“If it’s not your puppet, what is it? Do you have another clone somewhere else that is taking your mana?” Kaelith asked uneasily when Rakna started acting weird. This was the second time she had seen him lose a bit of his cool and that obviously included the shifts in his eye color as well as the nature of his presence. But she had never asked him about it.
Rakna didn’t answer and stared at the System window for a few seconds before enough mana had finally been taken out of him to heal Tyran fully as a new notification popped up.
❮ ◈ ❯
Tyrannos Mors has been completely healed.
The subject remains incapacitated.
❮ ◈ ❯
“Fuck!” He swore loudly. “Alexa, initiate a transport to the Thirteenth Plateau.”
[Affirmative. Countdown initiated.]
“Hey, hey, you can’t just leave me hanging here!” The fox princess uttered. “What’s happening?”
“Marie’s Tomb. Flavia went there with one of my pets. That same pet has been gravely injured.”
She scowled. “Pronos is an anomaly, you know? Normal pets aren’t as strong as him. Why do-”
“Tyran is level 50 with two attributes above 60 on top of being an Anti-Magic Asura.”
Kaelith promptly closed her mouth as she heard that. It was even more outrageous than hearing about Pronos’ potential. She should have known anything concerning Rakna couldn’t possibly be normal.
“That can’t be…” She muttered. “If what you’re saying is true, the Dungeon should pose no problem at all for them to clear. That’s why I suggested it for your friend…”
“I don’t blame you. I need to know what happened.”
[10 seconds before transfer.]
“Wait, you’re going there right now?” Kaelith asked and he nodded. She groaned. “Putting aside the reason why you can do that without going to the Pavilion… here, accept it,” she said and sent him a friend invite. “We hadn’t done that yet. I’ll follow you. I don’t know where in the 13th I’ll be but I will get to you as fast as I can.”
Rakna accepted the invite with a nod. “Thanks.”
[3, 2.]
“If something’s really happening don’t be reckless,” she warned.
He huffed. “No promise,” he replied and the light of the System transportation engulfed him. When she was left alone, Kaelith summoned a spiral of flame that swallowed her. She then reappeared right in front of the Pavilion in the next moment.
“That was probably a Badge of Honor, huh?” She muttered to herself as she entered. “But I thought only Gold Ranks or higher could do that. That little...”
* * *
The very second Rakna was dropped off by the teleportation in front of the Thirteenth Plateau’s Pavilion, he didn’t even bother checking his surroundings and flew off with Shadow Step whilst deploying his wings. To the regular people, all they managed to see was a flash of silver and black disappear in the sky.
Rakna opened his friend panel and promptly activated his mana flight to double his speed whilst heading in Flavia’s direction. Thankfully, since they had advanced from the Tenth to the Fifteenth in a party, the same rules applied to the Thirteenth, so Rakna wasn’t very far from her location.
He flew across the desert as fast as he could, even going as far as transforming into a wolf midflight before he landed at his destination, around two minutes later. He landed on all four and scowled at the odd oval portal that led to Marie’s Tomb.
[That is a Dungeon Tear,] Alexa provided. [This is a type of Dungeon of which the entrance exists in the System solely under the form of a pathway to another dimension. In other words, Dungeon Instance.]
Rakna grunted and approached the Tear and touched it with his paw. He jerked back as a painful shock stopped him and a negative warning was given to him.
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❮ ◈ ❯ Another Host is currently going through this Dungeon! Entry rejected! ❮ ◈ ❯
“Shit…” He cursed and became even more restless. He had already expected this but seeing it made him even jumpier. “Alexa, is there a way to force my way into the Dungeon?”
[I cannot say…]
“You are forbidden?”
[Yes… I apologize. But… there is no rule about me saying that you do possess a way to do it.]
Rakna’s eyes widened. “What is it?”
[I cannot… say,] Alexa responded with a pause as if she was struggling with something. [Please… think of… Grit Castle…]
“Grit Castle? Do you want me to use Cataract again? Didn’t that work only because of the collapse?”
[…]
“Alexa!” Rakna raised his voice at her silence, his increasing frustration gradually pushing him to the edge of triggering Obsidian Blood.
“{Calm down, Rakna,}” Fray spoke rather seriously. “{The AI lady is already pushing the limits of her programming for you. If she goes farther, she’ll be labeled as a malware and erased.}”
That immediately sobered Rakna up and he gritted his teeth. He forced his emotions down with a cigarette and returned to his normal state. The red in his eyes completely vanished and he took a deep breath.
“Think of Grit Castle…” He reiterated calmly. “I don’t think she meant Cataract. This time, there’s not even a target; it’s just a portal. What else did I do…?”
“{I think I know,}” Higure spoke up. “{Back then, do you remember what you applied to your spell before you launched it?}”
“What I applied…!” He paused. “I altered the structure of the mana inside to reduce the number of focal points,” he mumbled and activated his Cross Sight without delay. His pupils duplicated and he observed the Tear only to find out that the whole thing was a massive focal point in itself.
“{Hm, that will take a lot of dimensional power to break…}” Higure remarked.
“Do you know how I could do it?”
“{I’ll be clear with you; Dimensional Power is not just about focal points. I’m sure you’ve got some idea of that already thanks to what you’ve done while learning forging and that spell modification you did to Cataract. In essence, Dimensional Power is the resulting force of the ‘friction’ between all dimensions. Making use of Dimensional Power is to absorb that waste and control it.}”
“{However, it would require Dimensional Magic for someone to do that. You, on the other hand, have a very special relationship with it compared to others. As a matter of fact, Dusk Lions have a second title; we were sometimes called Dimension Breakers.}”
“{We are unable to make use of Dimension Power as our own but… we are a beacon for it to gather around,}” Higure explained and sighed. “{I’m going to teach you a technique. It’s a dangerous one and I would have normally recommended you to spend more time accustoming yourself to the different layers of Enthymio before doing this. But we don’t have a choice.}”
“As long as it can help me get in there, I don’t care how dangerous it is.”
The lioness snorted. “{Of course. First of all; close your eyes. Secondly; release your Aura and make it as thin as your skin. Third step; I want you to internalize Cross Sight.}”
“Internalize?”
“{It’s easy. Think of the feeling when it activates and instead of focusing it around your eyes, do it with your aura as the medium. The theory here is that your Aura will become your new set of eyes to perceive focal points.}”
Rakna frowned deeply and he closed his eyes even tighter. From outside, his aura flickered faintly and gained countless small cross-shaped patterns. Gradually, he started seeing an image in his mind but it was hazy and it was causing his head to ache.
“{Focus. It’s normal that it is blurry. Grasp the first light you see and hold onto it.}”
He followed Higure’s advice and after half a minute, he saw a blinking light. He immediately locked onto it and put his whole concentration on getting it clearer. An additional minute later, he gasped and began to sweat as hundreds of lights abruptly appeared in his head. He held his head and the veins in his neck and temples bulged.
❮ ◈ ❯
Cross Dimension Sagacity has leveled up!
Cross Dimension Sagacity has leveled up!
❮ ◈ ❯
‘I see…’ He thought as he endured the pain and looked at the lights. The more he did so, the more they arranged themselves in a specific manner. After a moment, they were all delimiting a space in the shape of a lupine. Rakna transformed into a werewolf and the form changed accordingly.
‘Those are the focal points of my body, aren’t they?’
“{Correct. The principle of this technique is to use the particularity of the Shuttle Specter Physique and turn it into an actual Dimension Shuttle. This is what you will do in the next step but it’s a very delicate process. You have to move the focal points of your body so that they are precisely placed at equal distances from each other. The hiccup is; if you make it too tight, your body will become dissociated from dimensions and fall into a void where there is no escape except death.}”
“{On the opposite, if you make it too loose, your body will be crushed by the amass of Dimensional Power. Obviously, that ultimately ends with death too. I would have told you to practice it slowly for months if it were a normal situation, but in this case… trust your instincts, Rakna.}”
‘That’s what I do best,’ he replied mentally and began the procedure. The second he moved the first focal point, he nearly stumbled because of the pain.
❮ ◈ ❯ Pain Resistance has leveled up! ❮ ◈ ❯
That almost made him want to laugh. He snarled and moved the second focal point. The pain felt as if he was digging tunnels inside his flesh to displace his organs but he continued to move them as the level of his resistance continuously leveled up.
For him, it felt like hours when he moved the tenth point, then the fiftieth, and the hundredth, but barely a minute had passed in reality. His body was releasing waves of Dimensional Power that were breaking apart the very air around him and even the sand he was standing in was somehow gaining cracks on its surface.
When Rakna was finally done rearranging the focal points, he could already tell his body was slowly breaking apart. And in fact, his flesh was being splintered like glass and spurting blood.
“{Now! Break through the Tear! You can’t stay in that state for long!}”
Rakna snapped his eyes open at her warning and used both of his claws to pierce through the portal of the Dungeon. His hands quickly sunk inside of it and ear-shattering noises echoed as the resistance from the dimensions inside increased.
He growled and forced every fiber of his being to push forward. Gradually, he managed to get his arms inside up to his shoulders. ‘Not enough,’ he thought and shifted the entire array of focal points to be tighter.
It immediately allowed him to advance further and the Tear began to expand but his body became even more pressured and an odd shell of distorted light was being formed around him.
“{Hey! What do you think ‘dangerous technique’ means!? Do you want to kill yourself?!}” Higure shouted and he clicked his tongue.
‘Keep it for later,’ he responded and closed his eyes to sense the Dimensional Power that he was gathering. He compared it to the Tear’s and quickly came to a conclusion.
‘It won’t be enough…’ He thought and breathed in.
“[Star Hearth – Alzero,]” he intoned and nearly the entirety of his mana was expended to create dozens and dozens of twisted swords behind him.
“{Oh my…}” Fray whispered.
Rakna then put everything he had into breaking through the Tear and commanded his swords to fly into it all around him. The second they all hit, an indescribable sound echoed and both the very matter and light were distorted by the dimensions, creating a massive spherical depression.
When it died down, Rakna was nowhere to be found anymore and the Tear had suddenly become ten times bigger. It was fissuring in several places and was spinning in place very sporadically.
From afar, the mapper who had sold the location of Marie’s Tomb to Flavia was casually sitting on his foldable chair placed on a high dune. When he saw what happened, he couldn’t help but sit up straight and open his unicolor cyan eyes wide.
“I’ve witnessed something outrageous, haven’t I?” He muttered to himself. “So, the smell on that woman was his… who could have guessed I’d meet him here? How interesting.”