Chapter 339: Collapsing Halfway
The reason Ace was able to engulf Aleias with shadows was that he now possessed a complete Mental Imagery World. Because of the unique nature of dream manifestation, Ace’s Mental Imagery World contained a real space with a radius of about five hundred meters capable of imprisoning living creatures.
This also aligned with the characteristics of dream manifestation; Ace’s maximum manifestation coverage was a sphere with a diameter of about one five hundred meters.
In Ace’s Mental Imagery World, a prison had been erected. Aleias was strapped to an iron chair. Under the thunderbolts, her body trembled uncontrollably, her expression twisted in agony as if she were enduring extreme pain.
Aleias’s tongue stuck out forcefully. She seemed to want to scream, but she couldn’t even make a sound.
Ace wasn’t in a hurry. He tortured Aleias with lightning for an entire night, infusing fear into the process, causing this descendant of the God of Craftsmanship—the most talented artisan in the five Northern City-States of Salia—to completely break down.
As Ace’s eyes flickered, Aleias, her eyes filled with terror, told Ace everything.
She wasn’t a member of the Punishers organization but a collaborator. Aleias possessed the unique authority of a descendant of the God of Craftsmanship, allowing her to craft specific wondrous items. As for that strange bow and arrow, it was called the “Life-Hunting Arrow,” a terrifying weapon forged by Aleias’s ancestor.
It ignored defense and directly attacked the life’s “dead point.” Legend had it that any existence below the Legendary rank struck by this arrow would die instantly, while Legends would be at least severely injured or near death. It was an existence close to a Noble Phantasm in the legends of Aleias’s family.
Naturally, such a terrifying item had many restrictions. It could only be used once every twenty years, and before use, the life of a being at the Great Hero level had to be sacrificed.
To use the “Life-Hunting Arrow,” the Punishers had specifically killed a high-level monster in the northern part of the Larr Mountains to sacrifice to the arrow.
Just as Ace was understanding the situation, the entire world suddenly shook violently, as if doomsday had arrived.
“What’s happening? Some force is pulling me!”
Ace’s figure flickered in and out of existence like a bad signal. It took about a minute and a half to stabilize.
He continued to interrogate Aleias. After confirming he couldn’t get any more intelligence, raging Heart Fire burned, swallowing Aleias completely.
“Maybe the power of fate in the river is fading, or maybe it won’t last as long this time. I have to hurry!”
Afterward, Ace attacked the Punishers’ expedition team several times. However, unexpectedly, Karim brought out a wondrous item that hadn’t appeared in the previous two times—a quasi-Noble Phantasm called “City of Protection.” They set up camp on the spot, leaving Ace helpless.
Subsequently, Ace received news through his grimore that the five Northern City-States had dispatched a total of seven Great Heroes. They had already rendezvoused at Milne City-State and were on their way!
“Damn it, I messed up!”
Cold sweat ran down Ace’s back. Karim wouldn’t fight him decisively; instead, he turtled up in his shell, waiting for the seven Great Heroes to arrive. Fight one against eight?
Ace really wanted to roar, “I am the Supreme God Ai; I shall suppress all enemies of this age!” But the reality was, whoever didn’t run was an idiot.
“It seems I can’t attack the northern side too early; it’ll trigger a bigger backlash. Fortunately, there are no Legendary Heroes in the Northern City-States, otherwise I would have just taken the people of the High Tower and ran!
“But I still need to prepare an escape route. I have to think of a way.”
Although things had developed unexpectedly, fortunately, it was all fake. Ace decided to organize the evacuation of the territory’s residents first while heading south to see if he could figure out what the black shadow from the first playthrough was.
“Betty’s operations need to speed up. In this exploration of fate, fleeing might be the only chance.”
Ace left a clone to monitor the Punishers’ movements while he headed straight south.
“Legend has it that a terrifying Demon Lord is buried in Mt. Baal. The last Monster Tide was also related to Him. Could it be Him?”
While pondering the possibilities, Ace flew rapidly. Just as he arrived in the sky above the High Tower Territory, he suddenly felt a wave of nausea and dizziness.
The world suddenly stood still, slowly twisting like shattering glass. Ace woke up with a start, opening his eyes.
The Pocket World still existed, surrounded by stars. The river containing the power of fate was long gone. Ace, having experienced three dream-like yet realistic scenarios in a row, was a bit dazed.
He panted heavily, slowly calming his emotions. The cowlick on his head wobbled slightly. With a poof, the Spirit of the Book, Fuwa, landed in front of Ace, speaking in its milky voice.
“Ace, everything seen in the phantom of the River of Fate isn’t the whole picture. It was just an exploration and deduction. Unexpected things might happen in reality.”
Having regained his calm, Ace asked quickly, “You mean this was just a deduction based on high probabilities, and in reality, certain low-probability events might occur?”
Fuwa rubbed its chubby head, thought for a while, and smiled. “Fuwa doesn’t understand high probability and low probability. Anyway, the phantom of fate can be used as a reference, but don’t trust it completely.”
With that, Fuwa floated up to Ace’s head and turned back into a cowlick, planting itself there.
Ace shook his head, muttering something about “quantum uncertainty,” “observer effect,” and “timeline convergence.”
Finally, he steadied his mind and looked at this Pocket World with cold eyes. This was the place that had provided him with the resources to advance from a Level 1 Life to a Level 2 Life, the place that allowed him to deduce a massive number of 3-Ring Spells, and the place where he perfected the path of Heart Fire that allowed those without magic talent to reach the supernatural.
“I have to leave eventually. But before that, I need to deduce a 3-Ring Spatial Jump Spell!”
With a thought from Ace, the glazed Heart Fire rose high, instantly igniting all humans in the Pocket World. The human racial aura was refined by Ace before it even had time to react.
The entire world wept tears of blood, seemingly mourning the extinction of the world’s only intelligent race. Ace refined all of this back to its source, turning it into wisps of World Origin.
Inside his Mental Imagery World, the spell models for Summoning Teleportation and Spatial Expansion floated into the Pocket World. One was for jumping, the other for expanding space.
Wisps of World Origin merged into them. The spell models began to disintegrate, and individual runes gradually sublimated.
The World Origin didn’t seem to be enough. Ace continued to destroy the world, turning all living creatures into the power of World Origin. The surface layer of the Pocket World was now a barren wasteland; not a single living thing remained.
Two brand-new spell models were born: the 3-Ring Spell “Subspace” and the 3-Ring Spell “Portal.”
The “Subspace” spell could create an extremely stable or extremely unstable subspace. If it was a stable subspace, it could exist for decades or even centuries without disintegrating due to spatial jumps.
If it was an unstable subspace, its essence was a spatial tearing and explosive weapon. It would create spatial rifts the moment it disintegrated. While the energy released by the disintegration of a subspace alone wasn’t enough to kill a Great Hero, when combined with the “Portal” spell, this technique became a spell that allowed the weak to overcome the strong.
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