Chapter 585
Vorenza flared her mana, and with a ripple of conceptual weaving, five web-construct circular shields materialized, shimmering with arcane energy, and hovered around her. These weren’t mere physical barriers; each was imbued with a subtle conceptual ’deflection’, designed to turn aside not just physical force but also the intent of an attack.
She wasted no time. With one of her powerful legs stabbing out, Vorenza rushed towards Kaelen. Kaelen, reading her immediate trajectory, dodged the direct thrust, aiming to counter-attack with a swift energy punch. But as his fist shot out, one of Vorenza’s shimmering shields instinctively moved, intercepting his strike. It didn’t just block; it seemed to absorb the kinetic force, dampening it with its conceptual ’deflection’ before harmlessly dissipating it.
Vorenza didn’t pause. She pointed a finger at Kaelen, and a single, thin web shot from her digit. Kaelen’s retreating figure brought his energy shield up in front of him, expecting a simple physical projectile. But as the web got close, it didn’t impact the shield. Instead, it splintered and expanded quickly, gaining alarming speed, its tendrils seeming to ripple with unseen purpose. Kaelen had no time to react. The web exploded outwards, entrapping him in a complex, constricting net that pulsed with a disorienting conceptual ’binding’. He hadn’t expected such an insidious attack, and now he was caught.
Kaelen’s figure, now ensnared by the expanding web, shot towards Vorenza, who now held a spear crafted from pure abyssal chitin in her hand. She stabbed out with terrifying precision at his quickly approaching, entrapped form.
Kaelen, held by the constricting web, found it incredibly hard to move. The sticky, conceptually ’binding’ tendrils held him with immense strength. His form, however, began to shimmer, and with a rapid surge of mana, he initiated a desperate maneuver of his Law of Recursive Self-Replication. His primary body rapidly reduced its size and density, allowing a perfect, full-sized replica of himself to form outside the web, shedding the entrapped, smaller portion.
The entrapped portion, now a mere decoy, was quickly stabbed through by Vorenza’s spear. The weapon seemed to hold a concept of ’annihilation’, as upon contact, the replica exploded and turned to dust, a burst of inert black iron particles.
Kaelen, now free and whole, having anticipated merging with what was left of his replica, instead sighed with a mix of relief and grim determination. He rushed towards Vorenza, his eyes narrowing as he noticed her figure suddenly frozen and stuck, caught by the lingering, insidious grip of Lyra’s curse.
Exercising caution, Kaelen’s massive energy sword in his hand shimmered and reformed, changing into a long, piercing energy spear. He hurled it with all his might. Vorenza, unable to move, was stabbed through with the spear, which embedded itself deep within her chitinous form. Kaelen closed in, his energy shield simultaneously changing shape, forming into a massive, glowing axe as he attempted to cleave Vorenza in half.
Kaelen halted halfway, attempting to retreat, but it was too late. The five web-construct shields that hovered around Vorenza, with a ripple of her Law of Concept Weaving, shimmered and merged, forming into a single, colossal scissors crafted from concentrated conceptual ’severance’. They snapped shut, slicing through Kaelen’s rapidly receding figure, cleaving him in half.
His upper torso, severed from his lower, revealed where his manifold core was for a horrifying, brief moment, exposed and vulnerable. In a flash of desperate panic, the energy shield he had prepared for an axe immediately merged into his upper form, transforming into a powerful booster that propelled his bisected figure away from Vorenza.
His lower half was about to follow suit and transform into boosters. But Vorenza was now able to move, her eyes burning with fierce satisfaction. With brutal precision, she thrust her spear into the lower half. The weapon, still imbued with its concept of ’annihilation’, caused an even bigger explosion as Kaelen’s lower body turned to dust.
Kaelen gritted his teeth, a raw sound of pain and frustration. He expended a colossal amount of mana, flooding his core to compensate for his missing mass. His body pulsed, the recursive replication working furiously, as his form knitted back together, becoming whole again in a painful, mana-draining surge.
Vorenza had sustained a spear wound, a tactical sacrifice, but it had worked. She had trapped him, lowered his guard, dealt a devastating blow that exposed his vulnerable core, and forced him to expend far more mana than he could afford, pushing him closer to his limit.