Chapter 248: Sabbatical – Chapter 231: Unreachable Heights

GamingWolf

For those that did not get what I meant with the reference last chapter: This floor is a reference to the Domain of Timeless Conflict in Path of Exile. RIP the economy in 3.19

Jacob could not quite believe his eyes as Aperio simply walked, unconcerned, into the clashing armies. Arrows flying her way simply broke as they hit her, and foolish attackers that thought a direct approach would work better were quickly dispatched by either a swift slice of her weapon or a punch that — quite literally — vaporised whatever it hit.

"She becomes what I can only assume is a Goddess, and I get some lightning," Ryan mumbled. "Seems fair."

"Yeah," Jacob echoed. "Fair."

A bolt of lightning descending from the sky simply bent away once it got too close to her, striking another soldier. Aperio answered the attack with a flick of her wrist that caused a silver and blue beam to descend from the sky, setting the air ablaze as the light passed through it. Jacob could see glimpses of something that caused his mind to reel as reality itself accrued thousands of tiny tears, struggling to contain whatever magic this woman had conjured. That all just lastest for a moment however — barely a breath — before the beam hit the mage that had cast the lightning spell, obliterating him and anyone unfortunate enough to be standing anywhere near him.

"The fuck was that?" Ryan asked, staring at the crater and sparking air that Aperio's magic had left behind.

Before Jacob could offer any reply, Aperio moved. One moment she had regarded the army surrounding her, the next she had vanished, replaced by a blur that simply ploughed through any opposition. Whether it was a person or a structure, it made no difference. As abruptly as she had started to move, the All-Mother stopped, returning in a flash to clear visibility.

She regarded the carnage she had created before she glanced in their direction, offering them a smile that Jacob could not see so much as feel. There was a message for him here that he had yet to uncover.

Aperio held that gaze as she lifted one arm towards the fake sky that hung high above them. She closed her hand, gripping something only she could see, and pulled on it.

A moment later, the view of the All-Mother and her surroundings became warped as the light bent around what Jacob could only — and wrongfully — describe as a sphere of pure black that had come to be in Aperio's hand.

The woman seemed to contemplate what he assumed to be a black hole for a moment before she threw it at the people advancing towards her, completely unbothered and unaffected by the forces coming off of her creation.

Everything surrounding her was sucked into the black nothing; crushed into fine powder before it got even close. Jacob tried to make sense of what he saw, but try as he might, his mind refused to interpret what was happening in front of him beyond the fact that it was, in fact, actually happening.

"The fuck," Ryan mumbled, seemingly equally stumped by Aperio's newest party trick. "How does that even work?"

He turned to look at Jacob. "She just made a black hole! And she doesn't give a shit about it!"

"And it's not affecting us," Jacob noted, trying his best to not look at the All-Mother and her magic. "Nor anything else, really."

"Fucking bullshit," the other man mumbled as the mind-bending sphere of black nothing vanished.

It was quickly replaced by a feeling of dread as something washed over Jacob, drowning him for a moment without stealing his breath. He could feel it flow through him, into him, but it did not stay. Whatever it was, it was rushing towards the All-Mother. The ethereal voice echoing through the field as it arrived at its destination just confirmed Jacob's notion that the unknown phenomenon was bad news for them.

Aperio laughed as she spread her arms and wings and let the dungeon she had made draw as much mana as it could to empower the army that came her way.

She tried to push some mana into the dungeon herself, but it could not take as much as she wanted it to. Sure, for anyone on Earth, the simulacrums coming her way would be certain death, but to her, it was at most a distraction. It didn't help that the dungeon itself was unable to take more mana than she was using to strengthen her body. In fact, she was still using more for that than was contained in the entirety of Earth, despite the fact that she had been more than generous with the mana she gave out along with the reinstatement of the System.

Compared to what she could draw on, the part dedicated to improving her physical self was minuscule, but her well was also bottomless so any portion of it was by its very definition only a tiny fraction.

She shook her head and brought her hands together. A clap echoed through the open plain, followed by a gust of air and a wave of pressure that caused the first few rows of simulacrums coming her way to explode and many more to stumble over. And that was without using magic…

Perhaps she should adjust the physics that governed most of her creation while she was working on the multiverse. They seemed a little… limiting.

For a moment, Aperio considered replicating the throw she had done on Verenier. Simply giving it her all would cause an explosion that would easily encompass a quarter of the eleventh floor. In the end, she decided against it. Protecting all the mortals from it was a hassle and she could use this opportunity to try some other things. Like using her hands and feet to fight and nothing else.

Her feet dug into the dirt as she pushed herself forward, each step a powerful lunge that brought her closer to the sea of targets. Aperio could not keep the smile off her face as the wind brushed against her. With another kick, the All-Mother propelled herself into the air and spread her wings. She glid for a moment, her momentum easily carrying her above a section of unmarred simulacrums, before she folded her wings and let gravity assert its pathetic hold once more.

Aperio crashed into the ground, squishing more than a few of the fake mortals into bloody pulps and causing the small hill she had aimed at to transform into a rather sizable crater.

She slowly stood to her full height, her hands balled into fists and her wings spread behind her. Aperio tensed her muscles and let her tightly controlled grip on her senses loosen. The first thing she noticed was that seeing as she had done for the entirety of her mortal life no longer worked. If she stood still, the scene looked as if frozen — the creations she had made for the dungeon were running towards her as fast as they could, but yet, they did not move — but if she even moved the slightest amount, light itself seemed to remain stationary as she pushed her way through its parts. She even had to extend a tiny bit of her mana to stop the minuscule particles and waves that formed the fabric of reality from breaking every time she moved.

The dirt her landing had kicked up still hung in the air as Aperio took in her surroundings. Time had not stopped, technically at least, but for everyone else it might as well have. Reality was slow; sluggish.

Aperio lifted her hand and plucked one of the almost-frozen rocks that surrounded her out of the air and regarded it for a moment before she closed her hand into a fist, crushing it. Just like before, she had to actually make sure to place all the bits of reality back where they belonged as she had other plans for now. She threw the earthen dust at the simulacrums in front of her, only holding back enough to avoid another explosion. Moving that slow when not constraining her own perception of reality was painful, but also exhilarating in a way.

She could feel how the body she had made worked to fulfil her command; how the world reacted to something that should not technically be possible without the help of magic. If she moved as fast as she could, Aperio had no doubt that the entirety of the island she had made would simply cease to exist. Luckily for everyone else, she had no intention of doing that. Yet.

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Shifting her perception of her creation back towards the more mortal level, Aperio could not help but smile as the dust she had thrown turned the simulacrums into tiny pieces that exploded outwards, doing the same to their neighbours.

Aperio lowered herself slightly and spread her wings before she kicked off of the ground, propelling herself past the first few intact rows of simulacrums. Her extended wings passed through the ones that had yet to explode, slicing them in half without so much as disturbing her forward momentum.

She landed on yet another fake mortal, her foot simply moving through its chest and burying itself into the all-too-soft stone that made up most of the floor. Aperio didn't mind, she simply spun around, using her wings and other foot to cut down more simulacrums around her.

A few of them tried to get close, managing to get past her wings and feet only to end up being grabbed by her hands and either thrown or outright crushed. Blood coated the ground but never the All-Mother herself; the only thing different about her was a slight glow beneath her skin as she drew ever more mana into herself.

Aperio spun again, her wings crushing the simulacrums that tried to swarm her from the sides. She lunged forward, grabbing two of the attackers and introducing their heads to the ground with just enough force to avoid another explosion. That did not stop a crater from forming or for the crunch of their skulls to echo through the fields, however.

The All-Mother only let another joyous laugh and teleported a few more armies that wandered the floor towards herself. Everyone else got to have fun in her dungeon, now it was her turn.

Jacob took a step backwards as another ethereal laugh raced through his mind and the amount of attackers surrounding the All-Mother basically tripled.

"She's insane," he mumbled to himself, grabbing Ryan's arm and pulling him back as well.

The other man didn't reply, simply staring at the carnage Aperio was creating with nothing more than her arms, legs, and wings. Jacob was sure she was not using any of her powers at the moment, though he could not explain why. It simply lacked the feelings and the visual cues he had come to associate with that.

The only good thing about all of this was that Aperio would clear the entire floor on her own. In doing so, she would undoubtedly attract more attention, both from people who would worship her as some kind of Goddess and from those who would try their best to somehow control her.How they would do that was beyond Jacob, but neither was that his problem.

Whoever wished to pit their luck against her... they would be in for a surprise. If Aperio was doing all of this without any of her more fantastical powers, Jacob could only fear for their future. Elder Wu had said that Aperio held little interest in their affairs and would likely leave again, but he could not shake the feeling that someone, at some point, would get close enough to her power that they could simply decide that Earth should be ruled by them. Nobody would be able to stop them.

The All-Mother could do that now, but had apparently no interest in taking charge. Looking at her, she might just be searching for a good fight as a way to entertain herself. For now, however, all that mattered to Jacob was getting some distance between himself and the growing field of torn limbs and crushed bodies, lest he — or Ryan — accidentally end up as one of them.

"Fuck!" Ryan cursed as a loud crack rang out and the ground trembled beneath their feet.

When Jacob looked back, he could only see a cloud of dust and debris. A tiny voice in his mind told him the All-Mother had ripped out a chunk of the ground and thrown it. Or something else equally absurd. She had utterly destroyed a good portion of the dirt at her feet, at least. That was certain.

"Let's get out of here," Jacob said, trying his best not to think about the smell that was now trying to claw its way to the forefront of his mind. "We'll know when she kills the final boss of the floor."

“How can you be so calm?!” Ryan half asked, half yelled. “You see a few bodies and puke but this… this monster breaks an entire dungeon floor, and nothing? Did you not see what she did?!”

“I did,” Jacob, trying his best to keep his voice steady.

“The fuck even is she?” Ryan continued. “She ain’t Human, I can tell you that. Pointy-Eared Goddess Amazon. The fuck kind of power did she get to make this happen?”

“All of it,” Jacob mumbled to himself before he let out a laugh. 

He could not help it, even as Ryan gave him a weird look. The title of All-Mother was more accurate than Jacob would’ve ever thought without witnessing Aperio letting go of her restraint. He doubted this was the extent of her powers, especially as he was still convinced she had used nothing but her body's strength - achieving through it feats that should, by all rights, be impossible.

Before Ryan could speak again, a gust of wind rushed over them and a moment later, Aperio stood in front of them; somehow seeming even taller than before. She was unmarred, her skin, hair, and dress as pristine as it was when she had first met them on this floor. In one hand, she held a large man that was fruitlessly struggling against her grip.

“The guardian of this floor,” she said with a smile on her face. “Do you wish to try your hand against him? He is quite competent for his level.”

Neither of the two men replied, and after what felt like an eternity, Aperio simply offered a shrug with her shoulders and wings and closed her hand, crushing the man’s head as if she was crumpling a sheet of paper.

“A shame, it would have been a good learning experience,” she said as she smoothed out a nonexistent crease in her dress, highlighting her physique a bit more than Jacob was comfortable with. “Until we meet again, then.”

She offered them another smile and a wave before she disappeared, only leaving behind a few blue-edged black feathers behind that slowly drifted towards the ground.

“What the fuck?” Ryan asked once more, looking with wide eyes between the mess that had been the floor boss and Jacob.

Jacob, for his part, simply remained quiet, his gaze fixed on one of the feathers. Despite all he had seen, he still felt like he had to meet the All-Mother again. She had something that he needed, be it powers or answers. One day I will know what it is.

GamingWolf

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