Chapter 2321: Arad’s Hibernation XXXIII

When Arad appeared inside the Infinite Maze, he didn’t panic. His mind was calmer than anything else, and his eyes moved, studying the place.

When he was getting sucked in, he could feel a huge shift in time and space. Neither time nor space flows normally here, and from that brief moment he saw, he could easily tell that several months would pass here before a single second passed outside.

He then shifted his attention back to space itself, and as expected, this Infinite Maze wasn’t infinite at all, as that would’ve required infinite energy to create, and Akasha didn’t have that. The trick was simple. The Infinite Maze is a massive cube with a thousand rooms in every direction, meaning that the entire thing has 1 billion rooms, and those rooms do their best to keep the target in the middle.

When Arad moves a single room to the left, one room disappears behind him, and a new one appears in front. That way, no matter what one does, they’ll never reach the edge. Even leaving marks won’t help since the rooms disappear and spawn back again in perfect condition.

Since this space was limited and constantly changing, it was easy to break for those who could use space and time magic, especially if they were a void dragon. But Arad now only had access to his blood magic.

He could understand the concept of magic, but couldn’t just break it. Luckily, he didn’t need to do that. With how this place worked, and with how Akasha didn’t come with him at the start, he was certain that he wouldn’t see her for at least a year, which is a second outside. That gives him plenty of time.

Arad’s entire body started bleeding, and soon, he started floating, transforming into a massive beating heart that spat out a flood of blood with each beat. The Blood quickly filled the room that Arad was in and started to flow into the other rooms, quickly expanding outward.

Since Arad himself wasn’t moving, the rooms didn’t disappear and shift, so he wasn’t going to lose any blood. While that was going on, he started studying the magic itself and trying to figure out a way to gain more control over this space instead of just existing in it and waiting.

Five weeks later, Arad’s blood had spread through the entire maze, and a titanic network of beating blood vessels now covered the walls, turning the white maze into a fleshy red nightmare dimension.

At first, Arad couldn’t directly control the maze itself, but he was still able to use conventional spells and magic, so he used [Time Stop] and [Time Slow] to get himself even more time inside the maze to study it and plan.

He quickly managed to figure out a spell that allowed him to ping his hibernating body outside and elevate his consciousness back to its original power, and he even managed to sneak his presence and thoughts into all of the vampires, including Akasha herself, outside, where he perused her thoughts and memories to study her Infinite Maze without her even noticing.

When a second passed outside, Arad had already been living inside the maze for ten years. Ten times what he should’ve gone through. But when he sensed Akasha trying to look inside and turn off the maze, he blocked her and locked the maze.

That was far simpler than he expected, since he was technically her master and Blood Lord, he could just subtly mind control her so she would lock the maze while thinking she was trying to open it.

And with that, Akasha couldn’t access the maze and pull him out, so he could finally get even more time inside, and the next nine seconds outside passed quickly, while Arad inside had lived for a whole century, studying his own blood magic and the maze.

He was even actively sending the data back to his true body hibernating outside, like he was living inside a dreamland. In fact, that was the truth. To Arad who is hibernating, the fight with Akasha, and his time inside the maze, it was all one long dream. And that wasn’t even the end of it. His draconic mind was dreaming several thousand dreams all in parallel, looking and watching through the eyes and minds of all of his vampires.

The nun praying, the paladin fighting for her life, the stranded vampire in the forest, the random vampire woman pretending to be a human and greeting her husband, even Theresa fooling around with Agnar and Yuwaku, Arad had lived all of those lives as dreams.

His life inside the maze was just one dream that he became lucid in, and he decided to get the most out of it. All of that knowledge, life experience, and expertise was getting funneled directly back into his sleeping body, fueling his mind like an ever-expanding network, and that was what caused his consciousness to suddenly emerge.

After ten seconds passed outside, Akasha finally realized that Arad was mind-controlling her to keep the maze locked, and she started fighting against his dominion, and eventually, she only managed to look inside the maze.

What she saw was horrifying. Arad’s blood had spread across the entire maze like a cancerous growth, swallowing everything and anything. She could no longer directly command her maze, and it was only then that she found out that they had been defeated before the fight even started.

She didn’t underestimate Arad, and neither did the paladins and nuns, but even their biggest effort and most serious attempt fell short. He is an even bigger monster than anyone could’ve ever dreamed of, and none of them have a single chance of going against him. In just the ten years that Arad’s avatar had spent in her maze refunding his blood magic, he had surpassed Vlad’s peak by several folds and gone even further.

As her maze was unraveled and opened up, Arad emerged from it like a flood of pure darkness. He stood behind Akasha for a second, looked at her and at everyone else, then threw a glance at the AGENT.

The entire temple shook, and Arad’s avatar disappeared into mist, returning back to Arad’s hibernating mind. The AGENT’s eyes moved; he looked down at everyone and spoke in an even voice.

"The Blood Lord had won the fight. But he had granted you permission to the last of the rooms." He then shifted his gaze to Ginger, who had just recovered. "You never had a chance of defeating him from the start. Blood Lord Arad Orion has a different kind of strength than Vlad, and that power is of a higher dimension."

His eyes looked up. "You trying to defeat him is like a mosquito or a bat trying to stand up to a vampire. A whole different scale."

Ginger growled and threw a glare back at Akasha. "What happened? Did he survive your Elemental Expansion?"

"He... thrived."