ALL NOVEL 415. Sour
The nine miles of the Shen's domain were pathetic before Pagarti's wide expanse. The false drow's domain tainted the world with a light red and blue evermoving Borealis, but it was barely visible inside the gray of Pagarti's.
The boy's domain also lacked substance. It was like cotton to the City Lord's iron. Pagarti had honed his domain through countless battles against the Gardener Sect's elite Freedom Fighters, meaning he required considerably less willpower to accomplish the same things a weaker domain would. He also had mastered Laws, unlike the boy, which assisted with his domain's strength and ease of use.
Yet, Pagarti found his Final Smite couldn't enter Shen's domain.
The boy wasn't facing him in the meta-battlefield. Pagarti had deemed his Laws to be stronger and any other to be weaker in his domain's area, and it had happened. Shen didn't even try to counter it. And yet, whenever his materialized Hammer attempted to strike the boy down, it disappeared as soon as it entered Shen's area of influence.
It was as if Hammers had no right to exist inside, yet it was also different. Shen wasn't targeting the Axioms of the Hammer. He was targeting only its materialization.
That was against everything the City Lord knew of domains.
He sneaked a glance at the smirking Delegate watching the battle. The Gardener Sect had evidently invested in the boy beyond "merely" proving him with the best C-tier spear to ever grace the Myriad Worlds. The ability to counter a domain's materialization was on the level of a forbidden technique that shouldn't be shown to outsiders except in a life-and-death situation, yet the boy wasn't hiding it. Only the Gardener Sect's beloved Chosen would dare to do it.
Pagarti felt confused, but he also trusted the sect to kill him straight if they wanted to, instead of using him "witnessing what he shouldn't" as an excuse. They were straightforward like that. Af for now...
This was a duel, and there was no problem crushing the boy again. Pagarti didn't need his Final Smite to win this. He had just wanted to put the boy to his place again.
He twisted the Laws of the world inside his domain and teleported right beside the boy—
Pain. His soul was in pain. Reality demanded it to be destroyed, and Pagarti...
...resisted without doing anything.
The demand was weak. His soul wouldn't be injured by that.
Yet, the pain distracted him for a moment. Shen used the opportunity to counter Pagarti's hold upon the meta-battlefield. There was no willpower clash in the meta-field, only countering and counter-countering each other in an eternal loop, expending willpower for supremacy over how strong or weak a Law or Axiom was there. Shen reversed Pagarti's changes and thrust his special spear against the City Lord.
Pagarti was faster and stronger than the boy and easily parried—
He didn't parry it. His hammer swing should've been strong enough to deflect the incoming spear, but it wasn't. Somehow, that spear was considerably stronger than Shen, and Pagarti's precise control over his strength as he parried wasn't enough to push it away.
The spearhead pierced his armor and heart.
Pagarti wielded two hammers, and by the time he got injured, his other hammer was already touching Shen's forehead. He had to extend his arms to compensate for the spear's longer reach, a secret technique the boy didn't see coming. Simultaneously, the City Lord countered the false drow on the meta-battlefield. Shen's willpower held for a split instant but ultimately gave way to Pagarti's.
The hammer struck the boy's head while the drow pushed his spear up, ripping Pagarti's chest apart as it moved to his head.
When the hammer hit, Shen's head blew up, and so did his soul. That had led Pagarti to notice that the boy wasn't an actual drow but a unique lifeform in their last duel. Shen's soul was injured with his body, and his spear slowed. Thus, Pagarti's first hammer reached the boy's chest before his spear could reach Pagarti's head.
The fake drow's chest exploded, and the consequent soul injury made his spear stop moving.
Pagarti won.
Yet, the victory tasted sour on his mouth.
He stepped back as the Delegate's domain covered the region, and she stepped between Pagarti and the boy. Pagarti only knew it was her because she had come to his city before, and its formations could pierce her disguise to peek into her Path. Her presence was half the reason he had wanted to beat the boy again. She had also pissed Pagarti, and beating the false drow once wasn't enough to make up for the annoyance he had been subjected to.
But Shen had almost won. Pagarti could use countless other ways to defeat the boy now that he knew more about his strengths, but he had underestimated his enemy. He didn't know how Un'Re could become stronger than it should've been, but battles were like that, filled with unknowns. Moreover, things such as the ability to deal pain to the soul should not distract him so easily.
It seemed he hadn't learned the lesson after the last Outsider's Path infected him.
The City Lord knew the Delegate wanted him gone because she feared for the boy's life, but this time, he just moved to the horizon and sat midair to await Shen's recovery. Pagarti had come alone not to humiliate the boy too much this time lest he develop real enmity. The distance would be enough to appease the Delegate—whether she like it or not.
When the boy finished reforming—and seeing a soul heal so easily was as bizarre and awe-striking as the first time—Pagarti stood up, cupped his hands before himself, and bowed low to Shen.
"Outsider," he said, "thank you for your lesson. May your Path be filled with the World Tree's Life."
He remained like that for a moment, then turned back and left.
It was time to fight a lot until he got back into shape, or any random C-rank might come one day and take his city from him.
"I thought I had him," Shen said as he followed E'livia back to Flower City.
The only way of traveling to different leaves of the World Tree before reaching A-rank was through the portals the Gardener Sect kept in their Garden Cities. They controlled it quite tightly.
"He was just that much faster than you!" E'livia agreed excitedly. "So close! You really should've cultivated your stats a little!"
Shen smiled. "Then we'd have to return to this world after I got strong enough, just to defeat some random City Lord, and I'm done with this place. It's alright. We know my limits now."
He could still try to use his domain to improve himself, but using it on his spear had been cool enough. Un'Re was really one with him without being him. His domain, while active and empowering the spear, could push it to B-tier. Not B-; straight B.
That meant Shen could use a spear with a mastered core Law without having one himself. It felt both weird and natural at the same time. The Armory System had defined Un'Re's Synced Core tier as B, whatever that meant. It should be the only reason he could improve the spear like that with his domain.
Now, he was starting to understand why the spear was so awesome. He also wondered if E'vania had planned that functionality.
As for improving his stats, E'livia had been slight wrong in her description of Deviations. His Path of Essence had already changed how he cultivated. It was by absorbing qi and willing it to merge with his One Self. Moreover, he instinctively knew what to do.
Yet, he didn't know how to reach B-rank. He could master his Laws and inject a lot of qi into himself to improve his build and, thus, increase his stats. Taking a qualitative step after that was something else altogether.
But that was another issue for future Shen to deal with.
For now, he decided not to cultivate in that world. There was no grand reason for that. He just wanted to wait until he took the next step of his journey. It was as if he was leaving old Shen behind and would work on new Shen after that.
"I'm excited about learning alchemy," Shen shared.
E'livia smiled. "I never dabbled myself. Too many little details, too boring. I find alchemists hot though." She blushed a little.
Shen raised an eyebrow at that. "Really? You find a guy pushing a bunch of flowers on a pot sexy?"
She became redder. "It's how they look when they are focusing, you know? And the way they move their fingers." Her face was a furious red now.
Shen chuckled. "Ah, I see. It's a good thing I'll become an alchemist, then."
After that, E'livia broke into an awkward silence.
Flower City was just as Shen had left it. He stopped to check the Stream-based portal frame and improved his Stream mastery by another five percent over a few days, reaching 79%.
They then entered a steel doorframe. It led to a long steel corridor with a wall of white and silver swirling lights at the end. E'livia touched it with her hand and said, "Lagoth." The portal turned blue, and she smiled at Shen. "Lagoth's an average B-tier world with nothing noteworthy to it. No big villains, no grand heroes, no cataclysmic event, no miracles; nothing. The perfect place for a disguised alchemist to develop without trouble."
Shen might or not have felt a strange shiver when she said that, but it was forgotten as she stepped through the portal, and he followed.
To Lagoth.