Jake's eyes shot wide open, his declaration of war mirrored within their widening pupils. Their spiraling vortex of silver obscurity flared, casting an eerie aura that seemed capable of piercing and laying bare the deepest secrets it touched.
The Aetherdream unfurled before him again, its myriad bundles and filaments of intertwined Aether replacing his normal vision. Yet this time, Jake did not entirely surrender himself to this otherworldly perception. He held onto reality, straddling both worlds.
In this state of limbo, Jake's acute reading of the Aether and his godly mastery over it were not as pronounced. However, it carried the advantage that he wouldn't risk being swept away in the ethereal currents.
Admittedly, it was a humble concession for Jake. Despite the pride in his cognitive abilities, he still struggled to make sense of his surroundings when observed through the unerring lens of the Aetherdream.
Assuming he could discern what each Aether pattern, filament, and rune meant, the vision the Aetherdream presented was indeed the absolute truth, reality as it genuinely was. But processing in his mind what the Aetherdream was showing him was the crux of the matter.
It was akin to playing a video game by watching the screen versus directly reading the binary codes scrolling in millions of ones and zeroes. Although the latter method would provide a player with the ultimate understanding of the game, mechanics, and ongoing events, was it feasible?
Because in the Aetherdream, everything was reduced to Aether and information.
Concepts of distance, space, and time ceased to exist in their expected forms. Instead, they were represented through intricate constructs of Aether. It was profoundly baffling, enough to drive a lesser mind mad. Even Jake himself felt the creeping nausea and vertigo threatening to force a retreat.
Straddling both the real world and Aetherdream at the same time was the compromise Jake had found through rigorous training, pulling the best from both realms given his current level. The darker, more elusive currents of Aether were no longer as perceptible to him, but at least he didn't entirely lose his grip on reality.
To find evidence of a Time Aether Rune or Symbol, Jake knew this would likely be inadequate, as he had found nothing earlier in his perfect Lucid Aetherdreamer mode. However, he had long since relinquished hopes of a breakthrough in that aspect, and it was not what he sought now.
He wanted to detect a spell's trace, recently cast upon him through the aspect, and it was not what he sought now.
Aetherdream, to trace it back to the spellcaster.
"I already know how to counter these distortions, now all that's left is to isolate the spiritual impulse commanding these temporal distortions to target me," Jake mused coolly, a hint of a smirk tugging at his lips.
Long-distance spells or techniques that seemed to spontaneously manifest away from the caster weren't truly spontaneous. Just like his telekinesis, there was always a high-frequency spiritual impulse or an invisible spirit thread enabling the transmission of its mental commands.
To become genuinely untraceable, the caster could resort to more obscure methods, like teleporting their spiritual impulses multiple times to obfuscate their tracks - an equivalent of a spirit VPN. However, such spirit techniques were rather high-level and more draining and risky for the mind than they seemed.
Jake was certain the perpetrator of these distortions, whether a Voidshifter or not, was incapable of such feats. If they were, they would have attacked him outright with a soul attack instead of devising such an intricate stratagem.
Sensing the twelfth distortion following the eleventh almost immediately, his body tensed with anticipation, like a starved spider sensing its prey stepping willingly into its web.
"Hehe, found you." Jake's grin grew wicked as he watched an odd, enormous ripple of indescribable-colored Aether roll towards him at a pace that bordered on static.
Within the Aetherdream, this type of Aether was commonplace but entwined into translucent tendrils so complex that even his keen mind strained to decode what he saw, to the point of throbbing.
Jake had theorized these represented space within the Aetherdream, or at least the initial layer he had barely begun to probe thanks to his Soul Class. However, these runes were so complex, cryptic, and solid that he dared not meddle with them for fear of causing irreversible effects.
This was why he was content to rely on his Level 1 Space Manipulation, achieving similar effects without scorching his neurons.
Yet, even though he lacked the courage to tamper with these omnipresent translucent Aether runes, he had other intentions for observing them.
The ripple propagating through them... Despite the lack of evidence, Jake instinctively knew this was how the enemy cast its temporal distortion upon him.
'Truly impressive,' he thought, his smirk fading as he realized that he could no spiritual fluctuation within.
It was as if the enemy had flawlessly blended its spiritual energy with this quiet spatial wave. Given that Jake couldn't even detect it despite his high perception, he deduced that its nature was akin to a gravitational wave-its wavelength so broad as to become undetectable.
Had Jake not been on high alert for any changes in the Aetherdream, he might have remained oblivious.
It made sense, though. If this mysterious foe had projected its mental sense into the plasma storm without any subterfuge, the engaged spiritual energy would have been wasted, obliterated in an instant.
"Pity for you, I am not just anyone," Jake declared ominously as he transitioned fully into the Aetherdream.
"Aetherdream Travel."
His body, safe within the Purgatory until now, vanished, causing the latter's collapse. From within the Aetherdream, Jake-transformed into a stream of Aetheric data-flew fearlessly toward the approaching Aether wave, timing his next move with its frequency to merge with it.
Moving by merging with various Aether currents was a perk of his Aetherdream Traveler Soul Class Skill. In the Aetherdream, gauging the distance to his enemy was nearly impossible at a glance, but Jake was certain that if he traced back to the source of this Aether wave, he would find his target.
Transmuted into a tumultuous flow of Aether, Jake let himself be recklessly carried upstream, diving straight into the tsunami-like Aether ripple. This process seemed risky and complicated from the Aetherdream perspective, but its consequences in the real world proved to be more tangible.
Thus, from the perspective of the normal world, Jake-having vanished inexplicably-reappeared almost instantly in an unknown, cramped space right before a vaguely humanoid, mist-like creature.
As the hunter and prey locked eyes, they froze, both shocked by the other's appearance but for different reasons. Jake was merely surprised by the less monstrous morphology than he had anticipated, while the creature was in the throes of panic, not having expected to be uncovered so abruptly even in its direst predictions.
'How beautiful... So this is what a humanoid Voidshifter looks like, eh,' Jake muttered inwardly, his eyes narrowing as he took the measure of his sworn enemy.
The monster, which had caused him so much trouble, stood taller than the average human, its figure a distorted reflection of a human silhouette. Its skin had a faint translucent quality, like frosted glass, under which the pulsing silver veins of its circulatory system were visible, glowing with an uncanny luminescence.
Its limbs, though more conventionally arranged than expected, ended in elongated fingers tipped with claw-like anchors. One of these anchors, however, was retracted, revealing a more human-like hand. The face retained a nearly sorrowful humanoid quality, the eyes akin to the silver orbs of its progenitor, their gaze unsettling.
The Voidwalker's armor was more streamlined, fitting the humanoid frame like a second skin, lending it a hauntingly regal appearance. The armor's ornate patterns were reminiscent of cosmic bodies-spiraling galaxies and constellations adorned its frame like a stellar mantle.
The Voidshifter's eyes widened in bewilderment, recoiling subtly, but immediately afterward those intelligent orbs bulged out, replaced by pure, unadulterated terror, as the Purgatory realm swallowed his vision whole, severing his connection with the exterior world.
The creature's first instinct was to retaliate in panic with a Time Freeze Spell, but even though this Time Spell was somewhat different from the previous distortions, Jake was already mentally primed for it.
Before the temporal fluctuation could even reach him, Jake sinisterly murmured,"Aetherdream World."
This was his third Soul Class Skill. The most overpowered and unfathomable among them.
On the surface, nothing appeared to transpire. An imperceptible ripple silently overlapped with his Purgatory and the trapped Voidshifter within. The bewildered and frightened Digestor was none the wiser, unknowingly sucked into this secondary domain without a clue.
Then, the temporal fluctuation of his Time Freeze Spell finally hit its intended mark. To the Voidshifter, victory was already in the bag, or at least it would provide a safe passage for escape.
Except, the very next instant, a surge of disbelieving despair overwhelmed him as Jake, unaffected by his Time Spell, strolled nonchalantly towards it, hoisting it violently off the ground by its throat.
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