Chapter 583
Kaelen felt himself increasingly in the blind, unable to anticipate Vorenza’s next move until the very last moment. Every calculation screamed that she should have focused on Lyra, whose domain had been heavily restricting her. Yet, she had done the opposite, eliminating Korvin with a brutal, unexpected cunning.
The grim reality of Korvin’s demise settled heavy in the abyssal air. With the Earth-Shaper gone, Kaelen knew their strategy had to pivot. Someone needed to engage Vorenza directly, physically pressing her, denying her the precious seconds she needed to react, to plan, to unleash her devastating conceptual weaves. That task, he now realized, fell to him.
Kaelen understood the immense personal cost this new approach would demand. He had to begin applying his Lawof Recursive Self-Replication not just to external constructs, but to himself. This would be no ordinary replication. His previous drones, while numerous, hadn’t drained his mana core significantly. But to manifest a truly potent construct clone of himself, one capable of matching Vorenza’s terrifying speed and power in close combat, would put a substantial, constant strain on his already finite mana reserves.
Furthermore, he couldn’t afford to leave his main body vulnerable. It needed to retain enough mana to continuously run the complex, rapid-fire calculations required to even begin to keep pace with Vorenza’s increasingly opaque and unpredictable conceptual weaving. This wasn’t just about mana; it was about protection. If Vorenza located the vulnerability of his core self amidst the chaos of battle, it would be an opening she wouldn’t miss, and one they would be hard-pressed to stop. The stakes had never been higher.
The air around Kaelen rippled with pure, self-replicating computational energy, his mana core humming under immense strain. He initiated the full power of his Law of Recursive Self-Replication. With a visible surge of power, a duplicate of Kaelen, fully armored in black iron and radiating immense physical might, detached from his main body.
This wasn’t a clone; it was a Self-Replicated Combat Unit, a perfect, independent duplicate designed for brutal close-quarters engagement. Its Ogre-like frame was dense, its every muscle imbued with the same recursive power that defined Kaelen’s Law. As this unit surged forward, Kaelen’s primary body seemed to contract slightly, growing leaner and denser, its armor hardening, allowing it to transition into a more energy-efficient state for pure calculation.
"Lyra, focus on containment!" Kaelen’s primary form, its voice now colder and more precise, echoed with urgent clarity. "Don’t let her break free!"
The Self-Replicated Combat Unit roared, a sound of synthesized fury, and charged Vorenza. It moved with startling speed, closing in on Vorenza.
Lyra’s face remained a mask of cold resolve. She pointed to the churning abyssal sky, and dark clouds coalesced with terrifying speed. From them, a relentless storm of thick ice hails began to plummet. These weren’t mere frozen water; each hailstone hummed with the Law of Chilling Nullification, designed to nullify kinetic energy and movement. As the hails rained down upon Vorenza, they momentarily froze her in place, binding her limbs with a conceptual ’stillness’.
In the very next moment, Vorenza shattered the temporary bonds, but her freedom was short-lived as another volley of hails made immediate contact, forcing her back into that agonizing, nullified state. Trapped in this cycle, Vorenza could only watch, snarling, as Kaelen’s formidable Self-Replicated Combat Unit’s black iron fist slammed into her across the face.
Vorenza’s face crumpled in a grimace of pain, a rare sight, yet a flicker of satisfaction ignited in her multifaceted eyes. The force of the punch threw her out of Lyra’s concentrated cloud zone. Or so she thought. To her frustration, the dark clouds, a relentless extension of Lyra’s will, relentlessly followed her figure, still raining down their agonizing, nullifying hails.
Kaelen’s primary body, in its energy-conserving state, whirred with relentless calculations. Its sophisticated internal systems, linked with his Self-Replicated Combat Unit, precisely tracked Vorenza’s movements, the rhythm of Lyra’s hailstorm, and the subtle flex of Vorenza’s conceptual weaving. Time and again, Kaelen found the exact, infinitesimally small window when Vorenza was frozen and conceptually ’stuck’ by Lyra’s Law of Chilling Nullification.