PtM 18 - Chapter 20: Descent

3 shorter chapters this week. Once again, all Huxian. I decided to group them all up together to deepen the immersion. Don't worry, Cha Ming will come back, and with fewer interuptions than ever!

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Blood dripped from a paper-thin gap on Huxian’s battle robes and splashed onto the white dungeon floor. He dodged the rest of the storm of parchment paper, taking no additional paper cuts, but the original cut hurt, and the pain didn’t seem to be going away.

“Paper cuts are awful,” Huxian muttered. “But I can cope with them. But what I can’t cope with is that my opponent is a tree of all things.”

A saint level opponent was fair. He was in a high level dungeon, and this was the fortieth floor. A boss floor. High defences? Also fair. Ridiculous vitality and annoying offense? He could live with that.

What he couldn’t live with was the fact that this tree was a paper tree. Paper was made of trees, not the other way around. Unfortunately, the mindless creature was unaware of the ridiculous contradiction. It remained content with spraying wave after wave of paper leaves at Huxian to whittle away his limited stamina and energy reserves.

Huxian was an agile demon. Thanks to his teleportation powers, he was able to dodge over ninety-nine percent of the leaves as he closed the gap between him and the tree’s white trunk. He struck out with a carving knife, but it bounced off the tree’s suspiciously tough bark.

“This is supposed to be paper, but it’s not. It behaves like wood. It’s made of wood.  You can’t be both a tree and paper at the same time. It’s just not logical.”

Another swirl of paper leaves accosted him. This time, the tree was smart and blocked off all possible exits. Huxian had to rely on his Demon Dao Domain to wrestle with the tree for control over local laws. He managed to create a tiny shield of spatial glass, and it lasted just long enough for him to punch through the encirclement.

Trees had super high vitality. It was necessary to find and attack their cores to hurt them. But even if he did find its core, it wouldn’t matter, because he hadn’t yet managed to pierce its bark.

He teleported next to the trunk again, and this time, he placed his hand on the bark and activated Spacetime Devouring. A small area around his palm began to warp and wither. Devouring Attack was super effective!

Unfortunately, he was forced to abandon this method attack when the paper leaves came back with a vengeance. The withered trunk recovered within second of his departure, completely undoing all his progress.

If it was just paper cuts, I could deal, thought Huxian. But these paper laws are pretty troublesome. The wounds on his body wouldn’t stop bleeding, and some were beginning to ooze white liquid as his flesh slowly converted to paper.

Huxian thought about drawing on Cha Ming’s Clearmist but ultimately resisted the temptation. He needed to stop relying on him for things. The pocket realms were a trade, and so were the flasks and the puppet commission.

He didn’t draw on his friends either, because they were in a precarious situation. Just because Solana had said she’d take it easy on them, it didn’t mean she was beyond sapping their strength and weakening their army.

Huxian was a fox, so he had many tools in his belt, so to speak. He looked through said tool-belt and went over his options.

The heaven Carving Dagger and Earth Shaping Trowel aren’t very useful in this situation. The Void Suppressing Paper Weight and the Boundary Marking Mason’s Line isn’t very useful either. Then again…

He sent four paperweights and four mason lines out to form a square boundary around himself. The paper leaves, which had been so troublesome to block till now, passed through Huxian’s boundary to appear on the other side.

Now where was I… The Spatial Node Lighter and Void Mapping Inkpot are useful for teleportation. The only problem is that I’m not great at spatial transferring laws. These items are only useful if I’m building something.

Thousands of paper leaves attacked his position once again. One of the leaves managed to touch the membrane of his spatial enclosure, and in the next wave, a whole two leaves touched the membrane. A troubling development.

Could I directly teleport something into the tree?Huxian thought. Exploding it from the inside sounded awesome. Unfortunately, he could only build. I could always indirectly teleport something.

It was a usable idea, and he had less than forty seconds to implement it. He first calculated the necessary modifications to his standard teleportation circle, then retracted the mason lines and paper weights in favor of knife, trowel, lighter, and inkpot.

The knife and trowel used the spatial fragments and void dust to carve a tiny teleportation circle in Huxian’s hands. He simultaneously used the lighter to produce tiny gray sparks that he used to mark the tree’s many leaves.

A map lit up in Huxian’s mind. By using the spatial marks, it was possible to execute precise teleportations with a portable teleportation circle.

Every additional node would increase his chances of breaking through the tree’s suppression of local space-time, so Huxian did not immediately activate the circle. The tree might be a living contradiction, its instincts were top-notch. Having detected a threat to its existence, it unleashed all its power without hesitation.

The tree itself did not change, but the land did. Pieces of white paper peeled off the earth like autumn leaves blowing in the wind. The number of leaves increased exponential. Avoiding them became impossible.

But Huxian wasn’t out of tricks quite yet. He tossed out a clear pearl and jumped inside it. The pearl was none other than an upgraded version of his Sumeru Terrarium.

Cracks immediately appeared on its surface. It only took a few seconds for it to start collapsing. But it bought Huxian the time he needed to finish modifications to his teleportation circle.

He then jumped out of the terrarium and pulled the broken glass bread into his tails space before it was damaged beyond repair. He then took out a small flask. It was the most powerful explosive in his possession, and it would explode within three seconds regardless of what he did.

“One,” Huxian said. He placed the flask on the teleportation circle. The tree, sensing great danger to its existence, mobilized every leaf in the room to destroy the flask pre-emptively.

“Two,” said the fox, and the teleportation circle flashed. Moments later, a flurry of leaves passed through it, shattering the circle, but by then, the flask had already vanished.

“Three.” A bulge appeared halfway up the tree’s paper trunk. Huxian instincts and inherited memories told him that this was where its core was located. An explosion rocked the fortieth floor with such force that cracks appeared in the otherwise stable space.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” said Huxian. He pulled a fist-sized shard of wood out of his chest, where it had pierced his demon armor. He proceeded to pull out three more fist-sized shards, after which he fell to the ground. The shards had nailed him to the nearest wall.

The corruption of Huxian’s body accelerated, but now that the tree was gone, he was no longer worried. He took out the crystal-gold sacrificial dagger and used its aura to purify the corruption, then used Spacetime devouring to convert what was left of the demonic energy in the chamber into usable form.

The room trembled as he asserted his dominance over it, first healing the spatial cracks that had formed, then peeling spatial shards off the dungeon’s spatial membrane. He then struck at the regenerating tree stump at the center of the room.

“Space beats paper,” said the fox. “I win.”

An eight-tailed fox projection appeared above Huxian swallowed what was left of the stump. He fed this energy to Gua and Mr. Mountain, who’d yet to break through. Both demons reached the late fusion realm, and now, only Huxian remained a middle fusion realm demon.

An hour later, Huxian had fully recovered. He walked through the door at the back of the floor and passed through the empty treasure room. Treasure rooms were normally empty once he cleared the floor, but this time, he found motifs on the wall. The place was well decorated and contained quite a few mementos from past dungeon challengers.

There were also strange runes on the wall. Huxian immediately recognized them as Runebound Clan bindings. There was a suspicious number of them, so Huxian used his Demon Dao Projection to inspect them. Wait a minute, thought Huxian. This is a spatial formation!

No wonder she wasn’t worried. No wonder she was covering for her team. Her plan wasn’t to hold him hostage – it was for him to clear the dungeon, and for her to hop in once he was close to finishing!

I’ll have to rely on speed and deception to make this work, Huxian decided. This thing is made of saint grade materials, so I can’t destroy or disrupt it. But I can add a spatial maze on top of the formation to delay their teleportation.

Guys, I’m going to make some preparations, then teleport you in, Huxian sent to his friends through his puppet. It’s all a ruse. Solana knows where I am, and has a back way in.

Well that explains why her mood’s been so good, and why our ‘protection’ increased, said Miyue. Escaping won’t be easy. Wait, is that a spatial blockade I sense?

Darn, Huxian said. She’s better prepared than I thought. Can you guys think of a way to distract her? I’ll let you know when I’m ready.

Gua has a pretty good idea, said Miyue. We’re letting him roll with it.

If anyone can distract her, it’s him, said Huxian. He ended the call, then turned his attention to the treasure room. My mobius labyrinth isn’t good enough for this, so I’ll need to experiment. Hm…. That would require a lot of materials. Fortunately, he had a reliable – albeit expensive – supplier.

“Yeah? Elder Zhong?” spoke Huxian into a communication jade. “You remember that conversation we had about purchasing explosive reagents for an absurd markup? You win. Send them over. Yes, all of them. Yes, I understand that delivering to a dungeon is difficult. Yes, I know it will be expensive.

“Now about those other materials we were discussing… Yes. Those ones. And the flux components I thought were a little too pricey back then. And the spatial reinforcement agents. Seriously? The price increased again? Fine, fine. I’ll take them all.” He hung up the phone and waited for the incoming transfer. “Stupid crook and his stupid markups.”

But that was what you got when dealing with Elder Zhong. Everyone knew it, but he still managed to make boatloads of money. Information and opportunistic trades were both very valuable businesses.

Huxian decided then and there to make the man his role model. If Elder Zhong could do it, so could he.

***

Huxian was a fox of action. When he wasn’t cooking or entertaining, he was in his workshop tinkering on special projects. The Mobius Labyrinth was one of these projects, but he’d stuck it on the back burner since his return to the Inkwell Plane.

The reason for this was simple: Peak fusion realm demons were no longer a threat to him, and with the right consumables, he could destroy dozens at a time without breaking a sweat. Saints, on the other hand, were a big problem, and they couldn’t be dealt with using mundane contraptions.

Spatial architecture was a versatile art. Unlike artifacts based on the five elements, void artifacts were relatively low maintenance and tended to be self-sufficient. Five-element artifacts required vast amounts of energy via transcendent or immortal crystals, while void artifacts were typically powered using ambient primal chaos energy.

This was both an advantage and a limitation. It was possible to overcome their power constraints using primal chaos crystals, but they were hard to find.

The bulk of Huxian’s hard-earned money was therefore spent on high-grade primal chaos crystals along with a few curios for experimentation.

His first order of business was inhibiting the teleportation formation. Destroying it was out of the question, as it would take too much effort and was intrinsically linked to the dungeon. Dilating time in the area was theoretically possible, but it was far more efficient to suppress the spatial element. By reducing the rate at which objects, living creatures, and energy could move through space, one achieved practically the same effect as time dilation. But it was much easier to implement and came at a fraction of the cost.

Huxian’s spatial affinity was insufficient for the task at hand. Thankfully, there were naturally occurring materials that could supplement his capabilities. Void Sapping Mahogany trees, for instance, were creatures that lived by draining the spatial energies wherever they grew.

He planted eight such trees in formation then dripped three drops of concentrated void essence on their roots. He then transplanted a few hundred other plants and rocks. Synergy was important.

The end result was a formation that anchored the Runebound Clan’s teleportation formation to the local dungeon space. It slowed down Huxian, but he was able to resist these effects using his Demon-Dao Projection.

Aesthetics were mattered, so Huxian built spatial roads and intricate spatial walls, as well as rolling ‘hills’ of spatial materials. These doubled up as energy conduits that would link the space with the Mobius Labyrinth, Mark 9.

The original mobius labyrinth operated on the curved space principle, which looped around itself to form an infinite cycle. Huxian drew loosely on the design, but twisted space in several overlapping circles to be extra safe.

Now it’s a proper labyrinth and not a glorified hamster wheel, thought Huxian. Now let’s see if I can put the new structure to work.

With his current cultivation at the middle of the law stitching and fusion realms, Huxian could barely create peak fusion grade spatial artifacts. This wouldn’t be enough stall three saint level demons.

He added several primal chaos crystals into the labyrinth, then took out a vial of ‘universal insulator’. The spatial labyrinth hardened with the introduction of the immortal material, upgrading its durability to saint grade.

With this many primal chaos crystals, I should be able to buy myself days, Huxian thought. That’s assuming Solana doesn’t have any tricks up her sleeves. Which she will. This meant that he would only have a few hours at most to clear the remainder of the dungeon.

Solana had likely noticed Huxian loitering around the hidden floor, but thanks to his puppet, he knew that she hadn’t taken any drastic actions. This meant that she was either very confident in her trump cards, or that she couldn’t monitor his exact movements. Either way he benefitted.

Huxian spent the next day creating dozens of powerful spatial explosives using the remainder of the universal insulator. Explosive force was proportional to containment strength, and this applied even to weaker explosives.

The puppet accompanying his friends was mostly autonomous, but it contained a complex formation that allowed him to forge a two-way connection between the puppet and his true body. He activated this connection and took in his surroundings.

Silverwing was directing the tens of thousands of troops that remained in their army. A steady trickle of enemies repeatedly managed to break through their defenders. It was just enough to keep them busy.

There’s one, two… three saint blood clones, Huxian thought. They’re trying to keep an eye on us, but it’s difficult.

“Silverwing,” Huxian said. “What’s your status.”

The demon paused but proceeded to ignore him and issued additional orders. “Be quiet, puppet,” said Silverwing. “One more outburst, and I’ll gag you.”

“Silverwing, it’s really me,” Huxian said.

Silverwing paused. “That’s what you said last time.”

“I could give you a passphrase,” Huxian suggested.

“You already tried that,” Silverwing said. “Now stop talking, or I’ll gag you.”

Huxian snorted. “So you’re finally rebelling. Look at you, all big and not small at all. Not like that tiny bird I found on a mountain all those years ago.”

“Oh,” said Silverwing. “You’re back.”

“Yep, and keep under wraps,” Huxian said. “It’s time to get you guys out of here.”

Silverwing raised an eyebrow. “There are six saint level demons fighting out there. Teleporting would be suicide.”

“It won’t be a problem,” Huxian said. “I thought it through before entering the dungeon. There’s an anchor point five kilometers from where you are. All we need to do is fly everyone over.”

“I’m not sure if we’ll have the chance,” Silverwing said. “See those sparks over there? That’s Lord Five Seals and a blood clone. He’ll suspect something’s up if we go there without a reason.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I prepared a reason then, isn’t it?” Huxian said. The puppet body took out a small crystal sphere. Within it lay a drop of white blood. “Once this hit’s the ground, grab everyone and run. Pull everyone you can directly into your palaces.”

“Got it,” Silverwing said. He issued a few commands, then nodded to Huxian. The glass sphere dropped to the ground and shattered, releasing a tiny drop of saint-level blood that remained form the blood clone he’d killed.

The moment the blood hit the ground, it merged with the paper-white sand and greedily drank in the desert’s ambient energy. A vicious growl filled the desert as a fourth blood clone emerged. Lady Wu, what’s going on?! came Solana’s voice.

“It’s a trap!” Huxian yelled, then crushed the communication jade.

“Everyone, retreat! Evasive maneuvers,” Silverwing yelled. “Pull back your armies into your dungeon spaces!” Huxian was surprised by how quickly they managed it. “I had them practice,” said Silverwing. They didn’t like it, but here we are.”

Only Wu didn’t have a dungeon space, so her army of holy-aligned demons was split up among the others. The eight demons then flew away from the growing mass of demonic energy and straight towards their nearest reinforcement, Lord Five Seals.

“Lord Five Seals, help!” Wu cried out.

“You – what in the blazes are you guys doing?!” Lord Five Seals said. “Hold them off! I’ve got all five seals undone, and I can barely hold off a single blood clone!”

“We’re weak! Weak! Please save us!” Huxian yelled. They were now less then a kilometer away,

“Argh!” yelled Lord Five Seals. “I’ll skin you alive, you idiot fox!” He began burning his blood essence and unleashed a terrifying attack against his current opponent.

“We’ll support you from a distance!” Huxian said as their group of eight passed him. They stopped just shy of the spatial anchor he’d planted and began channeling energy into the puppet from their dungeon cores.

The imitation puppet exploded, revealing several small runic components, which quickly assembled into a single-use teleportation formation.

“Five-Seals, stop them!” Solana called out. A powerful saintly aura rushed over, but it was too late. The runic circle drew on the seven demon cores to activate and proceeded to tear a channel through space. They appeared on the 41st floor of the Santana Dungeon.

Huxian let out a sigh of relief when they arrived. “Awesome!” eh said. “Now we can step things into gear. We’ve got a few hours at most to do this so let’s get cracking!”

He tossed a sphere of reinforced spatial glass to the end of the 41st floor. An explosion filled half the floor. Huxian hopped up and began sucking in the purple and ochre miasma. It passed through a small field generated by the crystal-gold sacrificial dagger in his right hand.

“What are you guys waiting for?” Huxian said. “Silverwing, you’re in command. Kill these things while I convert the miasma.”

“Roger,” said Silverwing. He unsheathed his silver-gold swords and summoned his army. “What are guys waiting for? Summon your armies and get into position. Lei Jiang, you’re up in 20 seconds!”