Chapter 793 No Time to Waste

Julius panted as he ripped his arm out of the remaining enemy’s chest, black blood spraying everywhere. This had been the third group he had taken care of in the last hour. They all used a similar array, and by now, they were pushing him to his limits.

His mana was running low, despite his best attempts to keep his usage to a minimum. If not for his new void skill, he would have already emptied his pool twice over. He reached his bloodstained hand up and gently patted the cloak with a loving smile.

He wouldn’t have to push himself so hard if not for the mountain coming down on him.

The only silver lining of this was that the mountain seemed to be slowing down. What he'd predicted would be hours until the mountain hit the ground was probably much longer now. But he was more concerned about why the mountain’s descent was slowing.

That being said, he decided to take a break. He found an empty building and pulled out several of his items. The blanket and food were the main ones. He sighed dramatically as the blanket started to increase his mana regeneration. The snacks further increased his dwindling mana supply.

But even as his mana rose, the fatigue he felt didn’t fade as quickly. It didn’t matter if he used his healing skill or not. The fact was that his legendary skills took a lot out of him. The mental stress they put on his soul and mind was extreme. It wasn’t anything like his epic skills. Each one took considerable effort to control.

It didn’t help that he had five of them to worry about. The stress of each one seemed to compound the others. It wasn’t the type of fatigue that his skill normally healed. It was the kind that only resolved with a little rest and tasty snacks.

As he munched on his pastry, he looked at the notifications he'd received over the past hour.

[Phoenix Incarnate lvl 7 -> lvl 8]

[Primordial Armaments lvl 3 -> lvl 5]

[Lord of the Dying Sun lvl 4 -> lvl 5]

[Mantle of the Everlasting Void lvl 1 -> lvl 3]

[Field of the Shattered Will lvl 23 -> lvl 25]

The level-ups were quite significant. Almost every one of his legendary skills received at least one level. Considering how much harder they were to level up, spoke of how challenging those fights had been.

It wasn’t every day that he found himself worn out after fighting Tier 4s. This rift was really quite special. He was glad that he decided to come all the way out here. Even if he didn’t manage to increase his affinity, he already got a lot out of this.

Just acquiring his [Mantle of the Everlasting Void] and evolving his Space Concept was worth it.

Speaking of his affinity though, he hadn’t seen any fruits so far. He didn’t know if they were hidden, but he was becoming a bit more worried as time went on. He hoped he didn’t have to worry about the mountain for a good while, but the floor was massive. The sect of these kinetic energy users was a maze of buildings.

As much as he wanted to fight these groups some more and see how many more levels he could clear, he needed to get one of those fruits and get the hell out of there.

He also couldn’t help but wonder what the fifth floor was like. If this was the fourth floor, the danger of the fifth floor must have been quite extreme. It was supposedly a Tier 4 rift, and so he couldn’t imagine many Tier 4s actually making it this far, even with a team of other elites.

He stayed inside the building a little longer even when his mana was full. Only when the headache from overusing his legendary skills abated did he continue his exploration.

This time, his mission was only to find a fruit.

That's why he decided to try and fly around. The buildings were a little annoying to navigate, so flying above them was the clear solution. It would dramatically increase how fast he could explore the floor.

And since he didn’t need to fight any other groups he might come across, he wanted to see if it was possible. So with a burst of kinetic energy, he threw himself up into the air.

Or at least he tried to. For some mysterious reason, the second he tried to rise above the buildings, an immense gravitational force slammed into him. It took all of his effort not to be thrown back to the ground.

Confused, he tried to fly one more time. He even formed wing constructs on his back for a little help. The wings gave him extra lift, but the same gravitational force came crashing down on him. He spiraled back to the ground and stumbled on the cobblestones, baffled.

He didn’t sense any barrier or anything else that might explain why this was happening. He didn’t sense anything. Just the gravity.

Okay, so perhaps flying wasn’t allowed in the rift. He hadn’t really tried it before, but that was good to know. A little frustrating, but ultimately not something he could do about.

A provenance check points to NovelPhoenix: the author published this chapter there, and this copy was made without approval.

He would have to explore the floor the old-fashioned way then. He stretched out his legs and cast his perception wide. He concentrated his senses on locating large pockets of kinetic energy or anything that resembled the fruit. If the rift kept acting as it had, the fruit should be near a group of opponents.

The amount of information was a little overwhelming, and it took him a few seconds to adjust. Fortunately, almost all of these buildings were empty. This greatly reduced the stress on his mind.

If the buildings were filled with junk and he had to sift through a mountain of stuff, he would have a major headache already.

Once he was prepared, he took off. His fledgling technique for a new stealth skill spread around him, but he didn’t think it worked as well as he hoped. He still needed to modify it a lot before it met his standards.

It didn't take long before he came across another group of this floor’s occupants, and they didn’t seem to have much trouble sensing his approach.

Fortunately for him, he wasn’t planning to engage them, and he flew straight past like a bullet. They fired several powerful bursts of kinetic energy at him and tried to trap him within their array, but he used [Mantle of the Everlasting Void] to protect him from any attacks that actually hit him and to teleport through the rest without issue.

They tried to chase him, but honestly, he was just too fast. He was already down the street before they turned the corner.

He kept on sprinting, enjoying the way the wind parted around his face. He noticed a smaller group ahead. They didn’t appear to have any arrays and were like the group he had come across when he first entered the floor, but he still didn’t stop to confront them. He blew past them, avoiding a particularly aggressive sword swing. He tossed a spike behind him at the swordsman but didn’t stay to see if it landed.

He continued his mad dash deeper into the sect. He came across several other groups along his way. Each of them tried to kill him, but thanks to his speed and occasional bursts of teleportation, he avoided being pinned down.

Which was a good thing because he had collected quite a large crowd behind him. He honestly hadn’t expected the groups he ran from to keep following him, but he could sense a large collection of auras behind him. He didn’t want to turn around to look either. He had a bad feeling that if he stopped, he’d get bombarded by enough attacks to bury him.

So the answer was simple: don't stop. He kept on running in blissful ignorance.

Unlike skill usage fatigue, stamina fatigue was something he could handle really well. He knew how hard he could push himself and knew how efficiently [Phoenix Incarnate] could revitalize him when he was feeling tired. He also had Drasil on standby in case he needed a little extra juice, but he was feeling good.

At least for the first couple of hours. However, it quickly became evident that the sect was either much larger than he anticipated, or something was up. He assumed the latter, given the nature of the previous floors and how they almost seemed to rearrange around him.

That being said, he still hadn’t found any fruits or anything that might have led him to one.

It didn’t help that so many groups were after him now, cornering him. He didn’t think they were communicating with each other; if they were, he'd be in a lot more trouble. But the more time he spent running, the more they managed to cut off certain routes or streets.

He was getting a bit frustrated and was about to change things up when he suddenly felt a slight flicker of something off to his left. His head snapped immediately to this signature, and he did his best to track it down.

He sent out a directional pulse of his spatial perception and found what had caught his attention.

Not wasting any time, he blasted himself in that direction. It was a good distance away, but at the speed he was pushing himself, he ate up the distance in no time.

Unfortunately, a large group, one with an array, was right in his way. They were directly in the path of what he had sensed, and he didn’t see any way to avoid them, not if he wanted time to see what it was.

He made his decision, lowered his head, and sprinted right at them. He felt them try to prepare something, but he decided to beat them to the punch. He sent a concentrated bolt of kinetic energy at them, mimicking their own attacks. He quickly followed that up with a wave of ruinous flames. His crown is doing most of the work for him.

He watched as they used their array to protect themselves. Unlike the previous groups he faced, this one seemed much better prepared for his ruinous flames. They contained it and snuffed it out without much strain.

That meant he didn’t have quite as much time as he would have hoped. Eight constructs of tightly compacted mana wove into existence over his shoulders, and before he could create more, he hurled them at the group.

He would have used a single, extremely enhanced construct, but they were separated, unlike that first group he managed to take down. He sent each spike at an opponent. Their speed wasn’t much slower than the large one he shot earlier, and they crashed into the array barrier with an earth-rumbling crack.

The barrier handled the first half of the salvo relatively well. But the final spikes tore a hole in the defensive barrier protecting them and slammed into his targets. They tried to move, but they put a lot of faith into the barrier and didn’t expect it when his spike pummeled them in their chests.

Two were grievously injured, and the other two flopped to the dirt, motionless.

He kept pressing forward, dodging the invisible barrage of kinetic and death energy blasts. He caught a few around his shoulders and feet, but his cloak and reinforcement skill protected him just enough to close the distance.

His fist, shrouded in void energy, blasted the arm off his nearest opponent, and he grabbed them by the other arm, swinging them around so their body blocked the next wave of kinetic blasts.

The body turned into a mist of black blood, and that gave him enough time to teleport away without being crushed.

He appeared behind the soul mage who had tried some funny business while Julius had been distracted. He’d been waiting for it, though. The second the soul attack was brushed aside, Julius locked onto his location.

It seemed like every large group had a soul mage or someone who could use soul attacks. Like the others, Julius was right there and tore the man’s head off before he could fight back.

He surrounded the head with mana and chucked it. The head burst apart on the white robes of the nearest opponent. The black blood stained the otherwise pristine robes.

Julius grinned, and before they could reorganize, he threw himself at them. He needed to take them down before the other groups arrived, and so there was no time to waste.