He didn't leave the passage immediately. Robert went around, killing a few more Nightshades in his Academy uniform. But his real intention was to draw out any would-be bounty hunters. He had no idea where to start looking for clues on who and why the bounty was placed. Someone must really hate him to spend money like that. Waiting for killers to come after you could be a dumb move but he doubted that the next group had so many counters as the previous one. And he wasn't thinking straight.
Maybe it was the recent victory, maybe it was a desire to leave no unfinished business behind. Or just to vent his frustrations. Whatever the reason, he got his wish.
He foresaw an arrow striking him in the back of the head and killing him instantly. No chronal shear, no $200 next lap, no regeneration, just up and dead. He tried to dodge but the vision of the arrow chased him, to the same effect. It would chase him wherever he went. His heart pounded madly as he fired a void lance at the arrow, disintegrating it entirely.
Another arrow came at him. He got that one too. And the next twenty, he ran and hid in the medieval city. He couldn't sense the attacker and believed that putting more range between them would be better. On arrow one hundred and seventy-three, he decided to change gears. Robert started to blink around, putting some distance between the arrow and himself. He also made a note that it was always one arrow.
From the essence flow around the arrow, he knew that the endless homing effect was a talent. It wasn't receiving a trickle of essence like ongoing effects did. An arch with a homing attack talent that always resulted in a kill. Was that one or two effects? It didn't matter. Robert disintegrated the arrow and used his main talent before the next was fired. Or so he hoped. Because his foresight predicted an arrow would kill him inside the liminal void.
He kept running and teleporting. Without the distracting effects of the realm, he found the shooter. A guy with an arrow nocked, tracking him even through two dozen walls. And his arrow kept coming, changing course, avoiding obstacles. How the fuck did that guy chase him into the liminal void? And why wasn't he being devoured by the void?
Was that also part of his talent or was he a dual-talent Arch? When the archer noticed him approaching, the guy started to run away. Robert got a glimpse of three stars in his soul and a lot of Wind essence surrounding the guy. He darted away faster than a hunting falcon. Even blinking three times per second at the maximum range couldn't catch up with the guy. Robert fired some void lances but the guy dodged them, despite the beans moving instantly. The archer must also have some sort of predictive power.
The moment Robert disintegrated the arrow chasing him, the archer fired another one. Robert dodged that one by going into the true void. To his surprise, or not, another arrow came at him, the visions the same. He would die if the arrow as much grazed him. Instant death. It would pierce through his mage armor or any barriers he placed as if they weren't there.
But this time, it was trivial to find the archer. He was there, floating against the infinite black canvas, a sore thumb disturbing the peace of the void. The guy wore black leather armor and had a quiver full of arrows strapped to the side. He also wore dozens of amulets, and brooches, each one of these pieces of jewelry charged with more essence than any one-star Arch could hope to have. Robert remembered what his talent evolution said. The emperor could kick his guests out. He focused and did exactly that. He banished the guy back to reality and caught the homing death arrow with a wide void lance. That earned him peace until he returned to reality.
The tireless hunter did the same, again.
Pissed, Robert started to level the realm with his void lances. His heart was beating so fast that the essence retrieved from the Void Gates of Nirvana per minute almost doubled. But regardless, the archer kept one step ahead of him just as he kept one step ahead of the arrows. The only time he had some peace was when the archer caught the attention of a Nightshade. He would drop the arrow chasing Robert to fire one at the Nightshade. On contact, the monster died but left no Darkness goop behind.
Robert could see how the archer would cheese his way into three stars. If his arrows were that deadly from the start, earning Aura was easy. As the next arrow came for him, Robert went straight to the true void again. It took just a few seconds before a new arrow was there, coming after him. Robert spotted the archer and stopped. He blasted the arrow away and waited. The moment the next arrow came out of the bow, he shot it down. The archer fired another dozen, with the same effect. They kept their chase, like some cartoon cat and mouse.
At one point, Robert got him in range for a drain essence. An amulet on the guy's neck used some essence and dispelled the debuff.
"Who will run out of resources first, I wonder?" Robert said. "Will I run out of essence, or will you suffer from talent fatigue? And better, do you have a way to get out of this place once you kill me? Do you even know where you are?"
Robert had a good estimate of the guy's talent. Arrows he fired killed on contact. They chased their target endlessly. And the hunter could chase after his prey regardless of where they went and survive there. Those were the three – or four – effects he saw from the guy's talent. His Prime Vestige might've granted all three straight away but Robert believed these were the base talent and the two evolutions, without order.
The hunter paused.
"What good is the bounty if you are stuck here for all eternity?" Robert went on. "Do you wanna see something funny?"
The archer just fired another arrow.
Robert dove deeper. He went to the deep void, to the river of Void wisps. There, he started to gather and fire his void lances with impunity.
The archer arrived seconds later and had to use his Wind essence to avoid Robert's attacks.
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"Welcome to my domain!" Robert boasted as he blasted his void lances at the hunter. "Here, I have infinite essence, asshole! It's just a matter of time until I catch you!"
He placed a lens of distorted space and changed the next two-star void lance from a beam to a wide cone. The hunter couldn't avoid that one, not unless he could move many times faster than sound. But as diffused as the beam was, it just shaved the Wind essence he'd surrounded himself with. But the beam killed the arrow coming at him.
It was inconsequential. Drunk on power, Robert fired more and more beams, filling his stars to full between shots. Neither of them stopped attacking. The hunter fired his arrows and Robert with his wide-area attack. Not until he saw the archer bleed from the eyes, nose, and ears. Severe talent fatigue. He had used a ton of Wind essence too.
Robert didn't fare much better, having poisoned himself. As the hunter stopped to drink some potion, Robert saw himself forced to purge the dross essence from his body.
A potion that cured talent fatigue would cost a lot. Was the hunter weighing the cost of the potion against the value of the bounty or his own life?
"Your talent allows you to chase after your mark through dimensions, but does it give you a way out?"
"I can always set another creature as the target of my Relentless Hunt!" The archer finally replied as he put some distance between him and Robert. "I could go after that girl you like so much."
"Nice threat," Robert replied with his best Batman growl. "But did you know distances here are subjective? Sort of. Do you think you are out of range of my abilities? Well, think again. Mind Blackout." He used his most powerful ability with the full power of his two stars.
An amulet on the man's neck shattered. No, it exploded, sending a shower of metallic shards away. The moment they left contact with him, they disintegrated.
He frantically took a potion and uncorked it. Before he could bring the vial to his lips, Robert hit him with another two-star mind blackout. This time, it pierced through the archer's mental defenses. Robert wasted no time being as destructive as he could with the hunter's mind. But not even a second passed before the spell was removed, at the cost of most of the charge on another one of his defensive amulets. The hunter winched, then chugged the potion like a professional milk gallon drinker. He blew Wind essence into the vial, then the liquid was ejected into his mouth. Clever.
The hunter's eyes changed. Maybe he was having second thoughts and would go after Amanda as he threatened. Robert once more expelled him from the void. But this time, Robert didn't loiter around. He went back to the liminal void and searched for the hunter. He found the man frozen between instants, an arrow forever nocked in his bow.
Robert took a gamble. He wrapped one arm around the hunter's neck, then grabbed the arrow and a section of the bowstring. This way, the archer couldn't fire his projectile. To make sure he would hold onto both, he used Life essence to grow a grotesque leathery hand that wrapped around the arrow shaft, the bowstring, and the man's hand. He also extended it to the other hand, pinning both of the man's arms. He did the same with his arm around the hunter's neck, bending the bone and wrapping it like an EMT's cervical trauma collar. Then he waited for his visit to end. As the seconds ticked, he sensed no mortal danger in the next few seconds.
Then he returned. The hunter gasped and tried to release the arrow but his hand was wrapped tightly with Robert's deformed flesh. Robert kicked the man's hips, firing a void punch with his foot. A shower of gore and blood was his reward, as the kick scraped the surface layer of the hunter's flesh. Another amulet broke.
"Hunt this, motherfucker!" Robert screamed in the man's ear. "Evade this!"
A three-star wind blade fired at Robert's neck. Just like in the tournament, it struck with such power that neither the mage armor nor his chronal shear tempering did little to prevent the damage. The ablative protection was overpowered and Robert's neck was severed. It was a cut so clean any samurai would be envious of it. Right after the blade went past, before his head had the time to move away from the body, the split ends of his void blood vessels sought each other. Robert triggered reconstruction and rejoined his head.
Another void punch kick, this time with the power of both of his stars behind it. At the same time, Robert grew flesh over the archer's mouth and nose. It wasn't to choke the man as Robert knew Wind Archs were impossible to suffocate. The kick connected and the hunter lost another amulet along with a pound of flesh from his outer thigh.
Robert thought about offering the hunter a chance to surrender. But no. This was not that kind of fight. There was no honor to be traded here, no trust whatsoever. They were two apex predators fighting for supremacy. Robert kept using his void punch spell with his kicks, wasting up the hunter's impressive array of defensive talismans. The reward for his efforts was a severed leg and massive bleeding. But yet another amulet staunched the bleed.
Robert used raw Space manipulation to emulate the teleportation-denying talent of that assassin in the team of fourteen. He hedged against the risk of the hunter using some expensive teleportation item to escape Robert's grasp. But if he had one, he'd surely have used it by now, right?
The hunter screamed and used the remaining essence he had with dozens of wind blades of varying potency. Robert had no choice but to tank the attacks with his body, draining deeply from his stored biomass to regenerate the damage.
Now, with the light of the hunter's stars all but gone, Robert could see the archer also had an artificial satellite core, most likely a 2% one. He cast drain essence and sap stamina on the guy, partially surprised the spells took root this time. One by one, the stars dimmed, broke down into essence, and fed Robert. The hunter lost consciousness from the massive loss of lifeforce.
Robert used his talent once more, dragging the hunter to the true void. He reformed his body and stripped the man of all equipment, including two high-quality storage rings and the archery paraphernalia. He used mind blackout and satisfied his curiosity. His prediction about the hunter's talent was almost spot-on. But his boast about going after Amanda to escape the void was a lie. He could declare a target for his dimension-spanning hunt only once per week. Robert took his time to carefully copy the man's learned hunting skills into a VHS tape. It was a treasure trove, more valuable than the items Robert looted.
He also searched the hunter's memories for any hints of the organization that posted the ten billion bounty on him. He came empty. His consolation prize was a list of all of the hunter's underworld contacts.
Satisfied, Robert let go of the hunter. The void feasted, and the Emperor received his bounty. Colorful orbs were all that remained of the hunter. A light green for wind and a silvery sand for Time. They shot toward Robert's soul. He felt the fierce winds blowing over him. The Time orb refilled some of his essence but that was it. This particular talent evolution remained a mystery.
He decided he defied fate enough. He couldn't be sure he'd win against the next bounty hunter. Robert focused on his Pittersville apartment and tried, for the first time, to move between realms through the true void. Motivated by necessity, his fear of getting lost in the void took a back seat. The trip was longer than usual, but the usual was almost instantaneous. He climbed up to the liminal void and found himself in the park near his apartment.
He looked at the apartment building and decided to not go there. With the bounty on his head, he couldn't risk going near his friends. Robert instead went to a place he knew nobody would bother him.
The Puffbloom Islands.