Before he could go back to the Protection sector, Gale wanted to learn One Step first. The description sounded like what Arad did during the fight. It was still fresh in his mind, which was the best opportunity to learn it.

He checked his essence levels first.

[Essence: 289/1960]

Shit. Five attempts at most before he’d be completely tapped. The fight with Arad had drained nearly everything.

“This One Step,” Gale rolled his shoulders to work out some of the stiffness, “is it the same thing you were doing when you kept appearing right in front of me? That space compression trick?”

Arad’s three heads looked at each other before the centre one spoke. “Similar, but not identical. Mine is crude. An imitation. A compression or squishing of the space in between. One Step is… elegant. The skill doesn’t compress space. You fold it exactly where you need it.”

“Show me again,” Gale said.

“Hahahahahaha,” Arad laughed. “You say funny things, Master Gale. I’m already too beaten to even do it. But sure, I’ll do it one last time with my last breath.”

“Wait, stop. No. Never mind,” Gale shook his head. Why didn’t this idiot just tell him that it would cost its life if it tried again?

He turned toward the centre of the arena, focusing on one of the four prongs where energy still arced in and out. It was about a hundred metres away, far enough that it’d take him a couple of seconds to get there. Theoretically, with the skill, it would be one step of an instant.

During the fight with Arad, the chimera moved at normal speed yet crossed the distance between them in a blink. The space warped and squished. Then what did it mean by fold instead of compress?

In the linear 3 dimensions, they should be one and the same. One point to the next cannot be crossed at normal speed if the space is not folded. Yet it was curious that Arad described his as a compression or a squishing.

Gale closed his eyes, picturing the space between him and the prong. He visualized it folding like paper, the two points touching. He willed Alter and Distort to activate and impose his will on the space.

A sharp pain lanced through his temples. Pathways burned hot at specific paths. The space resisted, like trying to bend something unbendable that he couldn’t see or touch. He pushed harder, ignoring the headache building behind his eyes.

[Max Load Breached: 500/150]

The pain spiked, then vanished. Nothing happened. He remained where he was, and there was no change to the space like when Arad was using it.

[Essence: 239/1960]

“Fuck,” he muttered, glancing at Arad.

The chimera watched with all its eyes, saying nothing. The crown of eyes blinked at different intervals, but its three mouths remained closed. It was like a grown-up puppy patiently waiting for its owner. If Arad didn’t look like such a monster, it would actually look endearing.

Gale squared his shoulders. Again.

This time, he tried a different approach. Instead of forcing the space to bend, he visualized cutting a hole through it like a doorway connecting his position to the prong. Alter and Distort activated once again, forcing his will to create a tunnel as a doorway to the other side.

The space resisted once more. Distortions at the edges of Gale’s vision as reality bent. The sharp headache returned, sharper and broader, not just on his eyes. But as quickly as it appeared, it faded just as fast.

[Essence: 189/1960]

“Still nothing,” Gale said through gritted teeth. “What am I missing?”

“Intent,” Arad said. “The Dainv do not comprehend the universe as what you call humans. I just call them all non-Dainvs. We’re all the same anyway.”

“Get on with the explanation,” Gale said. For some reason, this guy is trying to sound like they’re friends. No wonder Master Lucid treated him as a pet. Then again, this guy probably liked that.

“Hehehe, I like that tone,” Arad said.

Goddammit. Note to self. He needs to be as stoic as possible when this guy is out on the field.

“What I’m saying is, you think too much. You should just let your intent guide you,” Arad said.

“What does that even mean?” Gale asked. “That doesn’t tell me anything when I’m already trying to use my intent to bend the space.”

“You think of moving from here to there,” the goat head said. “That is two places. Two intents.”

“One Step requires one intent,” the lion continued.

“You are already there,” the dragon finished. “That is the intent.”

Gale frowned as a sudden bolt of headache rushed through his head. The difference between human and Dainv was inherently intent.

[Max Load Breached: 500/150]

Once again, the symbol of the rhombus came up in his head. It was the pattern of access, but then why was it everywhere and why didn’t Aur use it to access the inner threads of reality?

Arad said that everything that is not the Dainv was essentially the same. Intent was the clue.

Do not think of moving from one point to the next.

I am already there.

Gale focused on the prong at the other end. He shaped Erebus as a sword and put himself into a drawing stance. Distort and Alter burnt up his essence pathways.

Forget the concept of willing the space to bend. It would never bend. And that’s why it was already bent and folded in the first place. At the edges of his eyes, he saw the space fold in on itself while the prong was suddenly in front of him.

One step forward. The sound of Gale’s boot hitting the metal floor deafened everything else, yet it was not loud nor quiet. In the space of the arena, it was the only thing that could be heard.

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One diagonal slash. The arc of the sword trailed a darkness that ate up all the light from the arcing lightning. In front of him, the prong that had once been whole suddenly had a chunk of its middle part swallowed along by the darkness that held the stars. Only when the top half of the prong fell did he regain his senses.

The headache grew and grew, making Gale’s knees buckle as he clutched himself into a fetal position at the edge of the arena.

New pathways burned into his flesh, originating from his spine. It was the new skill being built and optimized for repeated use.

[Success – One Step Learned.]

[One Step Lv. 0 -> 1]

[Essence cost: 1200]

Arad laughed again, rumbling the tower. “Amazing! It only took you three tries. If Master Lucid were alive, he would’ve begged you to be his disciple.”

Gale winced at the growing headache. Nausea started to set in, and soon enough bile shot up straight from his throat, spilling onto the metal floor.

Backpedalling away from his own vomit, he sat himself down on the floor, but for some reason, he saw the sky above the sector. Erebus disappeared into the storage space, and Gale let his hands and feet spread out on the cold metal floor.

Arad sat its three bodies beside where Gale sprawled. “Power will always come with pain, Master Gale. There is no such thing as free power. Those that offer it will always have a catch.”

Gale knew that all too well. Accepting the Path’s offer would chain him to the commands of those above. Accepting Esther’s offer would chain him into a world of politics where people don’t speak directly. Neither one seemed palatable.

Although Erin was right that they held him back. But what would be the point of fighting if it’s not for the ones you care for? It would be a meaningless fight if there was no one to go back to after being beaten black and blue on the front line.

He wanted to hear Ollie’s jokes again. Talk to Rachel by the campfire about anything and everything. Watch Lily grow stronger in her own ways, taking her life into her own hands. Heck, even the twins had grown on him. They even said they’d let him play games from their library, and he’s eagerly awaiting to know what that meant.

And then there was the Proctor. Gale clenched his fist. As the leader of these flesh abominations, he wanted to kill him as soon as possible, as quickly as possible. It was the first time he felt the desire to kill someone so strongly.

Confidence. That’s what he needed. He feared that maybe they wouldn’t follow him if he chose to take up the role of the leader. But so what? The fear would always be there. In the Hotel Frankley incident, they followed him anyways whether they knew it or not.

All he had to do was step forward himself. Grab it himself. They would definitely follow behind his shield.

“I need to unsummon you soon,” Gale said.

“Of course. That’s probably good for me anyways. I mean, look at me.” Arad pointed its crown of eyes at its bloody, bruised, dented body. “I’m quite fucked. Hahahaa.”

“But before you go, can you tell me about Lucid?” Gale asked.

The crown of eyes on Arad stopped smiling and turned into a somber smile. “Master Lucid. Where do I even start?”

“Anywhere. Just what do you think of him?”

“Well, I can tell you one thing. Master Lucid beat me up a lot.” Arad laughed.

“Kinda already know that.”

“Huh? What gave it away?” Arad asked.

Gale cleared his throat. “Nothing. Just continue.”

“Very well,” Arad sighed, then took a deep whiff of him. “You have the smell of the tyrannical blue bitch on you. That’s what Master Lucid called her. I believe her name was Erin Weber.”

“What about her?”

“Master Lucid never liked her. Always the constant nagging about tactics and strategy when all Master wanted to do was just fight fight fight. What else is there in a fight? Strategy and tactics were thrown out when Plans A to Z failed.”

“How did Plans A to Z even fail? Sounds like a horrible situation.”

“Dunno. Didn’t ask. Master Lucid just put me in front of an army and told me to fight with him otherwise the blue tyrant bitch would yell at us when we got back. Even lost my tail and one of my heads in that fight.”

“He sounds impulsive. Does he usually just follow his gut instincts?”

“He did, but he took the mission to cull the corruption to the extreme. I always teased him that he was a lonely one. Master Lucid never really had any friends… he was just always fighting at the frontier.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. He was just a weird one, I guess.”

“I see.”

Maybe Gale would’ve ended up like Lucid if he took the route of culling his fear out of his diction. But he already knew the taste of true solitude. Never again did he want to feel it.

Unlike Lucid, who only fought for the duty of fighting against the tide, Gale wanted more than just that one dimensional goal. Maybe one day, they’d all smile somewhere without worry of any impending world ending disaster. That was a future to look forward to.

“Arad, it’s time,” Gale said. The chimera in front of him probably knew that it would be a long time until they saw each other again. For one second, the cost of summoning Arad was over his total essence reserve.

“Right. Time for me to go back to sleep,” Arad said with a smile. “And Master Gale.”

“Hm?”

“Thank you for letting me live to fight beside you.”

Gale smiled. “In the future, we’ll bathe in the blood of the corruption.”

“HAHAAHAHAHA!” Arad laughed so loud it almost hurt to listen to. “That we shall! That we shall, Master Gale!”

The chimera’s body grew translucent as it continued to laugh. Motes of light escaped Arad’s body, swirling towards Gale’s spine. And soon enough, the entity in front of him faded out of existence and into his Manifest.

[

List of Subjects:

1. Dani

2. Arad the Dreaded One

   ]

Now that Arad was gone, he had to go back to the Protection Sector. The path back might still be dangerous. Should he meditate to get his essence back up? But that would take a couple of hours to fully get his reserves back up.

Forget it. There was a quicker way.

Gale opened up Vianne’s Express Amazing Store.

[Ess Vial – Restores 200 Essence – 100 Points]

He tapped it 5 times. It restored either 20% or a maximum of 200 essence.

Tapping Purchase, 5 Ess Vials appeared in his space storage.

[Points remaining: 13,720]

Gale materialized the first one, broke off the glass lid, and downed it in one gulp. This one tasted like grapes. Sweet. He repeated the action for the rest of the 4 vials: orange juice, tomato juice, cream soda, and lastly, hot sauce. Why was the last one always the worst?!

He forgot to ask Vianne these super important questions, Gale sighed.

[Essence: 1214/1960]

Now to fix up his broken body. He bought 2 Vit Vials from the express store and immediately downed both of them. His bones popped and the muscles writhed back into place. Rolling his shoulders and taking a deep breath, he now felt alive again.

[Points remaining: 13,520]

He had spent around an hour talking to Arad, allowing him to gain back 75 essence, and then 1000 essence for the Ess Vials. Even with a full reserve, he’d only be able to do One Step once, which was fine. He had to live with the constraints. The only thing he could do was put more points into mind, but before he does that to his Origin grains, he might as well ask Erin first when he gets back.

Gale pulled up his phone and tapped the PTT button. “Erin, you there? I’m heading back. I got the Erebus.”

For a full minute, there was no response.

“Hello, anyone there?” Gale waited even longer. This time, 10 minutes, but again no response. His heart dropped. Maybe something happened back in the Protection Sector.

Forget it. Let’s go.

Gale carefully went to the edge of the arena, looking down below at the mountains of flesh. The road he took to get to the tower was still there, unchanged.

Edging his body over, he moved his foot down to the first handhold that he could reach. Slowly, Gale climbed down the tower the way he came from. The top 1/3rd of the tower wasn’t covered in flesh creep. The design of flowing edges allowed him to use them as pivots and handholds.

Next was the flesh creep. Disgusting and made him want to vomit, but Gale pushed through. This part was the easiest, as there were many things to hold on to.

After half an hour, he had managed to descend far enough down that the sector’s floor was just 30 metres below. Letting go of the flesh creep that grew on the walls, Gale dropped down with a thud.

Breath of the Void tugged at him from the front. Something was coming. A late Resonant.

Looking up through the road of flesh, he saw a single humanoid of the same variety as the flesh warriors, except this one had flowing loose robes that made it look like a swordsman. At its waist was a sword, black chrome metal resembling Abel’s bones. It was thin, sharp, and meant to slice rather than butcher.

When its robes swayed in the wind, Gale saw its form. It had less muscles than the flesh warriors, a more slender form rather than a bulk of mass. Its head was that of a normal human, except its left eye was replaced with a red ocular lens that lit up in the dim light of the sector. Clearly, this one was made for speed rather than taking hits.

Its head scanned the area until it finally saw Gale.

The only thing he felt for this abomination in front of him was apathy. It was about to die. There was no need to waste any other emotion on this abomination.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep