Chapter 437 - Against One's Will
These sonic waves kept drilling into the heads of Daniel and the millions of civilians, forcing them on the ground, to vomit the contents of their stomachs, as well as bleed from the ears and scream in pain. Yet, no sound could be heard.
Even if Daniel had been able to think, he would have not been able to understand what was causing all of this. After all, the attack was auditory in nature, and was exclusive to civilizations which had developed through the use of technology, instead of cultivation. That was the power of ultrasounds.
Generally used in the world of espionage, sound essence was one of the rare essences which were difficult to understand. The reason for that, was not because of a lack of chances to, but because sounds could not be seen, and its comprehension was limited to what the human ear could pick up. While not completely absent within the territory of the universal government, their technology had only evolved around the support of the known path of cultivation, limiting their progress to a certain extent.
Beyond those limitations, lay the weaknesses of cultivators, or at least, those bereaved of the powers of a child of Iewah.
After a few painful seconds, Daniel's mental fortitude took over the state of panic he had felt, allowing him to gain a degree of lucidity. The pain was still torturing him, and he could feel his powerful organs churn in discomfort. However, his mind was clear enough to formulate a plan.
Without stopping to think for too long, he activated Time is Precious, and started to analyze what was wreaking havoc inside his body. There, he found an almost invisible sound wave which used the liquid composition of his body, to incapacitate him with high frequency vibrations, and in a similar way, was hurting the inhabitants of his planet.
The formation around Daniel's planet was an illusory one, and it was made to trick the senses. However, an illusory formation did not change the composition of the planet, which remained vulnerable to sound attacks despite its protections.. after all, sound mostly traveled through air and water, and illusory essence was not able to stop it. Knowing what was hurting him and his friends, Daniel was quickly able to stop this ultrasounds from reaching him by separating the space which surrounded his body and planet from the sources of these sonic waves.
He then modified a portion of the essence produced by his planet into healing essence, with which he quickly flooded the cities, and invaded the bodies of its millions of inhabitants.
Unwavered by Daniel's abilities, the attackers immediately stopped emitting sound waves, and instead, turned their attention towards him. With a speed which Daniel was unable to follow, these individuals disappeared from where they were floating, turning into flashes of light which quickly formed a sphere-like barrier which encapsulated Daniel, and his entire planet.
On the surface of this reddish bubble, Daniel could hardly see a few flashes of light move in a random pattern, just like the electrons of an atom.
"What is going on? Who are these little ones?" Asked a disembodied voice right before a massive mountain chain present on Daniel's planet began to fall apart, and from its rubble, emerged the immense figure of Xargy in his original draconic form.
"Are you okay?" Asked Daniel while keeping his control over the space which contained his planet.
"I heard a loud noise that woke me up from my slumber." Responded Xargy with annoyance, unbothered by the sonic wave, which clearly did not have the same effect on him, as it had on humans.
The sudden apparition of Xargy came to a great surprise for the attackers, who slowed their motion in order to observe something that, apparently, they had never seen before., almost as if something like Xargy could only be seen in books. However, soon after, this group of warriors immediately went back to their task.
"Light them up." Said Daniel after turning to look at Xargy, from whom he received a grin.
Immediately after, Xargy's massive wings started to flap heavily, and along with the mighty muscles of his legs, pushed him off the ground, and into the air. His chest swelled as the air in front of him turned into two typhoons, and entered his city-wide lungs, and with another flap of his wings, he disappeared.
The distance between the ground and the bubble was covered in moments, as he reappeared midway between the two, right outside of the planet's atmosphere. From his bright purple nostrils, copious amounts of smoke came out, only to dissipate when in contact with space.
From in between the scales of his chest, a purple shine foretold what came next. The exhalation of a column of magical purple flames with the power of thousands of volcanoes.. a column of liquid flames which crashed directly against the reddish bubble, and spread for thousands of kilometers in every direction.
After a long minute, devoid of breath, Xargy closed his mouth and looked expectantly to see what effect his attack would have, but as the last bit of flames were smothered by the empty space, he noticed that the barrier was still present, seemingly unaffected by his attack.
In Daniel's eyes this barrier was formed by lightning essence, but he could not understand how that was possible. The gases in open space were too dispersed for these warriors to turn them into plasma, and yet, they had been able to shape it into a barrier that surrounded his entire planet.
Trapped within this barrier, Daniel considered whether to give up on the spatial barrier and teleport before these warriors could once against attack them through the use of sound, but he quickly gave up on the idea the moment he looked up, and noticed how fast the movement of each of these individuals was.
His only hope was to dismantle the barrier, and while he did not have a way at the moment, that did not mean that his system could not provide him with one.
He quietly closed his eyes, and when they reopened only a few seconds later, his pupils flashed on the surface of the bubble, only to stop a few seconds later. From his body dozens of metallic needles started to emerge, and with a faint push of his internal essence, they were shot with a speed which could not match the rapidity with which these people moved on the bubble's surface, but that was still difficult to see with the naked eye.
While slower, the moment the first needle reached the bubble, one of the flashes of light happened to dash in front of it, and as the two clashed, after a faint metallic noise, the warrior's motion was permanently slowed down, causing the barrier to become slightly weaker.
Soon after, numerous other needles reached the surface of the barrier, and while most missed their target, the sheer number was enough to grant the success of Daniel's plan. The flashes of light kept slowing down, and at the same time, the barrier kept dimming in power. "AGAIN!" Shouted Daniel to Xargy, who immediately reacted by combusing the content of his lungs, and discharging it against the weakened barrier once more.
This time, the attack was successful, and the column of purple fire was able to pierce the reddish barrier, and push through it.
Following the destruction of the barrier, the motion of these unknown warriors stopped, as they turned to look at Daniel with shock.
What Daniel had learned from the mission he had formulated with his system, was that these individuals were artificially creating a bubble of lightning by using their highly advanced equipment. One item powered by an odd grey metal which was beyond Daniel's comprehension of metal essence, and whose power allowed these warriors to move at a pace close to the speed of light, and a second object, which was able to attract the sparse gases from the surroundings, and release them right after.
What he did not know, was that the electric charge that was allowing them to move to the speed of light, was used to heat the gases present in space to turn them into plasma. This plasmic barrier was kept in place by their movements, and was turned into a bubble of lightning with a power beyond the hundreds of millions of amperes. A power which he could not imitate, even with the highest extent of his cultivation.
The mission which Daniel had created, had allowed him to attack the weak spot of this technological formation, the equipment of these warriors. If not for Daniel's control over time essence, he would have never been able to hit those specific points on the armor of his opponents, and even though he had, his needles had missed more times than they had hit.
As soon as the barrier dissipated, he used the moment of surprise he had caused in his enemies to dissipate the spatial barrier around his planet, and tried to teleport out of danger, but he quickly stopped as he realized that something was wrong.
For someone with a perfect spatial comprehension, space was not different from water. The molecules of water would move around in its container, but no matter what, the water was the same, and a drop of water from another source, would change it forever. Similarly, the space of which Daniel's planet was previously surrounded by had a taste, appearance, and composition. One that did not match the space that was surrounding them right now.
"Something is wrong.. I can't feel any familiar smell!" Said Xargy with a deep shock.
"We have teleported. There is no doubt about it." Said Nova, the spatial elemental.. Just as surprised by the fact that they had moved into a completely different area of the universe, without even noticing.
After hearing the words of his companions, Daniel closed his eyes, and tried to open what he considered as one of the most important active missions in his system. The mission that would lead him to reunite with Alesia, which only a few hours before, said that the two would be able to meet in a specific place, within nine years of time.
Now, on the other hand, the mission had changed. The timing of the mission had disappeared, and in its stead, was a different objective.
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*Primary Quest started: Missing Pieces*
-Description: Reunite with Alesia and Gai'ha.
First objective set: Reach the wormhole, and go back to the Universal Government.
Reward: ???
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"They.." muttered Daniel while staring at the unfamiliar space with horror.
Daniel's expression attracted the attention of his friends. The first one to talk was Xargy, "What is it? What happened?" he asked before shifting into his human form, and approaching the dumbfounded companion.
"They teleported us through the wormhole.. We are in alien territory, millions of light years away from our civilization." Said Daniel, shaken awake by the worry of his companion. However, instead of explaining any further, he disappeared.
Faster than the eye could see, Daniel teleported to each and every one of the enemies who, unable to use their damaged equipment to avoid his attacks, were killed off one by one. In a matter of seconds. The only survivors were the two leaders.
One of the two, covered by a featureless mask, yet visibly unwilling to stay in the clutches of the monster they had captured, rotated his bracelet by ninety degrees, causing the space in front of him to bend.
To Daniel, Nova, and Edmund, it seemed that the entire universe was folding on itself. The only time they had been present to such a humongous event, was when they had witnessed the cosmic beings which carried the concept of collapsed space, and had destroyed the dimension which was now known as the void.
Daniel observed with curiosity as the space opened, forming a long corridor that led to a different far away point in space.
Differently from the concept of portals, this corridor did not lock two points in space, and formed a connection by tearing space itself. Instead, it shortened the distance between the two, by creating a shortcut that could be traveled. This corridor needed more time to be created, and yet, it was more stable than a portal, and worked on much longer distances.
The two survivors had not joined the other warriors in creating the plasma barrier, so instead of waiting for Daniel to awake from his surprised state, the two turned into two flashes of lightning, and dashed into the spatial corridor, sure that with their max speed, they would be able to escape the danger.
Their hopes turned into reality, as they were able to cross through the corridor in a matter of instants, and before anybody else could follow them through it, they close it.
Unfortunately for them, the two lacked the knowledge regarding the use of spatial essence, otherwise, they would have known that as long as a spatial cultivator was able to see a point in space, just like Daniel had seen the other end of the corridor, they would be able to teleport there, given enough time for them to create a stable portal.
Slightly reassured, the two prepared to open another wormhole and report what had happened, when suddenly, the space in front of them tore open, and from it, walked out an enraged Daniel.