence and hindering his growth. Gentle Breeze acted as a bridge, a calming influence, a glue that maintained union, ensuring everyone moved together. Without it, Shen would need to use qi to keep his True Self from immediately shattering from the diametrically opposing influences, and he had no energy to spare.

His last Law, Stream, brought the idea of continuity. Shen would keep improving. As long as his domain was in place, it wouldn't stop.

That's also where his Will of Absolute Power and his True Boundlessness came into play as one of the three cornerstones of his True Self. His Truth of Limits had to be pushed, and both worked together under the influence of his domain. Still, his domain, especially Shaft and Gentle Breeze, ensured the clash wasn't damaging to him. His limits were pushed to the Extreme, not destroyed or made to cease to be.

Shen had never felt his Path was as perfect as he did now.

His every Law was involved in his domain. His goal of Improvement was the overarching drive behind every boost. Everything worked together to accomplish it and not cause any damage.

Still, Shen's goal was Infinite Improvement.

He had just received a significant boost to his power, but the continued improvement henceforth was what made it an actual domain rather than a random self-boosting technique. Shen's domain, his control over the part of Reality that was himself, conformed to his goal, regardless of what the Axiom of Reality regulating existence might desire.

Only his Laws limited his growth. Without greater mastery of them, his domain couldn't push him further. And so, his mastery started to improve.

It was painfully slow yet astoundingly fast. Every second meant a three percent increase in how much he had mastered each of his seven Laws.

It was bizarre. Shen was not connected with Reality as he usually needed to be to improve his understanding. Yet, he progressively started knowing more about his every Law, tiny little bits here and there that swiftly added up.

Some things he suddenly knew were contrary to his guesses about his Laws. That made his domain a cheat. There was no other way to describe it.

Paradoxically, it was also an enormous danger. Mastering a Law was one of the easiest ways to improve one's willpower. Waiting, deciding when and how much to push, dealing with one's weakness in certain situations, and feeling the weight of the encroaching end of one's lifespan was a process that helped even Shen. Forgoing that would be worse for him in the long run.

Deploying his domain before he mastered all his Laws was the same as sacrificing his potential growth for immediate power. The longer he kept it, the more it would cripple his future. In fact, if he mastered his Laws like that, he doubted he would have the willpower to break through in his cultivation. Ultimately, it would slow him down instead of helping.

Shen laughed at that. He risked his future because his Domain of Infinite Improvement was too good. He was paying the price of his own hubris.

As his Laws improved, so did his stats and insights about killing enemies—and so did the pressure on his soul.

The most significant revelation of this moment was that the military had lied to him. He could use his domain before reaching peak C-rank stats. The domain impacted his soul like a bomb that never stopped exploding. Yet, his True Self withstood it. He guessed it was a matter of clearance; his True Self wasn't part of the curriculum of elite combat training or domain secrets. Shen had no way of safely testing his limits and was forced to believe what others told him.

Then again, his soul was still too weak. His True Self, the whole that also contained his soul, was trembling violently. The weight and pressure were unimaginable. Shen estimated he had five seconds before it cracked and half a minute before it shattered beyond repair.

That, too, was ironic. The domain that kept his True Self whole threatened to destroy it.

Outside him, the world was a vacuum of everything. It had no atoms in the air for sound to propagate, and the Voided Guardian had been floating above the ground when it spoke, so Shen shouldn't be able to hear anything. The same held true for its visibility. The Void creatures released no light, and in the absence of all Laws, the night vision that the Alliance had provided its Guardians didn't work.

Yet, the Voided Guardians' words weren't mere sound. They were a statement of the Void upon that enclosed section of Reality. All would hear its declaration, for it willed it so. Likewise, the Voided Guardian desired that Shen see it pointing at him as it declared his death, and Reality, for some reason, bowed to its will.

Both things evidenced that the thing's ego was growing. It desired to be heard and seen, for its foe to cower in fear. Point in case, the next moment, Shen no longer saw or heard anything, which would cause a weak-willed individual to panic. All of Shen's senses were muted, and his aura was locked into his body. He was surrounded by nothingness. Not the Void, which was devoid of even Time and Space, but the absence of all matter and Laws. The only exception was the ground he felt under his feet, the mana barrier, but even that, he could only feel physically. His mana sense no longer perceived anything.

Nevertheless, he never stopped smiling; his Domain of Infinite Improvement felt too marvelous.

His most significant issue was lacking any way to detect his enemies. He had enough qi to surround himself with it, but as he expected, the moment he pushed a single particle out of his body, entropy tried to make it disappear. All things ended; time was the ultimate destroyer. Energy was the Expression of Space and Time, and just as it came to be, so could it fade away. The qi out of his body was subjected to millions of years in an instant. Shen used his will to resist it, but his willpower was expended at a breakneck pace—

No, it didn't.

Entropy attempted to consume his willpower, as the Laws wielded by the Voided Guardians did when clashing against his Aural Realm, but Shen's domain resisted it. That's when he understood, astonished, that this entropy was actually a domain! That even explained why the creature had an ego; without one, without emotions, it couldn't deploy a domain.

Shen knew there was a meta-battlefield when domains interposed on each other, but he found none. Instead, his will ignored the Voided Guardian's. The creature's domain was more robust than the average Law but weaker than an actual domain. For instance, a domain should be able to ignore his soul defenses—

Shen's eyes widened. Another realization made him stupefied. The domain was not affecting his body. He suddenly didn't think the reason was that it was a lesser form of a domain—which it was. No, the answer was more preposterous.

The Space-wielding turtle he had killed had instantly mastered its Law. That's why it had bypassed his soul and why everyone insisted that mastered Laws were needed for that. Merely knowing the trick would likely not be enough for Shen, though he was confident it would suffice to protect against attempts to bypass his soul defense.

This Time-wielding one, instead of mastering its Law, had instead instantly developed a domain. Both the Axioms of Time and Space were somehow connected to the very Aspects of Reality, and the creatures that touched on them had received special boosts.

That gave him a better chance to survive and rekindled his hope.

More importantly, finding a lesser type of domain gave him an idea. He was out of qi, but just like he had used his willpower to enhance his aura, so would he use willpower alone to wield his domain outside his body. Technically, that was impossible. Domains required Energy; his domain secrets' clearance let him know that much. But what if he formed some in-between, like his Aural Realm?

His Aural Realm was a way of making his aura more of a domain. Now, he would turn his domain into more of an aura.

Shen connected his domain to his aura and sort of mixed both. He felt like only someone with an aura like his could accomplish it. Then, he pushed the resulting aura-domain-yet-none into the world with sheer willpower.

The room came to his senses.

Shen could feel every nook of it except the areas occupied by the caldron, the fog, and the Voided Guardians. His... Domain Realm? Aural Domain? Mixed Realm? True Self Realm?

His True Realm pushed his Path into the world like an aura. It wasn't a full domain, so it didn't counter the Domain of Entropy but interposed with it. Entropy did cause the Laws he forced into existence in that space to age and cease, but a Law was a rule, and Shen didn't need to waste any Energy to "share" it from his Path with his surroundings. Still, he continuously felt the end of all things in his True Realm as he constantly refreshed it. It was one of the weirdest sensations ever.

Those advantages were significant, but Shen still had to deal with an enormous disadvantage: his lack of qi. He didn't have the energy to use his best techniques. He supposed a domain tactic or another might work with his True Realm, but he could still only hope that the stat improvements, enhanced killing ability, and maybe those domain tricks would suffice.

In other circumstances, he might win if he kept the fight going. But these Voided Guardians also improved quickly, the fog was still expanding, and, more importantly, Shen only had five seconds before his True Self cracked. While he was currently in a place without Laws to infect his soul, the Domain of Entropy would cease with his foe's demise.

Previously, he had considered the risk but wanted to perfectly time killing the Voided Guardian while deactivating his domain. Theoretically, his soul would heal quickly. He had been willing to take a gamble because it was the only way to survive a little longer. Now, though, there might be no need to, and he would do his best not to take the risk.

So, he had five seconds and no qi.

Shen felt his foes approaching in his True Realm.

It was time to see how big of a deal his Domain was.

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[A/N: I felt this was needed, but no more teasing. Actual badass combat in the next chapter.]

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