[MA] 378. Cleaved (Patreon)

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[Chapters this week: 5/6 (3 of which are late chapters)

Late chapters: 2

Next chapter: In a few minutes]

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Shen ran, but nothing happened. Reality didn't help. Miracles didn't spontaneously manifest.

He stopped running when the Emissary was nearby and turned to face it.

If Shen were facing a Guardian, he could try countless different things. The Emissary was different. By countering everything Shen had done until now, it was prepared for about everything he could throw at it except good old tactics in straight, close-range combat.

Alas, after he took so much effort to simply cut the Emissary down after removing its black lightning, he wasn't as assured of his chances.

The Emissary also knew this might be the end. It didn't immediately rush against him. It stopped and waited for the millions of Void Spawn following suit to surround them. Even if it died, it didn't want to waste more time pursuing Shen again later.

"I'm a Void Harbinger," Shen said, trying what he could to survive. "I was appointed such before I had a falling out with the Alliance, but now it's genuinely my enemy. The Primordials, too, if it matters to you. Let me go. I'll assist you in bringing the Alliance down. You lose more than you win by killing tiny me before I can grow and kill some strong people."

He didn't really expect an answer and got none. The Void Spawn watched him silently, still waiting for more creatures to surround him.

Shen sighed. As unlikely as it was, he had to try to finish it quickly and try to escape again. There was still some hope. Not really, but he wouldn't just let himself get besieged.

He rushed toward the Emissary. It now had four arms and wielded four short swords. It had given up on the idea of keeping distance from Shen. It sought to overwhelm him with weapon numbers and superior speed. Its reach was still the same as Shen's spear because of its longer arms.

He swung his weapon, and it met two lightning-covered blades. It was easily deflected.

Before Shen could do anything else, the Emissary had Backstepped.

The creature was much faster than him. He barely felt it move in his Aural Realm, and there was no time to dodge. Four blades came at his back. His cultivator robe was unmade at the slightest touch from the lightning. His skin resisted the bolts but not against the physical weapon underneath.

The short swords went all the way through his chest and cut him in a diagonal cross. His body was disassembled into four parts: arms, head, and body. Black lightning burned through the injured flesh much more easily than healthy matter, and a considerable chunk of him was disintegrated.

To an onlooker, Shen would seem like a humanoid puppet that couldn't be assembled because the parts didn't fit well.

Qi and Path held him together even as the weapons cut him open. The Emissary didn't immediately follow up with a final strike, and Shen was thankful for it. He managed to move ahead and connect his body together. It was healing. Creating matter was costly and time-consuming, though. It would take him minutes, and the Emissary wasn't being that merciful. He didn't know why it was not attacking again, but he doubted it would stay like that for over a few seconds. It did exist just to kill him, after all.

He chided himself for the mistake. He had wanted to surprise the Emissary with a weak-ass attack to lower its expectations of him and force it to make a mistake, but it hadn't worked. His trick with anti-Lightning vibrations and micro-tears hadn't been exactly about striking weakly to make the creature look down on him, but it had been similar enough for the Emissary to be prepared against it.

He should've expected it. He had expected it. It hadn't mattered. He also knew the Emissary could use any technique Shen had used against it before killing it. Still, he had wanted to play smart and leave something for the next time.

Shen didn't want to believe what he knew without a shred of doubt: that there would be no next fight if he killed the Emissary now, only an execution.

He laughed self-derisively. He had grown to be so proud of himself. The episode in the vault had filled him with hubris. He valued himself too much to believe he could be so easily trounced.

His training had been clear: Emissaries would kill anyone of the same rank. There were no what-ifs, no ways out unless someone of a higher rank helped. But no one was coming. The Alliance's S-rank command was to get to the Center of Operations. No one could disobey. It would be treason. It would mean death.

He laughed louder. He kept repeating the same inevitable reality to himself over and over as if that would bring a sudden revelation that would save him. As if he would develop a Realization like Liya had against the ogre.

He wouldn't. He was almost sure Realizations required mastered Laws. He wouldn't master any Laws anytime soon. He wasn't even halfway through in any of them.

Shen shook his head and focused.

So this was it. His last real fight before the end.

The least he could do was win. Maybe someone who cared about him would look into this place's past one day and remember him as a worthy warrior. That's the best he could get at this point and would have to do.

The creature must've sensed the shift because it stopped waiting. Had that been its goal? Did it want to fight him at his best? Emissaries ceased to exist after they killed their target, so it made sense. It also wanted to savor the moment before its inevitable demise.

Such pathetic beings, the two of them, pitied against each other in a fight that didn't ultimately matter for two forces that didn't care about them.

Shen removed every stray thought from his mind and used everything he had to think of how to kill that Emissary.

He found one dumb possibility. As stupid as it was, it was the only thing with more than a fifteen percent working chance. Nothing else would work.

He only needed to prepare a few things.

Shen took another spear from his spatial ring. He didn't fight well with two of them, but he wasn't terrible with it. Using something the Emissary wouldn't expect was more important than his peak power. He needed time, and the Void Spawn was even less used to that fighting style than him. He also took another two spears and kept them floating for good measure.

The Emissary got to him in an instant, while he was still spreading his qi on his surroundings.

Shen held two spears together and used them as one. It was awkward and borderline stupid. He did it anyway because the Void Spawn wouldn't understand it. The Emissary swung two swords at him, and he deflected with his spears. It was already mid-Backstep, and so was him. It still ended up on his side, two swords coming from his front and back and two trying to cleave him down.

Shen had expected to be in a similar position and was already moving. He Backstepped again. Simultaneously, he threw qi against the sword on his back, moved his floating spears to stop the one of his front, used one hand to block the swords on top, and thrust the other spear with the other hand.

The Emissary was also Backstepping. Both parties completed the movement. This time, the Void Spawn ended up behind Shen.

Shen's thrust had never been to where the Emissary had been; he had moved the spear to his back. Sadly, only the butt of the weapon struck the Void Spawn. It had a qi-shaped blade but was still too weak to cut through the black lightning. The ferrule was easily deflected when it hit the bolts. At least it didn't disintegrate.

Shen didn't even have time to try to disengage. The Emissary was still attacking him like before. His floating spears couldn't stop anything. Neither could his qi.

He was cleaved down and sideways.

The Emissary let him go again. Shen could barely use the opportunity because he could scarcely think. Very little remained of his heart and brain. He was deformed. His mind was affected. He would die in the next clash.

At least, that's what would happen if not for his prior preparations. He had known he would get struck badly again and wouldn't have time to prepare anything before this exchange. So, he had eaten up the damage to set up his plan. That's all he could do.

The qi he had spread throughout the region had seeped deeply into the Voided Subnode. So had his Path with it. Shen could barely think, but he didn't need to think to become one with those parts of himself.

Shen merged with the surroundings.

He didn't turn into a physical manifestation of any element. That would make him even more vulnerable. Instead, he used the technique he had seen so many people use against him before. He blended with the seams of the Laws of Reality.

That required mastered Laws. He used it anyway. His mind almost shattered as he became something he couldn't understand, and he would be out of any fight after he returned to himself—if he returned to himself. That was a worry for the future. Now, he was something else.

He was the Gentle Breeze on the Wind and the Stream in the Water drops in the air. He was the Shaft of the Spears he had brought out, the Killing in the Weapons, the Extremity of their edges. Shen was Conductivity incarnate, Lightning blending with nothingness in the air, static made manifest. He was Truly Boundless.

He could no longer be seen by physical means. The Emissary still looked straight at him, at his essence, anyway. He had expected it.

Shen was facing a superior enemy. Too overwhelmingly superior. He had thought his tactics and experience might help one last time, but they couldn't. The Emissary could deny everything he could throw at it. It was faster and more robust. But he had one thing it didn't have.

Shen had a Path.

A domain was one's Path fueled by one's feelings and goals into a singular purpose, then pushed into Reality through sheer willpower. Shen couldn't use his domain again without hurting his soul and changing irreparably. He would rather die than have to do so to survive against a Void Spawn. Who knew if the Void couldn't even seep into him and change him into something terrible? It hadn't happened that one time, but he wouldn't play games with it.

His domain was theoretically the strongest thing he had, but it was still his Path. His essence. It held his True Self whole but was also his True Self. That was the core of everything he had. Of everything he was. Of his power and weakness. His all.

Shen's willpower alone couldn't crush the Emissary again, even if he had the Absolute Horizon to try. He didn't need to try to know it. The metallic ball he had crushed last time would be much stronger this time.

He didn't have the stats or techniques to counter its defenses or attack it head-on, either. Not after it could counter his best attacks.

Shen only had himself.

When people used this Law-seam-merging technique to disappear from his senses, they meant to sneak-attack him. But there was a dumber way to use the ability. It would be suicidal even against someone of a lower rank because their soul would protect them as it did any energy, but Void Spawn had no similar defenses. The black lightning might make up for it, or it might not. Shen was about to find out.

He rushed his essence toward the Emissary while compressing every particle of qi and his every Law into its position. Everything he was traveled at it. He had just spread himself, then compressed into that Void Spawn's position.

He slammed his very existence against it.

Without his True Self, he would've been unmade as soon as his Path touched the lightning. With his True Self, everything he was came to occupy the same physical space as the Emissary.

Shen didn't have the conceptual knowledge to explain precisely what happened right then. He was literally pushing Reality, himself, into a place already Voided of it. It was like an attack, but not exactly. He was reclaiming space for existence itself in the most fundamental ways possible: the Aspects of Will, Time, and Space, through him, forced the Expressions of Change, Energy, and Sapience to exist there. Forced existence to exist there, in a way.

His very essence touched the black lightning and screamed in absolute pain. He lost consciousness for a split instant, but then he was through. Then, he was inside the Void Spawn.

Reality and Void occupied the same space in a way neither was meant to. Existence and its absence reached quantum entanglement.

Shen felt to be in absolute nothingness. His mind blanked out multiple times as the Void tried to unmake him. He could physically sense the Void Spawn already growing stronger to prevent that attack. Every instant, it repulsed Reality much more effectively than before. It rejected his existence. It pushed him.

He willed himself to stay and declared that space to be his.

He felt the moment he would've failed. Then, that thing inside made him stronger against the Void one last time—and broke. He felt it in all its glory, only long enough to understand it had never been meant to be strained like that. All of its power and potential were clenched, consumed, and popped to give him a final push before he lost all the advantages it always offered him when facing the Void.

The Void gave.

The Emissary exploded, and Shen came to be where it had just been. His mind recoiled in pain when he opened his eyes and saw the grey, lightless Voided Subnode. It took him a while to make sense of what he was seeing. He was glad when he did. He had feared he would be unable to think straight again.

He breathed haggardly and barely held his torn-up body together. He just stared at the skies, floating in nothingness with no willpower remaining to do anything else. Having that anti-Void part of himself destroyed felt like an aneurysm. He was lacking something crucial for his existence. It would take ages to heal if it ever did, and he didn't have that long.

Heavens, he really hoped someone looked into the past and saw him do this move as a last act of defiance against the Void. It had felt like shit, but killing an Emissary like that? He thought it had looked damn cool. Stupid, but cool.

He smiled. Luthdel should like it, at least.

Shen wanted to flee again. He couldn't. He didn't even have the will to focus on healing.

He just stayed there looking at nothing for a while. Then, he looked down. At the newly formed Emissary standing a few dozen feet away from him.

Death had arrived.

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