Chaos Heir

Chapter 1405: Imagination

Incredible speed could give birth to what looked like instantaneous movements, but some time still had to pass for a body to change location, no matter how infinitesimal.

Even teleports weren’t exactly instantaneous. Depending on their casting speed and the period a body required to stabilize in its new location, they could be faster or slower than sprints. They were immediate by every definition of the word, but still demanded some time.

Also, be it sprint or teleports, they both left tracks that warriors could spot or react to, depending on the sharpness of their senses. In a way, every technique abided by a certain balance, featuring advantages and disadvantages, making nothing in the universe undeniably perfect.

Nevertheless, the evolved warrior felt to have witnessed something that proved that notion wrong, albeit with some caveats.

Despite the accumulated momentum, Rodney had vanished from his position, as if he had never been there in the first place.

At the same time, Rodney had instantly appeared behind the evolved warrior, again as if he had always been there. It was as if the previous evasive maneuver and sprint had been nothing more than an illusion, but the black alien saw through those deceptive clues.

Everything about the exchange was still there. The nine gaseous, worm-like creatures showed signs of their previous assault, and the same went for the mana Rodney had released to slip through it.

However, any trace of Rodney’s existence disappeared right before the vast, elliptical mouth. Instead of crashing into the alien evolved warrior’s main creature, Rodney had vanished without releasing any noticeable energy.

The event defied reason, but the answers lay elsewhere. The world indeed had no leftovers from techniques, spells, or unfathomable sprints, but the fabric of reality seemed shaken, almost looking more confused than the evolved warrior.

Rodney couldn’t stop himself in time to dodge the huge elliptical mouth. He couldn’t even come out of the crash unscathed. Nothing he wielded or knew could save him from that exchange, let alone allow him to come out on top, so he had changed reality itself.

Nevertheless, the miraculous technique had limits. Rodney had unleashed a spell that couldn’t be dodged since it came into existence directly as complete, but the attack itself was lacking for similar reasons.

Rodney felt tired beyond reason while standing behind his opponent, his arm stretched at his fuming nape. Blood rained down his nostrils, but his brain burned too much to capture that sensation, and even his enhanced, reptilian vision narrowed, its edges blurring, seemingly hinting at imminent fainting.

Still, Rodney was no stranger to that terrible condition. He had trained himself to endure it, and the power boost from the Great Old One’s mutagen greatly helped, even if only to make him aware of his failure.

Rodney’s piercing finger had hit its target, cutting through the dense, glowing smoke on the alien’s back and strands of his hair to reach his nape. Yet, the impact on that black skin didn’t go as well.

Rodney’s fingertip had indeed pierced the alien’s nape, but only slightly. The cut wasn’t even a centimeter deep, and black smoke was already flowing out of the shallow wound, closing it. A single drop of black blood had fallen from it, but the bleeding had stopped at that.

The scene was quite disappointing, considering that Rodney had to pull off an actual miracle to get that far. However, that conclusion was also understandable.

Rodney could think of himself being behind the black alien, but his brain failed to imagine his finger stabbing through that black neck.

Part of it was due to the ethereal opposition Rodney had witnessed with the nine gaseous creatures. The evolved warrior was instinctively surrounded by something even stronger, which hindered Rodney’s technique, limiting what his brain could imagine despite those thoughts only happening in his mind.

Moreover, Rodney had yet to test, study, and find ways to overcome the evolved warrior’s natural and artificial defenses. He couldn’t imagine what he didn’t know. Actually, he could try, but the consequences would be disastrous if miscalculations happened.

Ultimately, Rodney had his inferiority to blame. Even without pulling off miracles, his attack would have killed or, at least, done more damage if he were as strong as the alien-lover’s greatest fan, swinging his sword at some distance away from him.

Yet, Rodney didn’t meet any of those requirements, so his attack failed. His first one, that was.

Rodney fought against his burning brain to forcefully retract his arm, slamming his elbow on the tide of smoke behind him. He knew how that substance worked, so his attack released a shockwave that spread through it and affected its very fabric.

What followed precisely matched Rodney’s imagination. The tide of smoke froze before losing its structural integrity, dispersing in the sky and revealing the previously submerged, melted building.

The alien moved, prompting Rodney to retreat. He stepped aside a few times, putting some distance from his opponent, only to discover that the latter had never planned to attack him.

The evolved warrior reached for his nape, diving through his intact and severed black strands and smoke to search for the drop of blood still on his neck. He retrieved it, retracting his hand to study it under his scarlet eyes, seemingly interested in the fact that he could bleed.

Of course, Rodney didn’t dare to hope that his opponent could have such a glaring weakness. His money was on the fact that his technique had surprised the alien. After all, his element was quite magical, and he had even pushed it into realms that defied rational thinking.

Yet, Rodney soon realized he would have lost that bet. The evolved warrior calmly turned toward him, stretching his right arm to let his main gaseous creature coil around it again, before showing his calm face and doing the unthinkable.

The evolved warrior’s thin lips parted, releasing a sound that Rodney’s brain translated without relying on his newfound knowledge of the Nak’s language.

“[Imagination],” The black alien said, telling Rodney that he had him and his power figured out.