Chapter 592: Nullify
Inside a certain teleportation array, a high-ranking soldier stared at the back of Jace as he walked outside the barrier. The man looked around at the devastated soldiers and other invaders. The higher-ups had told him—along with all other higher-up soldiers—that if Jace appeared, they were to assist him. But he also expected to be informed of the man’s arrival beforehand, and he never expected something like what he was seeing.
Luckily, it didn’t seem that Jace was actually trying to kill anyone. Not many even entered a Dying State, and those who did were treated quickly. The most confusing thing out of all of it was the fact that as soon as everything started happening, the soldier had tried contacting his higher-ups, and the communication never connected. It hadn’t been like that since before the range boosters were installed.
It only seemed to be a problem with the higher-ups. To make sure, the soldier contacted many other regular soldiers from around the area, and almost all of them responded. Something was definitely strange, and he didn’t know what.
Jace felt his Battlelust as he left the array. It hadn’t gone as high as he would have liked in the time he and Silvi had been working so far, but it was still in his predicted range—just at the lower end. As soon as he stepped out of the array, he broke off in a sprint toward a forest where his friend’s companion waited.
He soon saw the bunny sitting beside a big pot, and without even so much as a wave, Jace barreled into the pot, reached over, and pulled the lid down, leaving him in utter darkness. Moments later, it felt as if he were moving. Then, in almost no time, light disrupted the dark, and he could see again.
Jace jumped out of the pot, looked forward, and smiled. Silvi had brought him extremely close to the array. He winked at his new friend, then took off in another dead sprint. There were no words exchanged between the two. They knew their jobs, and that’s what they were doing.
***
“This is it?” Ashley asked the elf that was standing next to her.
“That’s it,” Ryven replied. “Once the barriers are up, I only have to maintain them. As long as I’m not doing anything else tiring, I can keep them up for quite a while.” He then looked at the beautiful human woman next to him. “And you’re sure nobody can see us?” he asked. “We are really close to the Stronghold, and we’re standing out in the open.”
“As long as you don’t make any sudden movements, anyone who looks towards us will only see around us,” Ashley explained. “It would take someone with an insane amount of awareness, and probably wisdom, to see through the light. For all intents and purposes, we are not standing here. Unless, of course, someone walks directly at us… then we must move away… slowly.”
***
Derek ripped the void open and took a step out. The second his foot hit the floor, his knee momentarily collapsed, and he fell to it. He wasn’t prepared for the sudden attack, but almost instantly, he cracked his neck and pushed himself back to his feet.
When he looked up and around, he was able to lay his eyes on each Champion in the room. With a wide grin, he looked at the only person who wasn’t standing there, mouth agape. It was, of course, the Champion known as Amelia. While everyone else was confused or stunned, the woman had acted. Derek could feel that, even though he could push through the skill she was using with pure stats, his movement was certainly going to be limited.
“I got you… all,” Derek said with a savage grin on his face as he looked directly into the woman’s eyes. He held his arm out, and Harbinger appeared in his hand. Still looking around, his eyes fell on the blue woman—the one he needed to watch out for. “You…” he said, then slashed out with Harbinger while activating Spatial Rend.
Everything happened suddenly. By the time Derek’s first attack had gone off, Amelia was still the only one reacting properly, and the others were only just breaking out of their confusion.
“Trischa!” Amelia shouted as she shot toward the blue woman while keeping a hold on Derek with whatever skill it was that she was using. Seeing that she wasn’t going to make it, she held her palm out, and a ripple appeared in the room. The blue woman was blasted away and crashed into the wall just as a tear in the space as big as Derek could make one appeared right where she had been standing.
Amelia heaved a sigh of relief, but Derek tilted his head. “She seems important,” he said as he held his free hand out and closed it, activating Spatial Collapse. By this point, everyone had snapped out of their confusion—even Trischa.
The blue woman picked herself up off the ground as the cat-like woman started walking the woman’s way with potions wrapped up in her arms, all the while keeping an eye on Derek. Trischa then looked directly at Derek—specifically, at his palm. The woman’s hair began lifting up, and her eyes turned a dull shade of blue as she held both her hands up into the air with her palms pointing towards the sky. “Nullify!” she shouted.
Like that, Derek felt his Spatial Collapse die just as quickly as it had been formed. He was prepared for everything that was happening, but Jace had gotten to have all the fun acting over the last few days, so it was his turn. Derek frowned and narrowed his eyes in confusion. He squeezed air multiple times in Trischa’s direction. Then, he even took Harbinger and sliced it through the air a couple of times.
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“What the…” he muttered. Just to keep with the gag, he released his full aura instantly, dismissed Harbinger, stared deeply at the blue woman, then slowly pushed his hands together as if he was crushing her. However, nothing happened. Of course, he was completely making up the last try at using a skill. He only had a few spatial skills, after all. “What… did you do?” he asked.
“Forget it!” Amelia shouted. “Your attack abilities are nullified now. Give up and let the system take you away, and that will be that. I’ll personally make sure that there are no more casualties after this.”
Derek looked at his hand, then at the blue woman again. He pointed his hand at her like it was a gun, then he fired and activated Silvi’s Void Lightning Bolt at the same time. Nobody was prepared for the attack, and Derek wasn’t prepared for it to work. However, Void Lightning Bolt was fast when someone had stats as high as his—even if he could only use the level 10 version of it.
The skill actually hit the woman in the chest. The one-armed cat-like woman stopped walking and suddenly reappeared with the potions next to Trischa. Moments later, she was shoving some of the potions down her throat.
The ability of the void hadn’t even had time to work before they were healing her, which meant that they’d taken Jace seriously when he spoke of Derek’s skills. Still, the attack from the under-leveled Void Lightning Bolt was enough that when it did kick in, the woman faltered and spat up a mouthful of blood.
A couple of times, Derek felt he could finish casting Spatial Collapse. However, each time he tried, it would fizzle out from the flickering of the Nullify skill. Eventually, the blocking stabilized, and he could no longer feel it. He also flicked his wrist and found that he would have a hard time summoning from his spatial rings and bracelet.
That actually works out better for me. I don’t really need anything inside my storage, but they won’t be able to instantly summon things anymore. I feel… He reached for something inside his ring, then quietly nodded to himself. It would take me at least three or more seconds just to pull something out. He thought about Harbinger and smiled. Harbinger can come out at any time with no problem.
Finally, Derek looked back at Amelia. “My attacks haven’t been neutralized… just my spatial abilities. I’ll give you the same option that you gave me. Give up. Lose this invasion. And all of you go home safe and sound.”
“We cannot do that,” Amelia said. “This invasion is too important for us, as you should know.”
“Important?” Derek snorted and shrugged. “I’m doing the system a favor, not the other way around. I honestly couldn’t care less about the ‘importance’ of this invasion. I’m just not going to lose. It’s as simple as that. And from what I’ve seen, there’s nothing any of you in here can do to stop me.”
Suddenly, Derek disappeared with Active Void Shift and reappeared behind the blue woman. He loaded up a punch that would most definitely take her out. However, just before he released it, a giant of a man with four arms appeared in front of him to take the hit instead.
Quickly noting that his attack wouldn’t be enough to take out someone with such high defensive attributes and feeling that Amelia’s skill was falling on him again, he turned his head and yelled, “Stop that shit!” at someone nobody expected.
Using Active Void Shift again, he disappeared and reappeared behind the small blue guy who’d been bombarding his mind with assaults. The quick shift from before let him break out of Amelia’s hold once again and was just long enough to throw a single void-channeled punch directly at the center of the small, floating, blue man’s back. He didn’t hold back. He didn’t aim for the brain, so it shouldn’t be an instant death. So, when he added Multi-Strike into it just before the pressure fell back onto him, he knew exactly what to expect.
The one-armed woman rushed over to the small blue Champion just as she had done with Trischa, but even though she fed him a healing potion, whenever the attacks from the single punch landed on where Derek thought would be the man’s heart, he turned into light and then disappeared. The system had determined that he would no longer be capable of fighting without dying, so it had saved him.
“That’s one!” Derek said with a humorless smile. It’s also the one that can do all the mind-control crap. So, I won’t have to worry about him turning Jace against me… if it could even happen. I guess he wasn’t as smart as everyone thought he was. He continued to look at Amelia and said, “Six left. Do you give up now?”
“Are you not scared that our fight will harm the citizens of this Stronghold? Are their lives meaningless to you?” Amelia asked.
“Are you serious?” Derek resisted the urge to break out in laughter. “The only people in this Stronghold who are in danger are the invaders. Remember the rules of this… game? All the citizens who have no business fighting right now are protected. I can go all out all I want, and the only thing that’s going to hurt the people around here is the repair bill once I’m finished.”
“I know…” Amelia said with a bit of a smile, which confused Derek.
“Then why ask?”
“Because I was buying some time,” Amelia said, then yelled, “Trischa!”
“On it!” The blue woman had, at some point, lowered one of her arms. Now, she was slowly raising it back into the air alongside her other. “Grand…” She slowly mouthed. “Nullification!” Like that, Derek felt a deep emptiness that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Instantly, he knew that the void had really become a part of him. If not, then he wouldn’t feel what he was feeling. He almost laughed as he thought about the giant hole it had initially caused him after all that time stuck. However, he’d filled that void with a new life for himself and people to care about. It seems that I also filled that void with the real thing.
Even though he was prepared to have his void nullified, he’d hoped that the woman could only nullify a single affinity and that she would choose space. But that didn’t seem to be the case. Still, the emptiness was not a feeling he was expecting. However, it only took him a few seconds before he was able to completely pull himself together. Also, with the name of that skill… I’d say the max is two affinities… and by the look of her…
“That looks like it hurts,” he said as he looked down at the blue woman. She was on her knees, doubled over, heaving for air but doing all she could to keep her arms up.
“Trischa!” Amelia’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”
“His… his void…” the woman cried desperately. “It’s… so strong.” She finally slowly brought her head up, and Derek winced as he saw her. She was bleeding from her eyes, nose, ears, mouth… even the pores on her skin had blood coming from them. “I… won’t be able to hold it for long.”
“Release one of them!” Amelia shouted. “We’ll fight like that. It’s okay!”
“I… can’t…” Trischa heaved out as Briya tried dumping potion after potion onto her wounds or into her mouth, only for nothing to help. “If I… try to do anything… I’ll lose… it all. I can… keep this up… for… thirty minutes… maybe a bit more.”
Amelia’s face grew grave, and she turned to look at each of the remaining Champions, and Darvin, who was hovering behind everyone. She gave them all a nod and said, “No more talking. Let’s finish this!”
“Wait!” Derek yelled. “I want to talk more… say… thirty minutes? Maybe a bit longer?” He smiled, then held his arm out—summoning Harbinger once again. “But… if you’re going to insist…”