He did not stay still to tank my attacks, but opted to agilely maneuver around the area after being hit by my initial salvo, forcing me to enlarge the beam's area coverage, by aiming ahead and around him. This way, approximately half of my shots managed to hit its mark. Simon ended up with holes on his clothes, stains of blood and plenty of burnt wounds, the beam proven capable of hurting him. Though he too has proven himself resilient, as a majority of the wounds would visibly begin to heal due to being mere light wounds. The worst damage only really happens when multiple beams would coincidentally impact overlapping areas in quick succession.
After twenty shots, I stopped. This one cast had drained me of close to half my total mana pool, for what? Minor damages. As an old nsfw meme once said; the person did not want seven one inch objects, but rather, one seven inch object.
What I need is one bigger beam.
Rather than dismiss the current active spell, I attempt to cast another one on my other han—Simon makes a leaping motion and is suddenly within a few steps of my location, forcing me to abandon my cast and Dodge Roll a kick to my torso. I did fine dodging his follow up attacks—a quick succession of punches and kicks that destroys any concrete unfortunate enough to be behind its intended target—that is until the rolling motion began making me nauseous.
I missed the timing for another roll due to the worsening condition and ended up receiving a punch that sent me flying and tumbling away. Darnn! He punches like a Sentinel's halberd charge. I hastily stood up, expecting a follow up combo while parts of the swarm crumbled to the ground where his punch impacts my armor, but instead, I found him staring at me with a grin.
A small ropey-thin tornado suddenly formed around me, strong enough to keep me slightly off balance and dense enough to deflect my attempts at getting out. An instantaneous flash of orange drew my attention and made me glance to my right, where a blob of fire is on a parabolic path towards me.
I brace for impa—an impact that never came. Instead, I opened my eyes and witnessed the moment a blob fuses into the tornado. The thing has now been turned into a fiery twister. Dangit! What are my options? Escape? Sabotaging the tornado? As I ponder, the tornado continues to spin faster and heat up with every passing time as the two continue to add wind and fire spits into the tornado. Simon, the piece of shit, stood right where I saw him last with a relaxed grin on his face.
The heat is starting to damage my skin. So, in a desperate move I try to devour the tornado, but could not, for the life of me, get any significant amount into my mouth to make any worthwhile difference. While trying to suck-devour-in the heat is like trying to drink the ocean, I'm consuming them alright, but there's plenty more where that came from.
The tornado also slightly fluctuates in size, one moment slightly shrinking and the next expanding, but overall, it is very gradually narrowing… Soon, I'll run out of space and start losing health from the rising temperature. Wait long enough and I'll definitely burn in the fire.
Space huh.
I hastily manipulated my mana and reached out to the subspace that contains my repository and pocket to create a bypass that will move me from here to anywhere else, the path was easily enough made. Unfortunately, no matter what I do, the space refuses to allow me entry. I even attempted to pull a bit of the space around me along by creating a pocket bubble with me still inside and pushing it through, but nope. Though a thrown rock would pass just fine, believe me, I tried.
Down to half my health points. I can no longer visually see outside, but can still sense everything through use of Mana Sense. All three still maintain their previous positions, guess it has only been a few minutes.
Is this it? Death at the hands of man-eaters.
No!
I flood my brains with mana, quite like how Pocket Suspense would manipulate mana before using it to decelerate the pocket's internal time. But, unlike how the spell rejects the presence of time, I embrace it, I allow it to flood in, to move in greater excitement.
I feel my thoughts and consciousness hasten, the tornado slowed down to half its normal speed, then a third, before finally settling down on about a quarter. My thoughts are accelerated to, maybe, triple its previous speed?
It has been a while now—due to my experiments with Pocket Suspense, that I can feel a kind of void that exists between the space that is our reality and the space that holds both my spatial inventories, all separated by a thin mysterious membrane. Yet, I have always been too afraid to explore anywhere beyond the two I know of. Now, with my life at risk, any feelings of fear are forgotten. So, I manipulated my mana and began feeling around this void.
Within a few seconds, I could sense several different membranes. Also noticing that rather than everything existing within their own individual areas, all these bubbles of space seem to both overlap with each other, but are also each their own existence. And the void in between these existence being the gaps of nothing-mana that separates something… just something.
I allowed one part of my mind to ponder on the concept and used the other to further my cause, to survive. I pushed through the nearest membrane, this one too, did now allow me to enter. The second one was very hard to pierce through, but finally gave up to my desperate attempts, unfortunately, this too rejected my physical presence.
My health has now dropped below the 30% mark, every part of my skin so burnt I can barely feel them anymore, no sense of touch, just pain. My Trilattic Swarm has been set to make several layers of empty air pockets between me and the outside, but is barely doing anything, it was too late. I paused my exploration of the void to cast Lesser Heal, yet did not waste time seeing if that does anything. There was probably a slight sensation of soothing relief to parts of my skin, but that might just be me.
I knew the moment I pushed through the third membrane that this one will allow me entry. A few moment of observation tells me that the space within is whimsical in the way that it's always changing and fluctuating. And yet, I feel that it is too, malleable.
I made haste despite a System ding and—following my instincts—created a tunnel of unchanging, stable space that leads from here, through the subspace and back out onto my current space, what I now somehow know as True Space. The space where almost—though infinitely close to all—everything exists upon. The path leads from where I am into a partly destroyed building, a decent amount of wall is left standing, it will hopefully be adequate to use as a temporary hideout.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Unlike my mind, my body feels sluggish, unaccelerated. But I push through and slowly jump into the tunnel. Being in the tunnel-space feels like I'm standing on solid ground and floating, both at the same time, a very interesting experience. I casually began walking forward towards the exit while engaging my Sneaking skill—and was in the midst of taking my tenth step when I feel my control of the space tunnel behind me break and the tunnel dissolved into the ambient whimsical space. It did not stop there, but continued to dissolve along, straight at me.
I sprint! And willed myself to move faster, surprised that I actually find myself moving faster. Within a moment, I exit into True Space and unwillingly exhale in relief as the last of my tunnel loses its shape. They have failed to notice me.
Back under relative safety, my whole body explodes with pain. The skin on my knees and elbows, as well as various joints and the bottom of my feet bleeds from overusing the sensitive burnt skin during my hasty spatial retreat. My Hp, too, is close to reaching the single digits. So I sit there, hidden and Sneaking behind the wall of a destroyed building nursing my wounds with liberal applications of Lesser Heal.
It's amazing how something prefixed as lesser could heal wounds that would have taken me months to heal when using pre-integration medicines, doesn't even leave a scar. Hmm, high constitution probably helps. Sometime during my healing session, the duo had stopped using their combination move and all three stood ready while waiting for the tornado to dissipate. Only to reveal nothing inside.
In the now peaceful night. I notice the two are slightly drenched and have barely any external wounds, their injured state is only identifiable in the way they stand and move with pained grimace. All three started talking with each other and, in Barry's case, randomly yelling taunts at me. But I've had enough near death experience for today and slowly slinked away.
"You think you'll be safe fleeing down west of here?" Barry yelled. What? "We know you've got another community set up there! Do expect our visit." He then cackled like a mad man.
That sounds a lot like a threat, but why? How did they find out where I came from? And won't it be easier for them to just gatecrash our Territory and catch everyone unawares? I carefully made my way out, incidentally, as I pass by right where I would assume the Territory's midpoint lies, I spotted the remains of a broken Territory Core.
No survivors within reach of my Mana Sense.
My way back was uneventful. With all the smoke, fire and explosions that had been happening. Any creatures worth their evolution have long fled for their life. So, soon enough, I find myself standing before Atech's home. My mask opens up and the stone walls part before me---the first thing I see is five wrist-guns aimed at me…
"""Zen!"""
"Kid!?"
"What happened?" My dad stepped forward and asks. "You're back much earlier than expected."
"Sorry dad," I say. Then proceeded to tell him and them about everything that happened, though making sure to downplay the dangers of my encounter with the trio and skipping the part where everyone probably got devoured---they got burnt instead. After listening to my recollection, he falls to his knees, an expression of great anguish on his face. I allow my mom and sister to console him, while I gently lift a sleeping Mini from her mothers hand and approach the twin engineers.
I never expect to witness a person more that three times my age look lost, let alone two... but here I am, and here they are. "Hi Atech, Acek Ardi."
They both turn to look at me with a blank face. "Umm, are you both okay?"
They slowly nod in an identical way. "Alrighty, here have some chocolates," I reach into my repository and gave them each a few candy bars and milk chocolates. That got me a reaction.
"Yeh ave more choco'ates?"
"You have a pocket space?"
Their eyes gradually light up, "yes to both." Atech proceeded to savage the chocolates, Ardi took a candy bar and nibbled at it absentmindedly.
"What is it?" He asks me, "a Skill or a Spell? A Trait?"
"Mine is a spell, though I think I've seen enchanted bags or rings that functions in a similar way"
He nodded at that and proceeded to think in silence, so I left them to it. Seeing my parents and Tiffany conversing now, rather than crying their hearts out, I gently redeposit Mini in her mom's embrace and took a seat. We conversed for a while, talking of the good old time from when the integration had not happened as if it's an event of years past, then of our plans for the present and the future.
Soon, sleep came to us. I once again decided to keep the first watch, and will wake my dad for the second in a few hours. Atech and Ardi will take the third near morning. I spend the night half exploring the subspaces and the other half keeping watch. Though, I feel like my mind has once again expanded, as a third part seems capable of checking my long overdue notifications easily enough, 'updates please.'
** DING **
Skill obtained Intimidate
Skill obtained Heat Resistance
Skill obtained Fire Resistance
Skill obtained Deception
Skill level up, Taunt 11 > 12
Skill level up, Intimidate 1 > 2
Skill level up, Intimidate 2 > 3
Skill level up, Soul Sense 11 > 12
Skill level up, Sneaking 14 > 15
Skill level up, Parallel Thoughts 1 > 2
Skill level up, Visualization 16 > 17
Skill level up, Dodge Roll 5 > 6
Skill level up, Mana Sense 17 > 18
Skill level up, Evasion 10 > 11
Skill level up, Dodge Roll 6 > 7
Skill level up, Heat Resistance 1 > 2
Skill level up, Pain Resistance 7 > 8
Skill level up, Heat Resistance 2 > 3
Skill level up, Heat Resistance 3 > 4
Skill level up, Fear Resistance 9 > 10
Skill level up, Heat Resistance 4 > 5
Skill level up, Pain Resistance 8 > 9
Skill level up, Heat Resistance 5 > 6
Skill level up, Heat Resistance 6 > 7
Skill level up, Fear Resistance 10 > 11
Skill level up, Pain Resistance 9 > 10
Title awarded [Spacial Notice]
Skill obtained Spatial Intuition
Spell mastery rank up, Wind Arrow Advanced > Peak
Congratulations. You have created a new Journeyman rank spell. As its creator, the spell will grow with you as your understanding of it grows.
Beam Torrent
Spell logged
Would you like to make Beam Torrent available on the CredStore?
Journeyman spell learnt Accelerated Thoughts
Journeyman spell learnt Blink
Spell mastery rank up, Blink Early > Basic
I guess it's true what they say in most stories, only when we risk our lives will we experience quantitative growth. I ignore the store prompt for now and decided to inspect the interesting new entries. 'Inspect!'