Chapter 128: Twin Peaks
Evan woke up slowly.
For a moment he stayed still, eyes closed, as a pleasant sensation wrapped around his entire body.
A gentle warmth flowed through every fiber of his being, spreading from deep within his chest all the way to the tips of his limbs. Wherever it passed, it left behind a feeling of lightness and relief, as though every wound, every ache, and every trace of the terrible agony he’d endured before were being quietly erased.
It was so comfortable that, for a moment, Evan simply wanted to let himself be carried away by it and forget everything else.
Then the memories of what had happened before he lost consciousness came rushing back, and he finally opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was two round, mountainous hills, draped in a thin white veil that gave off a certain sense of elegance while also making the whole view considerably more attractive.
He felt his head resting against something soft, softer than anything he could think of, and it didn’t take him long to add two and two together.
’Well, this is one way to wake up,’ he thought, unable to come up with a better description for the wonderful feeling he was experiencing.
He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes again, drift back into the world of dreams, and enjoy it for a little longer.
Unfortunately, the owner of those two inviting hills noticed that he had woken up.
Moments later, Seraphine’s beautiful face entered his view, looking down at him with an amused smile, as though she could tell exactly what was going through his mind.
"Good morning, princess. Sleep well?" Seraphine’s voice rang out, calm and gentle as always, with that undercurrent of playfulness she never quite managed to hide.
"Mm. Not bad, but I think I could use another hour or two," Evan said, doing his best not to look even remotely shameless about it.
At those words, a mischievous expression settled across the goddess’s face, and she didn’t hold back.
"As much as I wouldn’t mind letting you rest a little longer, I’m afraid you can’t afford that luxury right now," she said.
Something in her tone made him pause.
Only then did his mind start registering the area around them, and immediately, he noticed what appeared to be a thin barrier of translucent energy separating the outside world from the inside, creating a peaceful shelter amidst the raging blizzard.
So far, so good.
If not for the countless Forsaken standing just beyond it.
’Damn it, at least give me a minute to recover,’ he mentally cursed the woman as he scrambled to his feet and prepared to fight, already suspecting she was the one who had drawn them here in the first place.
He really wanted to strangle her, but he had neither the strength nor the time, because in the very next instant, the transparent barrier began dissolving slowly.
He scanned his surroundings and spotted his sword on the ground. With a swift motion, he picked it up from the ground and prepared for battle.
His first instinct was to channel mana into the blade and release a wide-range attack covering the entire area, but he stopped himself. The memory of their last encounter flashed through his mind.
’Right, I can’t use mana carelessly here,’ he thought, not wanting to set off another chain reaction with the snow around them.
He ran through his options. Brute force against that many creatures wasn’t going to hold up for long.
Then he remembered something else in his arsenal.
’Right, why didn’t I think of this sooner?’
He tightened his grip on the sword as a dark layer of energy began coating the blade. Not mana, but Void Energy.
The barrier dispersed completely, and without a moment’s delay the Forsaken launched themselves at him at full speed.
He’d already noted they were inside a shallow cave, with the opening close and completely blocked by those things. No room to retreat, no way around them.
So he attacked.
With a sharp forward motion, he released a void energy infused slash straight into the first wave of Forsaken, catching them dead center.
He braced for the impact, for resistance, for the kind of brutal exchange he’d gotten used to.
What happened instead was something else entirely.
The creatures at the front of the charge seemed to hesitate as the slash approached, as if something about it frightened them, but they had no time to act on it. The blade of energy reached them, and in the next instant, something bizarre unfolded.
It cut through them like paper.
No resistance. No pushback. It passed through the entire group in a matter of seconds and kept going, carving straight out the other side.
And then, the wounded creatures began to scream. Before Evan could even process what he was seeing, their bodies started collapsing inward, as though being sucked toward some point deep inside them, until within seconds they simply ceased to exist.
[Ding! You have slain a D-Rank (Advanced-Stage) Forsaken!]
[You have earned +20,000 ESS]
[Ding! You have slain a C-Rank (Mid-Stage) Forsaken!]
[You have earned +100,000 Inspiration Capsules]
[Ding! You have slain a C-Rank (Advanced-Stage) Forsaken!]
[You have earned +200,000 ESS]
...
[Ding! You have slain a B-Rank (Early-Stage) Forsaken!]
[You have earned +1,000,000 ESS]
Evan: "..."
A single void-energy slash had wiped out the majority of the Forsaken, sending the rest of the group fleeing in what looked very much like genuine terror. At least six or seven had been eliminated, nearly all C-rank, with one D-rank, and one B-rank among them.
Evan was so stunned that he completely failed to notice the subtle change taking place inside his body the moment he received that enormous amount of ESS.
[Ding! Your affinity with the Space element has increased!]
[Ding! Your affinity with the Space element has increased!]
[Ding! Your affinity with the Space element has increased!]
...
Several notifications about his Space affinity rolled in, and he quickly understood what had happened. His body was being struck by the Law of Space again, but this time, instead of tearing him apart, it was simply being absorbed, each wave pushing his comprehension of it a little further.
He raised his hand.
A subtle, almost invisible force coiled around it, a force that bent the space around his palm ever so slightly, distorting reality in a thin radius around his fingers.
The Law of Space. And his affinity had grown high enough that he was starting to exercise actual control over it, even if only in the smallest possible quantities.
"Well... now this is a nice surprise," he murmured.