Chương 53: Strongest Replica

It was a good thing that Ryland didn't need to breathe any longer. His rift took him right into the very heart of the Living Mana's main maelstrom. Right into its putrid, rotting centre where every iota was filled with blood and flesh and whatever else was caught up in its storming detritus. Ryland's sudden appearance was forcing out space inside the Incursion's heart. Of course, with every other bit of room taken up by the Living Mana, there was hardly any breathable air.

It was a good thing Ryland was immune to suffocation then. That said, his body still did need air for such things like metabolism. Which was fine. A simple cast of [Translocate] created small rifts just inside his nostrils so he could still inhale and exhale when needed. The far bigger priority was the ever-strengthening Living Mana around him. It had all come to a pause. [Omniscience] was helping him see because his regular eyes would just be filled with roiling, liquid red.

But Ryland could sense the entirety of the Living Mana's attention shifting away from the city it had targeted. Every iota of its power that wasn't already otherwise engaged now focused on the entity that had somehow appeared inside it. An entity, it realized, that needed to be crushed and obliterated instantly. Ryland tutted as his Soul Glyph of Aegis flared to life. Everything the Incursion threw at him just crashed harmlessly against [Eternal Bastion].

A transparent barricade formed into a sphere around his body, and all the teeth and tendrils and limbs broke apart against it. Even if they were big enough to crush through castle walls. With the Incursion successfully held back, Ryland looked beyond it and tried to find the Glyph he had spotted. It was… occluded from him, somehow. [Omniscience] parted the veil of flesh and blood wherever he intended, but the spell was supposed to take his sight directly to what he wished to see. It wasn't in this case.

Which suggested the Glyph was rather strong. At least the black threads of Fate were plainly visible. They might not have been his primary motivator, but had he not seen the powerful Glyph, it'd certainly have been the main reason. Up close, the threat they presented was a lot more evident. The threads infested the flesh cloud. Everywhere Ryland looked, the dark strands were intricately enmeshed with the oozing, ravenous flesh, with all the blood and bones everywhere. Hmm.

Ryland had no doubt his exorcism had been effective, which suggested the resurgence of this specific Incursion, aided by Fate, had started before that. Normally, it shouldn't have been possible, even with Fate's dabbling. [Unmaker's Sentence] was rather thorough. Which further suggested that it had been manipulated into this resurgence. That foreign Glyph… For the time being, he took care of the first annoyance.

A Glyph of Exorcism shone just outside of his protective sphere, illuminating into being with the same intense magical potential as it had when he was purifying Viren's soul. And just as it had with Viren, the Glyph ruptured out to attack the spirit of anything it came into contact with. The shriek of the Living Mana cracked the air itself. Ryland's Glyph wasn't just tearing away the ingrained dark threads of Fate but was also assaulting the Incursion's soul as well.

Or whatever malformed approximation of a manasoul that it possessed. Maybe he could dissect its soul with his Soul Glyph of Genesis. Hmm. For now, he focused on ending the Incursion for good. It was trying to distract him by playing keep-away with the foreign Glyph. He had no reason to entertain it. His manasoul pulsed. No longer suppressed, all his Inscriptions came back to life. A ripple of power spread outwards from his location, striking into the rotten, fleshy detritus cloud around him.

Magic came alive, buzzing, sizzling, warping reality just a bit. Ryland was ready. The Living Mana seemed to sense the shift in his intentions. Seemed to sense fatal danger. It resumed attacking him as soon as the effects of the Glyph of Exorcism faded. Honestly, it was a little annoying. The Incursion refused to comprehend the idea of personal space. Really. Pressing up against him like this was in terribly poor taste. So, he cast a Glyph of Banishment next.

It was the Tier [22] evolved form of the Glyph of Repulsion. The Glyph branded itself in the air in front of Ryland like a tiny star forming out of nothing, the magic storming out of Ryland targeting all the Living Mana around him. All the flesh, bones, and blood—all of the putrid detritus that formed the gargantuan monstrosity—was repelled away. If Ryland was being honest, everything was being repelled away. Not just the Living Mana itself, but the very air that would have taken its place subsequently.

Even the light within the zone of repulsion was being pushed out, leaving nothing but a blot of darkness. Perhaps he had gone a bit overboard. The real problem was that his response to its relentless aggression was worsening the issue in a way. What Ryland really needed to do was take care of the Incursion in a permanent fashion. The Glyph of Banishment had given him a little bit of breathing room, but by pushing away the Living Mana, it was making it harder to actually end the thing. So, he dispelled it.

Immediately, the Living Mana hammered on his senses. Its enraged roaring, the harsh odour of its rotting mass, its vivid scarlet light. All of it came ramming back. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! As did the Incursion itself. The way it continued its assault right from where it had left off really made Ryland doubt the "Living" denomination it had acquired over the centuries.

Because surely a living creature would learn that striking him with the same—albeit larger—appendages wasn't going to work. Though, he supposed there was a difference between mere life and intelligent life. No one called it Ingenious Living Mana. Ryland expanded the spherical barrier of [Eternal Bastion] a bit farther. He also added a Subglyph of Retaliation that counterattacked the endless appendages whenever they struck his barrier. Not that it really stopped the Living Mana.

The horrific constructs of flesh, bone, and blood continued assaulting Ryland with no surcease. So, he countered properly. His manasoul turned incandescent, making space itself shiver with the intensity of his magic. [Inversion], a spell with the Soul Glyph of Time as its Centreglyph, shone to life with crackling magic. Its purpose was simple—reverting time. Or rather, it reverted any magic used in the past, not only recreating the effects but inverting them.

Which was why, instead of being repulsed, the Living Mana started getting dragged to a singular spot. A spot Ryland couldn't even see properly. Reversing the effect of repulsion meant that light was being dragged into a singular location, which made things completely dark and impossible to perceive visually. Space warped as his vision began doing things that would have most people belching out their gastric contents. Ryland held out his arm and channelled his manasoul's ferocity into his most reliable magic.

The Soul Glyph of Sundering surged into being. No spell again. Just a simple Glyph for simple, direct destruction. The whole world turned radiant like a miniature sun erupting into being as the Living Mana detonated under Sundering's effect. As with the Sand Colossus in the Entrance Trials, the Glyph tore apart the motes of existence making up its target, unleashing a frightful eruption of irradiating energy.

All of which went on to slam into and start wiping the Living Mana beyond Ryland's vicinity out of existence. And it still wasn't enough. A quick cast of [Omniscience] confirmed that the sheer extent of the Incursion was massive. Ryland wasn't reaching its length and breadth by simply casting a Glyph in his local vicinity, no matter how powerful the Glyph in question was. That wasn't all, either. There were other reasons why it hadn't fully worked out.

Aside from just not having [Inversion]'s radius wide enough to draw in all the Living Mana in the enormous cloud he had thrown himself inside, the spell wasn't eradicating enough. Even as it dragged in the detritus, new flesh and blood and bones manifested out of nowhere. Right. The spell wasn't accounting for the new manifestations of the Living Mana that could erupt into being. Especially since the Sundering was a singular event, not a continuous source of destruction. Hmm.

It seemed he'd need to put in some actual effort. The Living Mana was going insane. Ryland could tell the Incursion was drawing in all its power from everywhere else to strike him down. A small boon for the defenders, hopefully. Abominations of rotten flesh and bloody bones came flying at him with enough speed to make them blur even with [Omniscience] active. Not that it helped break through his impenetrable shield.

What it did do, however, was splash the barrier with an ever-increasing amount of gore, ones that now latched onto his transparent forcefield. More of the Living Mana was now growing out from his shield, forming more of its deadly appendages, using Ryland's floating location as an anchor point. It was doing all that despite the Subglyph of Retaliation he had inserted in there. Even as his barrier started rupturing the Living Mana, more of the pustular growths emerged faster than they died.

The sheer power needed for something like that had Ryland arching his eyebrows a little.

"You've had your fun," Ryland said. His Soul Glyph of Rift shone incandescent.

"But now we need to end this once and for all. [Void —" Ryland stopped incanting as the irrepressible wall of the Incursion around him shifted. It normally wouldn't have distracted him the way it was currently doing, but there was something odd about it. Something decidedly weird in the way Living Mana was shifting and reforming. He blinked. There. That Glyph. He frowned as he read the curls and lines. That was a Glyph of Replica. Faint memories tugged in his head. It was definitely familiar. Especially the high Tier nature of it. Especially the way it was forcing the Living Mana to take on a very defined shape. In seconds, Ryland was staring at a fake version of himself. It was almost fascinating from a biological perspective. The replica was clearly trying to model his current body, the one with the long hair, amber eyes, and the scar running down his arm from his shoulder. Unlike the horrific constructs of flesh and blood and bone hastily tied together that he had seen so far, this one actually felt like a real person. For it wasn't just the regular trio. The "lesser" biological matter came into being as well. Hair and nails, the fluid that made eyes, and so on. Ryland was quite certain he even spotted cartilage and proper bone marrow forming. This not-Ryland was very realistic. That Glyph of Replica really was at least Tier [20] if he was judging its iridescent hue correctly. And then the body started breaking apart. Ryland tutted. He hadn't even done anything to it. Not yet. He knew what was going on, of course. With the body now fully-formed, the powerful Glyph was now trying to replicate his magic. Not exactly his manasoul, for he was aware of the Glyph's limits. Just an impression of his magical capabilities, like a temporal image of him trying to come alive. But even that was far too strong for this Living Mana to handle. It was another little point of fascination for Ryland. The Incursion had clearly been growing stronger all this while, had empowered itself by leaps and bounds thanks to the combination of Fate and this Glyph of Replica. He couldn't quite tell what its rank was supposed to be. The original estimation of Adamantine was now wrong, and it had crossed well beyond Mithril and maybe even Exalted now. Which suggested it was close to Titan, if not Titan-ranked already. Maybe it was even closing in on Primordial. None of which was anywhere near close enough to contain his power. The replica's flesh ruptured even as it tried to contain his magic. Blood spurted out in fountaining gouts. Limbs broke and twisted unnaturally. The head rotated around like a screw, the neck turning into a fleshy mess. With the way the legs broke, it looked as though the limbs sported far too many joints than they should have. Hmm. Ryland would need to revise his earlier judgment. The replica definitely no longer resembled him as well as it had at first. That was when Fate chose to intervene some more. The black threads slithered in, tying themselves over the replica's body, keeping all the bits and bobs attached just enough to reasonably classify it as a single frame. Ryland just shook his head. Things were getting decidedly strange. It shrieked out at him. The magic it was trying to reproduce was still tearing its body apart, contorting it into shapes that no normal person could have undergone, yet it remained sentient. It was still focused on Ryland. The expression that the Living Mana had chosen, guided by that Tier [20] Glyph of Replica, rippled with rupturing power." Come then," Ryland said. As the Living Mana surged to greater ferocity around him, as the broken replica of him belched out magic that started cracking and shattering space itself, churning the entire city-wide cloud of Living Mana into a hurricane of horror, he let his manasoul flare out a hefty chunk of his magic, twisting space even further." Let me tear that Glyph out of you."