“I wonder what we’ll find out today, hmm?” the young man in the oversized lab coat said to himself while he used his Alteration to look into his patient’s secrets. “Ah, a normie, aren’t we? No matter, we’ll have you evolved and powerful soon enough. Shed your frailty and better yourself. That should be the goal of every human being, hie hie hie!”

His giggles were high pitched and echoed oddly in the chamber. The cacophony made the strapped down patient wince, but only for a moment. Somehow, the laughter clashed with the returning echo in such a way that they negated each other, so only silence remained. 

“Nosy! I don’t like my laughter disappearing!” the young man yelled, the odd echo cancelling waves disappeared. “Now then, let’s see what we can do with you.”

For long moments, the only sounds remaining in the chamber were those of sharp metal cutting skin, the spurt of blood from severed veins and arteries, and the parting of muscle fibers.

The young man continued to talk to himself in a singsong voice.

“Humans change when exposed to dimensional energy, but the way they Alter changes with the circumstance! Hee hee, which circumstances make what change? Are they always the same, or do they vary with the person? Shall we find out, my beloved subject?”

His cold song filled the room, but none of them escaped beyond the curtain door.

________

Yuriko’s connection to Scarlett, while thinner than those of Gwendith and Heron’s, were nevertheless almost as prominent as those of her handmaidens. She didn’t monitor them constantly, but she would be aware if something distressing happened to them. Now that she had roused herself from her meditations, albeit only the smaller part of the whole, she noticed it. Scarlett was more than distressed, she was downright panicking. But only for a moment, then the connection was smothered. 

She jumped to her feet, then launched herself off the ledge, only to curse as she realised she was facing the wrong direction. It was easy enough to reel herself back, then she ran around the peak. Even though the slope was steep, and sometimes, sheer cliff faces, she used her Animakinesis to cling to the surface and simultaneously push against thin air. She rounded the peak in a few seconds, and when she faced northeast, she leapt and spread her Anima as wings. Her eyes shone with Animus as she activated Enhanced Sight, but the angle of the hills and thickness of the canopy prevented her from getting a complete view of the camp.

At the vicinity of the lake, she saw crawling figures, still bodies, and absolutely no sign of the clubs’ buses. She tracked the road that led to the exit, but beyond the vicinity of the camp buildings, it was covered by trees. She pushed herself against the fabric of reality and simultaneously parted the wind in front of her with Invisible Edge. She sped up faster than the speed of sound without creating a sonic boom, and soon enough, she was above the valley. She still couldn’t see the buses, but she saw broken trees and boulders along the road. There was no sign of the vehicles and the tracks just disappeared. Her mind raced with the possibilities and she quickly discerned that the buses and the club members had probably been moved into interstitial space. There was no other reason for the connecting thread to feel muffled, though there was probably another factor involved.

The thing was, how many interstitial spaces were there in this layer of reality? Space was composed of varied layers, and there were three major ones that were in between the material plane and that of Primordial Chaos. There was also the Void in between the layers that simultaneously encompassed them. That Void was not to be confused with the Void Ocean, a misnomer if there ever was one. The latter was simply a plane or sublayer of reality reachable through the Eternal Tower that was mostly empty. The true Void probably encompassed the cosmos, though even Damien didn’t really know more than hypotheses. 

So which one were they in? Which one were they abducted to? How could she tell? The connection to Scarlett might be the best way, and she devoted a couple of strands to trace it. But two was barely enough. The way her strands of consciousness worked was that she divided her attention naturally, and while she could divide it several dozen ways, it didn’t mean that they didn’t suffer from lack of bandwidth, nor were they all of equal quality. She thought to use more strands and to marshall those held by her true body, but the partition hastily thrown up, and the fact that she was in the midst of crucial enlightenment held her at bay. While she considered Scarlett a friend, the fact of the matter at hand was that she wasn’t a cherished lover, nor was she a Squire, or Handmaiden. 

What was the weight of a mortal’s safety and life compared to insight that unravelled the secrets of the world? 

The cold thought jolted her. Arrogance steeped into her bones accentuated by her chosen Truth. What made her different from the Chaos Duke who threw the entire sector into war for his goals? 

But weren’t those goals worth it? 

What was her goal but to grow in power to become truly free?

But what worth was freedom without anyone to enjoy it with? What worth was it when principles were torn apart and discarded?

And why were her thoughts circling around each other while she simply stood still? 

Not that more than a couple of seconds had passed since she determined the abduction. And it during those couple of seconds, her other strands located active threats and other abductions in place. 

She turned her head back towards the camp site and saw that the staff were being thrown out of the cabins by humanoid felines. She thought they were varied beastkin akin to those she encountered before in her travels, but they were, upon getting a closer look, quite different. 

Either way, they were the clear aggressors here. Yuriko’s eyes widened when one of the felines, peeved at her victim’s struggles, reared back a claw and slashed. 

Yuriko was almost too far to intervene, but she barely managed to send an Invisible Edge towards the lioness even as she boosted herself towards them. The creature didn’t notice Yuriko’s attack, at least until the Edge severed hir forelimb. 

As the paw fell off, Yuriko used her kinesis to push the feline away, even as the victim, of the camp custodians, flailed. The lioness tumbled away, but Yuriko quickly noticed that the severed paw faded away while the stump didn’t bleed. 

Hisss!

The humanoid lioness bared her fangs as she tumbled back to her feet. Almost before she got a stable footing back, she lunged at Yuriko, swiping with the other paw. The stump’s end writhed and a new paw grew back. 

Yuriko smiled grimly and flicked out an Invisible Edge, but contrary to her expectations the lioness’ eyes tracked the Edge and aborted her attack to roll out of the way. By the time she got back upright, the stump had completely grown back, and she continued her aggression. 

Feeling a bit more serious, and wondering why a random human-cat hybrid gave her more trouble than the Living Monument, Yuriko flung half a dozen Edges, this time accounting for the enemy’s dodge patterns. One of the Edges caught the cat head on and sliced her in twain from the waist. 

The skirmish lasted for barely half a minute, and it would have been seconds if her true body had been involved. Her incarnation body just wasn’t that powerful in comparison, and added to the fact that her Swordlight Core wasn’t in complete harmony with her Radiant Physique, the dissonance meant that her energies clashed while going through her body. It wasn’t a dangerous or damaging clash, but it did slow her reactions. 

Perhaps she could reconcile the dissonance by completing her Ennoia of the Sword, but while she had gained some insight a few minutes ago, she was still exploring it. In fact, that she wasn’t in meditation now was detrimental to the process. After all, her true body was in complete harmony, not just with her Colligia and Physique, but also with her Mien. 

She clicked her tongue in annoyance, but had to rear back since the lioness she bisected wasn’t dead. No, rather, the lower half of it dispersed and a new set grew back. Even more concerning was that another two lionesses came out of the wooden cabins. Her perception aura spread out and covered a space forty one paces from her core. It covered almost the entire clearing, administrative area, and parking lot. She quickly spotted another dozen lionesses, and they were making their way towards her. She also spotted twenty staff members, though half of them were already cooling corpses. A lump of anger and regret formed in her throat. She should have been here when this started and she could have stopped it from happening in the first place. But she shook it off almost as soon as it formed. 

Instead, she angrily waved her hand and fifteen Invisible Edges flew from her fingers. They shot towards the lionesses, but almost as one, they dodged the attack, which pretty much confirmed that they could see or sense the Edge somehow. Well, if they could see it, then it only meant this would be a greater challenge. 

The two nearby lionesses had pounced on her as soon as they dodged her attacks. She met claws with an Anima reinforced, and the collision of their limbs created a thunderous sound that shattered the windows and blew dust into the air. At the same time, Yuriko sneakily secured the surviving staff with her kinesis and pulled them away. She also shielded them from the effects of the shockwave, then she tried to grab the lionesses and hold them down. But her kinesis slipped away from their fur as though she was trying to catch a greased pig with wet fingers. 

The lioness she met the attack from was blown off while she used her kinesis to secure herself against the canvas of reality. She met the second lioness’s attack the same way, and this time, the shockwave cracked the log walls. But it was clear brute force wasn’t the answer either, as the one she knocked away easily got back to her feet. 

The other twelve and the one she bisected previously surrounded her. The lionesses all looked similar to each other, but there were minute differences now that she could spare the time to look. One had a notched ear, another had longer and more flexible fingers, while a third had fur that was a bit more brown than the others. With their heads looking like actual lionesses, and their digitigrade legs, they honestly looked more like cats that stood on hind legs and had opposable thumbs than any beastkin she knew. Tails lashed as they stalked closer, bodies slightly hunched as though on a hunt. 

Yuriko didn’t remain passive. She would have if she was alone, but there were people she wanted to protect. She lunged towards the closest one, and instead of just punching out, she covered her fist in an Invisible Edge. the cat met her blow with a claw, and five others pounced at the same time. She released the Edge once their fists made contact, then released another set when the others closed in. they couldn’t avoid the Edges completely this time, and she easily dismembered limbs with her defense. As for the one she attacked, the Edge travelled down her arm and emerged from her back. The armless lioness leapt away, but as with the others, limbs simply disintegrated and reformed. 

Another set attacked her, and she defended the same way, over and over again. But her perception examined every particle and every instant of the fight. And as things repeated with barely any change, Yuriko grew certain that these lionesses weren’t flesh and blood at all.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep