Chapter 386 - 41: Selective Harvest 2

Chapter 386: Chapter 41: Selective Harvest 2

Gravity Law slammed down first. Space itself thickened, trying to pin the Martial Saint in place. Metal Law followed, forming a thousand mirror-like blades that reflected every possible angle of attack. Force Law crashed in from the opposite side, a wall of pure pressure meant to crush anything that tried to dodge. Destruction Law closed the circle, unraveling the edges of reality so that escape routes simply ceased to exist.

The Martial Saint’s sword flashed.

Sword Law met Gravity Law and cut the weight itself. He stepped through the gap, blade already turning to meet the Metal blades. Sparks of conceptual force scattered across the void as Law clashed with Law. Force Law struck him from behind and drove him several light-seconds through a dying star. The star exploded. He emerged from the other side, cloak burned away, a new wound open across his ribs.

He did not retreat.

He fought.

For a brief, brutal span of time the Martial Saint held them all at bay. Sword Law carved through Gravity wells. Space folded around Metal blades so that they struck each other instead of him. Force Law was met with Force Law of his own, the two pressures canceling in a silent, universe-shaking detonation. Destruction Law was the hardest to counter—every time their Laws touched, something nearby ceased to exist.

But four complete Laws pressing against one man could not be held forever.

A Gravity well caught his left arm and nearly crushed the bone. A Metal blade slipped past his guard and opened a long cut across his chest. Force Law hammered him sideways into a spatial tear that almost swallowed him whole. Destruction Law licked at the edges of the wound and began to unravel the flesh itself.

The Martial Saint’s expression never changed.

Inside, calculation ran cold and fast.

They will not stop. If I continue like this I will die here. If I die here, everything I have built in this universe ends. The path forward ends.

He made the decision without hesitation.

His free hand formed a seal that no ordinary Rank 9 would recognize. Energy that was not meant to be touched—origin energy, the fundamental fuel of his existence—began to burn. Not a large amount. Just enough. A controlled sacrifice.

The secret art answered.

It did not look like a technique. It looked like the universe briefly remembering a different set of rules.

A sphere of absolute stillness expanded outward from the Martial Saint’s body. Inside that sphere, every Law that was not his own was rejected. Gravity lost its weight. Metal lost its edge. Force lost its pressure. Destruction lost its ability to unravel. For a single, perfect heartbeat, the four attackers’ Laws simply... failed.

Then the sphere collapsed inward and exploded outward again as pure, refined Sword Law mixed with something older and colder.

The attackers felt it coming.

The woman with Gravity Law’s eyes widened. "Bring out your most powerful defensive treasure—now!"

She activated an ancient gravity-suppressing disc that had once belonged to a Rank 10 powerhouse. The thin man with Metal Law summoned a mirrored fortress of pure conceptual steel, layer upon layer of reflective Law. The Force Law cultivator slammed both hands together and erected a barrier of compressed space so dense that light itself slowed. The original opponent of Destruction Law burned a drop of his own origin to create a temporary domain of absolute unraveling, hoping to meet the attack head-on.

None of it mattered.

The secret art reached them.

The gravity disc cracked, then shattered into glittering dust. The mirrored fortress reflected the attack for less than a fraction of a second before the reflection itself was cut apart. The compressed-space barrier folded in on itself and imploded. The domain of Destruction Law was simply erased, as though it had never been allowed to exist.

The attack continued through.

Gravity Law took the first hit. A clean line of Sword Law opened from her left shoulder to her right hip. Blood and broken Law sprayed into the void. She screamed once, short and sharp, and was thrown backward through three star systems.

Metal Law tried to reform his fortress. The second wave of the art cut every reflection at once. His body was scored with dozens of deep wounds that refused to close. He coughed blood the color of liquid silver and fled without another word.

Force Law’s barrier had bought him half a second. Half a second was not enough. The art struck him square in the chest. Ribs that had been reinforced by Force Law for centuries shattered. He tumbled through the void, trailing broken pressure and curses.

Destruction Law—the original opponent—took the worst of it. The secret art seemed to recognize him as the primary threat. A single, perfect cut opened from the crown of his head to the base of his spine. Only the last-second burn of his own origin kept the cut from finishing the job. He was left floating, barely conscious, Law flickering weakly around him.

The four of them did not need to speak.

They retreated.

Spatial tunnels tore open. Wounded bodies and broken Laws vanished into them. The last one—the woman with Gravity Law—looked back once, eyes filled with something between fury and fear.

"Next time," she spat, blood on her lips, "There will be reinforcement and you will be dead."

Then she was gone.

The Martial Saint floated alone in the center of the devastation.

He watched them as they left and he did not pursue.

His body was a map of injuries. The wound across his chest still leaked. The cut on his arm refused to close properly. Origin energy burned low and hot inside him, the price of the secret art already demanding payment. If he wanted to chase them down and finish the kill, he would have to burn more origin—enough for another full activation of the art. Enough to guarantee their deaths.

He considered it for less than a breath.

Then he exhaled and let the thought go.

Not worth it. They are wounded. They will not return soon. My foundation is more important than their corpses.

He began circulating recovery energy, slow and careful, while the shattered space around him gradually calmed.

---

Ash watched the entire sequence from his higher vantage point, the Boundless Origin Martial Soul replaying every detail with perfect clarity.

When it ended, he felt a flash of genuine anger.

"They ganged up on him," he said flatly. "No martial etiquette at all. Just pure numbers. Four against one, and they still needed treasures and origin burns to survive a single secret art."

The anger sat in him for a moment, sharp and real. He could still feel the echo of the Martial Saint’s brief, cold fury in the residual energy. Then a dry, self-aware thought followed right behind it.

Of course he was angry about the unfairness. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that if this version of him died, he would lose the best source of high-level resources he currently had access to.

He almost smiled at his own honesty.

"Still," he muttered, watching the Martial Saint begin to circulate recovery energy through his injured body, "I’m glad you survived, old me. Try not to die before I finish borrowing everything useful. I still need those higher Laws, and I’d prefer not to have to go hunting for another Rank 9 version of myself across the multiverse."

The Martial Saint’s presence remained steady. He was injured—deeply, from the look of the residual damage—but not critically. The shattered space around him slowly began to calm as the residual destructive force faded. Distant stars that had been flickering returned to something closer to normal.

Ash decided not to linger.

He had taken what he came for. His mental energy was nearly gone. Staying any longer would only risk a messy return.

He deactivated the Boundless Origin Martial Soul.

The higher viewpoint collapsed.

His consciousness was yanked backward at extreme speed—past the galactic arms, past the universe barrier, past the long road of light that led home. The journey that had taken time and attention on the way out collapsed into a single violent rush. The pillars of light blurred into streaks. The barrier of his own universe tore open and closed behind him with a sensation like silk ripping. The galaxy, the star system, the planet, and finally the training room all rushed back into place in less than a heartbeat.

He slammed back into his physical body.

The cool stone of Training Room Seven pressed against his skin. The faint smell of ozone returned, sharp and familiar. The shallow circular depression in the floor was still there, unchanged. For a moment Ash stayed upright, riding the last of his clarity like a man balancing on a breaking wave.

Then the full weight of the mental exhaustion hit him.

Two complete resonances. One long search across countless timelines. A selective harvest from a being who fought on a scale that erased star systems with true Laws. His mental energy was almost completely dry. The new Intents and Law fragments were still settling into place, heavy and alien, demanding space he barely had the strength to give them.

He had just enough clarity left for one short thought.

"That... was productive."

Darkness closed over him at once.

Ash collapsed sideways onto the floor of the training room and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. His body hit the stone with a soft, final sound. Outside the sealed room, the academy continued its quiet night cycle—distant footsteps, the soft hum of defensive formations, the occasional cry of a night bird. Inside, the young man who had just robbed two different versions of himself across the multiverse lay motionless on the stone, new power settling into his soul while his body recovered from the strain.

The new layers of Intent began integrating even while he slept. Sword Intent sharpened itself against the edges of his existing comprehension. Fire Intent found deeper pathways through his energy circuits. Space Intent quietly rearranged the way his martial soul perceived distance. Gravity Intent settled like a quiet weight in the background of his thoughts. Metal Intent and pure Force waited their turn. The fragments of higher Laws related to force, destruction, and structure arranged themselves in the back of his mind like pieces of a puzzle that would one day form a complete picture. The techniques he had taken—body refinement methods, energy circulation patterns, combat applications—waited patiently to be broken down and fed into the Omni Combat Art.

Day 16 had only just begun.

And Ash, still unconscious on the floor of Training Room Seven, had already collected enough resources to change the next several months of his training.