Chapter 248 Careful Scouting
If this were occurring on a planet like Earth, it would be no different from the end times. In fact, given the scale of the current conflict, it showed the sturdiness and superiority of this world that only a 100-kilometer area was troubled by this, not to mention that the ground had never cracked nor shattered, only space.
The good news for Dante was that even though his energy was being consumed crazily to maintain the constant firepower, he could sense that the space that had been cracked was repairing itself, and this monster would be forced back soon.
In fact, it was only through his own ignorance that this monster even had a chance to enter real space. Sub-space was an empty void in the normal universe filled with nothingness, and space mages sometimes even used it as a garbage can to dump stuff.
The spell he used allowed Dante to phase through both worlds by weakening the flow of real space against sub-space. So the spot where he entered was like a mud wall that had been splashed with water, fragile.
After a few hits, the monster broke through and was now wreaking havoc. However, putting aside whether space repaired itself, the monster itself was consuming a humongous amount of energy - far far greater than Dante - to remain in real space.
Just like how fish could not live on land, void monsters like it could not survive in real space, which was why it coated itself in a spatial film to isolate the matter of real space from killing it.
However, both its continued existence here by using the spatial film as well as resisting Dante's hard-hitting blows and maintaining the crack in space forcefully were swallowing gallons of fuel per second from its tank.
As such, it showed incredible desperation and roared, using more power to forcibly ignore the attacks of Dante at the risk of injuries that would cripple it to get him.
Dante was shocked by this and could only make the wise choice to escape further away. Trying to increase his output would yield nothing but death or demise. After all, it was a known fact that when one fighter was willing to risk injury to win and the other wanted to preserve himself, the former would have an advantage.
He rapidly blinked away using the 2nd Rank Spatial Blink spell, which caused the monster to roar with unwillingness and fury. It glared at Dante as if it hated the fact that he refused to lie down and become its nourishment.
Dante paid it no attention and focused on increasing the distance between the two parties. Eventually, he was able to watch it be squeezed by the closing of space, being rapidly forced back into the void as it roared desperately, still trying to reach Dante through all of this.
Eventually, the crack in space closed and healed itself after fully forcing it back in, causing the area to become quiet amidst the devastation.
Dante was silent for a minute or two, gazing at the spot where space had closed with deep thoughts. His eyes flickered many times as he eventually sighed and seemed to fully come to terms with what just happened.
All this time, he naturally maintained his spirit sense range and hellfire conversion to energy to replace all that he wasted. He decided to stay on this spot until he fully recharged because he would be doing himself a disservice if he dared to take even a single step forward in this treacherous world without having all his firepower available to him.
While waiting, he opened his quantum space and took out some androids. After activating them and seeing that they worked, he decided to send them in the four cardinal directions to scout the way for each of them.
Of course, he ordered them to use the best cloaking technology they had and to record everything before remotely transferring it to his quantum chip.
This would allow Dante to build a comprehensive map of the area using them without risking himself, but given the dangers he had faced and the attention he had attracted, he did not expect those androids to go far.
Dante sat cross-legged on the ground and patiently waited while setting up various defenses. He set up a basic anti-matter barrier around him that should slow down all beings regardless of their life level from insta-killing him, assuming they had the power to.
Then, he used his strongest 3rd Rank barrier spell, Aegis of Eternity, which was previously the 2nd Rank Dimensional Shield, to encase himself in hazardous space elements that would tear apart anything that tried to attack him.
Finally, there was his ring of hellfire that was always around and on guard even as it converted the endless Zero Energy into base energy for his body. Dante wished the conversion speed would be faster, but it was related to not only his realm but his fire's potency.
When he focused on it single-mindedly, like this, it became slightly faster. Well, at least it became fast enough for him to reduce the time necessary by a huge amount, not to mention that he was definitely helped by the fact that he did not have to spend energy at the moment.
An hour passed, and Dante was surprised to find that his scouts were unharmed. They had covered hundreds of kilometers in all directions and had still not left the wasteland area, making Dante wonder about the sheer size of this world.
lightsnοvεl.cοm However now, with how much they had traveled, they should have reached the end of the Zero Gate world, so if there was still any lingering doubts, this killed them.
Dante thought about it and left a quantum marker on this spot. He could still teleport within the realm using Quantum Entanglement, just not out of it.
After doing this, Dante removed a lot of resources from his quantum space and had the bots he took out begin to construct a basic base. He would start from here then map and explore the surrounding region and expand his control bit by bit.
He would also dedicate this time to increasing Quantum Entanglement to the A Rank in order to increase his connection with his superpower and gain a better set of abilities to help him deal with foes.
Originally Dante wanted to move around and explore himself, but he remembered an important fact. He was going to be a father soon, so he could not afford to risk his life so easily and risk his child having to grow up without a parent.
As a man with a family, he had to take the path of stability and wisdom rather than adventure and risk. Convincing himself like this, Dante sighed and filled his tank while watching the base come to life rapidly around him.
Since this was the case, it was best to work on his most efficient power right now, which was the Inferno Ascension Technique. The Void Speaker Chant was also great since its power output was currently the highest and craziest at the moment given his multiplier, but it was also the slowest to cultivate.
As for the physical methods, they barely helped in this situation and were only good for bullying weaklings or those with stats near his. Against enemies with stats so much higher than his even with his tech enhancements, it was not worth it.
Not to mention his superpower advised him not to leave, so he could not enter the AP world and harvest stats. His stat growth would be crippled for now unless he could find an alternate method to increase them in this realm, something he was actually looking forward to.
Dante tried to communicate with his quantum clone on the other side. The connection between them had temporarily snapped when he was sucked into that alternate quantum tunnel and failed to escape it.
When Dante merged with his quantum clone again and the single mind rejoined itself, he was utterly and thoroughly surprised to take stock of its current situation. Not only was the quantum clone perfectly fine, but it was surrounded by the typical black trees and vegetation.
It had successfully entered the home universe's Zero Gate without a problem!
So why did he, the main body, get sucked into this strange realm?
Dante thought about it and wondered. The students had never reported something like this happening, and he had no information on any of this occurring.
Of course, the current Dante didn't not know he had been betrayed and not only had he been betrayed, but he had been deliberately kept in ignorance, his link to many sources of information manually cut off using tyrannical means.
It was the exact same as when he was on Earth, and he used his quantum AI chip to completely control the Internet and prevent any of the factions on Earth from discovering him technologically.
No matter what those people or factions did, no matter how fast their computers or how amazing their hacking skills, they would not even know Dante existed.
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