Ebony's Fable

'This place might be a lot larger than Elva.' Ebony's Scout Pigeons hadn't found anything noteworthy other than the expanding landmass exceeding their expectations.

Just a week ago, a small Turtle Fort swam to Tova's shore. He failed on his previous attempts when he was a Grandmaster, but was no longer challenged by the weather and natural storms.

Lacuna Expanse landmass may be bigger than both Elva and Tova continents combined.

Tova was now home to slimes. Slimes that Oplot found in Lacuna Expanse all those years back and dropped them onto the Tova continent. The mere existence of these slimes pushed the Trolls into another war and drove them out of Tova completely.

Slimes that were almost completely immune to physical attacks were more than a bad match for the Trolls yet they were sufficiently weak to magic and just about any Imperial mage of the same level can deal with them with a couple of concentrated mana blasts.

They were an interesting creature.

They could combine into a giant creature or split into tiny droplets and still be unhurt. Extremely small splatters would not be able to move, but a slime can roll over these and collect the slime matter for mass and recover or grow in size. More evolved ones can concentrate this slime matter or decompress.

Ebony hadn't received reports of slimes above Grandmaster, but there definitely were Emperors. He was interested in receiving the Will once the Numbers had explored more. The presence of the Empire was growing there, but they were few in number.

Navin had enough trouble centralising one Continent, it shouldn't be anytime soon before the Empire has a lack of land.

It would be interesting if the Barrier King could cover entire continents in his crafted barrier.

'They're in trouble now…' Ebony sensed more soul puppets on the way, along with one Demon with an aura that overwhelmed all else.

'That's not the Ecstasy lord, another subordinate maybe?' The life force and mana brimming out of this Demon were impressive. With overflowing life force a few times greater than his wife's, and mana a dozen times greater than the Painter of Animation's.

'Properly evolved,'

"Let's go." Ebony stood up and slung the puppet over his shoulder with an ice rope.

The two Elves were down in stamina. The 3 Imperial mages plus Frost Elf were almost halfway into their mana pools without any lethal injuries on their opponent. Oplot was going to be fine regardless.

He gave them the warning, with Navin being the most annoyed when he figured that time was up for their little scouting trip. Till now, none of them has found the anti-curse mage underground. Ebony did, of course, but he was truthful in that he stayed out of it.

Extracting themselves was easy. They weren't surrounded yet, and their battles had been in balance with neither side overpowering the other. Ebony obtained the map for the surrounding area up to 35000km with his scouts still working on mapping. He limited their Will in case there were people capable of extracting his Will and obtaining information through his scouts.

Navin's opponent would have been a nicer fight compared to the soul puppets. He seemed well-versed against both water and ice magic. An Imperial familiar with a hybrid warrior, anti-mage tactic.

The soul puppets were too dependent on their soul attacks. It works on most, but once that falls apart they weren't amazing fighters. Ebony was not very interested in them.

The Painter of Animation didn't bother opening a warp portal since Ebony maintained the route back and kept it open. As they were ushered back home, Ebony stayed back with Oplot, still preaching at the side. The ones being preached to had backbone and never gave up attacking Oplot. They did not even elect a response as Oplot's mana-based, unknown language preaching continued to wear their minds down.

The golden glow around him did not have any defensive capabilities. Ebony was looking at a glowing monk with one palm at his chest, chanting and taking all manner of attacks and spells.

Oplot finally opened his eyes after Ebony pushed Xin through the portal. One of his arms struggled to push the two arms trying to grab him through the portal, which quickly changed to trying to squeeze her body back in.

"Are they coming?" Oplot questioned.

"I'm not sure if it's the Esctasy Lord, but yes."

"Shall we?"

"Do you want to do the same thing? I might be unable to hold them down still." Ebony replied honestly.

"Leave them all to me then. My damage banks are quite empty. Could I ask you to direct all their attacks towards me if they are unwilling to attack me?"

"If you don't mind being my shield, sure."

"I was born to be a shield."

Ebony had his back against Oplot. He was more than a head shorter than the giant of a man, and a lot slimmer with way less muscle mass, but his aura was not lacking.

"Wow, I don't believe it. Your mana is potent enough to get my arcane damage bank go up just by touching it."

"That's what goes up when you take any mana-based attacks, even mana poisoning?"

"Indeed. All the mana I take as damage is part of my mana pool. Same with every element. Same with spirit energy. Soul energy. Physical force."

"Is there anything you can't absorb?"

"I will find out one day."

"Did you take Hector's punch? Do you have his energy charged up?"

"That boy of Navin's bloodline, huh. I have some idea about where he gets his affinities from. I do have some of his energy but not much, it didn't get far past my defences, so I only have a little."

"What element will that be? Or do you elemental damage banks separate all his elements?"

"Ah ha, now that's a secret of his to share, no?"

"True."

"With your calculation skill, what are our odds?"

Ebony never told Oplot he had a simulation or calculation skill. "Odds of?"

"Capturing them."

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"Hmm…." Ebony still had the soul puppet. He was back to stepping it but the rope was still connected to him.

He didn't need Will to keep it suppressed anymore but the initial Will used to Sequester and freeze it to this degree had to be accounted for. "If you can buy me 8 hours, I suppose I can seal them all. How large an area are you confident of moving about and stopping a retreat?"

"Let me take a few physical hits, then…about 12 kilometres." Finally, a man who knew metric.

"Okay, I'll upkeep a budding Domain of 12 kilometres. As long as we keep them in for a minimum of 8 hours. They won't be leaving."

"What's the maximum?"

"Depends on their strength, I can only estimate based on aura and traces of their mana."

"How about the odds of us dying?"

"Maybe if they had some items I don't know the functions of hidden in their bracelets and spatial storage." Ebony hypothesised.

"Alright, we'll retreat if that Angel's Will comes back."

"Mmm."

"Convenient. The two pristine souls remained." The aggressor's voice came before they arrived.

"Mmm, convenient." Ebony did not have a translator.

The entourage entered his Domain willingly.

None of them fell to the ground from the excessively strong gravity magnified within his Domain. He was taking gravity mana through his Scout Pigeons, allowing him to utilise far more gravity than his mental range allowed.

But the ground wasn't as tough as they were. To walk, they had to imbue mana into the earth to toughen it before they could climb out and stand properly. Just to stay on their feet, they had to consume their mana.

'As expected, almost a third of them are capable of regenerating mana while casting.' This ability had been extremely rare for an Unclassed and a Journeymen. Not so much for an Emperor, especially those exposed to Eidolon.

Parallel thought skills were readily available to a certain tier, and there were many other methods. For Demons, these methods include absorbing ambient mana for usage. They did not fear demonising further and probably had ways to purify a Worldcore's essence.

Ebony wasn't even sure what the difference would be in a World Dungeon.

Did the place he was standing on have a Worldcore?

Theoretically no.

Does it mean it was free from influence?

Chances were, it was influenced by all the Worldcores the World Dungeon was connected with.

However, those who absorbed ambient mana slowly lost the ability to do so as his mana pushed out all ambient mana to make this space filled only with his mana. His Domain.

He could choose to fully saturate the place with Will to the limit, or dilute the Will and save it for his coreflames. He chose to do the first for a full lockdown of his Domain.

He trusted Oplot to be his shield.

And he didn't need Sequester for buying time.

'Perfect chance to work on editing my Domain to foreign influence.' He also had to edit his Will for his Domain to include only coreflames from now on.

'First edit…all hostiles to be injected with Sequester at the moment of entry.' Ebony poured all his mana, excluding augmentations, into his Domain. The more important part was the Will so the mana was stored for later use.

The entourage of Demons was shockingly fast, considering how they were still getting used to moving under amplified gravity, not to mention the seeping cold air.

Ebony weaved his upper body just enough for the sharp claws to dig…slide across Oplot's skin. There was no sound of friction or cuts. Oplot absorbed the kinetic force passively.

They were aiming for him, but he danced around Oplot like a little rat and all their hits landed on Oplot instead. Instead of being the shield, he was using a human larger than him as one. That was very easy to do. He just needed to adjust his timing and positioning with Oplot but that was simple enough when the man tried to stay still.

"Careful Ebony, I believe that one uses the Greed or Gluttony Aspect for energies. He is good at absorbing energies on impact. Worse yet, he doesn't appear to be a close-range fighter. Don't touch the extension of his mana and try to suppress it with your Domain."

Ebony was already facing 3 Wills trying to push out of their bodies. This Aspected Demon was one of them. He didn't know how good a Domain mage they were, but with none of them able to push or tear away his Will to build their Domain, their Wills weren't that amazing.

Greed or gluttony as an aspect. Focused on energy absorption. That demon was a priority target.

'Underestimated their speed a little too much…' Ebony found that he couldn't dodge them well enough, and this was after he suppressed all within his Domain.

Demons that lost a Profession for massive stat boosts didn't do that for nothing. With less spread for Potential, their baseline for stats should be their focus since they have an abundance of stats to make full use of a high baseline.

'Should I concentrate on the fight or editing my Domain's Will…' Ebony was itchy to warm up to be honest, but this was the perfect chance to edit his Domain since there were so many strong entities within.

"Ebony. Your movements feel unfocused." Oplot commented.

"You're right, my apologies."

'Hyperlucid Atelier is making me think too much, a counter to my meditation. I need to get back in the groove like the fight with the Power Demon….guess I'll knock myself out.' Ebony Flickers came to a stop.

And he fell asleep. His simulations stopped.

That moment of clarity woke him up again.

'No more simulating fights….I missed this.' His thoughts went clear again.

He took a deep breath of air that he had to exhale all out as there was nowhere to store them, then he saw the flow of everything within his Domain.

The limbs.

The mana.

The mental machinations of energy control.

Instead of shutting Hyperlucid Atelier off, it was now only simulating the present and slightly ahead of existing information and all the flows he sensed.

His lousy shirt ripped from the wind pressure but his skin was untouched.

More blows were guided and redirected onto Oplot.

They thought he was fooling with them when he cartwheeled to dodge one of the unknown sorceries that was unlike any elemental slash. Not a single distracting thought on analysing its energy source or spell formation was formed in the Atelier, but the information was stored for future dissection.

With a total of 3 mage-like Demons, 7 close-range ones who all used sharp nails and claws at this point, as their bodies were likely stronger than the average weapon they could find. That meant these 7 were all martial artist in their own right.

Mana traces were left in his wake. With the paths and flows he could see he quickly reduced his movements to a tighter space around Oplot.

Dusk wasn't around and he didn't create a new core, so his mental capacity was busy tearing any foreign spell that was trying to form by the classic dispel, probing and unravelling all foreign mana that was conjured within. The spells that are conjured outside his Domain were ignored. If they managed to get through the sonic reverberation, Mantle of Reservation, not be redirected by magnified gravity and still managed to hit him, then he deserved to be hit.

It seemed like these Demons had weak minds, as he was single-handedly ripping all their mana constructs apart with mental capacity to spare, going as far as to tackle them all with conjurations of weapons himself.

He then outnumbered them with his Numbers. He strengthened all of their constructs with his Domain, and a small stream of 1 Will per minute for Preservation. Any less and they would be destroyed too easily.

Ebony used his right hand to parry the claw strike and let it tear his skin, but slid the thrust onto Oplot's abdomen by his side.

"Remind me to tell the Empire not to fight a war with you."

Slowing down to a stop, with his mana traces - his Shades came catching up to his body and reconnecting as one.

He had a set of Apparitions keeping his targets busy.

"You might want to help if you want to shorten our time here. I can't keep this up forever." It almost pained him to say so, but this method of using highly strengthened Apparitions consumed too much Will and was slowing the growth of his Domain. The preparation of Preservation to seal them all.

It was clear that they had ridiculous resistance to cold and ice.

"Might I suggest how you may make it easier for yourself?" Oplot chuckled, his naked upper body glowed gold and he was unbothered by everything ongoing.

"Of course." Ebony would like to hear what kind of insights the strongest man of the Empire had.

"Perhaps you can let that rope go and use both hands to parry." The monk pointed to the rope Ebony held onto to continue freezing and suppressing the soul puppet he caught earlier.