Divine Apostasy Book 7 - Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Ruwen hadn’t used his full power since Rainbow’s End, and even then, the planet had lacked an atmosphere, limiting the side effects of moving at such speeds.

The air around Ruwen’s fist ignited, the friction caused by the sudden movement like a falling star. A pressure wave blossomed outward, containing both the compressed air and thunderclap associated with such quick actions.

The knuckles on Ruwen’s right hand shattered as his punch struck the soul ring. The force traveled through his perfectly aligned wrist and elbow, saving those bones, to his shoulder, which wrenched and dislocated. The pain in Last Breath was a distant thing, and he had become accustomed to discomfort anyway.

Ruwen stepped back, expecting the soul ring to shatter and fall apart. Instead, it shuddered as the force of his blow passed through it.

Then it exploded.

Even in Last Breath, the pressure wave sped toward Ruwen at an incredible pace, throwing him backward. He exerted as much mental energy as possible into Last Breath, speeding his mind to its maximum. Normally such an effort became unbearable as a single second stretched into hours, and the mental fatigue it caused meant he couldn’t sustain it for long anyway.

Even as Ruwen reached his mental capacity, the explosion didn’t stop. It crawled through the air in a spreading bubble, its velocity so great nothing he could do would stop it.

With all the practice on Rainbow’s End, Ruwen had become an expert on explosions. He could calculate the damage a pressure wave would cause based on its size, shape, and velocity.

Having never witnessed an explosion so violent, Ruwen knew with certainty no one in the chamber would survive this pressure wave, including himself. Divine magic had created and powered that soul ring. It was the only explanation. And like an angry god, the soul ring would dispense its wrath on everyone here.

Ruwen pushed the panic away to keep his thoughts clear. He needed to act immediately if he had any chance of surviving, and panic only slowed him.

The problem had already grown too large. None of Ruwen’s spells would contain such a blast, and nothing he could do would protect Sift and the Adepts from the fatal damage. He needed to move them away from the explosion.

Or, move the explosion away from them.

Ruwen latched onto the idea, not wasting another iota of time deciding. It might already be too late.

Ruwen had four thousand five hundred twenty-one Energy. His Regen of two-hundred three per second didn’t matter, as everyone in this chamber would be vaporized a second from now.

The solution also relied on how quickly it reacted to Ruwen’s wishes. Anything short of near instantaneous, and none of this mattered. He would wake up in a revival bath in New Eiru, his last memory the underwater safe house the night before the semi-final match of the Step Championship.

Overlord, and all the Narrators, gone. The knowledge Ruwen had gained about the Architect Role, essence recipes, and using his Spirit on the far side of the Universe, gone. The perfection of his Steps, gone. All of it. Gone.

Worse, so much worse, Sift would be dead, and Ruwen wouldn’t even know he caused it.

Ruwen willed his Void Band open. Praying something designed and managed by the Goddess Miranda and linked to her vast vaults under the Black Pyramid would match the quality of everything else she created.

The Void Band grew.

More importantly, it grew faster than the expanding pressure wave. Immense relief threatened to consume him, but like the panic, he kept it away from his thoughts. There would be time for that later.

Void Band lessons first learned with Crew Chief Bliz and perfected over the two years since turned Ruwen’s thoughts into actions.

The explosion had thrown Ruwen backward, and his feet had left the ground. He stretched the Void Band outward like a finger and angled it down slightly to catch the bottom of the pressure wave. Thankfully, the rocky ground had slowed the downward expansion of the pressure wave enough that he believed he could get under most of it.

Comparing the growth of the explosion with the speed of the Void Band, Ruwen worried the band wouldn’t reach the far side of the pressure wave before the blast struck Sift and the Adepts.

With a thought, Ruwen raised the Void Band finger he’d created, making the angle shallower, which increased how fast it overtook the pressure wave. A small portion of the explosion on his side would remain, an unfortunate consequence of the angles.

Even with the adjustment, saving Sift and the Adepts would be close, assuming Ruwen could manipulate the Void Band well enough to capture the explosion.

The Void Band finger Ruwen had produced finally overtook the far side of the explosion thirty-five feet away. It had expanded to within inches of Sift’s face.

Ruwen had never created an opening with his Void Band this large, and he wasn’t sure how much Energy what he planned to do next would take. Manipulating the opening usually didn’t take much Energy, but that might not be true of the gigantic one he was about to try.

There was a real risk it would take more Energy than Ruwen had.

If it saved Sift and the Adepts, though, it was worth that cost.

With that thought, Ruwen expanded his Void Band finger outward from a long line into a circle, creating a round portal opening thirty-five feet wide. That alone would cost two hundred Energy per second, and he had no idea how much Energy it had taken to extend the opening in the first place. Or, even worse, how much what he planned to do next would cost.

Ruwen angled the entire thirty-five-foot opening upward, scooping up the pressure wave along with the shards of soul ring. When the Void Band passed Sift’s face, Ruwen relaxed a little. At least one of them would survive.

As the rising Void Band passed the halfway point of the pressure wave, Ruwen decreased the size of the opening as it climbed, trying to minimize the amount of Energy he consumed.

If the Void Band suddenly stopped moving, it meant Ruwen had depleted his Energy pool and would die. He wondered if death happened immediately, or when he released Last Breath.

The fear of imminent death, and everything it would cost Ruwen, made watching his Void Band slowly consume the explosion excruciating.

With forty percent of the pressure wave remaining, Ruwen considered warning the Narrators of their possible impending death, but decided it served no purpose. He didn’t think he could manage the mental conversations anyway, since all his mental energy kept Last Breath maxed.

As the pressure wave reached thirty percent, sadness crept into Ruwen’s thoughts. Despite his best intentions, and a thoughtful and cautious approach to problems his increased Wisdom provided, he’d still almost killed Sift, and might yet die himself. He wondered if Tarot had once again shifted the odds enough to get his keeper killed.

At twenty percent, thoughts of Hamma pushed Ruwen from sadness to grief. If he died and revived with a level of twenty-six, how would she react now that she’d climbed to such a high level? Worse, she would remember months of a different Ruwen. The Ruwen that he had become while out in the darkness. He would revive as someone else. Someone she didn’t recognize. He doubted their relationship would survive it.

Would the same happen with Rami? Would she miss the old Ruwen?

The stress and worry as Ruwen consumed the final ten percent of the explosion almost overwhelmed him. He had likely captured enough of the explosion to stop, which would keep himself from dying if this last portion exhausted his Energy. But he worried the remaining pressure wave, angled upward, would collapse the ceiling and kill everyone. He forced himself to finish.

With five percent of the pressure wave remaining, Ruwen’s thoughts turned to those he loved and who loved him. His parents, Hamma, Rami, Sift, Tremine, and even Lylan with her sarcastic pragmatism. He loved the life he’d created, even if it hadn’t chosen much of it, and the ache of possibly losing it all created a pain Last Breath couldn’t touch.

Four percent.

Three.

Two.

One.

The Void Band finished its rotation back to Ruwen, the opening a narrow line as he captured the last of the explosion.

It was done.

And he hadn’t died.

Relief so powerful it hurt filled Ruwen, and he spent the next few slivers of time, as he crept through the air, drowning in it. He had done something extraordinary, and it made him proud.

Ruwen studied his handiwork. Where an expanding sphere of fatal destruction had existed, nothing remained. Well, almost nothing. A small pressure wave he couldn’t capture under his feet, and angled at the ground, still advanced through the air. Even if that tiny amount caused damage, it faced away from Sift and the Adepts.

Studying the small remaining pressure wave, Ruwen noticed its bottom had scraped the floor, creating the beginning of a furrow through the stone. The Infernal Crossing Ring’s base must have been reinforced somehow, as it had resisted the pressure wave long enough for him to scoop it up. The damage beginning on the floor below concerned him a little, as the destruction the pressure wave had already caused hadn’t seemed to weaken it at all.

To Sift, the Adepts, and everyone else in the chamber, it would look like Ruwen had struck the Infernal Crossing Ring and caused the entire thing to just disappear. Not even the sound of his attack survived. The shattered structure, the sound wave, the explosion’s pressure wave, and whatever energy held it all together now rested safely in his Inventory.

The detonation had thrown the Scourge Commander into the air, just like Ruwen, and the explosion had accelerated them both to an insane velocity. The barely detectible Gravity Shell he always kept active protected him from a deity’s gravity attack, but it wouldn’t help buffer his impending meeting with the chamber wall. If he could access his Architect Role, and use his Gravity Shell to stop his movement, the shell would protect him from the consequences of that sudden stop.

The tiny portion of his mind that allowed these thoughts and observations was the only thing not dedicated to keeping Last Breath maximized. He guessed diverting even a small amount of mental energy to use the Architect Role would weaken Last Breath enough that he’d strike the wall before he could adjust anything.

Even if Ruwen could manage it, if he miscalculated the amount of change and consumed all his Mana, it would tap his Spirit. And with the damage he’d done to himself already from the Smear, it might permanently cripple his spiritual abilities.

If Ruwen didn’t try, though, the explosion or impact might kill him, and he needed to give himself the best chance at surviving.

Sivart, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I might need your help in a moment.

Ruwen went over the steps and pictured himself slowly shifting focus from Last Breath to the Gravity Shell his Gravity Role powered.

With a mental sigh, Ruwen shifted a fraction of energy from Last Breath toward the Gravity Shell, hoping everything went well and he wouldn’t need to test the durability of his Diamond Fortified body.

Like a spinning top, the slight change caused a catastrophic wobble that instantly unraveled his entire mental focus.

For a fraction of a moment, pain erupted from every part of Ruwen’s body, before his thoughts stopped and darkness took him.