Shen's current mastery allowed him to feel his Path's Laws up to 300 miles in ordinary Reality. His improvement in the vault had been incredible on that front, as with almost everything else.
Though he couldn't assimilate and analyze everything he sensed, he could focus and get more information about something. If he visited pre-Alliance Earth the way he was now, when there were no protections against Law sense, he would be able to tell the activities people inside houses were engaged in.
Sadly, sensing things that way wasn't precise. He could tell someone was eating if his Laws were amid the action, and they usually were, but not what was being said—though he was confident that would change as he further mastered his Path. It was like looking through a blurred window with clearer bits here and there. His five senses also didn't reach that far except in an unobstructed straight line—though he was on the verge of being able to bend Light using his Path, allowing him to see further. He could use his Laws to affect anything within range, including attacking, but it was of limited use without a clear picture of what or who he sensed.
His aura changed that. It could cover as much ground as his Law senses, and he felt anything inside in detail if he focused. It didn't just expand how detailed his Law sense became but also pushed his tact as a sort of sixth sense. His passive mana and qi senses also expanded to englobe everything within. Moreover, ever since he had started walking a True Path, his aura allowed him to react to incoming threats without conscious thought, making sneak attacks against him a challenge unless he trusted the offender to some degree—or they were specialized in such techniques, evidently.
Shen had already noticed before that C-rank, especially mid-C-rank, was the threshold where a commoner would consider a cultivator an unmatched divine entity. He could quite literally command the wind and the seas with his Laws alone.
He couldn't teleport people yet, but he would be able to after mastering his Laws. Likewise, though his destructive ability was impressive, it was still somewhat limited. Nevertheless, he would be able to destroy Earth's moon at peak C-rank, even without his domain. It wouldn't be easy, and definitely not in a single attack, but he would be able to do it. Destroying Earth would also be possible, but more of a splitting it up rather than the usual image anyone got of exploding planets. It would also take a while.
Alas, for all his power, stepping into a Voided Subnode felt like getting his senses pushed into a tiny bottle and carrying a heavy weight on his soul. The greater one's Law range, the stronger the suppression, relatively speaking. Shen's Laws' reach was reduced to less than thirty miles. His willpower was okay for now, but he already got an uncomfortable pressure on the back of his mind, almost a migraine, yet not, which would only get stronger.
Furthermore, mana trickled slower into every non-cultivator Guardian in sight, as the Guardian System suffered the Void's influence. Thankfully, that much slowness wasn't enough to affect C-ranks, much less anyone weaker. At least, not this close to the Alliance's Center of Operations in the Subnode. However, the connection with the system would erode as they got further away.
Those were just the consequences of getting into a Voided Subnode; special areas might occur randomly and make everything more complex.
Such limits were one of the things that made the war against the Void more problematic. Shen doubted the Alliance would struggle as much if its Guardians could freely deploy their entire power whenever they faced the Void Spawn.
Shen deployed his aura as soon as he materialized in the Voided Subnode, feeling everything he could, seeking potential hazards and scouting the region.
Every Subnode was unique in its ambiance, but they were all shaped as perfect spheres with exact spatial boundaries. They were slightly less wide than Earth's distance to its moon. In the Alliance, that was considered 33 SCLU, Standard Cosmo Length Unit. It was no coincidence. 1 SCLU was defined as 1/33th of a Subnode's width to keep with the 33 Nodes per universe, 33 Subnodes per Node theme. In Earth's measures, it was around 200 thousand miles, give or take, or 320 thousand kilometers.
That was seldom a concern. Shen could go from one side to another in a couple of hours if running in a straight line. Unfortunately, Samir-18 had a Geometric style with two variations: Maze and Comprehensive.
Geometric Subnodes were filled with three-dimensional geometric shapes of all sizes. Maze Subnodes were challenging to traverse and rarely had unobstructed straight lines. Comprehensive Subnodes were wholly affected by the main style—Geometric—including changes to what one would consider the average Reality.
So, there was no ground or sky in Samir-18. Three-dimensional geometric shapes of all sizes, from as small as pebbles to as enormous as hundreds of skyscrapers, floated everywhere. Or rather, they looked floating but were static and couldn't be moved. They were made of a bland gray metal-looking substance that felt like plastic and was more rigid than most B-rank materials. They stood at random distances from one another, from big groups touching each other to some standing tens of miles apart. The latter were rare, though; the Subnode was classified as a Maze for a reason. Shen couldn't see further than a few miles.
There was no global up or down in Samir-18—or even constant gravity. Some geometric bodies came with their own gravity, but there was no pattern. A pebble might have ten times Earth's gravity, while an enormous box might have no gravitational pull. Obviously, as mass didn't matter, it was no genuine gravity, which was also noticeable by how far the pulls went. It was also random. You might feel gravity a mile away from a shape or nothing a few feet away.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
That usually made navigating the place annoying and made Guardians more prone to mistakes during combat. That was doubly true because Void Spawn seemed unaffected by the shapes' gravities.
The system hadn't made things hard for the Seventh Exemplary Brigade. Shen's C-ranks materialized atop a three-mile-wide triangular prism with its own gravity. It was less than a tenth of Earth's gravity, but it still made it much easier for everyone to orient themselves.
The surroundings were mostly clear, too. There was nothing within five hundred yards of the prism. Things changed drastically after that range, though, as countless three-dimensional shapes were behaving like an insurmountable dome covering everything to Shen's left. Cubes, prisms, hexahedrons, balls, and so on littered the region, ranging from leg-sized to skyscraper-sized, standing from a few inches to a few yards apart. Shen's aura let him determine a few places he might go through if needed, but he wouldn't want to fight in there, not to mention put his people in such a situation. He would avoid it if possible.
The area was less chaotic to his right. The structures' sizes ranged from as wide as a mansion to a small neighborhood, floating from a few feet to a hundred yards apart. He would still rather not fight amid that, but it was the lesser evil.
Shen felt no Void Spawn or any Void surprises within ten miles. Not thirty, which was his nominal max range in that C-rank Voided Subnode, but ten. Each floating structure slightly affected how far his Laws reached, and it piled up.
Still, the place was safe within his senses. That was good enough for now.
"Report," he ordered.
Eleven C-ranks replied in unison, "All clear, Commander!"
Shen nodded pleasedly. Xia Liling had properly gotten her Battalion in position and knew how to report. He could stop paying extra attention to her and assume she would be as good as the other Battalion Commanders. It would allow him to focus more on other matters.
"Position yourselves," he commanded while doing so himself.
He flew a few dozen yards up. The rest of the Brigade would come soon, and being too close to them would make it more dangerous if any C-rank messed up. A greater distance from the weaker Guardians meant extra time for reaction, though if it was too much, they would become more vulnerable.
"System, bring the rest of my Brigade," he requested.
| Request received
| ETA: 3 minutes
The second notification surprised Shen. He was engaged in a mission given to him by the Acting General himself. The system had to be overloaded with matters with an even greater priority to put Shen's people on standby.
It also had to be recent, considering all the teleportation Imperia had used in Samir with no delays. Shen himself had likely only come immediately because he was C-rank, unlike his absent subordinates, and maybe thanks to the B-rank teleportation priority he had purchased with a system favor.
Three standard minutes was little enough that he didn't need to do anything different. He kept checking everything around, watching for any signs of Void Spawn. Nothing happened until light filled the prism's face below him as the rest of his Brigade was teleported to the Subnode.
Then, they were still materializing when one of the worst things that could happen in a Comprehensive Geometric Maze Subnode happened:
Material Possession.
There were many discussions about whether the Void would progress faster or slower with less interference from the Alliance. Sometimes, The Void was just waiting for prey to push harder in a Voided Subnode. So, some asked themselves: what if there was no one there? Would the Void just... do nothing?
The answer was a solid "no."
Leaving any Subnodes unmanned revealed no shift in how fast a Subnode fell. The most widespread theory was that the Void advanced steadily in empty Subnodes but prepared some punches in places protected by the Alliance. Manned or not, it took the same amount of time for any Subnode to fall—excluding some factors, like B-ranks assisting with slowing down the erosion—only the Void's methods differed. Supposedly, that happened because the Void also sought to maximize the damage it caused to the Alliance whenever it could.
Material Possession was precisely what its name suggested: the Void corrupted inanimate objects into becoming Void Spawn instead of living beings. That was theoretically impossible, but the Void didn't let it stop it now and then. B-rank Voided Subnodes had weird shit, and Material Possession was one of the signs that a Subnode was less than one step away from advancing from C-rank to B-rank.
Suddenly, every geometric shape within Shen's sensory range was compressed into an apple-sized ball of liquid darkness. The next moment, over half of them expanded into the weakest Void Spawn possible, Void Hatchlings.
"Defensive flying formation!" Shen commanded, and everyone got into a multi-layered sphere formation.
As soon as the last E-rank positioned themselves—which required them to use mana to propel themselves—half the remaining Void spheres turned into the second-weakest Void Spawn possible, Void Seedlings. Soon after came the Scouts and then, finally, the three-hundred-foot-tall Warriors.
There were hundreds of thousands of them, maybe millions. They were so many and so crowded that they couldn't move properly.
Shen was worried not because of fighting power but time. The longer it took to exterminate the creatures, the more likely a Warrior was to reach B-rank. They would also learn to use their power better.
He had C-ranks with mastered Laws. They could kill B-rank Warriors. But how well, and how many? They were way too few.
Even then, the crisis would be more manageable if not for the massive amounts of nearby Void Spawn cutting off the system entirely. No more mana or stamina was coming from the system. The Brigade had to manage its resources well, which partially meant leaving weak Void Spawn for weak Guardians to kill. A single percent of mana used to exterminate weaklings might be the difference between victory and defeat later.
So, as usual, C-ranks would allow some Void Spawn through for D-ranks to kill, and the latter would let some for E-ranks to kill. They would also fight extra hard for the AP. It was good for everyone until the Warriors were dealt with.
The only good news was that Shen didn't need the system for qi, and there was ample of the energy around. This was no Void Farm. This was regular Voided Subnode space, and the Void wasn't interfering with qi yet. He could singlehandedly ensure his people's safe as long as he only had to deal with C-rank Void Spawn.
Even then, after everyone got used to the battle rhythm, he would command a retreat. He wouldn't take any chances, especially not in a Voided Subnode so close to ranking up.
The first creature approached, and the battle started.