Chapter 177 - Shattered Sky
While the explosion, by its very nature, was an effect of force and creation, this one was skewed far more towards structure and cognition, trading off the burst power for a more specific effect.
He knew that because when the palm almost smashed him into the ground, the weight wasn't nearly as overwhelming as it should've been for something of that size. A touch from the real-world building of that dimension would've effortlessly mashed him into meat paste.
What he instead felt beyond the minimal impact force—which was still quite a lot—was the palm trying to absorb his body's structure.
All that to say, this explosion should have similar effects. The heat and blast force shouldn't be too much, and my body should be able to handle it, he surmised.
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Vern's eyes reflected the bright eruption in front of him as the deafening boom rang throughout this world, I have to trust my judgment! he screamed internally and impaled his sword into the ground.
Holding onto it for his dear life, he focused on one single task. To stabilize my immediate vicinity.
In a blink, his physical eyes became useless due to the bright outburst—possibly due to the cognition aspect of the explosion, yet his perception revealed a grim reality.
From the origin of the palm, thousands—no, millions of tiny particles of unstable structure shot out in all directions akin to a hail of bullets.
Vern took a deep breath and reached out.
His perception expanded, encompassing every unstable particle hurtling towards him. In that frozen moment, he saw them for what they truly were—not bullets, but fragments of reality's structure itself, each one a potential catalyst for wringing his body dry of any structure.
With a thought, he willed stability into being.
And then it came—
Outside his perception, the air around him shimmered, countless motes of light coalescing into a translucent barrier. As the wave of unstable particles crashed against it, they slowed down in an instant as they sizzled and popped, their chaotic energy dissipating against Vern's improvised shield.
The ground beneath his feet trembled, threatening to give way. Vern gritted his teeth, pouring more of himself into maintaining the field. His sword, driven into the earth, began to glow with ethereal darkness—reinforced with a stability of its own, anchoring him against the onslaught.
The explosion's roar became a distant thing, muffled by his concentration. Vern's hair whipped wildly about his face, yet his eyes remained fixed, unwavering. In them, the reflection of the blast transformed into something else—a dance of light and shadow, stability and chaos.
A lance of pain shot through his mind as the explosion's cognitive aspect sought purchase. It clawed at the edges of his consciousness, searching for weakness. But his link to the Axiom's singularity held firm, a bastion against the assault. He felt it depleting faster than ever before, yet he dared not waver—not right now.
Around him, reality buckled and warped. The very air seemed to scream as it was torn asunder. Yet within Vern's sphere of influence, an island of calm persisted.
As the maelstrom reached its peak, Vern held firm onto the hilt—his only defense against the force of the explosion—a solitary figure amidst the chaos. His body strained in the sizzling heat, yet he did not yield.
In that moment, he was more than just a man—he was the eye of the storm, the fulcrum upon which the balance of this cataclysm teetered.
And then, as suddenly as it began, the explosion's fury began to wane...
As the cacophony faded, reality settled back into place like dust after a storm. Vern's barrier dissipated, leaving him standing amidst a scene of devastation. His trenchcoat, once pristine, now hung in tatters, peppered with countless nicks and tears. Fine particles of structural dust drifted through the air, catching the light like a veil of glittering snow.
Vern raised a hand to his face, feeling the sting of tiny cuts across his cheeks and forehead. Despite the damage, a grim smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. I was right, he thought, his mind racing. The force, the heat—they were secondary. It was all about the structure.
His gamble had paid off. By focusing on stabilizing his immediate vicinity, he'd weathered the brunt of the explosion. The other aspects—force, heat, even the cognitive assault—had been manageable, just as he'd predicted.
From somewhere beyond the settling debris came a string of muffled curses and incoherent ramblings. "Impossible... how did he... I still sense his mind. How the f—"
Vern narrowed his eyes, focusing on the source of the voice. His opponent, momentarily blinded by their own attack, was disoriented. Now's my chance.
With a burst of speed, Vern darted forward. His boots crunched over the warped and shattered ground as he closed the distance. The structural dust swirled in his wake, obscuring his approach.
As he ran, a thought tugged at his mind, It seems like something's changed about this unique energy after being siphoned out of the pillars. Almost as if the level of the representation of this energy had gone down after being observed by the captain.
Which made sense to him. Using his control of the artifact, the man bypassed the need to understand the structure and manipulated it with his own lesser viewpoint. This, in turn, made it easier for Vern to observe because his structural insights were higher than those of this man, even if they weren't close to the original creator.
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So, essentially, I should be able to better control everything around me now that it's being observed by this captain. While this was just his conjecture, it seemed very much to be the case with how he hadn't burst a vein manipulating things since this man had descended in here.
He continued his relentless march to get closer to the man as he avoided one unstable anomaly jutting out of the ground after another. According to his perception, which was slowly getting better at reading vibrations of the surroundings, the captain was on one knee, clutching at his heart and arm.
This whole thing didn't come without a cost, Vern surmised. Even though the captain had repurposed this artifact's representation, it still had to be a terrible strain to control structure when his expertise lay in cognition.
Beelining from one garbled cover to another, Vern's breaths became ragged as he reached midway between his initial position and the captain.
"You cockroach. Why won't you just die!?" came the hoarse scream, and Vern noticed something odd about the speaker when he exited the cover of a twisted pillar. A phantom hand now gripped at the mangled chest of the man that was still tinged with instability.
The scrawny man's eyes bled, but he held both his arms up high as another phantom began extending out of them.
Vern frowned and looked up.
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His eyes widened, and he lost his momentum almost instantly. Two hands bigger than last time materialized out of thin air, one stacked on top of the other. Fuck! Vern cursed as his newfound confidence immediately took a hit.
He thought the captain had to use all his mind and energy to unleash that attack. But this? He gulped, finding his steps faltering. This was almost double in width, height, and depth.
That's when a sharp pain shot through his mind, and he jolted upright. He snapped his neck towards the captain, who'd just tried to use this small window of hesitation to break into Vern's mind.
This bastard, Vern narrowed his eyes. His reaction of being hopeless was exactly what this man wanted, and if it wasn't for Axiom's singularity that took the hit, it'd have been game over right then and there. Vern let out a cold breath.
The stress was piling up quickly, and he was beginning to make mistakes. Fortunately, he hadn't let up too much or given in to the despair at watching this god-hand coming to crush him.
No! I got this! he sharpened his resolve. There was no time to waste on self-pity.
I need to do better than last time. He looked around and soon had just the idea. Ignoring the mocking gaze of the captain, he rushed towards the largest chaotic structure in his direction.
It was a heap of misshapen edifices and objects mashed together, extending abusively from the ground. Stark white and somehow both matte and glossy, it seemed to absorb and reflect light without a reason or rhyme.
It was like pollution of a singular fundamental borne out of inaccurate manipulation of the structure by the captain. Vern, however, had a different thought, This should do.
His first thought was to directly manipulate the damned thing, but he suddenly had an even better idea. Coating duality with a simple layer of instability, he thrust it into the heap.
With a crunch it entered the structural mess, and Vern gripped the hilt harder, channeling instability in the sword.
The interior of this heap became clear in his perception as Duality's instability rend its innards.
That's all he needed. A flaw.
Mentally grabbing hold of this flaw deep inside the heap, he extended it, enlarged it, and destabilized it.
Gurgle…
Pockmarks exploded around the whole heap, bubbling over one after the other, starting from where his sword was impaled, creating instability in the whole towering heap.
As he was working on this, the captain screamed, "This time, there's nowhere for you to run to! DIE!!"
Schwaa…
Vern looked up, and it felt like the whole heaven was falling down and would crush him without an escape. Yet, unlike a minute ago, there wasn't awe or despair in his mind, just anticipation.
As the heavens themselves seemed to descend upon him, Vern's eyes blazed with determination. The instability he'd sown within the structural heap reached a fever pitch, and he knew it was time.
Nowhere to run? Vern mumbled to himself. Who said anything about running?
With a primal roar, he gripped Duality's hilt with both hands and pushed. Not with his muscles, but with his will—with the very essence of stability itself. The sword, still embedded in the chaotic structure, became a conduit for his power.
The heap shuddered, then began to change.
Vern shifted his focus, transitioning from the chaotic instability he'd introduced to a controlled, precise stability. The bubbling pockmarks across the surface of the misshapen edifices smoothed over, their erratic energy contained and redirected.
As he exerted his will, the jumbled structures started to align. Jagged edges softened, irregular protrusions retracted, and the entire mass began to coalesce. The stark white material, once a cacophony of matte and glossy surfaces, unified into a consistent, almost metallic sheen.
The transformation progressed from the base upwards, excess material flowing like a viscous liquid defying gravity. As it rose, it tapered, the chaotic elements compressing and aligning into a more aerodynamic form. Vern gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his brow as he fine-tuned the process, reshaping the very essence of the structure.
In mere seconds, what had been a haphazard heap of structural pollution transformed into a colossal, needle-like spire. Its surface was smooth and uniform, tapering to a point so fine it seemed to vanish into nothingness. The entire structure hummed with potential energy, held in a state of perfect, deadly equilibrium.
The captain's eyes widened in disbelief. "What... what are you doing?!"
Vern didn't answer, his entire being focused on maintaining his grip on both Duality and the newly formed spire. He had turned chaos into order, instability into a weapon of pinpoint precision.
The hands drew closer, their shadow engulfing everything. The captain's laughter rang out, tinged with madness. "You think that toothpick will save you? I'll crush it like a sand castle!"
Now!
As the massive palms made contact with the spire's tip, Vern braced for impact.
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BANG!
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But instead of crumbling, the stabilized structure held firm. In an instant, the needle-like point pierced the ethereal flesh of the hand, creating a small but crucial entry point that only enlarged as the hands impaled themselves into the 'toothpick.'
Vern's eyes flashed. Got you.
With laser focus, he directed his power through that burgeoning flaw. Instability bloomed from the point of contact, spreading like veins through the phantom hands in the sky. Cracks formed, glowing with chaotic energy as they raced across the surface.
The captain screamed, a sound of rage and disbelief. "Impossible!"
But Vern wasn't done. As the cracks spread, he poured more of his power into them, willing them to grow, to consume. The hands began to break apart, chunks of ethereal flesh falling away like cosmic debris.
In a final, cataclysmic moment, the entire construct exploded in a nova of blinding light and deafening sound.
As the light faded and the dust settled, Vern stood tall and extracted Duality out of the beacon that shattered the heavens. Where once there had been a descending doom, now there was only open sky, the remnants of the attack scattering like stardust on the wind.
Vern turned his gaze to his opponent, who was on the ground, clutching onto his eyes and chest once more. Silent fury raged within him, Vern finally couldn't hold himself back from speaking up—even if it meant a hit on the linked singularity, "You wanted me to die? Sorry to disappoint. My turn now."