Chapter 38: The Warrior Who's Never Late

Wang Yu sprinted through the rain in the night, continuously monitoring the condition of his body as he ran.

The healing effect of the third-tier spell that Mira had cast was remarkable. A steady flow of magical energy provided ample regeneration throughout his body.

His ruptured blood vessels were gradually but stably being repaired by the spell.

As his fractured blood vessels reconnected and his damaged bones mended, Wang Yu continued to run.

"Maybe I should consider learning some healing spells," Wang Yu murmured to himself.

However, healing was an inherently orderly process, and casting such spells with void energy would require an enormous expenditure.

Only someone like Avia could do so effectively with her affinity and latent ability, so Wang Yu quickly dismissed the idea.

Even though the third-tier spell and the two potions he had downed could mend his injuries, lost flesh and blood couldn't be replenished in an instant.

Just as a broken bucket had a limited capacity for water, Wang Yu's body had its limitations.

He clenched his fists. About 65% of his strength was back, which was acceptable. The villa was now within sight, though there was something eerie about it.

To the naked eye, it looked almost the same as before, apart from some gaping holes and something apparently wreaking havoc within it.

Avia was probably still inside, and whatever was causing all that destruction had to be her opponent.

"Why haven't they come out?" This question popped into Wang Yu's mind, but he answered it himself readily enough. With his inner eye, he could see that the entire villa was surrounded by a thin membrane of void energy.

Every exit—doors, windows, and even cracks and holes in the walls—was covered by this thin membrane that locked everything within.

Though the membrane seemed thin, it was colored deep purple with starlit hues, indicating that it harbored a fearsome quantity of void energy.

With the villa's walls blocking sight of what was happening within, and his inner vision obstructed by the strange film, Wang Yu wasn't able to see what was happening at all.

He raised his longsword and struck the invisible barrier forcefully. There was no sound or recoil; the sword was simply halted by something invisible and refused to penetrate it.

Wang Yu pressed harder, his muscles bulging, the entirety of his strength focused on the hilt of the sword. His veins popped; newly regenerated blood vessels burst from the strain.

His arm turned red, and even his sword began to bend from the immense strength he was exerting.

It was all useless. The void membrane didn't even budge or react at all; it was making a mockery of Wang Yu.

Wang Yu frowned. There was simply too much void energy for him to deal with.

He cast Chaos Reformation, smashing void energy into the membrane, but to no avail. The membrane merely rippled.

Indeed, Chaos Reformation had no effect on void energy that was already intrinsically chaotic.

He stepped forward and pressed his hand against the invisible barrier. Waves rippled from his palm as he invoked his latent ability.

They spread across the membrane and gradually allowed him to perceive its full shape.

Above the villa, a waterfall of void energy poured down from a rift in the void. A colossal, unfathomable figure could be seen high in the sky, gazing down at the world.

Anyone lacking in willpower would have gone crazy from a mere glimpse at the figure, their bodies twisting into eldritch abominations. Wang Yu, however, suffered no such side effects.

If Wang Yu had seen the idol in Decaphon's possession and compared it to the records in the Nightblades' archives, he would have recognized the evil god that Decaphon worshiped as the Undying Lord, a god of the void famed for its endless regeneration and immortal body.

However, Wang Yu had no time to consider the identity of the being, which was all but meaningless to him. He focused on the feedback from his ripples, which conveyed special information to him.

Void energy distorted reality by manifesting concepts like "temperature" or "time."

In this membrane, Wang Yu's ripples detected the concept of "immortality" embedded deeply within its weave.

The Undying Lord had imbued this concept into the membrane by supplying it with a near-endless quantity of void energy.

It couldn't last forever; once the void rift dissipated, the membrane would lose its power source and collapse. Had Decaphon wanted this villa because of the void rift that existed in its vicinity?

Wang Yu shook the sword in his hand and placed it on the ground. The membrane would naturally disintegrate when the time came, but until then, thanks to void energy pouring from the rift, it was practically indestructible.

Was waiting the only option available, then? Wang Yu didn't intend to wait. Perhaps arriving just in time to save the day would be cool, but Wang Yu hated last-minute rescues.

If he missed an opportunity to rescue Avia, he might lose her forever. Wang Yu had been rushing for time as he attempted to take down all his foes as quickly as possible.

The old knight Reynard's tragedy was bad enough. Wang Yu had no intention of suffering such loss ever again. Since he understood the fundamental concept of the membrane, there were some tests that he could try out.

An ethereal hammer formed in his hand, with a steel shaft wrapped in leather and a massive, heavy steel head. [1]

Wang Yu had always known that his ability to function as a wizard was very different from anyone else's. He had poor talent, meager void affinity, and almost no void capacity at all. Even so, he had an advantage that no other wizard seemed to possess: he could use all his void and mental energy without suffering damage or possible contamination from the void. He acknowledged that the bulk of his power as a wizard came from this ability, and he had been attempting to find the best use for it. With all his void energy, at the cost of imposing countless restrictions, he was able to hone a concept to its extremes.

The concept that he focused on was "destruction," stripped of everything else—pure, unadulterated, concentrated destruction.

It would last for only a brief moment, the barest blink of an eye, and the area of effect was so small as to require direct contact, but it would suffice for his needs.

The membrane was immobile, and he only needed to destroy it for a moment.

He raised his void-forged hammer high in the air.

In terms of void energy, if the membrane was composed of a hundred million units of void energy, then Wang Yu's hammer had the equivalent of about a single unit. What he needed to do was to reinforce that single unit of energy until it could take down a nearly unimaginable hundred million units.

Wang Yu exhausted all his void energy as he smashed the hammer down on the membrane at one infinitesimal point, a technique he had titled Wallbreaker's Hammer.

Boom! The void energy shattered the walls of the villa in the vicinity of his strike. A nearby windowsill exploded inward, bricks and all.

The hammer flew through the membrane and dissipated in the air as it ran out of void energy.

Wang Yu had succeeded.

A small hole appeared in both the membrane and the wall, though the void energy surging through the membrane was already starting to repair it.

Without any hesitation, Wang Yu rolled through the hole and entered the villa.

He immediately steadied himself and looked around, only to find a pair of familiar eyes looking at him.

"Avia!"

"Wang Yu?"

The two of them spoke up in unison, their eyes widening in surprise.

Wang Yu glanced at Avia's tattered clothing, the numerous small bloodstains scattered across her body, and her heavy breathing. He immediately crouched down and offered her his back. "Climb on. I'll carry you!"

"Got it." Avia smiled gratefully, climbed up onto Wang Yu's back, and settled herself there.

"The monster that Decaphon turned into is chasing after me. Run that way!" Avia pointed; Wang Yu started sprinting.

"I'm not too late, am I?" Wang Yu asked.

"You came just in time." An overwhelming sense of relief had filled Avia the moment Wang Yu appeared. With Wang Yu carrying her, she could finally focus on completing the spell that she had yet to test.

Wang Yu didn't fully understand what was going on, but he knew he could trust Avia. Wang Yu dashed down the corridor in the direction Avia pointed at.

Just like in Decaphon's room, the void membrane was suppressing his inner eye, restricting its range to just three meters.

Even so, Wang Yu could still hear loud crunches as floorboards broke under the weight of the yet unseen Decaphon.

Something massive was pursuing them. If even Avia's destructive power couldn't stop it, he figured he shouldn't even bother trying.

Wang Yu frowned as he noticed that the void energy in the membrane seemed to refuse contact with him.

The void energy seemed to bear the mark of the evil god. For someone like Wang Yu, with particularly weak void affinity, replenishing void energy here was out of the question.

An empty mindscape—that would take some getting used to.

However, Wang Yu had always relied on physical strength, rather than wizardry, as his foundation. He took a few seconds to adjust and quickly adapted.

He ran down the corridor with Avia on his back, far faster than Avia had been going by herself. Whatever was chasing them couldn't keep up for the moment, so he took advantage of the opportunity to speak with Avia and understand just what was happening.

Avia quickly told him about what she had encountered.

"I see. The evil god's projection must have completely replaced Decaphon. It's easy to get the power of an evil god, but the cost..."

Wang Yu immediately understood what had happened. The Nightblades had taught him well not to trust evil gods.

"I'm currently trying to manifest void energy in reality, but it needs a suitable vessel. The dagger you made from that strange chaotic material seems like a perfect fit. Only the void can harm that evil god, so I have to complete this spell.

Avia was sweating. She felt a surge of nervousness. Despite her genius, this technique—though theoretically possible—was one that no one would dare consider attempting. She had no guarantee of success herself, but she was out of options.

"Can't we just hold out until the void rift closes?" Wang Yu asked. He had already told her about the void rift. If they could wait until it closed, perhaps they would be able to escape.

"We can't. The void density here keeps increasing, and that monster will only keep growing stronger as its environment grows closer to the void. It's a race against time for us. We can't hope to outlast it. Our only possible option is to kill it." Avia's tone was resolute; she sounded utterly determined. She had planned to fight to the death if necessary, and she wasn't about to disappoint Wang Yu now.

As if to confirm her words, the rumbling behind them suddenly stopped. Wang Yu wasn't relieved—he knew that something was wrong.

The next moment, the wall beside him exploded. A massive, muscular hand burst through, accompanied by flying chunks of wood and stone. It struck at Wang Yu.

Fully focused, Wang Yu dodged to the side. He protected the girl on his back with his left hand while swinging the longsword he had picked up upon entering the villa, deflecting the debris and dodging underneath the hand.

A gust of wind appeared at Wang Yu's feet, granting him additional agility. Avia's enhancement spell had landed just as he began to move.

He mentally praised her quick response and sprinted forward without any hesitation.

As Avia continued to focus on the spell, she quickly explained to Wang Yu, "The void energy here has reached a critical level. That monster has been tracking us all this time—and now, it can even use the void energy here to distort reality and reconstruct its body."

Before she could finish, Wang Yu, who had just darted through a corridor, saw ripples of void appearing in the air.

Several vortices formed out of nowhere. Tentacles of solid muscle emerged and swept toward him and Avia.

Wang Yu leapt over the first tentacle and swung his sword down on the second.

"Hm?" The tentacle was far tougher than Wang Yu had expected. With his decreased strength, he wasn't able to cut through it. He had no choice but to abandon the sword, which was wedged tightly into its flesh.

A third tentacle shot toward him. Wang Yu, having lost his sword, had no defense against it.

His eyes narrowed. He had lost the ability to maneuver in mid-air with wizardry. He gritted his teeth and clenched his right fist, ready to throw a punch—even if it meant his bones would shatter from the impact.

"Wang Yu, duck!" Avia shouted from behind. Without any hesitation, Wang Yu lowered his head. A fireball flew over his head and struck the tentacle head-on.

The tentacle hadn't managed to hit Wang Yu. It exploded on impact with the fireball, but began to regenerate near-instantly given the high density of void energy in the environment.

Boom! The fireball's close-range explosion sent Wang Yu tumbling down the stairs. Covered in ash and soot from the blast, he quickly lifted Avia back up and resumed his frantic escape.

He was well aware that the danger they were facing would only increase. A few more sudden attacks, and he might not make it.

"Wang Yu, I've finished the spell model!" Avia called out. Without looking back, Wang Yu saw through his inner eye that she had formed a complex rune array in her hands.

It was an incredible intricate spell composed of hundreds of overlapping runes, a fearsome example of wizardry. The meaning of the spell had transcended the runes themselves; once activated, it would embody pure chaos and madness—in other words, the void.

"Materializing the void and sustaining it requires a huge amount of void energy. The void density here is high enough, but I'm afraid the unfamiliar void energy will overwhelm me if I absorb too much of it. I'll be able to last long enough to finish the spell, but you'll have to wield the blade!"

Avia's tone was five parts regret, four parts determination, and one part mirth.

She handed Wang Yu the dagger, her intention clear. She would sacrifice herself to cast the spell. She was content: she knew that, if he hadn't broken through the membrane, she wouldn't even have had this opportunity for a final stand.

Though the spell would likely claim her life, she couldn't help but feel regretful.

She glanced at the back of the person carrying her, then reached out almost subconsciously to touch his head. She didn't want to part from him, but was there any other choice?

"Unfamiliar void energy? I might have an idea," Wang Yu suddenly said. Part of his mind dove into his mindscape, at the broken door that led into his mental domain above the vast expanse of the shimmering lake.

He had never thought of moving the door before, but why not? It was hardly attached to a doorframe, after all. In his mindscape, Wang Yu extended his hand and gave the door's edge a gentle push—and it moved.

1. According to the author, this was inspired by the hammer wielded by Sledge in Rainbow Six Siege. ☜