Chapter 75 - Negative Mindset
Gulta awoke from his slumber. How long had it been? No matter before him was presented not a perfect vessel but a vessel nonetheless. He had been imprisoned there for no other crime but speaking his mind, and anger arose quickly within his feeble mind. He was held by chains created by his life force.
Power rushed from him like a forest fire into the vessel before him. Swiftly using the sealing technique, he processed the life form. He refrained from looking back at his trapped skeletal structure as he left the chamber, an object snagging his attention, a familiar-looking sword.
Reaching out a tendril of power, he brought it to his side and headed out, through the twisting turns of the city to the canyon beyond.
Gulta was relieved to see the portal to the higher realms was still open—energies flooding in a wide spiral filling the canyon sky.
Halfway across the canyon, Gulta halted. Something was attacking him; it was a subtle attack but an attack no less. He swept his awareness around him but was perplexed to find no alien presence.
Was it a further trap employed by his captors to prevent his escape through the portal, which may have been triggered by his range? It seemed to be only a trace amount of energy he was losing, so he continued undeterred. As he headed on further, he was relieved to see that the energy loss did not increase.
***
Libby had wanted to erase the entity inside Adam’s spirit realm, but Echo thought it was too much of a good opportunity to study a soul, especially as he had made a tacit agreement not to mess with Adam’s soul.
The GTAs they sent to scan the strange entity were slowly eroded by the energies within, but this merely slowed down the process of copying the soul. Or rather, copying the separate pieces of the soul, as they didn’t really want another rampaging monster for Adam to deal with.
And so they monitored what actions were being taken by the entity, for instance, creating seals that stopped Adam’s body from being affected by the corroding dark energy. Also, which parts were controlling his ability to fly, as Adam’s body was traveling about 100 meters up above the canyon? This, they hoped, would allow for replication or at least further study of these phenomena.
Adam himself, after he was told by Libby that they could erase the entity at any time, just enjoyed the ride. And was actually curious to see what might be on the other side of the vortex he was approaching. Although perhaps vortex was a poor choice of words. The thing inside the center of the city had been a vortex; this was more like a hurricane.
The entity had done a good job of keeping Adam’s body intact so far, but that whole giant hurricane thing that was fast approaching and at least a couple of hundred miles across was quite possibly the most dangerous thing Adam had ever seen. The chances of getting out alive were slim; hence they decided the time had come to stop this ride.
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***
Gultan heard a voice emanating from somewhere; it seemed to echo around the sky from all directions.
“We do not wish you harm, but if you continue in this direction, we will be forced to end your existence.” Said something.
Gultan paid it no mind and just carried on; if they’d wanted to stop him, surely they could have at any point before; purely a delaying tactic, he presumed.
“Do you know of the Elios system?” said a similar voice.
Elios’ system, no, but Elios’s faction, yes, he certainly knew about those bastards. So it was just as he suspected Elios, though it seemed a rather meek veiled threat.
***
Libby, hoping to get some information, perhaps before they had to pull the plug on this entity.
She was also hesitant to do it, as the dark energies spread in strands right into Adam’s soul. She really wished she had more knowledge about how that worked. One day, she supposed.
There was no reply, so once there were sufficient GTAs available to target the strands of dark energy, they attacked, shredding all connections to Adam’s soul.
***
There was darkness as Gultan’s connection to the human was destroyed. He could not stop the tide of energies, but he could use seals to block their advance and push them back. Again, delay tactics, but he was almost into the portal. It was simply too little too late.
***
Adam was falling rather fast now, the wind whipping his hair up almost vertically, reminding him that he really needed a haircut. Why he hadn’t thought of asking Libby, he didn’t know. It was a breathtaking view through the vast canyon below, closing fast on his position.
Gultan wrestled back control as Adam was reaching terminal velocity but didn’t need to worry about slowing down as he just teleported to another spot, arresting Adam’s descent in an instant.
However, at that instant, Echo also realigned where Adam would end up by teleporting him to a fraction to one side. This left Gultan without a body.
Now Adam did fall to the ground some twenty meters below. This required yet another reboot.
There followed a game of cat and mouse as Gultan repeatedly tried to possess Adam’s body. This could have gone on until Adam ran out of SP, but fortunately, it did not take long for Echo and Libby to work out how to use the seals. This meant that once they had broken the entity’s connection and sealed Adam’s soul sphere. The entity couldn’t regain control of Adam. A very successful outcome, they decided.
What happened to the entity after that? They didn’t really know.
When they got back to the barrier several hours later, they hesitated, concerned they might be bringing the entity through with them.
***
Thawain was sitting brooding in his makeshift hideout in the mountains when he heard a whoosh of air as the rock wall he had created with sigil craft to block one of the entrances disappeared.
There stood Adam, smiling. “It feels like forever since I’ve seen anyone” It had actually been quite a month or so due to the dilation in his PD but only about a week in the real world.
“Glad your alive; I can, at last, get out of this place. I am quite accustomed to this season, but that’s when I’ve been able to stash enough firewood. It’s lucky I was able to swap places with someone to raid your PD forest.” Said Thawain.
Libby was glad to hear that her biome was going well and had a quick peek.
At this point, Adam got a weird feeling of déjà vu as he heard a bellowing voice from outside.
“Come out unarmed, and we may forgive your transgressions,” said the faction leader.
They had waited a week for this beast, and they would have his head on a spike after they had tortured him for a while. The bounty was still considerable for him dead.
Adam teleported to a spot about forty meters above the guy. It may not actually look any different from using shadow-jump, but what he did next did. He hung there in the air, looking down at the guy, dark energy of a kind they had not ascertained crackling around his body.