Chương 385: Chapter 375 - The Golden Goose

Alonso felt the EM pulse before anything else. A violent ripple tore outward from the creature, shredding the lingering quiet. The golden goose was no longer an ornament. Its feathers stirred as it woke up from stillness. Light burned in its eyes. Cold, predatory. A killing intent that locked onto him alone. He had not expected a creature in what seemed like a Body-focused Dungeon to wield EM force on this scale. Yet the revelation sparked something fierce inside him. This was better. This was what he wanted.

He pushed forward, the ground cracking beneath his boots as his blades cut through the rising suppression. His own domain forced its way through the distorted field. The echoes of his magnetised microcapacitors flared, carving a corridor of warped light around him. He was about to strike when the creature vanished. He pivoted as several golden feathers tore into existence, whistling toward him in a tight, blistering spiral.

He intercepted the first with a cross-guard sweep, sparks shooting out as metal scraped EM reinforced quill. Then another. And another. The next wave followed so quickly the sound blurred into a single ripping shriek. Too fast. Faster than he could meaningfully slow with EM bursts. Faster than the eye should track. His instincts seized control and the world broke into vectors. Lines of danger. Lines of possibility.

He disrupted one feather with a pulse, used its altered path to knock another aside, then rode the shock of impact to pivot into a space barely wide enough for his shoulder. But not every line could be dodged. Sharp heat bit his side. Another grazed his ribs. A third tore across his shoulder. Shallow cuts. Less than an inch deep each. But they bled, and each line sharpened his focus rather than dulling it. He stared at the creature as it circled overhead. Movement too fast to fully track.

Light sliding around its form through precise EM refraction, giving the false impression of disappearance. So that was its trick. Speed and light distortion. Its physical body had never left the air at all. More feathers erupted. The creature did not relent. Dozens. Hundreds. A storm thrown with mechanical precision. Each projectile carrying both kinetic force and an EM twist that made their trajectories shift mid-flight.

They tore grooves into the stone, punched holes through pillars, and sent fractured debris flying like shrapnel. Alonso slipped between them, blades flashing in tight arcs. His body adjusted in increments so small they were almost microscopic. Millimetric shifts. Micro-twists through hip, spine, and shoulder as he bent each vector around him. Yet the feathers kept coming, and not all could be avoided. Pain lanced across his flanks. Warm blood traced a line down his waist. He ignored it.

His breathing levelled, steady and controlled. His thoughts narrowed, sharpening into something cold and exact. More vectors formed. Hundreds. Then thousands. The creature's patterns unfolded in his mind. Amid another flurry of feathers, he finally acted. He broke forward, Path of Shards igniting around him in a jagged aurora of broken light. His domain cut seams into the storm of attacks. Every predicted line matched. Every movement hit the one corridor that existed between certain death and narrow survival.

He surged upward. He reached the goose. His blade swung toward gold. The creature shrieked and blurred out of sight. But Alonso had already seen through the trick. His swords cut through empty air that suddenly wasn't empty at all. The right blade met the sharp hooked beak with a metallic crack that jolted through his bones. The left carved a shallow line across its flank, enough to draw a flash of brilliant sparks. He felt the recoil slam through his arms. The creature's body was absurdly dense.

He was ready to follow up, to carve through its rhythm, when a crackle of violent energy rippled from the point of contact. Lightning. A spark burst into a blinding flare, followed by a pulse that tore outward in a ring of contorting air. The entire goose brightened in a surge of golden-white light, the intensity swelling to the edge of explosion. An EMP-like blast howled outward. Stone burst apart as if punched by a titan. Air warped. Static ripped across the chamber.

Alonso narrowed his eyes and forced Path of Shards to its very limit, layering distorted EM vectors around his frame to blunt the blast. Even so, voltage burned through him in a violent surge and the kinetic shock slammed into his chest like a battering ram. Pain tore across his ribs as he was flung backwards. He hit the floor hard enough to split one of the giant-sized bricks beneath him, fragments exploding outward with a heavy CRACK. He grit his teeth. Sweat mixed with blood along his jaw.

His skin scorched where the charge bit into him, but he forced his legs beneath him and braced. The moment he felt the ground, he kicked off again and launched back toward the creature. The more attacks it showed him, the more he would learn. Whatever it threw at him… would only work once. He steadied himself as another barrage formed. Dozens of golden feathers materialised out of the air, each glowing with a dangerous charge. The pattern had shifted. The currents were stronger. It was trying something new.

But he saw it all. His form blurred into zigzags as he threaded between them. A few grazed his arms and sides, opening thin red stripes along his skin, yet each scrape told him something. Each vibration. Each angle. Each interval. Every feint. Every pivot of its wings. Every false line of movement meant to deceive the eye. Too obvious. Its intent was telegraphed in the smallest fluctuations of its EM field. And he was reading all of it.

His swords lit with charged force as he channelled everything into sharp output. He swept through another burst of feathers and caught the creature on its flank, carving a fresh glowing line across its golden body as it tried to twist away. He saw the next explosion coming long before it built. He pushed off the fractured ceiling and dropped to avoid the blast radius, then re-engaged in an instant. Again and again he struck, slipping in and out of its reach.

His blades flashed in looping arcs, each contact small but cumulative. Tiny wounds. Shallow grooves. Minimal damage on their own, but every cut mattered. Every mark stacked. Sweat streaked down his temples. His breath came sharper. The air filled with dust and drifting motes of shattered stone. Sparks crawled across the walls. His coat burned at the edges. Blood ran down his ribs in thin lines. But his eyes never wavered. Every passing moment he adapted faster. Every movement corrected itself.

Every reaction refined. The creature was mighty. Yet with every exchange… it was losing ground. Cuts started to accumulate in its golden body. There was no blood coming out, but instead shiny lines of radiant white where his blades had carved in. They glowed like cracks in heated metal, flickering with each flap of its wings. The fight went on, until a sudden shift in the creature's movement sent his instinct aflare and he backed away instantly.

The Golden Goose's eyes burned bright as its beak opened, and a sonorous, echoing sound blasted outward, making the walls of the giant fort vibrate. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings." SKREEEEEEE—!!!" Dust rained from the ceiling. Loose stones rattled. Air shook like a struck drum.

Alonso directed a burst of controlled EM pulses through his auditory pathways, dampening neural transmission and forcing the muscles around his middle ear to lock tight before the shockwave could rupture his eardrums, as his focus remained fixed on its next move. The bird's field radiated, and with a final cry it pierced through the ceiling. Stone burst outward in a cascade of debris as it carved a jagged hole in its way and flew high into the sky above. He did not delay.

He pushed from the ground, cratering it under the force as his Path of Shards flared and he shot upward after it. As he passed the gap in the roof, sunlight struck him full-force, white and blinding. The world outside opened into a vast expanse of clouds and blue as far as he could see. Wind tore across his face. The air tasted sharp and cold. And there above… it was. Yet now there was a faint silhouette of pure gold around it.

Its form was clear and distinct, forming a golden egg, 3 meters in height, that encompassed its entire body. Light bent around it. The air wavered, shimmering under the radiant pressure emanating from it. Alonso narrowed his eyes. There was no EM signature from the egg, nor was it a result of light refraction. No—he could feel its nature clearly. It was… Will.

"So you're finally getting serious, huh," he murmured, a smile tugging at his lips despite the sting of burns and the warm lines of blood drying across his skin. His heartbeat climbed. A desire he had disciplined for over 2 weeks finally broke through the restraints he had placed on himself. A desire to fight without limits. To clash with something that forced him to go all-out. The pressure around him rose. The sky shifted. Something inside him—something proud and unyielding—answered. Belief materialised.

A silhouette formed behind him. Shaped from constellations and drifting nebulae, ringed by spinning stars and distant galaxies, as if the stellar map itself had chosen to wear his outline. A frame painted on the canvas of the void, echoing his stance, his breathing, his resolve. It was his strongest state. The embodiment of a path he had forged with no guidance— Will Manifest The force enveloped him. It strengthened him beyond Pillar, beyond Body, beyond the limits of technique.

A power born from conviction, from belief. And the moment it settled into him, the golden egg's oppressive pressure cracked, then dissolved. His Will swept outward like a shifting tide, claiming the space around him. He raised his blades. His pupils tightened. His pulse steadied into a war drum.

"Let's see," he whispered, breath controlled and low, "if you're truly stronger than it was." He moved. The sky erupted. Stars streaked behind him as his form blurred into a comet-like trail. Hundreds of golden feathers erupted around the goose—manifesting out of empty air with impossible speed, bending in unpredictable arcs as kinetic force and EM bursts laced through each one. They aimed for him from every direction, every angle. He did not slow.

His movement tore across the sky, carving shimmering lines through the clouds as he slipped between the feathers with impossible precision—each dodge a whisper, each tilt of his body shaped by the tidal flow of predictive vectors in his mind. His swords flashed. Arcs of white-blue cut through the golden barrage. His Will-infused Path of Shards shredded the creature's suppression and collapsed its attempts to summon lightning. Feathers that should have pierced him scattered like sparks.

Explosions bloomed behind him as they detonated harmlessly in his wake. The sky crackled with ruptured air as he accelerated again. A comet of starlight closing in on the heart of the golden storm. His swords flared, breaking through its defences as lines of radiant white split across the creature's golden shell. Sparks burst like miniature novas, scattering across the open sky. No matter how the Goose pressured him, no matter how it burst in and out of vision as it warped its presence, he did not slow.

His form blurred around it, carving arcs through the daylight itself as every shift, every feint, every sudden dive was predicted before it formed. Yet the Golden Goose was not done. It retreated in a sharp vertical jolt, wings cutting a booming shockwave across the clouds— and something dropped in its wake. Alonso sensed it almost too late, pupils snapping toward the smaller golden egg tumbling toward him. An instant later— BOOOOOOM! A massive eruption tore the sky apart. Not just EM. Not just kinetic.

Its Will was woven into the blast, a violent surge that expanded far beyond what its size allowed. Alonso was hurled back hundreds of meters, armour scorched, coat smoking, skin blistered from the blast. The air trembled with the fading echo as charred embers drifted around him. Yet his gaze… had not dimmed at all. He had expected tricks like this. He knew it had more. And this— This was nothing.

He flared Path of Shards, the Manifestation behind him moving in perfect sync, every starry limb mirroring his stance as they pursued the Goose across the sky. Feathers came in volleys, hundreds at a time, tearing contrails in the air. More golden eggs detonated in its wake, cracking the clouds open with each blast. Voltage pulsed overhead as it tried to call lightning through raw manipulation of the sky's charge. And yet— His swords found their way. Slash Another line of white carved across its golden form.

His Will surged, pushing him deeper, higher, faster, until the air around him shook with the force of their clash. The battle escalated. The Goose screeched, a jagged metallic cry that warped the air, and its attacks shifted into something almost feral. Its movements sharpened into reckless bursts, the kind of speed that bent light around its feathers as it darted through the sky like a streak of molten gold. It threw itself at him with abandon. A barrage of feathers shot out at a rate faster than before.

Hundreds—then thousands—fired like a golden tempest. The sky flashed gold. Thunder cracked behind each volley. Clouds tore apart, dragged into spirals by the force of its Will that screamed of fury. Alonso moved through the chaos. He pushed deeper into Will Manifest, letting the star-forged silhouette behind him carry his momentum forward. Every fibre of his being sharpened. His lungs burned. Sweat stung the scorched wounds across his ribs. Blood trailed behind him in thin lines as the wind tore past.

But none of it slowed him. None of it mattered. His eyes followed everything—the flick of its wing, the twitch of its talon, the swelling of Will inside its golden shell. Every burst, every shift, every micro-change in pressure was mapped instantly in his mind. His blades connected again. And again. And again. Radiant lines carved across its body faster than golden light could heal over them. His Path of Shards carved the vectors, guiding each strike perfectly through its evasions. A spiral slash across its wing.

A cross-cut over its chest. A deep thrust between the plates of shimmering gold. The Goose shrieked, its body flaring so bright the sky tinted molten. Lightning wrapped around it, feeding its frenzy as it attacked with pure, unrestrained fury. But he remained—relentless. His Will slammed into its own, shattering its influence inch by inch, folding its domain inwards as he advanced. Then, in the middle of its berserk rush, he saw it. One opening. A gap between plumes of light, less than a breath wide.

His muscles tightened. His heart steadied. The universe behind him leaned forward. He struck. One carved line across its neck. Crack A spiderweb of fractures raced through the golden shell. Crack White radiance poured from the wounds. CRAAAAAACK! The Golden Goose shattered, exploding into a blinding burst of gold and white that swallowed the sky. The shockwave ripped the clouds apart in a wide ring, sending a deep thunderclap rolling across the heavens.

Alonso braced inside Will Manifest, arms raised, teeth grit as the heat and force burned across his frame. When the light finally cleared… Something remained. Suspended in the air where the Goose had fallen was a single egg—almost as tall as he was. Its surface gleamed with shifting patterns of gold, not energy… but matter. Solid. Real. Alonso hovered before it, chest rising with controlled breaths, skin still smoking from the blast.

His eyes narrowed, and he kept Will Manifest active, letting the cosmic silhouette behind him loom behind him… ready. A faint sound echoed. Crack Another. Crack The golden shell cracked open. And from within the glowing interior— A young boy stepped out.