Path to Transcendence

If there was anything Julius liked more than food, it was fighting.
He paused and pinched his lips together. Actually, that wasn’t true. He still enjoyed food more, but with that being said, he liked fighting a lot.
He continued to allow the jets to hit his barriers. He had plenty of mana to spare, so he wasn’t too worried about running out. He was practically a massive mana battery, especially when you compared him to other Tier 3s.
Instead of panicking, he was more focused on trying to find Seraphyna. There wasn’t any water nearby, at least from what he could tell. That begged the question, where was she? How could he find her?
He attempted to see if he had a better chance with mana perception. While he relied a lot on his spatial skill, he was still very confident in his mana senses. They were very sensitive, and hopefully, he would be able to track where these jets of water were coming from.
Much like when he had been diving into the water, these jets of water were coming from every direction. They would spawn out of nowhere. If Julius didn’t know any better, she was utilizing some kind of domain. But he didn’t sense one active, but it might be a skill that was exclusive to spirits. He didn’t know.
The attacks were strong, but not anything his barriers weren’t capable of dealing with. This was the main reason he felt comfortable enough to close his eyes and place almost all of his attention on his perception.
He even started to utilize his Space Concept. Chaotic Void wasn’t something meant for perception, but it didn’t hurt to try. The sounds of the attacks gradually got louder as they slammed into the barrier relentlessly.
She must have realized that he was placing all of his attention on finding her and went all out with her assault. He could have dealt with the situation in a myriad of ways. He could have run around, blasting random areas where he thought the attacks were coming from.
Or he could have exploded his aura, creating a concussion grenade of a sort with it. However, he wanted to use this opportunity to improve his perception skills, or rather, take advantage of fighting someone who could avoid his detection. He didn’t experience that a lot, and it was better that he dealt with a skill like this now, rather than later.
Julius ramped up his focus skill as he extended all his senses outward. He even began to send out little probes of his mana, desperately trying to find where this turtle was. He came up with nothing.
However, he did think of an idea he wanted to test out. He gathered a lot of mana, probably more than necessary, but he didn’t want to risk it not being enough. Then, after playing with it for a little bit, he sent all of the collected mana outward in a wide sphere.
He imagined it like a cloud of sticky dust, with the intent of his mana latching onto any physical object. This technique would only work because he had [Absolute Spatial Perception]. If not for the skill and his experience in using it, he wouldn’t have had the proper abilities to detect if the mana got stuck on anything.
The cloud of mana continued to spread like a dust storm. He felt a considerable amount of his mana drain out of his pool and out of his channels. He made sure to keep some of it under his control, just so that it didn’t get wasted. However, with so much of it spread out over such a wide area, it was a challenging task. He was only able to keep control of a portion of it, and that portion got smaller and smaller the more he extended the cloud of mana.
It was almost sheer luck that he finally sensed something. Off in the distance, over two hundred feet away from him, was something floating in the air. He didn’t know if this was the turtle for sure, but he didn’t have any better leads.
The mana latched onto the object, and he could sense his mana, which had been attached, start to move in a circle, going on the other side of him. When he sensed this, he was pretty confident that this was the turtle.
She didn’t seem to have realized what he had done as of yet. She didn’t make any moves to remove the mana that had collected on her body. To be fair, there was such a minuscule amount of mana that he would have been more amazed if she did.
It was only because it was his mana that he was still able to keep track of it. He didn’t make a move to attack her, despite being able to. He still wanted to use this time to improve his perception skills. He continued to tinker with his perception skill as he kept track of her.
He used his mana as a hint to figure out some other method of detection. During all of this, he began to think that she was growing frustrated with her lack of progress. It was as if he were the turtle and not her. He didn’t even bother to move all that much as she pounded attack after attack on his barriers.
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He would constantly have to either create new ones or repair them, but she started to adjust her attacks as well. She began to adopt a more blunt-force strategy, rather than using thin and narrow piercing blasts of water. He was being subjected to heavy blasts of water. They actually were less effective, though, and she quickly put an end to that idea.
The more interesting one was when she tried to slip her water under his barriers. He was forced to change them so that they encompassed all around him, with no gaps. That was hard because whenever a crack appeared or a new barrier was created, a small gap would open up.
Water would inevitably go through and try to attack now that the barrier wasn’t in the way. Thankfully, he had a solution for that. He used some liberal pulses of his aura to deal with the attacks forming with the small amount of water. It was quite easy; her lack of willpower showed when he did that.
She wasn’t able to keep hold of whatever skill she was using when he used his aura on her. He was still tempted to just blast his aura at her, but he really wanted to figure out a way past this stealth skill.
It was a personal vendetta at this point. He wouldn’t accept a victory any other way.
He continued to push his senses to the limit. But nothing he did worked. He wasn’t able to sense her mana moving when she attacked, and he couldn’t sense her with his spatial senses without his mana dust helping out.
Eventually, he grew impatient and decided to focus less on his barriers and her attacks and more on tracking her down. So without hesitation, he pulled his focus away from his barriers.
He shifted his open attention to his senses, sending everything into overdrive. He would find her; he was determined to do so.
Now that he had given up much of his effort on defense, the change was immediate. The relentless assault of attacks finally showed some results. His barrier got pierced by a thin jet of water, and a thin laceration appeared on his forearm. The jets of water were sharp, and while his body was tough, it wasn't enough to handle these attacks.
He couldn’t help but chuckle as he was under a constant barrage of attacks. It was very impressive that she hadn’t run out of mana already. Maybe as a spirit, she had a shit ton of mana. There had to be something, but he didn’t
Slowly but surely, more of her attacks got through. His wounds also began to grow larger. Instead of lacerations, he was getting small puncture holes in his body. He could practically feel her excitement as she increased her already frenzied pace, thinking she had him on the ropes.
Maybe she thought he was running out of mana, or was simply getting tired, but he let her think that. However, as she felt she had him beat, he smiled widely and laughed.
“There you are,” he said quietly.
Seraphyne must have heard him because he sensed her freeze in place, and before she could understand what he meant by that, he had already disappeared from his spot. He used [Void Step] to appear right in front of her. He didn’t give her a chance to react and snatched her right out of the air with his hand.
Her surprised yelp was very satisfying to hear. As he gripped the backside of her shell, she attempted to attack him with everything she had. All of the mana, aura, and even tried to bite his fingers off with the same mouth that took his toe.
He teleported away again, avoiding the swarm of attacks converging on his position. He was somewhat shocked that he felt her attempts at disrupting his spatial skill. Unfortunately for her, he had a chaotic space skill, and normal disruptive attempts didn’t work.
He didn’t like that and gave her a firm smack across the shell with his kinetic energy. The smack didn’t seem to do all that much, and didn’t deter her from trying to bite him again. So this time, he didn’t try to be gentle. He wrapped his hand with [Void Strike] and gave her a hard swat.
Although her shell was tough, [Void Strike] was brutal. He heard her shell crack as his palm whacked against it. Her cries of pain only fueled her desperation to get away. However, now that he had gotten his hands on her, he used some aura to wipe out any more attacks she tried to hit him with.
He could sense that she was trying to run away, but with constant little blasts of his aura and the leverage of his Space Concept, he was able to tear apart any of her escape plans. She seemed very confused by that and was staring at him with disbelief.
She shouted telepathetically. Even that was an attack in some way, and he struck back at her with his own aura. Something he had learned from Lily was that a telepathic connection was a two-way street. Just as one person was allowed to use it, the other person was also able to, provided they knew what they were doing.
Julius didn’t know what he was doing for sure, but he learned enough from Lily that he could quiet down the noise from the telepathetic communication. However, he also discovered he could attack through it. He sent a sharp kick at her with his aura, and he felt her wince in his hands.
She still didn't give up, though. She was feisty and wasn’t admitting defeat. He could at least admire that, but he also didn’t want to keep holding onto something that wanted to eat his fingers for lunch.
That was why he hefted her in his hand and slammed her into the stone at his feet. Then he used some kinetic energy to wrap around her, holding her in place. Her willpower was quickly overwhelmed, and she was immobilized.
“Okay, I think this is considered a win for me,” he said to her completely still body.
She wasn’t able to talk with him, but based on her frantic attempts to get free, he assumed that she wasn’t happy. Not at all. But there was nothing she could do about it.