At first, Shen was shocked by Abbav's demise. Then, he just laughed.
That was either an illusion, or everyone would die. Probably an illusion because the pressure on his mind didn't decrease. Whatever the case, Shen had no choice but to keep fighting, and that's precisely what he did.
He lost track of time as he focused on improving while killing Void Spawn. Every swing of his spear was Infinitesimally better than the one before. He had long spent all his stamina and moved his body using his Laws. Accomplishing it took a lot of concentration, especially when not spending his qi beyond the bare minimum to dispose of a Void Spawn, but he was progressing.
The exercise even doubled up as letting him get ideas on how to improve his mastery over the Laws—undoubtedly by design.
Shen had stopped caring about how strong any creature he fought was. Killing them all was more cost-effective than avoiding the weak ones. As importantly, each of them was a honing stone for his technique and a potential beacon of enlightenment.
He attacked any Void Spawn in sight.
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Zyn didn't know the A-rank whose hands his life depended on; if they acted too late in a crisis, he might die. Yet, even as he faced death, he could only wonder if this was what love felt like.
"Stage H-37 just underwent a C3 mutation," the mysterious A-rank said. "Stage W-01 has been forcibly started."
Yes, it had to be love. The First Lieutenant fought while receiving the instantaneous and technically precise status reports. He had never been so well-assisted by any intelligence official, scout, or superior office.
How could anyone be so perfect?
The A-rank informed, "The Void attempted to trigger a Size Reversal. I deemed it counter-productive to this exercise. I stopped it."
And they even helped him do his best for his troops?
"My Realization has not touched you, but I just detected that constant close proximity is poisoning your Path. I'll withdraw my touch. I'll keep assisting in silence unless I state otherwise."
Path poisoning? So what? That perfect being could take Zyn's soul for all he cared—
The First Lieutenant threw up on his helmet as soon as the A-rank retracted their Realization. He hadn't eaten anything in a while and puked pure blood and bits of his guts.
He had heard of Path Overriding but never witnessed it, much less gone through it.
He was scared at how at the mercy of the A-rank he felt. They didn't even need to attack him to kill him. He would willingly let his Path be unmade.
Zyn was lacking. He had frozen in time. Uya was almost developing a domain, while even the newcomer Shen suddenly had stronger willpower than him. That wouldn't do.
His fear and shame mixed into a furious drive to kill Void Spawn and improve himself.
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Shen found himself fighting the worst enemy possible: human-sized Warriors. At that size, the C-tier creatures could easily surround him, and killing one of them gave him no temporary reprieve.
He swung his spear, and the human-sized rectangular block of nothingness split into two and then reconnected. Shen's spear harmlessly went through the middle.
He had expected it. Most Warriors had special abilities, and this one had used that skill before. His weapon kept going forward until the blade connected to a six-armed biped that teleported into existence just where he had targeted, bisecting it at the waist. It had already been injured a moment ago and dissipated into smoke.
The teleporting Void Spawn were astoundingly subtle when moving around, barely creating ripples as they ignored spacetime. Shen wouldn't have the signs without Liya's training. The creatures that could do that had reaped the most lives among C-ranks. They hadn't used it to go past the C-ranks yet, but it was a matter of time.
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Alicia was the Fire of Destruction and the Healing Life. She killed the enemy and saved herself. She burned the world and cared for its healing agent: herself.
She was surrounded by the liquid creatures. Her mana was drawing low. She kept telling herself that joining the Void would be better than keeping fighting.
Alicia burned her self-doubt and foes alike to cinders, and in doing so, she got better at it.
She understood her Concepts like never before, especially Destruction. Even feeling her mana touch the creatures that represented ultimate Destruction—albeit not a flaming one—assisted her in that endeavor, and she used her enlightenment against her enemy. The cruel irony filled her with joy, and she found herself smiling even as she failed to dodge a lance that went through her stomach right before she burned the traitor wielding it to ashes.
She was in a trance, killing and healing, healing and killing—and walking further into her Path of Salvation.
Alicia took another mana crystal from her spatial ring and crushed it. She had no idea how that thing worked without the system, but it did. She got some mana—
Something cut her from behind.
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The inevitable ultimately happened.
Two small Warriors simultaneously slipped through the increasingly thinning line of C-ranks. They obliterated every D-rank before any C-rank could help. Shen tried to save Alicia, but she was cut from head to waist long before he could reach her.
He only saw her surprised look as the dark blade cleaved her from behind.
Heavens, he really hoped he hadn't been lied to and that these people weren't dying for real.
Shen all but shut his mind down after that. The chain of command was also destroyed mere moments later. Every remaining C-rank was locked in battle, fending for their lives. Some fled into the dark space, only to find out the Void Spawn would pursue them into that place during a Stampede—and Guardians became weaker there.
People also started spreading because they were forced to take every opportunity they had to move to a slightly safer spot in their surroundings. Fighting together was safer but impossible against the endless horde.
Shen had lost track of time and how many enemies remained to kill. Minutes, hours, or maybe days later, there was only he and a world of death. The ground and skies were covered by black forms.
He kept fighting.
The Law of Shaft made Shen firmer and gave his moves stability and weight.
Conductivity and Stream let him keep on the move. Conductivity allowed him to target the enemy where it cost him the least. Stream gave his every movement endless momentum.
Gentle Breeze made him elusive and almost intangible, adding to the prior two Laws to let him dodge by a hair's breadth. Killing Weapon made his attacks obviously more lethal. Extremity pushed every Law, Shen's attacks, and himself to their limits.
True Boundlessness assisted him with not being too constricted or trapped by the mass of enemies and to keep improving.
Killing Weapon was the least useful of his Laws. He didn't truly kill the creatures because they weren't alive in the true sense of the word. The Law still made his attacks more effective in crushing his enemies, but not as much if they were living beings.
Shen's greatest disappointment was that not even True Boundlessness could let him master his Laws on the go. He had to meditate. All his current improvements were of a technical nature.
But he didn't dwell on it. He was getting better at killing and learning to apply his latest Law improvements to his fighting style.
Not as in learning how to use more of a Law's power; Shen hadn't increased his Law potential. He was his Laws and had become more in his entirely. It opened new possibilities for him.
For instance, Conductivity wasn't anything new to Shen. But he could figure out the path of least resistance faster now. Extremity became more extreme, letting him pierce deeper or cut sharper.
He could do more and better.
Shen felt like he could fight forever, but he knew it was just his bloodlust speaking. The C-rank Warriors were weaker than most C-rank Guardians, except maybe those below average, but they were too many. Shen would run out of qi or make too many mistakes sooner or later.
Shen had a large pool of qi as an Ethereal Harmonization cultivator, yet it wasn't infinite. His qi was consumed to fuel his Path when he killed any Void Spawn that could only be fought with Concepts or Laws. Shen had no idea what happened to the "burned fuel;" to his senses, it just seemed to disappear.
Whatever the case, his dantian was emptying. Shen did his best to decrease his expenditure and was surprised at some solutions he found, but there was only so much he could do.
50%, 40%, 30%.
Shen was surrounded and fighting defensively when the Laws of Lightning returned to that place, and Conductivity told him the path of least resistance. He got into a fetal position and shot himself sideways, rotating vertically, his spear cutting all enemies on the way.
He was stopped when he tried to go through a C-rank he couldn't see or feel with his Laws. Those were rare, but it wasn't the first time he faced a Void Spawn that could do that.
Shen would rather not think of the implications of such a being and what it could do if let loose in the Alliance, but he couldn't ignore the threat. He spent a lot of qi to widen his spear's blade with qi and move it as fast as he could, cutting the air directly before him hundreds of times in an instant. He only stopped when black smoke, already dissipating, appeared around his weapon.
25%, 20%, 15%.
Void Spawn grew stronger the longer they existed and interacted with Reality. They improved the most when they fought. A Guardian was supposed to dispose of the creatures quickly to prevent mishaps.
Unfortunately, Shen started failing at that.
It rarely happened at first, but he sometimes had to leave an area before he could finish an enemy, or he would get overwhelmed. Other C-ranks certainly had the same trouble, and that piled up. Now and then, he met these improved enemies and might fail to kill them, too.
Those Void Spawn grew progressively stronger, and Shen's fights became increasingly desperate. It took longer than Shen had thought it would, but ultimately, the decisions that allowed him to survive in the short term snowballed into a true crisis.
Shen's every move could be his last.
His every decision could be the wrong one.
10%.
His armor was getting hit more often than not. He could still move to decrease the impact's damage, but even that was getting harder to accomplish.
His end was near; he could feel—
Five million black needles materialized around Shen. They were already moving faster than him. He surrounded himself with qi, but it was for naught. The needles pierced his armor and body from head to toe, going through his flesh and bones as if they were made of butter.
That had been one of his worst fears: a teleporting sneak attack. It was only better than a teleporting strike that he also couldn't see or feel.
The pain was crippling, and the momentary daziness allowed a blade to cut his right arm off. His legs were also struck, but his armor held in that place. He was thrown back and recovered just in time to make sense of his surroundings and resume fighting with one less arm.
His other arm had fallen on the ground below and was already too far from him. An army of C-ranks stood in between.
Whichever creature had attacked him was still there. It would attack again whenever it wanted—or could, if the attack had harsh requirements.
Shen could do nothing about it.
5%.
A desperate gamble paid off, and Shen recovered his arm. He reattached it just in time for millions of new needles to appear around him.
This time, he used a lot of qi to protect only his skull while also protecting his head with his arms. His brain wasn't crucial for his thinking, but any harm it suffered affected his mind more than any pain.
The needles did not like that.
They all changed direction to his skull.
3%.
When Shen came back to himself, he was lying on the ground, and Zyn, Xun, and Uya were fighting around him. It was the first time he saw them wearing helmets, crude-looking metal ones that matched their metal-littered leather armor.
The Staff Lieutenant's longswords and maces were a sight to behold, but the First Lieutenant's Saber was an angry work of art. Shen got enlightened in martial moves just by watching the goblin dance while holding the mass of darkness at bay.
Shen stood up to find he lacked both arms and a leg. It didn't matter. His spear was nearby, and he bit the shaft, then joined the fray.
He didn't fail to notice that despite having no hand, the time ring was still stressing his mind somehow. Or was it? The pressure on his soul hadn't decreased when Abbav disappeared.
Was this place even real? Was it an advanced training illusion? Doubtful, but possible.
Shen didn't waste time on those considerations. It felt real enough. Instead, he made the ground shake in a question, "Is the conjurer of needles dead?"
His reply was to have millions of new tiny projectiles appear around him.
Uya and Xun moved so fast he couldn't detect them and crushed the needles at once. At the same time, Zyn cut a straight line from where he stood to a place Shen couldn't see. Then, he felt the ground shake in answer, "It is now."
Saving Shen cost Uya a strike to the back. She took it in stride and went back to killing. Shen did his best to assist.
The lack of arms made him weaker but not useless. He moved by virtue of his Path, not biology. He broke his neck multiple times as he swung or thrust his weapon too fast. He still killed Void Spawn. That's all that mattered.
2%.
The Wild Shift ended as suddenly as it had started.