Chương 68: The rotation of divinity

There were essentially two upgrades to his power, both relatively equal in complexity and immensely powerful just for the amount of metaphysical bullshit he invested in them. Both were aimed at distancing his skill from being a 'gimmick' that could be used only in very specific conditions. The first was the ability to target 'groups'. No longer was he constrained by a singular person being in danger. While groups of people still had to be real and living, this was a major step towards more abstract reasoning.

The second was an expansion of what 'danger' was, and the complexity of actions he could do to prevent it. Though it was still ultimately a threat to life, it no longer had to be immediate. Combined with his ability to target groups, it no longer had to be a threat to a specific person. Goblins surrounding a fort would now activate his skill and let him fight them, even if every person behind the walls was technically safe.

A monster roaming near a village would activate his skill, since there was a high chance it would kill someone from that village sooner or later. A terrorist who had hidden a bomb somewhere in the city would activate his skill, even if no one knew where the bomb was, because he was a threat to 'the city'. The High Authority was a proven threat to the group of 'floating people'. As long as they existed and the elf was alive, Dennis could use his buff to fight the guy.

He could even use it to do a somewhat complex action that would help the group, like for example pushing a button that would heal them all, if such a button existed. Dennis smiled and took a step. Nothing else moved. The contrast between having and not having the superspeed was getting ridiculous. Weirdly enough, the true difference was felt not in the increase to Dexterity, but in his Mind. The world was almost still.

Any sense of urgency about 'the portal' being opened directly to the overpowered soul-eating guy was gone. Dennis had all the time he could have ever wanted, to do whatever he wanted, and not just in a 'the world is in slow-motion' kind of way. His thoughts flew freely, and any tangent that should've been abandoned was instead resolved in a matter of milliseconds. The Mind stat itself didn't know what it did. It promised everything yet gave nothing unless you asked. Though 'asked' would be the wrong word there.

The point of it all was that the effects of Mind were clearly different for different people, because they expressed the stat differently. It was a very personal stat in that way. Maybe all of them were personal, in some capacity. Dennis couldn't truly multitask or have multiple thought-threads in parallel. He couldn't intuitively comprehend the world through his subconsciousness.

Couldn't create automated mind-constructs like he was some sort of computer that ran programs, or edit his memories, or achieve enlightenment through logical understanding of fundamental laws. Dennis could think very fucking fast. A moment ago, the High Authority in front of him was casting some incomprehensible high-level magic that was beyond Dennis' understanding. Just a blur of glyphs, appearing and disappearing in front of the elf as he mumbled some nonsense.

Dennis couldn't help but be fascinated by what he saw. He had ample time, good enough spirit senses, and performed enough of his own experiments with magic to at least theorize some of the fundamental principles. He had enough for his mind to start making connections, and as they were made, things began to click. The most basic way to cast something was to resonate with a concept, a skill that existed somewhere in some capacity, and use mana to summon and empower it.

For some reason, speaking the concept's–the skill's–name helped with smoothing out the process. When he said ' Healing', it was like a call. A summoning. What could be said could also be written. And you could do so much more with a written word. You could set it aside. Erase it. Have multiple of them at the same time. Put it in place where you want it. Rhyme it.

Magic was that, if the words were volatile, reacted to each other like chemicals that could hold generational grudges, were capable of exploding when they didn't like the word next to them, and were so context-dependent that they literally rewrote themselves into different words on a whim. Illusion and Place became Illusionary Place. Everything and Nothing became The World. Reflection and The World became The Echo. Servitude and Memory became The Memory of The King, and Resentment and Path became The Target.

Target and Memory became Destination - The Throne. Illusionary Place and Path became Path to a Place that Didn't Exist, and Path to a Place that Didn't Exist and The Echo became The Road – It was mesmerizing. Regretfully, watching the process to the very end was not exactly a good idea. Dennis ran up to the elf and tried to cut both of his legs off with the oversized sword that he appropriated from one of the Swords. It took him less than a blink to do so.

To the outside observer, he might as well have teleported on top of the dragon's head, even if in reality it took a bit of climbing and an awkward jump. The sword, moving at speeds it had no business moving, touched some kind of barrier just an inch outside the body and exploded into little shards that flew with the motion like bullets, putting a few dozen impressive holes into the building behind the elf. Dennis wondered how strong the shockwave from the impact would've been if there was actual air involved.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The guy moved just slightly from the spot, as if rooted in reality. Thankfully, Dennis' sneak attack at least made the elf stop casting, from surprise if nothing else. He could see it by the way the new glyphs stopped forming and the old ones deteriorated, by the way the elf's eyes started slowly widening as supersonic shrapnel failed to harm him.

It seemed that casting that spell required focus, and while Dennis couldn't harm the guy, he certainly could fuck up his concentration. The impenetrable barrier was a pussy move though.

"You know, I was wondering why you would come here in person," Dennis said casually, tossing away the broken remnants of the sword.

"I mean, I get it that you think we're kind of allies or something, but isn't it just dumb for a summoner type to show his face? The supershield makes sense though. How do I break it? You aren't just invulnerable, right? That's cheating." Now that Dennis had his buff, he had all the time in the world. The fight was already kind of over. His strongest attack did nothing, and he would interrupt any attempt at casting that the elf would try.

This was already a stalemate, so asking the elf kindly what his weakness was felt like as good a plan as any other.

"What–" The elf was a bit slow on the uptake as the glyphs in front of him dissipated.

"Why did you–" His eyes narrowed.

"You didn't cut me."

"Can you put all of those people back on earth?" Dennis motioned vaguely at the sky.

"I'm going to annoy the hell out of you until you do, even if I somehow don't figure out how to go through the shield. Is there some kind of limit to the amount of damage it can take? Are you immune to suffocation?" He paused.

"Wait, that was dumb, we don't need to breathe here. I thought it would be cool if I dug a hole and buried you there. Bummer."" You didn't cut me," the elf repeated, looking at Dennis wide-eyed. Was he just dumb, or was Dennis' frame of reference screwed?

"How… I don't understand…"

"Think faster." Dennis climbed down from the Spine, ran towards one of the dead Swords, picked up its weapon, climbed back, and swung as wide as he could, hitting the dumbass right in the face. The sword exploded in pieces again, and the elf's head jerked back from the impact. Dennis watched as the guy was slowly losing his balance and falling back on his ass. It was taking some time. He climbed down again, got himself another giant sword, and returned before the elf finished falling.

Would've been great to have a sturdier weapon. Dennis decided that he didn't want to climb up and down every time his weapon broke, so instead of hitting the High Authority again as the guy was falling, he cut off the Spine's head. Didn't even break the sword against that one. Dumb of the elf to pilot it so low to the ground. Now the elf was falling to the detached head that was also falling.

He gave them both some additional acceleration, hitting the elf from above with the overhead attack that exploded right into the falling head, chunks of pseudo-steel going cleanly through the monster and embedding into the ground below. This was fun. Dennis was quite confident that he could juggle the elf with such frequent hits that he would never touch the ground. He doubted that even one percent of the force of his strikes transferred to the guy, but that still had to be quite unpleasant.

While the elf was falling, Dennis walked along the Spine and hopped on the ground from the lowest point. Now, how to deal with the shield? That barrier could tank some absurd damage. All his strikes did was just push the guy somewhat. One option was just to keep hitting. That thing had to cost at least something, and it was quite probable that it ate the elf's mana. The problem with that was that Dennis didn't know how much mana the High Authority had, or how big the cost of tanking his hits was.

What if he didn't even dent the elf's regeneration? While Dennis could just hit the guy over and over in hopes that something would give, he didn't exactly have infinite weapons. There were thousands of dead Swords around the city, but that just meant that Dennis could do just a few thousand hits before he ran out of weapons. Would that be enough? No, it was the wrong question. What if it wasn't enough? He needed something better.

The elf almost touched the ground while Dennis was trying to come up with a way to deal with the barrier. He even started casting something as he fell. Dennis could see a few glyphs appearing. There was Space and Push, and something that worryingly resembled an Explosion – Another sword in the guy's face broke his concentration again, and altered his flying trajectory slightly. Instead of just falling down to the ground, he was now flying alongside it, and spinning. Another hit made him spin faster.

Dennis collected a few more swords. Okay, if not just raw damage, what were his other options? He could hit the elf from one side over and over, thus giving the guy more momentum to fly in the direction of Dennis' choosing. Actually– Dennis tried to grab the guy by the collar and pull. The elf didn't move in the slightest from where he was flying. Okay, the barrier was somehow rooting him in space, albeit not perfectly. Still movable with supersonic impacts, so it wasn't that big of a problem.

As long as Dennis could get his hands on more spare swords, the elf was movable, Dennis just had to be mindful and not step on the magical mines here and there as he collected them. What could he– Oh. Grinning, Dennis collected a few more swords and kept hitting the dumbass, angling his strikes just right so that the elf would fly towards a very special, very magical spot on the ground.

Just in case the guy was somehow getting comfortable with being jerked around like a ball from the Pinball game, Dennis also made sure that every strike added to the elf's rotational force, slowly but surely turning the guy into some sort of divine helicopter. That had to be quite detrimental to his concentration. Or keeping breakfast inside. It was a lot like soccer, only you weren't allowed to let the ball touch the ground. And instead of hitting it with legs, you hit it with giant swords at supersonic speeds.

And instead of the ball, it was some kind of evil elf demigod. And instead of the soccer goal, it was a magical anti-existence mine. Okay, it wasn't like soccer at all. Unlike soccer, Dennis was really enjoying this one. While subjectively he did quite a lot, in reality barely a few seconds passed since he started bombarding the elf with hits like a machine gun firing artillery shells. It was a constant stream of unending explosions, with shrapnel from the broken swords destroying everything around.

His last hit was another overhead strike, finally hammering the spinning elf into the ground. He moved away half a mile or so at the same moment. It was a bit scary without Kriya, he wasn't sure if the distance was enough, but it should be fine. Anyway, he was fast enough to outrun the explosions, the problem was him stepping on something he didn't notice. The pale-gray nothingness engulfed the area behind him as the elf's body touched the glyph. Dennis was a bit worried that that would kill the elf, but…

What else could he do? The plan was to threaten the elf into putting everyone back on earth, but with that stupid shield Dennis didn't really have the power to 'threaten'. As long as that shield existed, Dennis couldn't hold back. It was too dangerous. He ran back the moment the death aura disappeared. The High Authority lay motionless on the ground. Some-fucking-how alive. It was impressive, really. He kicked the guy in the ribs, and heard a grunt. Dennis smiled kindly.