CHAPTER 55: CHARACTER AVATAR

Mason swung his halberd horizontally, splitting the murky air as ominous magic roamed across the field. The shrouded figure dodged the attack casually. Seeing this, Mason grit his teeth as he tried to focus his eyes on who was behind the cloak. However, the darkness obfuscated any details.

"You bastard... What the hell are you planning?!"

Suddenly, the Xulu sorcerer scoffed in his usual guttural voice. "Why should I tell you?"

Mason activated [Brain-Overclock] to try to speed through the emotional turmoil every word put him through. He glanced over to the ashen flame pillar. Hermes was propped on his knees, scratching his cheeks as tears continued to pour out in droves.

"Tsk..." He refocused his attention on the enemy. 'I underestimated this bastard... He is clearly stage 9. His dimensionality is probably close to perfection as well...'

Closing his eyes, electricity snaked across his body once more. The exotic particles coalesced into two large crossbows. The gleaming metal of the bolts exuded both awe and terror. Without hesitation, he fired the ammunition rapidly, piercing through the air.

The cloaked figure simply dodged each one, without breaking a single sweat. His voice carried with it a profound arrogance.

"It is no use. No attack of yours will reach me. I can read your attack patterns before you even execu-"

Out of nowhere, a crossbow bolt quickly closed the distance and pierced the shoulder of the cloaked figure. He examined his injuries while peering through the veil.

Mason grinned. "No attack of mine will reach you, huh?"

The figure looked back at Mason's figure. "Interesting, you used [Magnetism-Control] to turn your crossbow into a rail gun. Truly magnificent." The injuries to his shoulder began to rapidly close, as if they were never present in the first place.

Mason squinted. "I see... So you aren't even here..."

The cloaked being brought two of his arms out from beneath the shrouded veil and began to clap. "So you have finally figured it out."

Mason sighed. "I thought it would be strange otherwise. But you do know that if this ritual is interrupted, even if you are miles away, the effects will still damage your astral projection?"

"Indeed, it will. That is why such an outcome will not occur, at least not until I achieve my goal." He looked over at Hermes' figure. "That friend you brought with you is fairly interesting. You were hoping for him to disrupt the ritual since his [Sensory-Boost] abilities allow him to analyze the formation of the lay lines, correct?"

Mason stood silently. Seeing this, the figure continued his unwanted lecture. "Your Technology Domain abilities hold no method to analyze the arcane. Even if you tried to use your own cosmic force to disrupt the ritual, without knowing where to inject it, you feared that it will simply amplify its effects, or worse, cause it to backfire on you."

Mason continued to analyze the cloaked figure's appearance in hopes of finding a weakness.

"However, this Hermes fellow is truly interesting, indeed. I anticipated his intellect to succumb to the relentless torment I've subjected his mind to— a barrage so intense that one might expect his very brain to melt. By now, his consciousness has weathered months of relentless mental anguish compared to our very own flow of time. The fact that he is still resisting is truly fascinating; I have never seen such tenacity in the face of despair before."

Mason pointed his halberd in his direction fiercely. "It's over for you. Your [Trait-Manifestation] is about to lose a persona."

The figure looked at Mason's figure closely. Suddenly, he pulled out two of his hands from beneath the cloak. A golden scale materialized within his palms. Mason observed this closely and squinted his eyes.

Suddenly, a crimson aura radiated from beneath his feet. It spread rapidly, encasing the two of them in a large sphere. Mason looked up at the new cage he found himself in and grinned.

"I see... So you plan to use this Stellar Artifact to stall me?"

"Indeed. Now that you have figured out that I am merely a clone, my weaknesses are fairly glaring. The ritual is close to its completion, so I can just simply hold you here."

Sparks danced across Mason's body. The exotic particles merged, forming into augmented armor. He glared at the cloaked figure through the visor of his new knight's helmet. Without holding back, he unleashed his Cosmic Force suppression.

The energies emanating from his 8.0 dimensionality clashed against the aura of the Stellar Artifact as cracks began to appear in the crimson cage. The cloaked figure stood still in complete silence.

"You are right about your weaknesses. Since the battle started, I knew that the chances of you being a Character Avatar were fairly high. You were dodging all my attacks without an ounce of fighting back."

The figure stood still, holding the Stellar Artifact in his three-fingered hands.

"Character Avatars created by [Trait-Manifestation] are fairly powerful. However, their existence in itself is a weakness. From my understanding of the Dreams domain, you would need to split a portion of your Astral Projection into the Character Avatar for it to function properly. This means that currently, the dimensionality of this clone is less than the whole. Even if you can use stage 9 abilities, your dimensionality is still weaker than mine, meaning any attack from me that reaches you will do significantly more damage."

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The being looked at Mason without moving at all. "I see... So this is the power of [Program-Design]... Have you had this planned out from the very beginning?"

Mason grinned. "So you figured it out... You are fairly smart."

Outside the crimson cage, a hundred meters in the sky, exotic particles were coalescing rapidly, forming into small plasma cannons. A formation of advanced weaponry, all hovering in the skies, obfuscated by the darkness. More and more exotic particles were merging, adding to their numbers.

Mason chuckled. "Did you think I would simply approach you without an ounce of planning? I already know what you bastard Xulu are capable of."

The cloaked figure clapped its hands. "Marvelous. I have truly underestimated you."

In the skies, the array of plasma weaponry began to charge their shot. Moments later, they began to change their angle of attack to a sand dune a few hundred meters away from the flame pillar. Heat began to radiate off their surface as the energy inside rushed through the barrels.

A barrage of plasma beams rained down on the distant sand dune. Explosion after explosion, the luminescence from the attack continued to shine brightly in the darkness as the sands of Mars were transformed into molten glass.

Mason, who was staring at the Character Avatar, charged forward and stabbed it in the heart. "This isn't over yet. I will make sure to find out who you really are and kill you myself. Everything you have taken from me today, I will be sure to remind you of it."

The cloaked figure disappeared like a fog, but not before speaking its mind one last time. "I look forward to it..."

The crimson cage collapsed, causing it to explode. Mason had already expected such an outcome. The artifact the figure was utilizing holds only a single ability. 'The Scale of Damage'. Inside the crimson cage, all damage delt to the wielder rebounds to the enemy.

Because the plasma attack was directed at the main body of the Xulu hiding tens of miles away, the scale redirected the same amount of damage to Mason.

However, with the armor he had conjured, he was able to mitigate the damage done back to him. After the cage broke apart, Mason, covered in his own blood, walked slowly toward Hermes' direction.

Looking at the expression Hermes held on his face, Mason frowned. He could see his eyes bulging out of their sockets.

"Shit... How do I return him to normal?! If only I had an experienced Mystic on my team... I wouldn't have needed to bring him with me in the first place..."

He tried shaking him, hoping to wake him out of his nightmare, but it was no use. Hermes continued to scratch at his cheeks slowly as tears escaped his eyes. Mason grit his teeth and turned to face the ashen white flame pillar.

"The ritual is still going... That sly bastard must have survived my barrage of plasma attacks somehow; as expected..." He stared up toward the vortex, forming a large orb of malevolent darkness within its eye. Since their battle, it had grown in size, masking half the battlefield in its circumference.

Mason tightened his knuckles. "Maybe I should risk it and inject my cosmic force inside the ritual randomly? This will either backfire or save us all..."

Suddenly, a flicker of light grasped his attention from the corner of his eye. He turned his neck to face Hermes. Observing his face, he noticed a strange symbol forming on his forehead.

Glowing in cyan-white, the symbol formed into the shape of an arched door. Behind the door was a four-pointed star. Then slowly, a vertical pupil-less eye took shape inside the door symbol, emitting a violet hue unlike the rest.

Mason observed this strange emblem glowing on his glabella and frowned. "What the hell is happening now?"

...

Inside Hermes' mind, darkness encompassed his body as he floated in a desolate void. Out in the distance, he could hear the echoes of voices rambling incoherently. Muffled sounds of laughter and crying. The whispers of the damned, and the roars of beings lost in rage. The jumble of muffled vibrations made it difficult for him to discern anything.

He drifted ceaselessly in the unfathomable abyss, devoid of any sense of orientation. It was like being trapped in a sensory deprivation tank— no emotions, no feelings, just a vacuum of empty space around him. Isolation wasn't just a state; it was the essence of his existence.

His thoughts, though sharp and conscious, felt like prisoners in his mind. There was no way to communicate his predicament in a humane fashion, just a relentless loop of logical thinking. It was as if he was processing the events around him like a spectator, a detached observer of his own enigma.

'Where am I? Was I not being shown visions of my mother being turned into some kind of monstrosity?'

Suddenly, a feminine voice broke through the veil of incoherent sounds and entered his ears. A voice he was familiar with.

["You are finally here."]

"Elgacia?" He spoke softly.

["Indeed. I decided to assist you temporarily."]

Hermes closed his eyes in the darkness. "Thank you..." He then forwarded his query to her directly.

"How did you know about my situation? Were you not asleep?"

["Yes, I have been asleep. In fact, I am still currently sleeping. What you are speaking to is my astral projection. Your thoughts are being projected into me. As for how I knew, it is fairly simple, really. Our souls are linked, so any emotions you feel will directly be felt by me. The nightmare spell that Xulu put you in caused me to feel the same emotional distress you were feeling."]

"Interesting... So I am assuming you used this connection to break the spell?"

["Indeed. I isolated your Astral Projection from your body. Your Sea of Emotions was invaded by a foreign agent. Nightmare spells feed off of negative emotions, so with your astral projection isolated, the spell has no way to recoup its ethyric losses and will dissipate over time."]

"I see... This total void of emotions; it makes sense now..."

["By the way, I have been keeping track of your memories since you entered this Dreamscape trial. I must warn you, this is unlike any test I have seen. I cannot use my functions to analyze it because of my current state, but I can tell that there is something very strange about it."]

"Strange? What do you mean?"

["From what I understand of the trials, they usually reflect the skill level of the person taking it. From what I know of that Elizabeth girl, her dimensionality is definitely higher than 0, but for the Will of the Universe to place her into such a difficult exam is truly unprecedented."]

Hermes began to remember all the events he had to partake in the moment he entered the trial. "You are right. This seems extremely difficult and unfair. Even if Elizabeth's dimensionality is already higher than her stage, this trial seems too much for a simple stage 1 ascension..."

["Indeed..."]

Hermes stayed silent as he tried to brainstorm ideas for why everything was unfolding the way it was. He continued to swim in the desolate void.

"Say, do you know what domain Elizabeth belongs to? Her cosmic force is very strange looking and the abilities she told me about do not resemble any of the six domains."

["She belongs to the Fate domain."]

"Fate domain?..."

["Indeed, I am unsure why the people in that small town you ended up in only believe that there are six domains available. The existence of a domain is not as fixed as you believe it to be. This cosmos is an ever evolving entity."]

End of Chapter