"Shhrrrriiii!"
The Voidshifter's throttled shriek rent the air, the sound wave assaulting the ears of his strangler and eliciting a fleeting grimace from Jake.
"Go on, scream," he taunted, his voice shadowed with malevolence. "You won't be leaving alive, not while you're in my grasp." His grip tightened cruelly.
It didn't feel as if he was holding flesh and bone, but rather something akin to an exceptionally dense cloud. Cosmic bodies, no larger than a marble, brushed against his palm and fingers. But he shrugged off the peculiar sensation, his face a mask of icy indifference.
A smirk curled the corners of his mouth, a hint of mockery dancing in his eyes as he anticipated the next Time Spell. Yet, in response to his terror, the Voidshifter ceased to resist, its body going limp.
Raising an intrigued eyebrow, Jake couldn't help but compliment the creature that had given him a run for his money.
"Just as I would expect from a Digestor capable of casting Time Spells. You're smart." His genial smile faded into frigid harshness. "You've realized you're powerless in my dreamworld. Here, I dictate the rules. You must be puzzled as to why your magic doesn't function as it should, why even your limbs are
unresponsive, why you're on the verge of retching when our gazes meet."
He was merely stating the obvious. Jake possessed substantial control within his Purgatory domain, but when it overlapped with his Aetherdream World, it turned into something far more terrifying.
His double domain became his "dream," and within a dream, all is possible. Forget the laws of physics and logic. The only reality was what Jake deemed to be true.
What made this ultimate Soul Class Skill so dangerous was that, like any dream, the dreamer's state of consciousness was skewed, preventing them from realizing that something was awry. This is where his other Lucid Aetherdreamer ability came into play.
It was not a sleeping spell, but something far more insidious, subtly influencing the mental state of those ensnared in the claws of his Dreamworld.
Hence, Jake's compliment towards the Voidshifter was sincere. For it to realize that it was under the effect of a powerful illusion capable of warping reality, this Digestor had earned his respect.
Of course, Jake expected as much, since all his Soul Class Skills heavily relied on his mental attributes. Whether it was his mental stats, Soul Strength, Soul Power, Spirit Body, or Spirit Energy, everything mattered. Given that this Digestor needed a powerful and sharp mind to cast the notoriously tricky Time Spells, such awareness was a given.
Still, this was the very reason Jake felt a pang of disappointment. He wanted to witness the Voidshifter's struggle, to relish his vengeance, but it appeared it wouldn't happen today.
Not merely due to his Aetherdream World, but because without it, he was unsure he could dispose of a Voidshifter endowed with such tricky and abnormal powers.
But like all overpowered abilities, his Aetherdream World had a hefty cost.
In this case, the price was not mere Aether, but both his Spirit Energy and Soul Power. Simply put, his True Will was rapidly draining in this godlike state. And the backlash from expending his True Will was crippling mental fatigue and a drastic decline in other critical mental parameters such as his willpower, determination, and perseverance. If his Soul Power dropped too low, it could even impact his mood, memories, and personality, leaving him a mere shadow of himself.
Therefore, it was with a grimace of disappointment that Jake decided to linger no longer, to bring about the end of his adversary. A killing intent surged, and he lifted his gaze to meet the Voidshifter's once again, the creature still gasping silently.
As their eyes locked, a silver glint in the monster's pupils abruptly dilated, its impending doom shattering the ceiling of emotions.
"SHHHRRRRII!"
The creature's body suddenly radiated an engulfing black light, filling Jake's field of vision. Simultaneously, he felt a repulsive and corrosive forcefield slowly push his fingers from the monster's neck, which they had been strangling.
Through his heightened senses, Jake recognized this was not simply a forcefield, but space itself expanding between him and the Voidshifter. As he witnessed the creature's form warp and expand, his hairs stood on end in alertness and he darted backward at full speed.
BOOOOM!
The Voidshifter fractured and shattered into tens of pieces before Jake, who was unable to prevent it despite his dual domain. He had no clue how the Digestor had temporarily freed itself from his Aetherdream World, but from what he had just seen, it was a high-risk escape tactic.
It was akin to severing one's legs and arms merely to secure a brief window of survival.
Jake pondered how the space's stretching could cause the creature to be torn apart. But upon noticing a tiny spatial crack zigzagging through the air where the Voidshifter previously stood, he understood what had transpired.
'So, it was not just a self-destruction, but an act of stretching local space to such an extent that it would rupture.'
The Voidshifter's body exploding was merely a secondary consequence, insufficient to kill such a Digestor.When Jake saw the shattered remains of the creature being rapidly sucked into the spatial crack, he finally realized the monster's intentions and dashed forward like a missile, scooping out as many bloody pieces as he could with his own hands and Cosmic Force.
In the end, he managed to keep the Digestor's intact right forearm, barely saving it from complete annihilation.
Despite his swift reaction, over 90% of the Voidshifter's body mass managed to escape into the spatial crack before it closed. Jake hesitated briefly, considering infiltrating the spatial crack to hunt down the creature and finish it, but he refrained.
"Fine, I'll let you live this time. As long as you don't come back," Jake snorted disdainfully, teleporting back into the plasma storm with his spoils in tow.
With his Purgatory active, Jake did not fear the storm as he had previously, and he endured patiently the escalating rage of the elements from the comfort of his Sanctuary.
However, realizing that his Purgatory was already showing signs of strain after just a few seconds, he decided to take advantage of the situation.
He had not noticed earlier, being bullied by the pesky and cautious Voidshifter, but wasn't this situation familiar? Hadn't he benefited from a very similar environment on Quanoth?
Jake's eyes gleamed with dollar signs as he thought about the killing he was about to make.
Indeed, he planned to use all this plasma, heated to hundreds of millions of degrees, to mass produce a new batch of Aether Cores.
Jake was a specialist in this field, not new to the game. He hadn't crafted new Aether Cores in over a year, but his mental prowess had evolved to such an extent that it was as simple as breathing.
With a mere thought, he drew at maximum capacity the Aether continuously produced by his Grade 10 Energy Body. He then set to condensing several hundred Grade 1 Aether Cores per second.
As he continued to generate new batches with astonishing efficiency, he multitasked to engrave a collection of Energy Conversion Spells and sometimes other enchantments or Aether Encodings, depending on the effect or type of Aether he wished these new Aether Cores to produce.
As soon as the first batch of enchanted Aether Cores was ready, he expelled them from his shrinking Purgatory. Once they left his Purgatory World, Jake had no way of knowing their fate, but that was of no concern.
Unfazed, he continued to create and send these batches of Aether Cores into the plasma storm. Not even a few minutes later, Jake's lips curled up as he realized the constraints taxing his Purgatory were not growing as quickly.
"These Aether Cores are growing fast." His face beamed as he made a quick mental calculation.
However, he had spoken too soon. Seconds later, the artificial sky of his Purgatory collapsed, and a blast of chaotic, white-hot plasma descended directly upon him.
To survive, he had no choice but to interrupt his crafting session and seek refuge in the Aetherdream.
Without a second thought, he teleported to where the Voidshifter had previously hidden, having memorized its location within the Aetherdream. There, he calmly awaited the recovery of his Purgatory and spirit energy while continuing to fabricate new Aether Cores.
Once they were restored, he returned to the plasma storm by teleporting back into its midst and repeated the process. In the end, he only had to retreat three more times over six minutes before the physical constraints of the plasma storm stabilized.
Five minutes later, the temperature and radiation emitted by the storm began to recede-slowly at first, then more rapidly. An hour passed, and when the Magnetic Field Disruptor finally deactivated and the plasma began to recede, Jake and, miraculously, Saros reappeared unscathed, floating in the void within a ravaged cavity several hundred kilometers in diameter.
Drifting with them were tens of thousands of Aether Cores, all ranked between Grades 6 and 8.
This baffling and absurd spectacle greeted Syrbarun and Rigel when they finally regained clear visibility after the plasma storm had dissipated, leaving them utterly stunned.
But what horrified them the most was the familiar arm that Jake held tightly in his hand. Wasn't that the arm of the Voidshifter under their command?!
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