PtM Book 14 - Chapter 27: Adventures in the Void (2)

1/3 this week!

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A day later, Huxian woke in a place that bordered the material realm and void space. The ice-like cliff face of the fissure was long gone due to the distance he’d travelled.

This place could only be called a hybrid reality. It was a jungle, much like one might find on the inkwell plane, completely with trees, grass, insects, animals, and water in the form of rain and steady streams.

It was also not a fully material place. Said tress, grass, insects, animals, and water were composed of hybrid void and material elements. This made them much stronger and tougher than they would be in the outside world, rendering them perfect to resist the small rigors of space that snuck into the canyon while simultaneously surviving the pollution from the material realm that snuck past the planar boundary.

Huxian had no idea such places could exist. As far as his ancestral memories were concerned, the border between the void and material planes was well defined. And yet…

Tiny spatial glass fragments could be found wedged inside blades of spirit grass and spirit trees. Tree sap both flowed and formed a crystalline void matrix. These plants were therefore lethal to any organisms but void creatures, but simultaneously toxic to these void creatures due to their abundance of unprocessed heaven and earth energies from a material plane.

Countless thousands of years had resulted in hybrid creatures sharing characteristics of the void and material realms, which had a high tolerance for both the high load of void energy and material realm pollution.

The result was a thriving ecosystem filled with edible things that Huxian quickly devoured to replenish his energy, thanks to his own dual void and material nature. Mosquitos were now viable threats, he noted. Cockroaches were once again nigh indescribable. There were also many other things to look out for.

Birds here had claws and beaks so sharp even Huxian’s tough crystalline hide could barely resist them. As such, he was forced to use his spacetime investiture to manipulate the environment, effectively camouflaging himself with folds of space he called a fox burrow. The place was brimming with powerful predators, but thus far, Huxian had avoided any significant run-ins. He had confidence in maybe running away from a rank 11 void beast if push came to shove, but anything past that, he might as well chop himself up as an appetizer.

“If it wasn’t for the extreme danger, I’d stay here for a year,” Huxian said as he hopped over to a small crystal-orange flower aged a thousand medicinal years. He took out a box fashioned out of void stabilizing stone and severed the flower from the main plant using a thread of concentrated time energy. He swiftly closed the box before the bud could wilt and safely stowed it away. “A few more months of this and I’d be able to straight up hire an army of fusion realm demons to wipe out the Collegium directly.”

Alas, he knew his limits. He merely harvested these treasures in passing, as finding a way out of the fissure was now his main priority. He made his way back to a stream he’d noticed. His running assumption was that the stream would lead back to a greater body of water, where he assumed some sentient void faring species would congregate.

The stream wasn’t filled with just any water, however. Just like the intermittent rains consisted of black spears of spatial death and dismemberment, the water in the river consisted of inky black crystals that resembled inkwell jades. They both were and weren’t, since each one was polluted with large amounts of spatial energies.

Powerful serpents inhabited these waters. They attacked any creature that dared try to grab a drink. Huxian had lucky enough to witness such a horrifying thing firsthand when a friendly monstrous ox demon had gone to take a drink only a few meters away from him, only to get pulled into the crystal waters in two seconds flat.

He now kept a healthy distance from the river. The tree line was probably safe. He hoped.

Travelling was extremely unsafe, so Huxian kept his investiture up at all times, using it to weave a spacetime fox-burrow style maze within the foliage to hide his presence from any potential predators. “Keep it together, Huxian,” he told himself. “Keep it cool. You just need to find one friendly sentient space-faring species before you get discovered by the much more numerous unfriendly ones that would rather kill and eat you than give you the time of day.

The next half day was not productive, nor did he encounter any insurmountable threats. He wisely chose to avoid something that looked like an anthill, only discovering his good fortune seven seconds later when an unfortunate turtle decided to try its luck and harvest an herb three feet away from it, only for a horde of six-legged glass creatures to emerge from it tear the poor turtle limb from limb.

Huxian ran faster than he’d ever run in his life, only stopping when he arrived at a clearing, where he heard rough voices not far away. Did I finally succeed? Huxian thought. Did I really luck out and find sentient void creatures? His face fell when he realized that he was dead wrong. Not only were these not void creatures, but there were from a demon tribe he had tense relations with.

Four individuals stood around a small red chrysanthemum surrounded by a small blue puddle. Huxian immediately recognized the flower as a five-cycles chrysanthemum, which only grew in puddles of lunar true-water, a vicious poison that concentrated vast amounts of yin energy. The plant was a treasure that might even move peak fusion realm demons, and it just so happened that this flower could help resolve Gua’s problem with his bloodline.

“Why are members of the Paper Tiger Clan loitering around here?” Huxian muttered. He edged closer to the clearing while making sure to maintain his cover via fox burrow. As a fox demon, Huxian was naturally proficient at hiding, and members of the tiger clans would have a difficult time finding him.

“I’m well aware that this flower is valuable, Thoughtless Saber, but it’s not like such a treasure is easy to pick,” the leader of the group, an initial fusion realm demon said. “I lack the confidence to pick it, and we’re still on patrol. It is better to simply mark the location with a void beacon and have a specialized team return to harvest it.”

“But the young master could use this to break through into the fusion realm, Elder Silent Dream!” the demon called Thoughtless Saber said. Like the others, he was also in human form. He and the others were a variety of stripeless tiger, and like their sub-clan, the white-eyed tiger clan, their irises were a sinister white. They were far more powerful than their weaker white-eyed tiger clan brethren, however, as evidenced by the prominent ‘king’ character on their forehead.

For most of them, this character was bronze, indicating a relatively low-level bloodline. The leader, the fusion-ranked demon, had a silver character. Huxian knew from his ancestral memories that stronger bloodlines would result in higher ranked bloodline characters manifesting. Gold characters came next, followed by legendary purple-gold characters.

“I am well aware of the merit bringing back this flower could bring us,” Elder Silent Dream said patiently. “After all, the young master’s gold mark is already as pure as can be. Not only could this flower push him into the fusion realm, but it might even cause his bloodline to increase a tier. I am merely stating that I have no good way of harvesting this flower, and that partial merit is better than no merit.”

Huxian licked his lips as they debated. If they left, that flower was as good as his. With it, Gua could evolve his bloodline into one of several powerful princely bloodlines, which was the basic requirement for ascending to the next realm. With his aptitudes, a Five-Colored Toad Prince evolution was likely, though a Five-Illusions Toad Prince was not impossible, and the same applied to the Five-Eyed Gorgon Toad Prince evolution.

He chuckled inwardly at the last one – how hard would it hit him if he evolved into a gorgon demon, which would literally turn people who looked at him to stone? Could he even survive the injustice? Of course, he knew that the possibility of such an evolution wasn’t large, as it ran counter to his nature. There were many other variants that were much more likely.

“I have a thought,” one of the Paper Tiger Clansmen said.

“Go ahead and tell us, Colorblight,” Elder Silent Dream said.

“Why don’t we try a harmless method with a decent probability of success first, then mark the flower if it doesn’t work out?” Colorblight said. He had the palest features out of the bunch, and his skin was covered in platinum markings that hinted at a powerful bloodline ability.

“If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears,” Elder Silent Dream said. “Though I imagine that there are some drawbacks to this method since you waited until now to mention it.”

“Indeed,” Colorblight said. “It involves unleashing my Color-Binding bloodline runes.”

Elder Silent Dream’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t use that ability until you’ve cultivated it to completion,” he said. “Your cultivation is at the peak of the investiture realm and must at least break through to the fusion realm for this to happen.”

“I can do it once, with a fifty percent chance of success,” Colorblight explained calmly. “It’s only that doing so will require me to burn some of my blood essence. This might permanently cripple me, so I’m reluctant to try it.”

“I see,” Thoughtless Saber said. “So you want us to contribute a portion of our blood essence to minimize your losses. Then it would only take a year or so for you to recover.”

“Exactly,” Colorblight said. “I would be reluctant to attempt such a thing if not for the value of such a treasure and the merits we might obtain.”

They all looked to Elder Silent Dream as pondered the matter. Ultimately, he turned to the oldest and last member of their group, an elderly clansman missing half his teeth. “Halfbite, what are your thoughts? Your experience is greatest among us.”

Halfbite cackled softly. “My experience are indeed a bit lengthier than yours, for all the good it’s done me.” He hesitated, then shook his head. “In my old age, I tend to play it safe. Even so, I’m willing to give up a bit of blood essence if the chances are fifty-fifty.” Huxian cursed under his breath when he heard this.

“Then let’s do it,” Elder Silent Dream said. “I take it you’ll need time to prepare?”

Colorblight nodded. “I’ll need to paint out a formation in blood to counteract the Inkwell Plane’s influence before trying. Otherwise, the realm might restrict our bloodlines at the worst moment.”

“Everyone, prepare yourselves,” Elder Silent Dream said. “I’ll lay out a formation to keep any potential intruders from sneaking up on us while we’re at our weakest.”

The group began to make their preparations, and Elder Silent Dream, showing no signs of having noticed Huxian, began to plant formation flags. Elementary, Huxian thought as he examined the white flags. He could tell at a glance that these were converted flags form the Inkwell Plane. They had been refined to increase their compatibility with the Paper Tiger Bloodline. As such, they were sorely lacking in power, which made it a simple matter for Huxian to expand his fox-burrow system into.

Huxian created an array of confusing spacetime mazes, as well as several entrances and exits. He snuck into the enemy formation shortly after it activated.

The Paper Tiger Clansmen began chanting. The tribal rhythm activated the platinum runes on Colorblight’s skin and poured into their surroundings.

All the color in the world left the hybrid material and void environment. The grass, the dirt, and even the true lunar water lost some of its brightness. The flower was strong enough to shrug off such an attack, but it shuddered from the intrusion.

“Careful,” Elder Silent Dream cautioned. “If you kill the flower, we might as well commit suicide.”

“I know!” Colorblight said. He coughed up a mouthful of white blood and sent it flying into the air. The platinum runes on his body began to glow and peel off his body to form an intricate pattern around the blood droplet. “Please go ahead!” he urged them.

The other three members of their team coughed up a mouthful of white blood, the largest belonging to the fusion-realm demon on their team, Elder Silent Dream. Its addition caused the runic circle to vibrate with terrifying energy that began to seep into the formation.

Now’s the time! Huxian thought. He poured everything he could into his mastery over space and time, even burning some of his own blood essence to give him that extra kick. Here in void space, he was unable to teleport like he could in the outside world and was therefore at a huge disadvantage.

Elder Silent Dream was the first to spot him. “Intruder!” He waved a clawed hand and sent a powerful projection to cut him down.

Huxian thanked his lucky stars that he’d burnt his essence and was therefore able to avoid the attack. He narrowly avoided the claw projection and two other much weaker attacks. Colorblight was the weakest of them and was unable to stop Huxian.

Huxian split himself into two incarnations, using one to execute spacetime devouring to suck up the ball of potent Paper Tiger Clan blood essence and the other to slice the Five-Cycles Chrysanthemum’s stem using a thread of time, then placing it in a voidbane box to lock down its space aligned aura.

These clones merged and immediately pierced through the formation using the fox burrow exit, just in time to avoid a concentrated attack from the four-tiger team. The three investiture realm demons were still quite weak, but their fusion realm leader immediately executed his fusion transformation, becoming large, stripeless tiger with thin, almost ornamental armor and terrifying white eyes.

Color bled from their surroundings as the tiger roared. If not for the fact that the elder was weakened, and that it was inside their active sealing formation, Huxian might have had some problems. Fortunately, he was only able to break through his formation and strike Huxian with the resulting aftershocks.

Huxian wasted no time in bolting away. He gave up on stealth to boost his speed to the limit. Unfortunately, that meant standing out to the birds of prey and other predators in the jungle, but it was a risk he had to take nonetheless.

“There can’t be two tigers on a mountain,” Huxian told himself. Even if he did stumble on a stronger predator, it would likely fight the much stronger tiger. That being said, he wasn’t sure if it would come to that, because a really big paper tiger was currently smashing away trees and batting away the local wildlife like they were house flies. Actually, were they house flies? They were! Some sort of monstrous house fly creatures.

“Insects,” Huxian said. He shuddered involuntarily at the thought of their natural accompaniment, spiders, and hoped he wasn’t so unlucky.

It was then that he stepped on a patch of too-soft grass. His eyes widened as he realized it wasn’t grass he was stepping on, but ap it trap! He used his investiture to summon four pillars of void space, which he planted downwards in the hopes that this was some sort of spike trap, and the elevation would spare him. Much to his dismay, the situation was worse. The three pillars pierced through the openings of a large web, revealing a large, lazy spider and thousands of hungry spiderlings.

“Heh, you’re not from around here, are you, little fox?” a voice said. The paper tiger abandoned his energy-intensive fusion form and adopted an armored human form. A vicious white saber remained strapped to the demon’s back as he walked over to the pit nonchalantly.

Huxian wriggled violently to avoid the spiderlings that jumped up from the pit with starved enthusiasm. Some of them even managed to strike his crystalline hide, which hissed and bubbled from the void-aligned poison unique to this brand of mutated creature.

“I suppose you’re going to let them eat me?” Huxian said calmly.

“As much as I’d love to see you devoured limb from limb, that flower is far too valuable,” Silent Dream said. “Give it to me, and I’ll let you go.”

“Out of the kindness of your heart?” Huxian said, avoiding a lazy pincer attack by the mother spider.

“Not at all,” the paper tiger said. “I simply recognize that you used a void-space storage ability, meaning that your death has a very good chance of destroying the flower you stole from us, even if I should copy your ability and try retrieving it.

Huxian’s eyes narrowed. “I’m listening.”

“Let’s get these small things out of the way, shall we?” Silent Dream said. He slashed at a nearby tree and cut off a branch, then used that branch fling Huxian out of the net. The spider in the pit hissed at the tiger, and looked like it would attack, but ultimately decided not to pursue such troublesome prey.

Huxian brushed himself off. He hated spiders. More than tigers. He thought about running but discovered that his feet were firmly fixed to the ground.

It wasn’t difficult to find out why he couldn’t move. A pair of white paper talismans were firmly pasted to his legs. He tried to use demonic energy to remove them, but to no avail.

“Things won’t end well for you if you don’t release me,” Huxian said.

“Oh?” Silent Dream mocked. “And how exactly will that come to be? Last I checked, you were still a fledgling investiture realm demon. A powerful one with a strong bloodline, at that, but still a tier too weak.” Though this place was a hybrid of the void and space, Silent Dream seemed to have mastered some tricks and was able to exert substantial influence over his surroundings. He partially fused with the land, immediately causing the color to fade away slightly, though not to the extent that it had in their ritual circle.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it was then that his allies appeared in the form of three fluttering masses of paper cranes. They recombined into human-form tiger demons, demon armor and demon weapon included. The eldest among them, halfbite, carried a wicked white dagger, while Thoughtless Blade carried a crude white bone saber. Colorblight wielded a pair of spiked knuckles made from the same alloy as halfbite’s dagger.

Huxian shivered involuntarily at the display of power but forced himself to keep cool. “I naturally have the means to make you regret your actions,” he said. He gently tossed out an orb of spacetime. Inside it was a half open box containing a familiar flower.

Silent Dream’s eyes widened. “The Five-Cycles Chrysanthemum! Is that… is that a timed detonation trap?!”

“Good eyes,” Huxian said with a grin. “While you might be able to prevent it from exploding, it will take some time for you to dismantle it. During that time, it would be difficult for me to forcefully explode the orb and destroy the flower, but should I be in a desperate situation, I wouldn’t mind burning my blood essence to cause you some grief as I perish.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” the demon named Colorblight said.

“Shut up,” Halfbite scolded. “Let the leader do the talking.”

Silent Dream looked over the sphere with a pensive expression. “Well played. Well played!” His eyes narrowed. “Speaking of blood essence, where has ours gone off to. While I could certainly negotiate the release of this flower, I’d hate to part with it.”

“I ate it,” Huxian said, returning his cold gaze.

“I see…” Silent Dream said. “I assume that the terms are straightforward. I let you go, and you will dedicate the minute or so it takes me to dismantle this trap of yours towards fleeing instead of wasting the opportunity to destroy this wondrous treasure.”

“You’re a mind reader,” Huxian said. “You’d make a great businessman.”

“I run a good side hustle,” Silent Dream said. “Very well. You may leave.” He swept his armored hand, blasting a gentle wave of energy towards Huxian, and ripping off the white talismans on his legs, which instantly regained their mobility.

“Just like that?” Huxian asked.

“Just like that,” Silent Dream confirmed.

Huxian didn’t have to think for long. There were naturally problems with this deal, but as long as he could put enough distance between them, he had confidence in his skills. “See ya!” Huxian said. He immediately charged right past the group of four tiger clansmen, because if they were blocking off that direction, there was a good chance it was the safest route.

Silent Dream’s fusion realm powers made travelling through the jungle challenging, but Huxian’s void attunement was much more effective despite his lower rank.  It didn’t take long for Huxian to break free from his control and move at full speed.

Almost as soon as he left Silent Dream’s sphere of influence, Huxian felt a tug on his spacetime puzzle. The fusion-realm demon had already begun unravelling it. “Stupid paper tigers and their darned good eyes,” Huxian cursed. Though not the best at making things, they excelled at copying things, which made them great puzzle solvers.

Simultaneously with Silent Dream’s attack on the puzzle, the three peak investiture demons in his group took after him. Halfbite, Colorblight, and Thoughtless Blade were not as strong as their elder, so it was likely that Silent Dream was hedging his bets. Huxian was unlikely to burn his blood essence to shake off a few investiture realm pursuers.

The demon had guessed correctly. Huxian began evasive maneuvers and soon discovered that the paper tiger clansmen could somehow track his location. He immediately found the root of the problem – the blood essence he’d devoured hadn’t been completely processed, and a wisp of fusion-realm energy still remained.

It would take time to force out the energy, even with his abilities as a Godbeast. He tried to force it back up and throw it away, only to discover that the wisp of fusion-realm energy had a mind of its own; it refused to leave the confines of his body.

“Fine,” Huxian said. “Two can play at that game.” If they could track him, he would use the opportunity to split them up.

First, it was necessary to put some distance between them. Huxian pulled out a white gem engraved with golden markings and winced as he placed it on his demon armor’s chest plate. It was a time-aligned demon armor enhancement stone he’d been planning to give to Xiao Bai, and it hadn’t been cheap.

His speed immediately increased by twenty percent, catching his pursuers by surprise. He followed up by splitting into several incarnations that headed into three separate directions.

These incarnations were not like Cha Ming’s. They were spatial incarnations, meaning that he was simultaneously appearing in several locations in space. He might not be skilled enough to teleport while in void space, but he could most certainly use these incarnations as a bridge, hoping between them or even averaging his powers between incarnations.

His pursuers had no choice but to split up. As he ran, Huxian kept careful track of how much time passed by. If he waited too long, Silent Dream would solve the puzzle, attain his prize, and then continue his pursuit.

Timing was everything.

I need more speed, Huxian thought. He eyed the upgrade gem regretfully. It was expensive, but it was far cheaper than his life. He began to overload the gem, increasing his speed by another twenty percent. The gem creaked and grown – it would hold, for a short time, then crumble into dust. There would be no salvaging anything from it.

Now for the best part, Huxian thought. The prank. He took ten medium-sized bags and placed them in a familiar-looking sphere. It was exactly equal in dimension to the timed sphere Silent Dream was currently working with. “You thought it was just a puzzle, did you? That’ll teach you to trust a fox!”

With a flash of gray light, the bags disappeared. A five-colored chrysanthemum appeared in their place. Huxian immediately stowed it away to preserve freshness and awaited the inevitable outburst.

Boom.

A concussive blast ran through the jungle as the puzzle formation exploded from the silent introduction of voidbane powder. The residual powder was naturally blown all over the place, including the many bird nests and the many spider pits that littered the area. Huxian knew that no less than a half dozen grade eleven monstrous spiders existed in the area, sleeping. They wouldn’t like getting woken up.

Panic ensued, and predictably, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Silent Dream lost control over the blood tracking mark for the barest second, giving Huxian enough time to tear it apart and erase it.

Crack.

The gem on Huxian’s chest plate broke then. Not only did Huxian’s speed slow substantially, but he was also hit with time-affinity backlash.

His speed slowed to a crawl, but by then he’d established a big enough lead on his opponent. All three of his clones began using their investitures to create their own fox burrow mazes and hide inside them. One of them was immediately discovered, but two were not. Huxian disbanded that clone and hid for dear life. Large waves of energy rampaged through the forest for the next few minutes, but after venting, Silent Dream was forced to relent; there were many more powerful demons in this area.

Huxian let out a sigh of relief. He’d managed to obtain an excellent treasure and outwitted a bunch of filthy tigers. It was all very poetic, and his ancestors would be pleased.

It was his first good day in the strange pseudo-void jungle.