Advance
”No matter what, we should at least try. If not our future plans will be more difficult to enact.” The Snake Dowager smiled wryly as she whispered a few words into the Jar Spectre imprint. Two beings of law looked towards the sky from a balcony in a red villa, their gaze piercing across the horizon as they peered into a cosmic battle.
The Snake Dowager turned her head suddenly and asked Leylin, “Say… What is Shar scheming?”
“Hmm…” Leylin rubbed his chin. “It’s very hard to kill a rank 8 even if they’re not strong at battles. They’re very tenacious, and even heavily injuring an opponent at that level is a great accomplishment…
“However, Shar’s different. She has extremely wild ambitions, so her goal won’t be so simple. Her greatest power is the support of the Shadow World and Shadow Weave…” Leylin’s eyes brightened, “Could she pull all her enemies at once into the Shadow World? If that’s the case, Trial’s Eye and the other two would be in danger of dying…”
Snake Dowager pondered further but she shook her head eventually. “That’s impossible. Don’t you know how hard it is to set up a teleportation formation for rank 8s? Moreover, once Trial’s Eye and the other two discover that they’re being teleported, they’d be able to interfere in a moment and cause the teleportation to fail…”
“The more you think it’s impossible, the more I think it isn’t! They’d believe the same thing, and let down their guard.” Leylin rubbed his chin, his eyes filled with wisdom. “There’s more than one way to do this… If you want to get to a mountain, you could also have the mountain move to you…”
“You mean…” The Snake Dowager’s expression changed, “We have to let them know immediately!”
“I’m afraid that it’ll be too late,” Leylin shook his head helplessly, yet his eyes portrayed a very strong interest, “Such craziness and bravery, counting it all in one bet, this is indeed the Mistress of the Night!”
*Rumble!* The sun in the sky began to roar under their gazes, radiating even more light and heat than before as it seemed to expand continuously. At the same time, earthquakes and tsunamis burst out everywhere in the Empire. The earth split apart, revealing deep gorges in the ground as every single harbour was flooded. Destruction rained in but a few seconds.
And this was only on the surface. Someone gazing upon the Shadow World from the astral plane would see it come alive, as if breathing with life.
“Allsnake asked us to leave immediately. She says there’s danger!” The Trial’s Eye’s enormous body floated in midair, and its eye that was as large as a world continuously flickered with lightning. There was a faint image of Shar’s reflection within.
Shar was like a black lotus now, beginning to wilt under the attack of the other three.
“What? We just have to endure it for a little longer!” Yuri and Massa disagreed. These two would reap enormous benefits from Shar, hence they did not want to give up this easily.
“I’ll take our alliance into account. Three helping hands, and I shall leave.” The Trial’s Eye made its decision after considering the request of the other two.
“Okay!” Yuri and Marsha looked each other in the eye as they gritted their teeth and agreed.
“This damned Snake Dowager, we could have made the Mistress of the Night perish if she were to join us at the start…”
Massa’s spirit was extremely vengeful in the darkness, harbouring a grudge against the Snake Dowager. Suddenly, she stopped talking. “No! Something’s wrong! My soul! Why is there a shadow overcast on my truesoul?”
“What?” Yuri was shocked as well, even if he was a specialist in souls. He racked his brains as he peered deep into his abyssal truesoul, using all his might to see the same shadow on his. It was extremely eerie.
“I’m a soul specialist, but a shadow was cast on my truesoul and the barriers broken down without my knowledge?” Yuri screamed in anger. A foreboding sense of danger crept over his truesoul once he discovered this shadow. It was something that could kill him!
“Not good, let’s leave!” Only now did they agree to the Snake Dowager’s suggestion to leave.
“Lacking! Very lacking! As beings of laws, your ability at detection and usage of laws is extremely inferior to that Magus and Allsnake. They would never be confused by my Soul Shadow…
“Also… Don’t you think it’s too late to leave?” Shar waved her hands from the middle of the three, “It has begun!”
*Boom!* The Shadow World surfaced up into the vast astral plane, its borders writhing continuously as they seemed to breathe with origin force.
The borders of the Shadow World suddenly expanded, its boundaries a terrifying monster that devoured everything. The parts of the astral plane around it— the spatial storms, rifts, meteors, and even small planes— were all devoured.
How powerful was the Shadow World? It was the strongest world in the astral plane apart from the Magus World and the World of Gods. As the monstrous borders began to expand, the dimensions beside it were annihilated. It had already grown half a fold, and these existences of laws had undoubtedly come within its bounds already.
Without the strength to fight against the entire sea of origin force, or the ability to cover half the size of the world in an instant, there was no way these people could escape their fates. A tide of world origin force formed, tens of thousands times more destructive than a tsunami.
The Shadow World had consumed four beings of law in an instant! The expressions of Yuri and the rest changed instantly, because this swallowing came with suppression.
Even if the Shadow World used up a large amount of its origin force, it was still a powerhouse. It had great reserves that allowed it to suppress rank 8 existences at will. Under the powerful intent of the world, all origin force, vitality, elements, energy particles and everything that contained energy in the Shadow World separated from the three beings. They could only rely on their own reserves, but the laws they wielded were suppressed as well. They grew many times weaker than before.
“Advancement of a world! You actually forced the Shadow World to advance! This is crazy, wouldn’t the Shadow World be afraid of its origin force being depleted? Why would it allow you to do this?” The Trial’s Eye sent a message.
The Shadow World was a large world. An attempt to expand once more would put it on par with Dreamscape. Nothing good would come of doing such a thing without sufficient energy; most of the world would turn desolate and barren.
And now the Shadow World had forced an advancement. Without enough origin force to advance, the World Will would only suffer! The Trial’s Eye could not figure out why the Mistress of the Night was allowed to do this.
“Haha… Because I represent the Shadow World’s Will!” Shar took a step forward. Everything before her had been consumed by the Shadow World, and she was considered its core. A large amount of origin force converged at this point.
Even if it was weakened, the origin force allowed Shar to reach the peak of her power. A black crack appeared on the crystal inside that palace within the sea of origin force, the one that contained Shar’s true body. Now that she’d activated the origin force of the world on behalf of its will, her strength grew close to the peak of rank 8.
On the other hand, Trial’s Eye and the rest were weakened, almost dropping below rank 8 in power. The tables had turned!
“Let’s go!” Trial’s Eye, Yuri, and Massa tried frantically to leave through the edges of the world.
“You’ve come to my home. How could I let you leave without attending to you well?” Glee spread on Shar’s face, and she moved her hands like a master of the zither.
*Chi! Chi!* The true form of the Shadow Weave revealed itself, different from the one she’d conjured before. This Weave permeated the entire Shadow World, using the support of origin force to allow even the commoners of the Empire to cast spells.
The three beings of laws were like fish in a net. Repelled by the origin force, they were like caged beasts.
“I’ve caught you guys…” Shar walked up leisurely, and smiled with a wide grin. “So what if the origin force would be depleted? As long as the three of you are sacrificed, most of the origin force would be replenished, wouldn’t it?”
……
“It is indeed a world advancement!” Protected by an invisible barrier in the red villa, Leylin sighed. “Those three are in danger…”
“We warned them of the trap early enough. At least one of them should be able to escape…” The Snake Dowager said with indifference, only able to predict the future.
“Massa has the least chance. After all, her element is suppressed the most. Outside of this world she can control shadows with darkness, but within the sides switch. Even if Shar doesn’t manage to catch the other two, Massa will not escape…” Leylin added as he stroked his chin.