Chương 163: The Mind

Dreamers were simultaneously feared and revered; such was common sense within the Nightrealm. However, in life, there were no absolutes — common sense was not something adopted by all. The few who dared to question said common sense would often come to regret it. 3 things were needed to create life. A Body. A Mind. A Soul.

These 3 facets were interlocked in a delicate web — play with the soul and the mind and body will warp unrecognizably; play with the mind and the soul and body will give up; play with the body and the soul and mind will flee from its vessel. These were limits imposed on every single being, and these same limits allowed beings to have their place in the world. To be one of many. But a Dreamer perverted the imposed balance of life.

When they awakened, their existence would default to an affinity: one of mind, one of body, one of soul — each of these affinities subverted their place in life. They were the closest beings to gods. Their shackles were torn. Their limits were broken. Lilia locked eyes with the cultivator standing slightly behind the swordsman.

Frost began to once again creep across her fingertips, then up her hand, then up her wrist further and further — an inch, two, or maybe 3 — colder than intended, exuding a mist of deathly frost; her skin hummed faintly with a ghostly white glow welling internally like it wanted to release its hoarded power. She considered reeling it back in the moment, but when the cultivator twitched, she instantly shot out a crystalline blast of permafrost.

Like buckshot, the mist of ice shot out and obscured her opponent's vision; chunks of hail formed and were thrown towards her foes at breakneck speeds, the force of the blast alone nearly caused her own wrist to collapse inwards on itself.

'I guess we're doing this the hard way.' You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. She whipped her hand back to dampen the growing pain in her wrist, ending the blast. Without hesitating, she leaned forward onto her toes and broke into a sprint, her hands trailing behind, forming a long, blade-like icicle. Stopping a few feet from where her foes last stood, she thrust the icicle forward with the entire weight of her body.

Within a split second, she felt her blade push against skin, then through it; accompanied by a groaning yelp, she dropped one hand down from the ramshackle blade and whisked the remnant mist in the air into a bolt of ice and shot it at where she thought the swordsman stood. Clink Lilia twisted her body and avoided an instantaneous cut to her side, losing balance and nearly toppling over if she didn't use her angular poise to dive to the side, wrenching the embedded blade out of the stabbed foe.

Turning to her side on the ground, she blindly kicked and struck the cultivator in the leg, making him buckle, but not collapse. The cultivator dug their buckling leg into the ground, and in a near-perfect pirouette spun his other leg around and struck the ground, narrowly missing Lilia, but still knocking the wind out of her from the sheer force alone.

The mist, as well as the lingering dust and debris, did well to obscure both sides' vision, but no matter how equally blocked their sight was, Lilia was still a Dreamer, a superhuman among superhumans. Lilia rolled to the side and struck the ground with the back of her fist, causing it to immediately freeze over; then she jumped to her feet, jolting her neck back suddenly on the way up, narrowly avoiding the swordsman's thrust piercing deep into the foliage of the now-frosted hedge walls.

She cursed her natural affinity for being stifled in times like this; magic was formulaic by nature, meaning that unless adjusted on the fly, its output would remain static. The wrong spell could alter her environment drastically and potentially put her in a disadvantaged state, or worse, accidentally harm an ally. The cultivator spun once more and stomped the ground once more, causing it to shiver, then shatter into jagged debris, crumbling Lilia's footing.

She cursed to herself once more; a revered genius in magic was now struggling to fight two Aspirants. Magic was a missile, and missiles are overkill in a two-versus-one fight; the temptation to let loose and use a proper spell whirled in her mind as an impulsive thought. Jumping back, she avoided another cut, and just as she prepared to leap back once more, a sharp thump struck her back, making her feel like her eyes would pop out and her innards would leap forward, tearing through her stomach.

The cultivator had circled around using the mist as cover; her superhuman eyes had failed her. She held back the sensation of throwing up… but she failed. Her breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all the drinks she'd had during the event came up in a wretched rush. A shade of disappointment and shame overwhelmed her as her opponents watched her purge her stomach contents onto the floor; she swiped her once pristine dress across her mouth, with a bitter remnant taste, and her alter chanted something internally.

'Magia! Castellum Glaciale' She threw her arms in the direction of both her attackers, and cursed her inexperience in battle once more, before sudden ice spikes shot out from the ground, gibbing her foes and rising dozens of meters into the air, showering the sky in mist and blood alike. Lilia weakly punched her fist into the ground, avoiding a puddle of her throw-up.

"Tch!"