Chapter 387: The Layered Barrier

Why would he reach out and touch this great octopus? What could he possibly gain from such an act? Wang Yu could not have explained it clearly himself.

From the instant he laid eyes upon the creature, however, his body had stirred with subtle intuition. Something primal urged him to touch it—perhaps, as with the insights gleaned from vampire blood or dragon's ichor, he might chance upon some hidden knowledge.

Those past encounters had advanced him by leaps and bounds. Now that this colossal being loomed before him, curiosity compelled him to wonder what changes it might bring. The risk was, to Wang Yu, quite acceptable.

If a mere brush of his hand were enough to rouse such a being, then this dream god's lullaby, which he had continued to sing for countless eons, would seem rather meaningless indeed.

"Guide the power of this dream god's shell following my lead," Avia instructed. "Even simple divinity will let us move far more freely in the void."

Following her direction, Wang Yu drew upon the slumbering divinity's power and wove it into shape. To Wang Yu, who was steeped in the power of the Chariot, divine spells were just like magic spells, though with a handful of extra steps.

A faint radiance swirled around their bodies. The simple, effective spell allowed them to drift through the void as if it were air.

Until now, they had been forced to cling to his starsteel filaments to avoid plunging helplessly downward.

The octopus was vast beyond reckoning, far larger than even a mountain range. Its titanic form seemed to fill the very backdrop of this realm. To draw near on their own, Wang Yu reckoned, might have taken half a year at least.

Yet they were lucky. Countless tentacles sprawled from its body. One of them happened to intersect the void just beside them, plunging deep into an unfathomable darkness. To reach that tentacle would only require a fraction of the time.

Having made up his mind, Wang Yu pressed forward, bearing Avia on his back. In one hand he held firmly to a starsteel filament, ready to retreat at the first sign of peril.

As they advanced, the tentacle grew ever larger before them. Even from afar, it had loomned large; at close quarters, its immense size pressed upon their spirit like a living weight.

If this creature were to descend onto the material plane, what could they hope to do? A body so immense would render most assault meaningless, its sheer mass a bulwark against harm.

A faint tearing sound broke the silence. Wang Yu halted mid-flight, frowning. He reached out, probing the air. Something unseen barred his way.

The moment he tried to push through, pain lanced his hand. Though armored in the power of the Chariot, his finger split open, carved with hairline fissures that bled bright red.

The wound looked ghastly, but it was little more than torn skin. His blood writhed of its own accord, sealing the injury within moments.

Still, it proved that the barrier was dangerous. He was hesitant about forcing his way deeper—who knew what devastation awaited further within?

When he dispelled the Chariot's power from his finger and reached out again, no harm came. His hand slipped through as though the barrier didn't exist at all.

"So long as I refrain from using the Chariot," he mused, "I cannot touch the void, and neither can they touch me. But here, that rule seems to have... broken."

He shook his head. To dismiss the power of the Chariot here was folly. Without it, he would have no substance, no means of motion, and no protection for Avia.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

There were hundreds of meters between the barrier and the tentacle; it was far beyond the reach of his power. To abandon it would doom her to the void's corruption, something Wang Yu would never permit.

He explained as much to Avia. The young woman fell silent in thought, then urged him to keep testing the barrier, hoping to glean something from its resistance.

Obediently, Wang Yu pressed both hands into the barrier again and again. Each attempt cut deeper, his wounds growing more and more severe.

At last he thrust his entire arm inside, driving it forward despite the agony.

His flesh tore open. His regeneration kept pace at first, but soon the damage accumulated. His fingertip was shredded to the bone, marrow laid bare before being annihilated by the unseen force.

"No. I can't hold out against this."

Clicking his tongue, Wang Yu withdrew his power, letting his arm fade away. The tearing ceased. Once he pulled free, the wounds knit in moments.

"Brute force won't be enough," Avia concluded, taking his arm in hand. The skin was whole; there were no clues left behind. "Try sheathing your arm in divine power. I may be able to obtain some data from that interaction."

Wang Yu complied. Cloaking his limb in the dream god's energy, he reached out once more. The barrier bit down immediately, shredding both flesh and divine essence.

Yet the unraveling divinity produced shifts he could sense through the Chariot, which he relayed to Avia verbally.

Trial after trial, he collected more and more data. Avia, brows furrowed, sifted through it all patiently.

They had time enough—this void was empty of predators, and safe from the other realm's tide of annihilation.

Even so, the problem defied a quick resolution. Half a day passed before Avia's eyes lit up with understanding.

"Wang Yu," she said slowly, "what you've been doing is like moving from an incoherent dimension into a coherent one. This place we occupy is broken and fragmentary. But that great octopus dwells in a coherent bubble of its own.

"As we advance, our incoherent dimension intersects with that coherent bubble. Our lack of coherence manifests as wounds in this coherent space—that's the nature of the damage you suffered."

Her voice grew quiet. "There is likely another dimension that overlaps with ours. We are within one. The octopus straddles both. It's possible that Sieg and Noelle are in the other."

She finished her explanation. Wang Yu understood what she was saying, but had no idea how this had come to be, or how she had reached such a conclusion in the first place. He grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.

"Brilliant. So... if that's the case, is there any way we can reach the Professor and Noelle, if they truly are in that other dimension?"

Sieg shook his head in wonder. "As expected of Avia. No one else would have been able to deduce the existence of two overlapping dimensions from such faint fluctuations."

Sieg spoke with quiet admiration as he watched the vision of Wang Yu and Avia moving within the void before him. The scene played at a pace slowed dozens of times over, every gesture ponderous. Sieg could easily read their lips.

"Are they your companions?" asked the old man beside him, wonder in his voice. "I never imagined he would be able to tear away the fragment of abyssal power that severed my soul's link to its body within that space. I doubt he even knew what he'd done. And he is... human, is he not? A mortal body walking the void—other than abyssal creatures, I have never witnessed such a thing."

His tone brimmed with astonishment. Despite being a god who had lived through cataclysm and ruin, Wang Yu's deeds still ranked among the most outlandish he had ever seen.

In fact, he was only able to show them this vision of his body because Wang Yu, in wielding the force of the Chariot, had forcibly drawn upon his strength. This echo was an unintended side effect.

"Tell me, why does he seek to touch that abyssal creature? What possible reason could he have for doing so?"

Sieg shook his head. "I cannot say. But if anyone can fulfill your plan, it may well be him."

Though he had some inkling of Wang Yu's intent, Sieg chose not to say it aloud.

"What manner of being is he, truly?" the old man murmured, curiosity deepening. "He has brought change to this realm after millennia of stasis."

He knew what Sieg referred to: the old plan—his plan—to drag that vast octopus, which clung so stubbornly to the material world, down into the depths where void and matter intertwined. It was a plan he himself had abandoned as hopeless. How could Wang Yu succeed where he could not?

"He always manages to come up with one impossible surprise after another," Sieg replied. "We can't do anything ourselves. We cannot even cross from this desolate dimension into theirs, let alone break down this barrier. Better to help him however we can."

Sieg rose up and strode toward Noelle, who was rummaging through her stores of alchemical tools.

"Indeed," the old man sighed. "That young woman's powers of analysis are remarkable as well. But I can no longer wield the strength of that distant husk. All I can do is show you these images. I cannot bridge this spatial barrier, not even at the peak of my strength."

The old man spoke with resignation. In his time with Sieg, he had come to understand the latter's caution and precision. Sieg's high praise for Wang Yu was surely warranted. Yet the split between their dimensions rendered all their efforts vain.

Sieg, however, studied the alchemical material Noelle had just handed him. His expression was faintly peculiar.

"If everything is as you say, Elder, perhaps there really is something we can do..."