Volume 5 – Chapter 3 (in editing-v1)

Volume 5 – Chapter 3

(I'm using a new laptop to type, its autocorrect sometimes slips past me - let me know if y'all see any typos I miss! Also special thanks go out to Timothy for his correction comments)

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Teleporters were an invaluable asset to any team.

Micheal was once again reminded of this fact as he looked down, his eyes crinkling as waves of heat and power washed over them, even as high up as they now were.

‘About 4500ish feet up.’ (1371 meters) They were far enough away to be above most of the smoke and blown up stone dust, but close enough to feel the heat.

“Shin? You awake?” Micheal looped his arm around the teleporter’s shoulder, frowning when Shin didn’t respond. His eyes were shut and his head falling to the side.

“Alright.” In a single motion, as gravity kicked in and they started to fall, Micheal scooped Shin up, holding him over his right shoulder.

Then, almost instinctively, he activated his Cloud Stepping Shoes, using them to bounce off air and jump forward, all while eyeing the floating islands beyond the edge of the ring of explosions they had been caught in.

“Shop.” As he continued to repeatedly jump off air, he pulled open the Shop.

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— - Shop — -

Available Points: 382,841

Abilities - Artifacts

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Using his left hand to maneuver while holding on to Shin’s unconscious form with his right, he scrolled through the Artifacts section of the Shop until he found what he was looking for.

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Neo-Levitation Bracers – 146,308 (924/1,350)

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Neo-Levitation Bracers were an odd sort of Limited Artifact. As their namesake implied, these bracers granted one a limited form of levitation for an extended period of time, drawing on the user’s Ki/Mana/energy.

If the Artifact’s price had been even slightly lower, the Limited Artifact would’ve been long gone, bought out by desperate people on the First Layer. As it was, it exceeded the Points Wall for most individuals until they reached the Second Layer, where it found relatively little use.

The fact that Cloud Stepping Shoes were 1/5th the price without being Limited also had an impact in the bracers’ current availability.

Micheal bought them as soon as he found them, spawning two silver bracers in his left hand. He then, slightly awkwardly, slid the first one onto his left arm, and then attached the second to his right. The bracers gave off a very faint, white glow, emitting from two large diamond-shaped holes carved into the center of each bracer.

A moment later, Micheal felt his sense of gravity start to fade away, greatly easing his burden. The bracers adjusted for his weight and the weight of what he was carrying, namely, Shin. He also felt a minor thrum of energy pass through him as it sapped at his exhausted Ki.

After a split second’s hesitation, Micheal swapped over the energy powering the Artifact to Mana emitted from his Soul’s Mana Circles. The energy change happened almost instantaneously, the Artifact continuing to hum along smoothly, using relatively little Mana.

There were a few Spells he could've cast that might have kept him up in the air, but none stable enough to feel confident carrying Shin over a long distance, especially not in his current state.

‘There.’ Micheal kicked several more times, accelerating his pace as he flew through the air. After a few brief minutes that seemed to last for an eternity, Micheal reached the first of the surviving floating islands, those at the edge of the attack.

‘Still too close.’ He kept going, ignoring his burning lungs and screaming muscles as he leapt back into the air and began to zoom past several barren islands.

The minutes droned on as he cleared several miles inland, putting as much distance between himself and the attack as possible.

Thankfully, the Outer Ringlands were a barren zone this far out, with very little in the way of population or wildlife. The weather habits of the Third Layer saw only a small amount of rain touch the Outer Ringlands, with most of the world’s rain concentrated on the Empty Sea, and the floating islands that bordered it.

Finally, Micheal reached a point where it simply was not viable to travel any farther, and found a spot to land. It was one of the larger floating islands in his vicinity, a large, craggy rock of an island, mired with crevasses and caves – an excellent place to hunker down and hide.

‘We need rest, badly.’ Micheal noted as he made his way past several openings, searching for one big enough to house them both.

Shin continued to remain unconscious, but with a steady heartbeat and no other signs of injury. Even with his Ki drained and exhaustion setting in, Micheal’s superhuman strength made it relatively easy to continue carrying Shin.

‘He overextended his Ki.’ Micheal knew the feeling well enough from his first life. Shin would be nursing a nasty hangover tomorrow.

Eventually, Micheal settled on a cave he liked, one with a slightly hidden opening on the underside of a large rocky cliff. He moved Shin into the cave and made a few small purchases from the Shop’s Miscellaneous Earth Objects section.

Two sleeping mats and pillows later, and the grim looking cave already felt like a new home.

He resisted the urge to fall down on the mat and sleep, first taking measures to safeguard their camp.

“E’nor Alalm.” He muttered as he cast the 1st Circle Spell ‘Alarm Line,’ drawing out a line of Mana to connect the warding spell to also recognize Shin. This Spell created an invisible barrier at the entrance to their cave that would create a loud, warbling shriek should any non-attuned creature pass through it. It was one of the few defensive Spells he had in his repertoire.

Finally, Micheal felt safe enough to sit down, letting out a long, ragged breath.

‘How did they find me?’ Micheal tapped his shirt, feeling the Aura Nullification Necklace he always wore underneath. While the anti-scrying Artifact wasn’t necessarily infallible, Micheal hadn’t expected to run into anything that could trace him through it until he reached the Fifth Layer, with a few exceptions.

“Who?” Micheal croaked, grabbing a bottle of water from the Shop as he mentally reviewed the three names he’d called out earlier.

‘Allmaster.’

Allmaster was a Hero that guarded the Helianor Principality to the North-West of the Empty Sea. He possessed the unique ability to obtain temporary Mastery in more than a hundred separate Conceptual Powers, though he could only switch and maintain one type of Mastery at a time.

‘Theoretically, he could use one of his more energy focused Masteries to create an enormous attack, and then switch to the Mastery of Time…’ After a few moments of consideration, Micheal shook his head.

Allmaster was a Hero, which by default on the Third Layer meant he was powerful enough to fight off an Apex Void Predator, an immense 25-40 meters tall ultra-rare behemoth, all on his own. His ability to swap out Conceptual Masteries gave him incredible flexibility and let him fight in a mostly direct fashion.  

Sending an attack backwards in time would require a sizable amount of Paradox derived Time Energy, an incredibly dangerous substance that could easily splinter one’s Soul. Allmaster was arrogant, most Heroes were, but he wasn’t stupid. Such an indirect and dangerous style of attack wasn’t his M.O.

‘Eon.’

Eon - the King of Heroes, and the single most powerful being on the Third Layer. Immense strength, immense durability, flight, and one of only 2 Heroes, across the entire Third Layer, to be a Grandmaster Martial Artist.

Eon was the reason why no Void Noble dared to declare themselves a King. He was an existence unto himself.

‘He still has the Spear of Time.’

The Spear of Time, Stratos, was a Legendary Artifact, ranked 2nd on the List of Legends, that was stolen from Eon during the Seventh Wave. It was an Artifact that twisted Causality, making impossible feats possible.

‘He could probably manage to send an attack backwards in time with it.’ Micheal donned a frown.

‘However…’

“Both of them lack motive.” Nothing Micheal had planned for in the immediate future should ever run him afoul of either Hero… which left only one other possibility.

“Jay sol Arget.’ Micheal spat out the name.

Jay’s Title, ‘The Unbound,’ let him casually break the rules of existence to do things that no other being could, like descend downward through the Layers. Soul damage caused by Paradox derived Time Energy was suspected to be one of the main causes of his demise in the original timeline…

And Micheal was planning on preventing that same Titled Deity from killing Aaron Bartram, the man who would have gone on to become the single strongest human in existence, and the whole reason the Endwalker was here in the first place.

Everything fit into place, it all added up.

‘But how did he track me?’

Micheal paused for a moment as a thought struck him.

Slowly, he turned to look at Shin.

“Hold on…” Micheal staved off a yawn as he leaned over and checked his sleeping friend’s neck.

‘What if they weren’t trying to track me… but tracking Shin?’

Micheal opened up the Shop again and scrolled through it, grimacing as he read the cost to buy an Aura Nullification Necklace. 78,455 Points wasn’t really that high, but it also wasn’t low.

‘At least it’s affordable.’ Situations like this was exactly why he tended to conserve his Point total, spending only when necessary.

Micheal bought the Artifact and looped it around Shin’s neck. Shin, in turn, continued to ignore Micheal, lost in the bliss of sleep.

He briefly considered relocating in case Shin had been tracked before he bought the necklace, but then recalled that he had physically carried Shin the entire way here, covering him under the protective sphere of Micheal’s own Aura Nullification Necklace.

‘Is he targeting Shin specifically? Or did he just take advantage of my oversight and use him to find me?’ Either scenario was possible, though Micheal felt the latter was more likely than the former. Still, it was best to plan for both, just to be safe.  

A few moments later and Micheal closed the Shop and laid down on his sleeping mat, finally starting to acknowledge the exhaustion overtaking him.

‘We should be safe for now. I can’t imagine even a Titled Deity can send immense attacks backward like that without cost.’

He would obtain a new Life Orb in just a few hours, Shin was safe, he was safe, he could afford to rest.

And it was here, as he finally fell asleep, that Micheal’s tumultuous first day on the Third Layer finally came to an end.

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