563 Lake Of Illusions [2]
Prince Lar was a newly promoted prince. At just 28, he reached level 7 and proved himself to be one of the geniuses.
He wasn't a monster like Princess Iris who reached level 7 when she just turned 27, but he surely was a genius among geniuses.
It's been only a few months since Prince Lar reached level 7, but not only did he completely consolidate his level, he even went a step further.
He could safely say that he was the strongest newbie.
'But my strength isn't enough to get the key.' Lar knew it better than anyone else. With his low level 7 power, his chances were close to none.
But he still entered the lake. If the strongest get themselves injured in fights, maybe he can snatch the key at an opportune moment. Maybe.
Since getting the key was unlikely, he focused on what he could achieve here.
The tangible reward here besides the key was a reward that helped water, fire, and mind paths. He wouldn't be getting it either. He was too weak.
So, he focused on the intangible reward.
'Reputation!'
'I can fight the low-level 7s and prove myself to be the strongest.' Lar was confident in winning against his peers and establishing his supremacy.
As far as he knew, low-level 7s were present from the first mile to the twentieth mile. The deeper one went, the stronger they were.
Of course, he wasn't clouded enough to think he could win against his seniors who were on the verge of reaching mid-level 7.
So, he decided to stay in the range of six to eight miles.
Six miles in, he had already defeated two princes and a princess.
When his senses caught a human intruding his space of hundred meters, he thought it was another prince.
But unexpectedly, it was a strange man.
'Is it a prince with disguise? But why disguise here?' Lar didn't understand, but that didn't stop him from gripping his hammer.
Lar's chi flowed through every inch of his body. As an extreme awakener, he heightened his 'speed'.
Whoosh!
The air exploded and the water under the lake stirred violently as he reached the man in the blink of an eye.
Lar didn't aim for the vitals, but when he heightened his strength and raised his hammer, he was damn sure it wasn't going to be an easy injury.
But he did it anyway.
With a force enough to blast a mountain to pieces, he swung his hammer.
Boom!
Air in the way was forcibly ripped apart as a vacuum was created. Lar watched with confidence as the hammer reached the man's shoulder.
The man stood still.
"Defend yourself!" Lar shouted, dumbfounded at the man's lack of response.
When the hammer was about to strike his shoulder, the man raised his head and looked Lar in the eye.
Time seemed to freeze as a golden light blinded Lar.
Zaaaap!
A loud thunderclap followed and Lar found himself high in the sky.
"Huh?"
When Lar opened his mouth in confusion, blood flowed out uncontrollably.
As he raised his hand to wipe off the blood, he noticed he couldn't feel his right hand.
Looking down, he noticed that a hammer was stuck to his right chest, creating a huge cavity, cracking his bones all the way from his shoulder blade to his forearm.
Lightning sparked above his sunken chest as it entered his body.
"Wha—Arghh!"
Only then did his nerves catch up and the searing pain burnt his nerves. The lightning flooded his insides with an intent to devastate. His chi hurriedly formed a wall to protect itself.
As he wasn't doing defending consciously, parts of the lightning mana breached the chi wall and started to electrocute a few parts of his body.
Lar twitched violently and before things could get serious, he mobilized his chi against the lightning mana.
At the same time, he 'heightened' his healing.
The rogue lightning mana was quickly isolated and with the rest of the foreign mana, it was expelled.
The lightning mana was strong for a low-level 7, but it wasn't crazy strong.
Whoosh!
By the time Lar cleared up his insides, he began to fall.
The whole time since he was punched into the air and started falling was less than half a second.
But for a level 7, this was a significant time.
As he started to fall, Lar looked down at the lake.
It was empty, as expected. Unless he was on the lake, he couldn't see anything. Even when he was on it, the visible range was only a hundred meters.
In the blink of an eye, Lar landed on the outskirts of the lake.
From the six-mile mark, he was now at the 0-mile mark.
"Fucking hell!" Lar cursed in exasperation as he quickly retrieved a potion and downed it.
With the combination of his heightened regeneration and potion, his right arm began to heal at a rate visible to the eye.
But it'd still take a few minutes.
"Roar!" A merman appeared and pounced on Lar.
The prince finished it with his left hand, but he didn't move.
In fact, he stood in place without taking a step forward.
He still couldn't understand how he was defeated so thoroughly.
'How?!'
Then another question popped up.
'Who is he?'
The same question was being asked by the two princes and three princesses that were 'kicked' out to the edge of the lake by Varian.
Like Lar, they all stood in their place, frozen like statues.
The scene where they attacked the mysterious man kept flashing in their mind.
A princess turned into a beautiful red flower plant and summoned ten small-sized similar flowers.
As they filled the space with dangerous poison, Varian used his psychic power and disrupted her attack. Then, he blasted the space and kicked her out.
A prince transformed into a fire wolf and it triggered Varian's bad memories. He ended up beating down the guy using his lightning, superhuman and space powers before kicking him out.
Out of all low-level 7s that Varian fought, this one was the most injured.
Then there was a psychic princess who tried to pull Varian into an illusion.
Since Varian didn't fight through this method much, he couldn't resist being pulled into the illusion.
So, he was sent into a dangerous place in his memory.
The cluster cities.
Contrary to what happened in reality, here, the abyssals succeeded in their ploy.
The cluster cities were blasted, and Uranus' planetoids were occupied. The linkage between Uranus and Neptune was cut.
Then, the abyssals began their onslaught on Neptune.
It was scarier than any horror story.
But except for the initial fear, Varian quickly pulled himself together and used his mental power.
Since he wasn't used to it yet, he couldn't easily break the illusion itself. But he was able to send his mental sense out of the illusion and search for the psychic princess.
She stood at a distance, completely unarmed as she looked at him with a condescending gaze. In her opinion, he was done.
Of course, she wasn't careless. While most of her mental sense was focused on pulling him into an illusion, she also kept her guard up.
Not for him, but for others who might enter the space.
So, if Varian tried any lightning or space attacks, she'd have noticed.
He didn't.
Instead, Varian used the silent macro kinetic power. It slowly reached her and formed a net around her.
Since he took additional care to keep it hidden and it didn't exude any obvious signs like other paths, when he attacked her, the princess was taken aback.
Then, she too was kicked out to the edge of the lake.
There were Gravity path princes. They froze Varian to a spot and nearly broke his bones.
Even his lightning attacks were forcibly twisted by the ridiculous gravity.
But when Varian added his psychic powers to the mix and took them by surprise, his lightning powers did the job.
The deeper he went, the stronger the opponent.
The mermen were also stronger and grouped, but compared to humans, they were simply on a lower level.
Thus, Varian didn't struggle much in crossing fifteen miles.
By now, he was regularly using two paths for any opponent.
Occasionally, he had to use three paths as well.
While Varian had more paths, they were all at 0/10k. Not even a bit of development contrary to these princes and princesses made significant progress.
As he got closer and closer to the twentieth mile, where the strongest low-level 7s were positioned, it was becoming difficult to win using even three paths.
Varian picked psychic + lightning + space paths and this combination suited the fights most of the time.
First, he attacked them with lightning, causing them to believe he was a lightning-only awakener, as dual awakeners were just very rare.
Then, when they blocked his lightning, he would use the psychic power to mess with their defense.
They would overcome his interference, but by then, he'd have already teleported behind them and attacked.
Like that, Varian crossed the twenty miles and on the twenty-first mile, he encountered his first mid-level 7 opponent.
*** ***
A/N: I don't know why, but I really struggled to write today. So, it will only be one chap. Apologies for the inconvenience.
