There was a barrier in every church building that was set up to provide surveillance on heretics and pagans; the Church called this barrier a ‘Holy Ground’. However, considering the embarrassing turn of events that was Godsfall infiltrating the Church, the barrier did not seem to have done its job, as they had hoped.
However, the Astrologer Walker seemed to be suggesting something completely different from the church barriers. He was suggesting that the special space Baiyi was in may be similar to the special space he once saw in the sky, which seemed to have a galaxy painted in it. Whatever that space was, the Astrologer Walker had concluded that Baiyi had entered something similar.
That deduction did nothing for Baiyi, though. He could not leave the space, neither could he check on the kids. What would he do if Godsfall sent more assassins after them? What would the kids have been thinking when they felt the power the vibrations emanating from Baiyi’s previous battle? Would they have been worried or frantic?
Baiyi’s mind was slowly filling up with thoughts, and he began to lose his calm and cool.
“Hush, son. Relax. They have a dragon with them, remember? You should have faith in her,” the Archmage tried to console his apprentice.
‘But, she acts like she needs someone to take care of her, too,’ Baiyi thought, feeling helpless.
“Perhaps this is the opportunity for you to conduct an experiment. If it was your use of Void Energy that brought you here, then what will happen if it is continuously applied?” The Scholar reminded him. “Take care to remember that the result may not even be mildly discomposing, or it could trigger a chain reaction that influences innumerable variables. Try it at your own discretion.”
“I kinda have to try, don’t you think? I can’t be stuck in this place forever,” said Baiyi. He willed the power within his body to transform into Void Energy. The process was slower than usual because he was exercising caution. He cast his psychic energy out around him, expanding it to cover as much of the area as it could, and he used it to observe the surrounding intently.
However, when Baiyi’s body became filled with so much Void Energy that black flames were visible through the cracks in his armor, nothing happened to him or the surrounding. If something did change, then he had not felt it.
“No response? Now that’s infuriating,” Baiyi said, feeling fed up. Black flames began to coalesce around his right hand, solidifying to form a pitch-black javelin. Was he planning to forcefully pierce through this space with his energy?
“Let’s see if this triggers a response!”
Baiyi hurled the javelin at the ground with all his might. A resounding, heaven-shuddering explosion erupted the moment the javelin struck the ground. The world seemed to tremble a bit, and the black javelin burst into black flames on impact. The pitch-black flames quickly spread through the surrounding, consuming everything in its path.
The earth, sand, and shrubs were all reduced into white ashes. The area around Baiyi was suddenly clouded with darkness. It as if the crater had bored so deep into the ground, the Void beneath the realm was left exposed. From high up in the sky, it looked as though this barren wasteland had suddenly sprouted a huge, pitch-black eye.
Baiyi’s psychic energy began to sense something different after the shock. He quickly produced the War God’s Sword, and made it transformed its shape into a mushroom’s. It had become something like a radar. When Baiyi checked the reading on the radar, which the sword had become, he noticed something peculiar and flew in the direction that the radar had pinpointed. A while later, Baiyi spotted the faint outline of a silhouette in the distance. As he flew closer, Baiyi noticed that the silhouette seemed human in shape. From afar, Baiyi scanned it with his psychic energy and got a strange result. Whatever was there had no vitality in it; it might as well have been a rock.
When Baiyi landed, he raised his head and was instantly taken aback by what he saw.
Standing right in front of Baiyi, and eyeing him with glassy eyes, was the Northern Warrior, who should have been dead.
The sinister nature of events had escalated from 0 to 100. Last Baiyi had checked, this Northern Warrior was already dead. His internal organs had been completely obliterated by Frozen Fire, leaving him with a zero possibility of staying alive. Baiyi did not check the man’s possession when he died because he had turned into a huge ice sculpture when he died.
However, the simple corpse-manipulation technique that had been applied to Nergal did not seem to be the culprit behind this strange situation. The Northern Warrior in front of Baiyi looked healthy. There were no signs of rigor mortis, which was normally visible in reanimated corpses, neither were there any injuries or blemishes. The Northern Warrior’s face was filled with healthy colors, nothing like the pale complexion of a corpse. Even his eyes, which continued to stare at Baiyi, seemed as spirited as a normal human’s eye.
Then Northern Warrior looked exactly like a living person, and he even seemed tranquil.
He did not seem like he was a type of undead. Therefore, he could only be something else.
However, Baiyi felt no signs of life within him. No heartbeat, no breathing; dead. A dead person who was standing as though he was still alive. It seemed like a supernatural state that was between life and death.
“Is ‘pretending to die’ a skill required from you Godsfall cultists?” Baiyi stood at a safe distance and asked the Northern Warrior.
Nothing. The Northern Warrior just looked at Baiyi with an unyielding tranquility, and the glow in his eyes flickered as though it had a message behind it.
“Did you do this?” Baiyi continued, gesturing at the surrounding.
Still nothing. The soul armature and the Northern Warrior stood facing each other as though in a quiet Mexican standoff.
“Urgh. This is kinda annoying,” Baiyi muttered under his breath, and the energy within his body began to condense mobilize. Black flames began to coalesce in his palm, completely engulfing his gauntlets.
This time, the Northern Warrior reacted. His body trembled a little and suddenly turned transparent. It was though someone had adjusted its opacity. This made it look like some sort of phantom. Suddenly, its body began to twist and morph.
When the translucence reduced and the figure was opaque again, Baiyi found himself facing someone completely different — a man wearing a black cloak and holding a broken longbow.
“What the actual f*ck are you?!” Baiyi asked hoarsely. This was no simple corpse rebirth ruse. The way the figure had changed its appearance was simply too… disturbing.
The archer did not answer Baiyi; instead, it began to change again. When the transformation was over, standing in front of Baiyi was a snow-white great fox, which greatly resembled Baiyi’s student, Zakum!
Then, as if it was hosting its own show, the figure proceeded to transform into a lot of people that Baiyi knew; Aya, Mordred, Sunny the sunflower, Potter the owl, Laeticia. Soon, it had transformed into every student Baiyi currently had, and finally, Little Mia was standing in front of Baiyi.
“You son of a b*tch!” Baiyi’s growled; his patience had finally run out. The black flames that covered his gauntlets erupted and surged towards the Little Mia before she could even react, and she was soon promptly converted by the roaring flames.
When the black flames dissipated, only Little Mia’s upper torso remained. The scene looked so real, Baiyi felt his chest wringing in pain, and he decided to stay his hand.
“What is this bloody thing? Is something similar to that owl, Sunny?” Baiyi asked in the Void.
“Judging from its ability to retain half of its body after being doused by the black flames, I’ll say this isn’t something as normal as a Shadownyx Owl,” the Archmage replied with a hint of urgency. “Watch out! It’s morphing again!”
The disfigured Mia, who had only her upper torso left, turned transparent and began to twist. By the time the figure was opaque again, it had morphed into a figure that was putting on a silver-grey armor, a helmet that had antlers protruding out of the top of its sides, and a shoulder guard that had tiny wings protruding out of them. The silver-grey armor had a few cracks on it, from which black flames were cackling out of.
It had turned into the Fifth Walker himself!
“Oh, that’s it.” Baiyi nodded and released every bit of Void Energy he had stored up. A pitch-black wave of energy, which resembled black ink, wrapped around Baiyi, encasing him in a sphere of energy.
“Begone!” Baiyi shouted in a low, hoarse voice, and he shot out a chain of black lightning at his doppelganger.
The figure reacted completely differently, this time. It quickly pulled a rod that greatly resembled Baiyi’s Saing Quartz Staff and began to twirl it around itself. It twirled the staff so fast, the staff left behind afterimages, which proceeded to form a dorm-shaped barrier around the figure. When the black lightning struck the dome, it was easily deflected.
“M-m-mah Molocchian Tanoura! N-no way!” the Sorcerer Walker cried out in disbelief from the Void.
“It’s not over yet!” Baiyi said. His left hand made a grasping motion in the air and crushed an icicle that no one could know had been shot at him. Then, he stirred his Void Energy and made it erupt. The explosion forced the doppelganger to back away only a millisecond after it had suddenly appeared behind Baiyi.
“Coup de Grace?! Does this thing have all of the powers you have?” The Archmage cried out in alarm.
“Probably not everything, ” Baiyi replied calmly. He balled his right hand into a fist, and pitch-black flames instantly appeared beside the doppelganger, then the black flames began to encircle its target.
However, just when the tongue of the flame was about to lick the doppelganger, it leaped high up into the air. Then, in mid-air, it twirled its Saint Quartz Staff twisted, and the staff turned into the War God’s Sword. With a downward aim, the doppelganger swung the sword at Baiyi.
“You may look like me, but I would never use a technique as basic as Leap-Chop,” Baiyi muttered coldly.
Baiyi forcefully brought his palms together in front of his chest, and ropes made out of the pitch-black flames manifested around the airborne doppelganger. The pitch-black flame ropes wrapped themselves around the doppelganger securely, and no matter how it struggled, it could not break free.
In less than a second, Baiyi hurled a black spear at the doppelganger, which was heading straight for its chest.
With a loud bang, the spear struck its target perfectly, and then both the projectile and the doppelganger exploded into a blaze of black fireworks.
“You did it?” The Archmage blurted frantically.
“Not quite,” Baiyi replied, turning around just in time to see the figure reforming itself.
He added with a twinge of irony, “You can’t beat me that easily.”