They started to see more proof behind dimensional veins existing, though after what had happened in Rochester, Owen hadn't been doubting Malik's claim. They found several areas that were littered with gates of all kinds. A wide variety of monsters also roamed through the forested area they were using to sneak towards the next domain location.
Malik and Owen took turns leading their group through horde after horde of monsters. It had taken a while to get Malik to agree to letting Owen take the lead, but he had started to feel like the attention he was getting was actively smothering him. They all eventually had to give in, since even with Malik's strength, the horde were getting to be too much for just him to handle.
"Owen, you okay?" Malik asked, after one of the particularly nasty fights. "Yeah, I'm okay," Owen sighed. He had wanted them to stop doting on him at first, but he had been the one to spill the beans and knowing that he had a limited time left didn't help ease any of their worry. He tried his best to accept it for what it was, which was true caring for his well being. He felt a smile tug at his lips when Myra pushed her hand into his.
In a much softer tone, he heard her ask. "Nothing has gotten worse has it?" Owen squeezed her hand to try and give her some reassurance, when words didn't immediately come to mind. After a second or two, he tried his best to describe the feeling. "I don't think its gotten worse, but I can't directly see anything wrong with my core space, neither have a noticed anything with my body." He shrugged. "I guess my body feels like I'm wearing a shoe that has a rock stuck inside of it. Actually, maybe not that drastic, since it doesn't hurt." He followed up when he saw the look of worry on his girlfriend's face.
"It is more so, that it just feels wrong for right now. The feeling sort of comes and goes, though I have noticed it more when we have finished up a fight and I'm dropping my abilities." Myra still look worried, but pulled his hand up and kissed the back of it. "Let me know if it gets worse." He appreciated her leaving it at that. They were both worried and thinking about it more wouldn't help, but he was well aware that neither of them could successfully ignore it.
She guided them over towards Peggy, who had finished casting pursuit of change on Malik. "We are only a couple hours outside of another one of the domains, so we will have to rest here, to make sure all of us are ready for the fight." Malik started. "They know for sure where we are heading and I doubt they are expecting for us to take long working our way through these hordes, so prepare for a tough fight."
"Let me take the front line on this one and focus on backup," Peggy started and before anyone could interrupt or refuse, she continued. "I already have several issues with this next location and the World Father would want me to clean up the mess at least somewhat by myself." Owen nodded slowly and turned towards Malik, who still looked worried. "There are going to be some, well, they are just going to be really strong. I know at least one person close to my strength is on their side."
"You can stand close by then, but the World father would want me to smack Gluttony off the face of the planet and I want to try my best to do so." Peggy said again, this time with her full attention turned towards him. She was already well aware that her friends trusted her and her abilities, so she needed to convince the man who hadn't ever seen her in action. Malik seemed to struggle with himself for several seconds before he nodded.
They were still inside of the forest that wrapped around most of the open fields they had come across. It had surprised most of them, excluding Malik, but it had almost looked like there had been several crop circles that had turned into open fields inside of an enormous forest. The forest itself was more impressive than almost anything Owen could remember having seen so far. He was pretty sure it stretched further and had absorbed more land than any other forest in the pre-system earth.
They crept forward, careful not to step on anything that could give their location away. Hunger tore and gnawed at Owen's insides, but he only nodded in recognition that he had passed the threshold of the domain. With a force of will, he pushed aside the artificial hunger and pressed forwards until Malik held up a hand to halt them. "We are close enough now, Peggy this is your last chance, are you sure about this?" Malik asked and only got a nod in return.
Peggy moved forward and began to weave her favorite combo of affinities together, which happened to be all of the ones she had an affinity with. Each energy had a will and drive of its own that pushed against her ability to control them, but now was her chance to truly show what she had learned during the time she had spent with her mentor. A complex braid was formed in mere seconds as she pushed her energies to move faster. Mana gave the creation shape and as she purified it, she held it all together with a thin film of mana, to keep the resulting explosion of power at bay.
She moved forward then and started shouting insults at the initiates. She felt a brush of wind, as she felt her second work of magic take effect. She dove to the side and heard a loud clang as weapons clashed and Malik joined the fight. Peggy ignored his help for the moment and let her masterpiece take effect.
The entire world turned silent as; a blast of power shot out of where Peggy was standing. Even Malik and his opponent were affected as sound was temporarily removed from the area. Storms appeared in the sky, each correlating to one of the elements she had used in her attack. It looked like the apocalypse was approaching as the sky turned a deep red color. Fire burned the ground and rained down from the sky. Rather than the water that joined it putting out the flames, it seemed to only serve to make it burn hotter.
Just standing felt like an impossible task and Owen could only stare as it felt like a god had descended and performed their judgement. The storms hadn't abated either as groups of enemies were pulled into the same area, before combinations of every affinity rained down of them. Malik's opponent was affected by the storm as well, despite their higher level of strength. Just as the man looked like he might recover, all of the elemental energy that soaked into the ground seemed to be sucked into a never ending vortex, before it spat out six different elemental beings.
Each one radiated power, before collapsing in on the last enemy's location. Malik watched in surprise at his supposed rival being torn to shreds by a never ending storm of energy localized on just his position. When the energies finally abated, Malik had to give the man credit, he was still alive, if only barely. He finished off the man, saving him from the pain before turning to Peggy. "A true inheritor of the World Father, that was insane." He said and Peggy grinned.
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Owen and Myra checked on Peggy and seeing she was okay, left to find the source of karmic threads. Owen felt his anticipation and worry grow, this would surely be the straw that broke the camel's back. Firming his resolve they looked around for a short time and when they found the item, Owen snorted. It was a cornucopia, he couldn't help but laugh slightly at the irony. They moved back towards Peggy and Malik who were talking shop, about affinities.
The mood immediately dampened when they saw the item he was holding. "So, I guess it is already that time?" Malik asked and Peggy sighed. "I need a little bit longer, before I'll be able to confidently heal you from any backlash." Owen shrugged. "I'm not in a rush, despite the situation. How did you do that trick in creating elemental beings? I don't think i have ever seen you do anything like that before." His quick change in topic let the conversation flow a little easier as everyone was eager to change the conversation as well.
"It is a trick with imbuing your affinities with intent. When you create the shape of an essence marble or something similar, the shape only affects the end result by a little bit. But if you imbue it with your intent and your shape mimics your intent, then yo can do almost anything." Peggy began. "Everyone already uses their intent when using skills and other similar abilities, but holding your intent inside an erratic affinity is several times harder. The elemental beings that you saw were the result of months of practice and honing my intent."
Owen was nodding along, before he realized the discrepancy. "But we were only training with our sponsors for a month." he started and Peggy finished it for him. "I was able to enter a time distortion zone to practice my intent." When she saw the looks of confusion on everyone's face, including Malik, she continued explaining. "The World Father used his intent on a time affinity to affect a specific area, then had me practice while inside the sped up time distortion."
Owen found himself staring for several seconds in awe, before he turned to Malik who had a similarly shocked expression. Myra seemed unfazed, but Owen still couldn't help but staring for several more seconds. "That's... that's crazy, you are crazy strong." Owen said excitedly and Peggy's cheeks turned red at the praise. Malik also showered her in compliments, followed by a million questions.
They talked for a while longer, before their attention fell back on the cornucopia Owen was holding. "You ready?" Myra asked as she squeezed his hand. "You can always leave their domains alone." Her voice sounded hopeful. Owen leaned in and kissed her before smiling to reassure her. "This is what I want, even if its not the way I wanted it." She nodded and Peggy moved forward as Owen began circulating the chaos energy.
He was fully tensed and ready to receive any backlash of pain, but the chaos moved to envelope the karmic threads smoothly. He tried his previous trick, to save himself from more corruption, as mana created a thick barrier across his arms and chest. For the first time, the chaos moved like molasses and in less than a second broke through all of his barriers. He almost screamed in reflex, but the chaos that seeped into his body didn't have the usual pain joining it.
He still felt light twinges of pain here and there, but nothing that had been debilitating. He stared in confusion for several seconds before turning his confusion towards his friends. "What just happened?" Owen asked in confusion, to no one in particular. Each of his friends looked just as confused and Owen quickly moved through a series of stretches and sword movements. Checking his notifications, it was clear he had gained the five levels again, including a secondary class level, which boosted his general strength by almost a hundred stat points.
But there were no messages about the chaotic energies corrupting his body even further. They still spent some time resting, but from everything they could tell, Owen was in full health, with no side effects from the recent expenditure of energy. "I'm not sure how I wasn't affected this time, but I don't believe it was actually that easy. I can't see anything specifically, but the corruption probably increased, despite nothing hurting." Owen said, but none of his friends could answers his questions or theories either. They hadn't known very much to begin with and based on everything they knew, they knew even less about what had just happened.
"I suppose we can start heading towards the next domain." Owen said. They had made a lot of progress in a short time and only had three locations left and were saving the best one for last. Envy had surprisingly been the one that was furthest away, despite him having interacted with them first, but he didn't mind, in fact it felt like it was meant to be. "What sins are actually left?" Owen found himself asking and Malik looked at the map. "Lust, Pride and Envy. Each of them still have their domains and we aren't too far from pride and lust. We should even be able to take them both out in the same day." He answered.
"We don't need to hurry, the last thing we want is to overwork Owen, before he has a chance to finish his goal." Myra said and Owen silently thanked her. While he was pretty sure it would be easier to destroy the karmic threads, he wasn't sure yet about the effects it was having on his body, which worried him for different reasons. Despite his worries, the group of four turned their attention to the next location on the map and began trudging forwards.
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Aesona nodded as she saw the result of Owen's destruction of the karmic threads. She couldn't remember if she had ever seen someone move through the lower levels faster, though the method wasn't worth it. She knew what had happened and wished she could send down a message, but her interactions with the mortal world had reached their limits and now she couldn't even send a message to her old disciple Xerxes.
He wouldn't know what had happened either, but that was to be expected. Chaos was a power of the gods and even demigods knew to stray away from using chaos. She had researched the tier three gate that had appeared, that originally infected her inheritor with chaos. By all means, she wasn't sure how the boy didn't immediately die. She assumed it was the ability of his second inheritance, though she wasn't sure even the boy knew what that was.
It had allowed him to absorb foreign energies at a prodigious rate and she had to hold back a sad smile, as she remembered Xerxes almost letting Owen give himself a farseeing inheritance. She wasn't sure if Xerxes knew what the boy's inheritance was either, but she was certain that it was the reason he was able to handle chaos, despite being mortal.
Her mind quickly shifted back to why the chaos didn't effect him as much this time and a sad smiled wasn't able to be held back. She was happy he didn't need to experience any excess pain, but that usually meant that their body would be rejecting mana soon as it had adjusted to using chaos. He would either become mana starved quickly or turn into a chaos creature within the next couple days. It irked her that she would be able to interfere while still following the rules, after he turned into a chaos monster. But if she interfered beforehand, she was basically signing her own death certificate.
She wasn't looking forward to the next couple days, slowly watching the boy become a monster, but she would still watch. He was her inheritor after all, she wanted to be there for him, even if he couldn't know it.