Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

 

Roughly an hour ago.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Shion was caught in the female Giant Kararan Serpent’s jaw. The ceramite shield held on to the damage, but since the materials used are merely uncommon-grade, it could not hold on forever. The shield already has countless micro-fractures, but the Dark Mist inside is trying their best to patch it up.

As Shion and the female serpent got separated from the vanguard team, Shion could use more of her methods. It was actually easy to kill beasts. As long as their soul defenses are weak, Shion could instant-kill them without leaving a wound on their physical body. However, it isn’t that simple.

As beasts become larger and stronger (in terms of body size and cultivation base), their souls will automatically follow suit. Although [Large] beasts are not at the same level of the intellectual race’s mages, it isn’t too far off. That being said, this Giant Kararan Serpent has a soul strength of approximately 50 to 60-man. If the serpent is a soul cultivator, Shion wouldn’t be able to kill it, but this beast could not use soul art. It won't be easy for Shion to break its soul defense but influencing it subtly is still possible.

Shion attacked the beast with telepathic fake thoughts through whistling that can only be heard in a certain frequency. Only beasts sensitive to sound like bats can hear them, but almost everything can be affected by this secret method of spreading telepathic thoughts albeit barely. Thanks to the influence of telepathic fake thoughts infiltrating its mind, the beast is ‘chaotically’ distancing itself from its male partner. 

Large beasts have more biological energy reserves, allowing them to have greater stamina and vitality. To kill it, damage needs to be accumulated slowly until its large body uses up all of its biological energy or a lethal hit such as decapitation. However, decapitating a giant serpent with a body radius of around 2 to 3 meters is extremely difficult, especially if Shion has a lower cultivation base than the beast.

Not only the bones are as hard as a block of steel plate, but the beast’s muscle tissue is as tough as iron wires woven into a tight mesh, it would be a pipedream to decapitate the beast in one hit.  

She poked a few times at the serpent’s inner mouth with her gunlance in hope to pierce the serpent’s brain, but it was smart enough to toss Shion to the walls when it couldn’t deal effective damage to her.

Boom! The cave wall exploded as she made a crater on the wall, but Shion is immune to stun and motion sickness, she immediately returned to combat without a single wasteful moment. The two entangled themselves in an intense deathmatch, but it was obvious that Shion is getting the upper hand. Beasts have lower intellectual quality. As Shion got used to the beast’s moveset, it was easy for her to mislead, evade, or counterattack. 

At this moment at the edge of the cave room, a female donned in a white-gold lavish ecclesiastical robe is observing Shion’s duel with the giant serpent.

‘This is perfect. Not only does she have no allies at the moment, her liquid metal soul armament is also away for reconnaissance tasks. There aren't any contingencies in place, so this is not a trap to set me up. I need to utilize this chance to the fullest. But first… I need to activate the countermeasure for her methods from the previous iteration…’ The female battlepriestess muttered to herself.

‘She can activate [Whispering Premonition], so the best method to counter it is… rank 1 time-path blessing, [Delayed Self Presence]’ 

The battlepriestess whispered to her goddess in a very low voice. Even if she’s currently under a stealth method, it’s harmless to take more precaution. After her whispered chanting finished, her body glowed for a brief second, indicating that the blessing had been activated properly, before fading as if it was an illusion.

Then she produced a golden orb the size of an eye, it was jam-packed with golden runes of time-path and space-path. ‘In the previous iteration, she has no method to break through this space-confining artifact; she shouldn’t be able to escape in this timeline too.’

Confirming her preparations are sufficient, the battlepriestess took out her primary artifact, the pocket-watch. She hangs it on her waist as a magical golden sword manifested on her right hand. “Rank 1 time-path blessing, [Effulgence Weapon: Time Edge]”

“By the edict of fate, I shall kill those who tilt the balance of the heavens!” She chanted a battle hymn as she activated the golden orb. In that instant, a golden fog of timeforce spread from the orb. The timeforce formed into transparent and golden runes that create a three-dimensional rune array. 

The golden runes congregated into motes of light which became the formation core nodes. Despite the core nodes being there physically, it can shift itself in time between -9 and +9 minutes. Unless one uses methods that target time-path, it would be difficult to destroy these core formations to break the space restriction. 

“She hasn’t reacted towards the construction of the formation, which means she truly won’t expect my attack.” The woman gripped her effulgence weapon. “Activating rank 3 artifact, [Eye of Prolonged Present]!”

The formation core nodes are actually the extension of the golden orb, the Eye of Prolonged Present. Its complete power can only be activated by a rank 3 time-path priestess of the Eternal Dragon Church, but she has been granted a portion of its power, so she can use it albeit limitedly. Its true power is capable of creating a large pseudo-plane battlefield capable of trapping an army, but the assassin can only make a small pseudo-plane.

In essence, the orb is a [Blessed Artifact] instead of a typical artifact. 

When the construction of the core nodes reached completion, they connected with each other and formed a network of golden light. At this moment, the battlepriestess’s stealth methods could not hide the strong time-path undulation that the artifact emits. It crumbled and revealed the battlepriestess. 

“What?” Shion unconsciously muttered in great shock as she glanced toward the corner of the dark room. Thanks to the distraction, she was hit by the giant female serpent’s attack, but she was so shocked that she ignored the multiple pings in her system. “Rank 1 time-path and faith-path undulation… This is too soon. The retaliation from the world should be much later. Damn, I haven’t prepared a countermeasure yet.” She complained to herself as she realized the danger of the newcomer.

With a flash of light, the three were carried into the Eye of Prolonged Present’s temporal pseudo-plane. If bystanders were to see them, they suddenly disappeared after a faint explosion of golden light.  

To the ones affected however, the terrain doesn't change. The eye of Prolonged Present formed a temporary pseudo-plane that took the form of the real world.    

In other words, they are still within that dark underground ‘cave’, but they are not in the material plane. The artifact just took the environmental data of the ‘present’ and used it to construct a temporal battlefield which augments the effect of time-path while suppressing other paths. 

“Yukikaze Shion, face your death!” The battlepriestess brandished her effulgence weapon at Shion who’s busy fighting against the giant serpent. She moved swiftly like a phantom. In a second, she reached Shion’s back and attacked her neck in hope of severing it.

‘In this pseudo-plane, she’s in an accelerated state. It’ll be hard to fend off her attack.’ In an instant, Shion understood how she could move so quickly. 1 second for Shion is probably 2 to 3 seconds for the assassin, she instantly activate [Whispering Premonition], a sound-path investigative method that produces the effect of time-path. It allowed her to hear the attack before it was made.

However, the battlepriestess-assassin had made sufficient preparation. [Delayed Self Presence] makes it seem like her presence is in the past few seconds. Although the battlepriestess made an attack, her existence still hasn't made that move yet. The blessing is especially effective in dealing with ‘future sight’-type investigative methods.

In short, Shion’s investigative method is being hard-countered. 

Clink! Despite being ineffective, Shion still managed to deflect the battlepriestess’ effulgence weapon by her heavy gunlance.

“Hmm?” The battlepriestess was surprised. Her attack was perfect in angle, momentum, and timing, it should be able to quickly decapitate her target. When she glanced at Shion’s body, she saw her hand was bent in an angle that was impossible for a human. ‘She never did that in the previous timelines…’ The battlepriestess engrave this memory to the best of her abilities so that if she failed in this iteration, she could pass on the knowledge to the next timeline. 

Thanks to the quick deflection, Shion’s head is saved from decapitation, but the heavy gunlance suffers from heavy impact. It cracked on contact-point because the effulgence weapon is rank 1 while the material of the gunlance is rank 0. The force of the attack also pushed Shion into the jaws of the serpent, but she used the shield to block the beast’s mouth from closing. 

“Tsk. I hate fighting against time-path users the most.” Shion complained to herself, knowing that her [Whispering Premonition] had been hard-countered. Shion immediately understood that this assassin must’ve fought with her in the ‘future’.

‘Overclocking Crystal processor. Entering Super Combat System Configuration!’ Shion immediately entered a new battle configuration.

Bits of command codes are spread within Sion’s mechanical body. Various dormant systems are being fed with energy. Her mechanical body’s energy expenditure is rapidly climbing while her energy reserve is lowering at a frightening speed. ‘In this mode, the 10 day worth of active energy will be depleted in an hour… but it should be enough.’ 

Her passive sound-path investigative method indicates that they are currently locked in a small pseudo-plane with no way of escape unless she can destroy the rank 3 artifact that the assassin used to construct this place. Shion’s core reactor produces a large amount of heat as power fills her body as a portion of them are sent into her Crystal Processor.

She did not mind leaving traces of the laws of the world as this ‘world’ is fake and so, she did not hesitate to use lightning-path methods without ‘magical’ resources. 

Heavy objects, as long as they contain sufficient amounts of mass, will produce an attraction force. In this world and its related minor dimensions, ‘gravity’ is often revered as Terrestrial Magnetism. It’s a natural phenomenon that is tied to both lightning-path and earth-path. 

With that said, Shion manipulates the terrestrial magnetism of her heavy body to reject the attraction force of the world and create her own attraction field. Since she could alter relative terrestrial magnetism, it doesn't mean her mass decreases. It’s only her ‘relative’ mass that becomes lighter. It uses an equivalent of energy to create a counter terrestrial magnetism, so Shion couldn’t be in this configuration for long.

“As expected. She did not hesitate to use this self-mutilating technique. But with this, I have no chance of accumulating damage and will be forced to fight her 2nd form sooner. Tsk.” The battlepriestess complained to herself as she used time-path blessing in successions.

To her, Shion’s ‘2nd form’ is troublesome because she is not limited by gravity.

By altering her relative terrestrial magnetism, her body seems to be able to ‘fall’ through the ground with zero friction or become a nearly immovable object during defense. This is a troublesome state that, according to the battlepriestess’s experience in the previous timelines, can only be maintained for an hour. 

She had no solution for this as terrestrial magnetism isn’t influenced by time, but distance. In other words, space. However, space-path is not her field of mastery therefore she must fight with Shion with her own time-path methods.

Shion did not move her feet, but her body slid towards the battlepriestess like an armored train. Since her mobility isn’t limited to using footwork, she was able to barely contend with the battle priestess who experienced time 2 to 3 times faster compared to Shion. The two traded gunlance thrust and effulgence weapon attack at a rapid pace, but mostly are just pokes and light touches.

Shion doesn’t dare to trade heavy blows as her gunlance is not that strong to contend with a rank 1 weapon made from magic spells.   

The Giant Kararan Serpent hissed in anger as it was ignored, but it was rational enough to determine which one is stronger. The female in gold emits a rank 1 undulation from her body, she is extremely dangerous while the petite female should be weaker than the woman in gold. The beast immediately decided to kill both of them, but it could not plan too far ahead as it was a rank 0 beast. 

The serpent attacked both, entangling the two in a melee. 

“Annoying!” The battlepriestess slashed at the snake while focusing on Shion. That simple slash ruptures its hard scales and leaves golden marks on the wound. The golden marks corrodes the wound, accelerating age progression and softening the scales around it as if the scales have progressed time far longer than its surrounding. 

After that one attack, the giant serpent feared the woman in gold. It only goes for the petite female, but she’s extremely swift. It became extremely difficult to hit her. Then, its only choice would be using its [Minor Petrification].

Shion’s overclocked and overheating crystal processor is busy deducing the female assassin’s accelerated movement pattern when she feels the dark-path undulation from the beast. 

Both her and the assassin realized that the beast is about to use its [Minor Petrification], it is unwise if they get caught in it. 

The assassin did not care as she activated the [Mage Armor] engraved on her robe. It has the shape of a full-plate armor made out of bright gold that complimented her ecclesiastical robe, but it has no weight whatsoever. Although it doesn't specialize in defending against petrification, its sheer rank 1 energy level allows the spell to endure several [Minor Petrification] repeatedly. 

Shion, on the other hand, could not do the same. She might be capable of using vibration or forming magnetic armor that blocks kinetic or limited magical damage, but not light-based attack. Also, it would be a waste if her magic machinery armaments are petrified. 

While being entangled with the assassin, Shion used her feet to silently activate a supreme refinement-path method, [Equivalent Exchange]. 

The dirt on her feet rose as electric current ran through it. 

[Equivalent Exchange] is a refinement-path method to forcefully shape, combine, or refine an object into another through the manipulation of ‘elemental particle structure’. As a high-end method that can only be activated by those with [Exemplar] attainment level in refinement-path, It has an obscene energy and telepathic resource expenditure depending on its use, but it can forcefully refine almost anything in the world, as long as the user understood the material they wanted to refine. 

Since Shion is in a pinch and can only spare little energy and telepathic thoughts, she did not refine the dirt into a strong wall of rocks. She merely re-shaped the ground into a 1-centimeter thin dirt wall that blocks only herself. The energy and telepathic thought expenditure to make a thin dirt wall is so meager that she can create them multiple times.

When the petrification light arrived, Shion had already hidden herself behind a protective wall of dirt. The dirt was petrified, but the petrification light could not penetrate this fragile defense.

At the same time, the assassin endured the petrification light as if it was nothing. However, the brightness of her golden Mage Armor has dimmed slightly, indicating that it used up its energy to resist the petrification. 

Still, the two were ignoring the beast as their movements were too quick for the beast to catch up. 

At this point, the battle has progressed for over half an hour, and the beast has used its [Minor Petrification] multiple times.  

Shion has tried her best to shove her gunlance into the assassin’s stomach, but the assassin knew that although Shion’s attack looks simple, her early iterations of fighting against Shion proved that even the rank 1 Mage Armor could not completely negate the attack.

‘Her gunlance is imbued with all variations of [Triple Extreme Sound] which are [Bell Palm], [Drum Fist] and [Finger Whistle]. It has a 90% armor-piercing effect, +200% vibration damage amplification, and +400% slicing damage, producing a compound damage equivalent to rank 1 attack… Although my [Mage Armor] can endure it, my internals would be completely melted.’ The battlepriestess telepathic thoughts rapidly collides as she evade Shion’s attack while lightly parrying those that she could not evade.

It couldn’t be helped. Even with her rank 1 cultivation base, she could not deal effective damage to Shion through other time-path attacks such as ones that affect lifespan. Even now, the battlepriestess could not determine Shion’s bottom line because in the previous iteration, Shion endured a time-path curse that progresses her age 10 times for a year to decapitate her. 

Although missing 10 years of lifespan seems like not much, Shion should be at the prime age where her cultivation could advance the most. 

If Shion dared to pass on her ‘golden age’ of cultivation to kill her, then she’s truly ruthless not only to her enemies, but also herself.

Just as the battlepriestess-assassin is frustrated and not capable of killing Shion as quickly as possible, Shion is also vexed by her. 

When her [Whispering Premonition] is being hard-countered by the assassin, Shion has been thinking about how far the assassin knew regarding her methods. Fighting against time-path users is extremely annoying because of the existence of [Clairvoyance] or other similar time-path investigative methods. 

Gathering information through future ‘theoretical’ battles is possible for time-path experts. And since this assassin seemed to be familiar with [Triple Extreme Sound], then what else does her ‘future self’ have used? 

‘She knew [Whispering Premonition], Super Combat System Configuration, and [Triple Extreme Sound]. I’ve showcased my ability to bend my limbs in any direction I want and [Equivalent Exchange] disguised as [Earth Transmutation], a rank 1 refinement-path method in this ‘iteration’. I need to figure out what method she used to pry for my combat methods.’ 

There are countless investigative methods of time-path.  

‘Using [Clairvoyance] or future sight is not enough to understand Super Combat System Configuration because it will allow me to fight against rank 1, but I won’t fight against one unless there’s absolutely no way of information leakage. I have never openly used [Triple Extreme Sound: Finger Whistle] but she’s familiar with how to handle it, which means she has fought against me at least once… the question is, is it ‘theoretical’ or a true life and death battle?’

Since Shion is fighting while deducing matters, there are gaps of her impenetrable dynamic defense that the assassin could bypass. The assassin dealt a bit of damage on Shion’s body, engraving her body with golden lines that slowed down Shion’s perception of time and reduced her lifespan, but the assassin was not happy.

‘Fuck, she’s deducing in combat. In this timeline, she shouldn’t have formulated her 3rd form yet, but I am not as strong as the previous iterations. I came here quickly as soon as I went back in time, I haven’t taken the resources to activate my future methods in fear of being late. Tsk. I will have to go all-out.’ 

Both are at wit’s end. Shion’s rich battle experience allowed her to change multiple styles of fighting with her gunlance that the assassin could not get used to even in multiple timelines, but Shion is worried that showing too much would be detrimental to her future self. After all, she has yet to grasp the method that the assassin used to pry for her information.

‘I can’t kill her with this alone, I will have to use other methods secretly....’ Shion spared a brief gaze at the annoying Giant Kararan Serpent. She formulated a plan as she defensively encroached at the giant serpent and used its massive body as an obstacle to block the assassin’s sword.

The giant serpent hissed as the three now entangled in a chaotic melee. 

Shion once more tried to spread telepathic fake thoughts at the serpent, while using telepathic fake will at the assassin by whispering in a frequency that could not be heard by humans.

There are three aspects of wisdom-path: thoughts, will and emotion.

Telepathic fake thoughts allow the manipulation of others by colliding with their telepathic thoughts, ‘contaminating’ the thinking process with fake information so that the affected take the wrong conclusion or make impaired decisions.

Telepathic fake will, however, can exist in another's sea of consciousness longer than its telepathic thought counterparts. It can ‘think’ by itself and observe the opponent’s thought process to decide which part would be the best to falsify. It wouldn’t affect combat in the short run, but as fake telepathic will accumulate to a certain point, it will snowball as it could even disrupt method activation sequence. 

Unfortunately, Shion’s plan has been thwarted. Her attempt of using wisdom-path to gain an advantage backfires as her eyes tear liquid silver. Although Shion’s body is a magic machinery one, the design is based on the human body. Her brain, or in this case, her crystal processor which housed her sea of consciousness, has been damaged due to wisdom-path backlash and the nanomachines are rushing towards her crystal processor to undergo emergency repair. 

Shion frowned while the assassin smirked as if her trap had successfully caught a prey.

“It seems like attacking you with wisdom-path methods is unwise...” Shion’s sea of consciousness has been infiltrated by the assassin’s telepathic thoughts. Things are looking grim for her.