Chapter 297 - 298: Catching Up
Far ahead, Runar tore through the void at a speed that made his earlier movement look restrained.
Space folded and unfolded around him in rapid succession. The residual scars of his own disintegration wave flashed past and vanished. Distant monster signatures registered and were ignored. Nothing else mattered except the single aura racing toward the Pseudo-Paragon’s location.
He could feel her still ahead of him. Not by a large margin, but enough that catching up would require everything he currently possessed.
His mind remained cold and precise even at that velocity.
She is fast. But not impossibly fast.
That detail mattered.
If she had been a true Paragon descending with full power, she would have arrived already. The distance would have meant nothing. The layer itself would have bent to her will. There would have been no race. There would have been no chance.
But she was not moving like that.
She was fast, yes. Extremely fast. But there were limits. Small hesitations where the local laws resisted her. Tiny ripples where she adjusted her path instead of forcing it straight through. She was moving under constraints.
Runar considered the possibilities as he flew.
The clone may have a restricted power ceiling. Or the original may not want to break the Reliquary’s rules before claiming the inheritance. Or perhaps the layer itself resists higher-level force.
Any one of those explanations could be true. All of them could be true at once.
What mattered was the result.
She was not untouchable.
Not here.
Not yet.
Runar’s runic authority activated around his body. Thin lines of golden-white script formed along his path, appearing and disappearing in fractions of a second. Each rune served a single purpose: reduce resistance. Improve trajectory. Convert void pressure into forward acceleration.
He had spent ten days studying the Reliquary’s internal language. Now he used it like a key turning in the lock of the trial ground itself.
The void around him became smoother. His speed increased.
Ahead, the Mysterious Woman’s trail became clearer.
Runar’s Eye of Myriad Truths read the residual path she left behind. Every movement was efficient. Every fold of space was precise. There was no wasted energy. No unnecessary force. Her path was not just fast; it was perfect.
Her control is absolute. She could destroy everything around her, but she chooses not to. That means she wants the Reliquary intact. Or at least functional.
That was useful information.
If she cared about the inheritance, she would not risk damaging the core. If she cared about the trial, she would not break the layer open and take everything by brute force. She would follow the rules until the rules no longer served her.
Runar could work with that.
A cluster of monsters appeared ahead of him. They had been drawn by the passing pressure of the Mysterious Woman and were now turning toward Runar’s approaching signature. Three Universal-level beings. One Multiversal signature at the edge.
They opened their mouths. Their principles flared. Their bodies shifted into attack formations.
Runar did not slow down.
He snapped his fingers once.
A focused wave of runic disintegration swept forward. It was smaller than the wave he had used before, narrower, more controlled. It erased the monsters in front of him without touching the wider void. Their bodies unraveled. Their principles collapsed. Their cores dropped into the empty space.
Runar extended his hand.
The cores flew toward him and vanished into his Runic storage space.
Useful.
He did not care about the points right now. But cores were materials. They were anchors. They were dense energy sources that could fuel runic structures. If he had time to prepare, they could become tools.
And he might need every tool he could get.
His mind shifted to strategy.
Direct confrontation with the Mysterious Woman was absolutely dangerous. Possibly fatal. Even if she was a clone, even if she was restricted, she still carried the comprehension of a Paragon. Her principles would be deeper than his. Her experience would be older. Her control would be sharper and absolute.
He could not rely on brute force.
He needed leverage.
The Pseudo-Paragon monster was the first variable. A being of that level would not die easily. If the woman engaged it, she would have to spend energy. She would have to focus. She would become vulnerable in small, precise ways.
The second variable was the inheritance itself. The Will had announced a reward system, but the real inheritance was unlikely to be handed over simply because someone defeated a pseudo Paragon monster. There were disgustingly-terrifying geniuses from the top races far more capble than him in terms of battle power in the multiverse capable of beating even a paragon to a pulp as a multiversal being.
He knew this becuase of the memories he absorbed from the Void-Devouring Dragon.
Anyways, there would be conditions. Tests. Hidden requirements. The Rune Sovereign would not leave his legacy to the strongest brute. He would leave it to the one who understood his language best.
That was Runar’s real advantage.
Not raw power.
Comprehension.
The third variable was the Ancient Will.
Runar did not trust it. He had never trusted it. The Will was watching everything. It was measuring them. Who knows if it was using the trial for its own purpose.
He had read too many novels in his past life to know that something was wrong with this ruin.
Who Know;
1. If the woman threatened the purpose of the Reliquary, the Will might act.
2. If Runar proved more useful, the Will might favor him.
Or it might try to consume him.
Either way, the Will was a piece on the board. A dangerous one. But still a piece.
Runar’s eyes remained fixed on the path forward.
I cannot beat her in a straight fight. But this is not a straight fight.
He pushed harder.
The void stretched and compressed around his passage. Behind him, the distance to Wukong grew absolute. Ahead, the pressure of the Pseudo-Paragon signature and the cold, ancient aura of the woman racing toward it continued to intensify.
---
The Mysterious Woman felt him behind her.
Her expression did not change. Her speed did not falter. But a small portion of her attention shifted backward, tracking the faint runic trail that cut through the void.
He is following me.
She had noticed Runar before. She had noticed him the moment she entered the Reliquary. The golden-white eye. The absurd speed of his comprehension. The way he used runes not as tools but as language. He was interesting. More than interesting. He was the kind of talent that appeared once in an era.
But interesting did not mean important.
Not yet.
She read the structure of his pursuit with a single sweep of perception. Runic acceleration. Spatial compression. Adaptive trajectory correction. A simulated principle of movement layered over his base speed. Crude in places, but remarkably stable for someone at his level.
He is using the Sovereign’s language to shorten the gap.
A faint flicker of approval passed through her thoughts.
Most beings at his stage would have panicked. They would have seen a Paragon-level existence and accepted that the highest prize was beyond them. They would have hunted smaller cores, gathered safer points, and convinced themselves that survival was enough.
Runar did not accept it.
He chased anyway.
That kind of will was rare.
But will alone would not bridge the gap between them.
She considered slowing down to eliminate him. It would be easy. A single gesture. A focused collapse of the space around him. A strike that erased his path before he could react. The Reliquary would lose a promising vessel, but the original would remove a potential future threat.
Then she dismissed the thought.
No. Waste of energy. And the trial is still watching.
If she killed him too openly, the Ancient Will might react. The rules of the Reliquary might shift. The inheritance process could become more complicated. She had come for the legacy, not to start a war with the ruin’s defenses.
Besides, he was still far behind.