Novel Full Chapter 943: Gaining Advantage
Chapter 943: Gaining Advantage
The moment Shojo showed intent to attack, Michael’s two other Rank 4 undead reacted.
But they were a beat too slow.
In the end they were just two newly revived undead. However capable they were in terms of raw power, or however much of their original strength they had retained or gained through the resurrection process, they were still operating with the particular dullness that came with being freshly raised.
The instincts were there, preserved in some form within the body and the remnants of what they had been, but the edges were not sharp yet.
The Rank 4 demonic supernatural was a particular case as well, as its consciousness had been devoured by Jester to extract information.
One’s true self was ultimately rooted in the soul rather than the mind, so there had been no catastrophic loss but an empty skull was still an empty skull.
A problem like this would have resolved itself naturally given time. It did not require focused training or special intervention. Even without deliberate effort, a new undead left to simply exist would gradually accumulate traces of a new identity, filling in the gaps that resurrection had left behind.
Unfortunately, at the moment Michael two rank 4 undead were more like new Ai tools.
All three released their domains at the same time, though the two undead were a fraction slower.
The sky changed immediately.
Above them, centered on Shojo, the sky reddened, spreading outward from Shojo’s position toward the ground where Michael and his undead stood.
It wanted to envelop them.
On Michael’s left, the demonic supernatural released its domain.
The ground in that direction changed first. A dark empty world spread outward from where it stood, colorless and flat, with black water lying still across its surface.
On Michael’s right, the Drakeblood’s domain opened.
A fiery mountain range erupted into being, peaks appearing in an instant, their surfaces deep red and black with veins of molten rock running between them. Heat radiated outward immediately, pressing against the air.
The three domains met at their midpoints, but instead of any dramatic explosion as Michael had expected, they cancelled themselves out. Every phenomenon that had just appeared disappeared without a trace, as though the three worlds that had briefly existed had never manifested at all.
Michael knew a bit about the methods of Rank 4 supernaturals, but what he knew was at most the basics, leaving him largely clueless as he could only watch as his undead and Shojo exchange a move.
If Michael had been a bit more knowledgeable about Rank 4 combat, he would have understood immediately why the domains had cancelled themselves out rather than any of the three producing any clear advantage.
Every Rank 4 domain was independent. Each one was a projection of its owner’s law outward into the surrounding world. The strength of a domain was directly tied to the strength of the one behind it, which meant two domains of similar power pressing against each other would produce exactly what had happened here. A cancellation.
The logic extended further than that, however, and this was where things became complicated in a way Michael has yet to realise.
Shojo had faced a two on one situation. One domain against two. By any surface reading, that should have been an advantage for Michael’s side. But that was not how domains worked.
Two domains released in the same space did not combine their strength. They remained independent of each other even when their owners were on the same side, each one occupying the contested area as a separate influence.
The result was not doubled pressure against Shojo.
It was three separate domains all pressing against each other simultaneously, with the same cancellation logic applying across all three relationships at once.
What should have been a coordinated advantage had instead produced a three-way stalemate.
If one of the two undead happened to be individually stronger than Shojo in terms of domain strength, that undead might have been able to gain a genuine advantage in a direct one on one clash. But the moment the second undead released its domain alongside it, that potential advantage collapsed.
Unless the gap in power between the parties was large enough that one domain could simply overpower everything else present, releasing multiple domains in the same space was counterproductive.
Clueless, Michael watched from his position and thought his undead were doing reasonably well.
However, the cancellation did not mean the exchange was over.
Shojo seemed to have expected his first move would fail, but what Michael and his group did not expect was for Shojo to immediately release its domain a second time.
The red sky returned and enveloped them.
Michael saw a mass of red mist envelope hhim but it was too late and he plus his two undead entered Shojo’s domain.
The world shifted.
One moment Michael was standing on the fractured earth of the clearing beneath an open sky. The next, the scene in front of him changed.
The ground beneath his feet was soft and yielding, muddy and wet. It was deep red in color and one look sent a chill down Michael’s spine.
Not only was the ground red and wet with red liquid, but the sky above was also red.
Perhaps it was more accurate to say the sky was a mass of liquid blood hovering in mid air.
Most importantly, everything smelled of iron.
Michael looked around at the space they had been pulled into and felt the pressure pressing against him from every direction at once.
At the same time he felt his strength reduced, which he immediately linked to being inside Shojo’s domain.
The current situation reminded him of hell where certain rules related to the alternate space suppressed many things.
This was home ground advantage.
Just as Michael noticed the reduction in his strength, a figure appeared above him and his undead under the blood sky.
It was Shojo, except this time it was not in its human form but in its true form.