Chapter 781: Everlasting Void

The missing piece may have been obvious in hindsight, but he hadn’t really understood it at the time. Yet, the second he connected with the new Concept of Space, he felt the difference immediately.

The vivid sensations he received from the Concept when he manipulated his void energy were unlike anything he’d experienced before. It was like his entire world opened up to void energy. If he had to compare it to something, he’d say it was like wearing a pair of broken glasses his whole life, only to finally receive a new pair of unbroken ones for Christmas.

However, even that didn’t seem to fully explain the differences. He felt his connection to void energy deepen, and as he formed a thin layer of it over his hand, he immediately got a notification.

[Pseudo Void Manipulation lvl 15 -> lvl 17]

He had gotten one of these levels from the brief fight with the big troll. Still, gaining one level just by playing with it was something else entirely.

Furthermore, how the new Concept interacted with his [Absolute Spatial Perception] was truly interesting. His sphere of perception was always active and always quite detailed. It required a lot of brainpower just to keep track of all the information he received from it.

Yet, there was something new added to the skill, or rather, his perception. It was hard to explain, but he had an instinctual ability to feel the folds of space unlike ever before.

Deciding to test it out, he slowly reached out to one of these folds. It didn’t take much, and his will immediately connected with this point in space. Then he gently sent a bit of void energy through this new connection and watched with fascination as a small tear opened up in space.

It was invisible to the naked eye, but his spatial senses barely caught it. The phenomenon was sort of like a smaller tear in space he made with [Void Step].

Speaking of [Void Step], he immediately activated the skill without any help from [Pseudo Void Manipulation], focusing on a section of the wall about ten feet away. He felt the skill’s structure shape together and vanished from his current location.

When he reappeared, he let out an excited little cheer.

There were two things he noticed right away. First, the skill took less time to form than usual, even without his new skill. Second, the mana cost was significantly reduced. It had always been a costly skill to use, and despite his massive mana pool, he still had to be careful about each use.

Somehow, his new Concept seemed to cut down on those costs. Though he suspected his deeper understanding and instinctual comprehension of space helped quite a bit.

He looked at the new orb representing his Concept of Space for a few moments before pulling up his full status.

Name: Julius Von Hyperius

Tier: 4

Skills:

• [Calm Before Ruin lvl 8] (Legendary)
• [Phoenix Incarnate lvl 6] (Legendary+)
• [Primordial Armaments lvl 3] (Legendary+)
• [Lord of the Dying Sun lvl 4] (Legendary+)
• [Inexorable Aura of Ruin lvl 29] (Epic)
• [Absolute Spatial Perception lvl 26] (Epic)
• [Void Step lvl 28] (Epic+)
• [Void Strike lvl 28] (Epic+)
• [Spirit Fortification lvl 28] (Epic)
• [Field of the Shattered Will lvl 23] (Epic+)
• [Phoenix’s Mark lvl 10] (Epic+)
• [Harmonic Balance lvl 10] (Epic)
• [Pseudo Void Manipulation lvl 17] (Rare+)

Current Skill Slots: 13/14

Seed of Authority: Seed of Phoenix’s Ruin

Concepts:

• [Concept of Sharpness]
• [Pure Severance]
• [Concept of Phoenix]
• [Ashen Rebirth]
• [Concept of Force]
• [Resonating Burst]
• [Concept of Space]
• [Everlasting Void]
• [Concept of Balance]
• [Burning Serenity]

Feats:

• [Feat of Enduring Resolve lvl 2]

Soul Bound Items:

• Fledgling Phoenix’s Lunch Box (Growth Type)
• Ruinous Crown (Growth Type)
• Blanket of Gluttonous Renewal (Growth Type)

He looked at his newest addition to his status.

[Concept of Space: Everlasting Void]

It was quite obvious that his Concept of Will and the “everlasting” part of the name were connected. Though he was still curious why his Concept of Will was needed. While he knew willpower was a big part of spatial magic, he didn’t expect evolving his Space Concept to require subsuming it.

In fact, it made him start thinking about consolidating his other Concepts. For example, he spotted Concepts of Sharpness and Force floating in his status. He had already upgraded his Concept of Sharpness a while ago, but he wondered if he could combine the two Concepts into a single one, as he’d just done.

Nobody uploaded this here with the author's blessing; it was lifted off NovelPhoenix by a scraper.

Those two seemed like the clear frontrunners for synergistic consolidation, but it was hard to tell whether it would be possible.

That was something he would need to see about later. It would clear up a spot in his soul for another Concept too, so it might be a good thing all around. That would be for later though. In the meantime, he looked over and stared at where he had left the troll.

He was about to teleport down, but before he could, he felt something bash into his knee. He looked down and spotted an irritated Drasil glaring at him. He winced and remembered that when he had tested out [Void Step], Drasil had been left behind.

“Sorry, sorry!” he said, bowing his head.

Drasil’s glare didn’t lessen, and only when he created a dense ball of life mana did the spirit seem to accept his apology. Julius wiped the sweat from his brow. An angry Drasil was a scary Drasil. Thank goodness the spirit was a glutton and had a weakness for life mana.

Once that was settled, Drasil hopped back inside his soul space. Only then did Julius grin down at the courtyard, where the troll sat, quickly wrapping himself in void energy and teleporting down.

The troll reacted instantly, and a powerful blast of aura and kinetic energy rushed toward him. The ground was ripped up as the blast traveled across the field. Julius didn’t bother to dodge, though; he was already forming a thick shield of void energy in front of his face.

A faint shimmer of purple light spread out and met the blast head-on. His void energy, though still weaker than the blast, held up shockingly well. At least better than it had not too long ago.

The new Concept of Space was already reinforcing his void energy in a way that left him in disbelief. The purple barrier shook but didn’t break. The troll let out a slightly confused grunt when this happened, but it didn’t stop it from throwing several more blasts at him while it dashed toward him with violent intent.

He didn’t bother with the shield this time around. He wasn’t very good with it in the first place. So he just created the same shortsword as before and wove his void energy around its edge. He used [Absolute Spatial Perception] to manipulate the folds of space, creating a miniature void tear along the blade's razor-sharp edge.

Just as the monster was about to grab him, he ducked underneath its arm and swung the sword at its knee. Unlike before, the sword sheared through the beast’s rotten flesh like it was nothing.

It collapsed to the ground, its leg no longer supporting it, and Julius teleported away from the onslaught of energy blanketing him from all sides. His teleportation skill was impeded, but with an extra pulse of willpower and by infusing Everlasting Void into the technique, he tore through the disruption easily enough.

He reappeared directly above the troll, and as he fell, he slashed the sword through the monster’s arm without resistance. He felt some of its death aura trying to push through his protections, but a quick flash of ruinous aura and his healing skill shredded it apart.

It was already healing its leg, but he didn’t particularly mind. He still had things he wanted to test, so he gave it room to fully recover. Only when it was back on its feet did he resume his attack.

He purposefully stepped into the brutal swipe of its arm, using a void barrier to protect himself. The sheer force staggered him, but the barrier held once again. He wanted to test the barrier real quick, so he allowed himself to get hit again and again.

It was only after the fifth strike that the barrier finally failed. It shattered violently, and unlike before, he actually felt a small bit of backlash. It must have been because so much more of his willpower was tied to the barrier, but his mind felt like someone had taken a crowbar to it.

He stifled the grimace and created another barrier around his arm, narrowing it and blocking the next blow. He shoved his arm forward, using a bit of kinetic energy to push it back. Though it was massive, he only managed to move it a few feet. But that was enough. With the extra breathing room, he had time to try something else out.

He grabbed a spatial fold by the troll’s head, infused it with his will, and detonated it with void energy. He intentionally let the fold collapse onto itself, and so it did.

The space he had grabbed hold of shattered, and an explosion of void energy rippled outward. Unfortunately, it had taken enough time that he hadn’t managed to properly predict the troll’s movements.

This meant the explosion missed its target and he was smacked again with a load of death mana and kinetic energy. It was stronger than before too, and so his barrier was already showing signs of stress.

He quickly reinforced it before it could break again and receive more backlash.

While he did that, he also decided to try to alter his approach to his most recent idea. And with bated breath, he activated [Phoenix’s Mark]. The skill formed in the back of his mind, but he didn’t deploy it just yet.

He waited, and as he avoided another of the troll’s blows, he slipped to its side and slapped the mark right onto its hip. While he was at it, he made sure to cut off the beast’s leg again. No reason not to get in some easy damage when he had the chance.

Then, while it was struggling back to its feet, he tried his idea again.

This time though, he managed to use [Phoenix’s Mark] as an anchor for the void energy. The void energy he sent flooding through the mark didn’t actually do that much damage. It was just plain void energy, and while it damaged the troll’s body, its healing vastly overpowered what he could send through the mark at once.

When he used his healing skill via the mark, it was much more efficient. He suspected it was because the two skills were similar in nature. However, that didn’t mean he was going to give up on his idea. He had one more thing he wanted to test out.

His awareness could sense where the mark was at all times. It felt extremely natural and easy for him. And so he extended that awareness to the space around the troll. It was more than a little disorienting, but thanks to his many years of practice with [Absolute Spatial Perception], he managed to get a decent grasp of it.

He was slightly distracted, though, and that meant an invisible blast of kinetic energy slammed into the back of his spine. His body absorbed a lot of it, but the death aura was pretty intense and immediately destroyed a good portion of his back. Ripping through it like acid eating through paper.

That wasn’t enough to stop him from completing his task, though. He managed to grab a spatial fold attached to the mark and deliberately overloaded it with void energy. To his surprise, it worked pretty darn well.

The detonation of void energy was vicious. The fabric of space and reality warped as the spatial fold ruptured from the excess void energy.

The troll's entire waist was shredded.

That being said, it still wasn’t enough to kill the troll for good. It was still “alive,” and strands of death mana grabbed hold of the two separate body pieces, pulling them back together so that its regeneration skill could heal it.

His instincts told him to finish it off before it could fully recover, but then he got another notification and held himself back.

[Pseudo Void Manipulation lvl 17 -> lvl 18]

Yet another level, and that made him wonder if he could actually evolve the skill to epic before he completed the third floor of this rift.

He looked over at the mostly recovered troll with a hungry smile, completely oblivious to slight hints of panic and fear radiating from its aura. Then, the second it was fully healed, he jumped back at it with a cheerful laugh.

This rift was becoming a lot more fruitful than he ever expected.