Chương 297: Chapter 285

More explosions worked better, but left him somewhat exhausted. Glancing at the clock, he saw that they still had an hour left. Glancing at Katie, Sam saw that she was still in her element. Though thankfully, compared to her old self, she was much more cognizant of her and her allies' location, instead of fully charging into the midst of the monster horde, not caring about what may happen. Returning his attention to the monsters, he spent a brief moment observing them.

After his fifth firing of his new spell, which he was hesitantly calling Obliteration in his mind, the sea of chaos seethed as if personally insulted and began to undulate. Angry waves of darkness and even darker black began their offensive against the island, and he could see that with every second, the gray stones, dust, and ruins began to shrink as the chaos ate away at them, inch by inch.

Even the monsters, while before they were definitely angry and ready to murder, Sam could actually see them being possessed by something that drove their anger to an unheard level. What that something was, he had no idea, and to be frank, he didn't really want to know. It was enough to know that there was something in his area that wanted him very dead.

Not that there were any questions about the fact that the monsters were there for one reason and one reason only, but now something else joined, and it made a distinct difference.

"An hour left, Katie… I'm going into DPS mode, you're the tank!" he called out, feeling the events of the past few hours catching up to him, but he shook himself before jumping backwards (evading a lance of darkness) and letting Katie wedge herself between him and the approaching horde that began to glow. The glow resembled a rainbow that had been coated in oil.

It even began to drip and pool around their lower appendages – he refused to call those malformed thing legs – gathering into small pools of disgusting mire.

"Got it, boss!" came from Katie. To Sam, she sounded way too happy with the situation and not as tired as he was feeling. Still, the quest needed to be done, so he would do what he needed to do. Sheathing his sword, he raised both hands, completely focusing on decimating the incoming enemy with pure void attacks.

He started with his Obliteration, giving Katie a small breathing room, then followed that up with a few lances of his, created from pure void, targeting some of the bigger members of the horde as Katie played keep-away. For a while, it worked. A bunch of monsters would be summoned, Katie would interpose herself between Sam and them, and then he would demolish the approaching swarm with his new 'spell'. The monsters would be vaporized, bisected, crushed, and eliminated in a myriad of ways until another wave spawned.

[0: 01: 59]"Two minutes, Kat!" he yelled just as he summoned a wall of void by raising his hand fast, as if throwing something high in the air, just in time for a sneaky monster to slam into one. It may have eluded his physical senses, but his mind was firing on all cylinders today, and there was no escape from his Mana Sense.

"RAAAAAAAAAGH!" was the berserker's only response, turning into a tornado of blade and spikes, letting off wave after wave of eldritch yellow energy that seemed to cling to the monsters surrounding them. Weirdly, the creepy oily substance also conducted the same yellow light, allowing it to cause some damage to every monster that stepped on those puddles. Sam made a note to have a talk with her about her skill build, but for now, he had to focus on surviving as more and more monsters seemed to be spawning.

They were no longer simply appearing in waves. No, instead, they were climbing up from the ledges, dropping down from the tallest of ruins, sneaking out of the holes in the ground. It was like a tide of all-consuming black that decided to aim for their heads. [0: 00: 42] Still, both Katie and he were managing. A few swipes here and there managed to snag their armor. A few blows staggered them, making them step closer to each other, but otherwise, the plan was still in effect.

However, instead of aiming, Sam just kept up a stream of attacks, indiscriminately aiming it around themselves, trying to hit as many monsters as possible.

"How much longer?"

"Half a minute!" Sam grunted in response, trying not to lose his focus. [0: 00: 07] ROAAAAAAAAAR The sound echoing around the platform, floating in the sea of nothingness, shook everything, from the smallest pebble to the biggest monster. Sam and Katie barely had time to witness a titanic arm emerge from a flat circular plane and descend on them with a speed that belied its weight, before they were engulfed in white light. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

-*-[0: 00: 00]-*- The moment he opened his eyes, Sam saw that he wasn't under the palm of something that shouldn't belong to the realm of existence, instead he was sitting on his ass, drenched with sweat and who knows what in the courtyard of the Tower of Void with the Void Lady with Lucky at her feet and Puffball in her hap, enjoying her ministrations. [Quest Completed!] Seeing the notification that appeared in front of him, Sam let out a heavy sigh and relaxed somewhat.

Full relaxation, however, could wait until he left this desolate place between dimensions. Not even getting up, he rested with his arms, leaning back slightly, and looked up at the Void Lady.

"Well, teach, how did we do?" he asked with a slight smile, trying to act nonchalant. The statuesque lady dressed in black, with the ominous Puffball in her lap, spent a moment just petting the 'cat' before speaking.

"It's a good start…" Katie cut in angrily, hearing that.

"Good start?" the heavily armored young woman exclaimed with an affronted tone.

"He was turning those cuties into dust every second! It was super awesome!" She finished with her hands on her hips and glaring at their host. Sam just mouthed 'cuties' at the Void Lady, who returned an equally confused look before smiling at his friend.

"Indeed, a good start," she repeated, ignoring how Katie was puffing up her face, ready to lay into her.

"But that's why he is here. To improve himself, right?" She stared at the other woman for a long moment, making Sam fear she would explode before her cheeks noisily deflated. She then rushed forward, snatched the still sleeping Puffball from the Void Lady's lap, and cradled it to her chest while muttering under her breath.

"Come, Puffball, at least you're always on my side…" Puffball chose this exact moment to wake up, stretch, then slither out of her arms with the same uncanny ability to turn into liquid that every cat seemed to possess, before sauntering back to the owner of the tower and taking his place in her lap again. It took all his strength to stop himself from laughing at the flabbergasted look on Katie's face.

"Well, I never…" she muttered angrily while stomping her feet. Sam decided that his rest was enough and spoke up.

"If it was a good start, then how should I improve?" Thankfully, only the barest hint of smugness could be seen on the Void Lady's face as she resumed petting Puffball before she answered.

"Your idea was good for someone with your knowledge, but as I'm sure you noticed, your mobility and utility were severely hampered." Sam simply nodded, not refuting the statement. The Void Lady paused for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts, then continued.

"What you have to understand is that the void is not actually empty. It is the potential for creation and at the same time the absence of a definitive form. That's what makes it so dangerous. Anyone with the barest understanding is capable of shaping it. And those who have more than that…" she began to explain, shuddering slightly.

"Surviving wielding it is a different matter altogether. Nothingness seeks to fill everything that is occupied with something. Your luck rests in the fact that you reached out to it, instead of it reaching you in some manner. That allowed a sort of buffer and valve that ensured your survival." Sam listened intently, wondering where she was going with this. The concept she was talking about was familiar, but he failed to see the connection between it and his spell.

It must have shown on his face, as she began to chuckle.

"Ahh, youth…" she exclaimed softly, as if enjoying some kind of a joke before refocusing on Sam.

"I think what you fail to understand, young mage, is that giving a form to it is not enough. You must also create if you wish to master it and not be mastered by it." As she finished, she raised a hand that was not going through Puffball's fur and waved it a little. Instantly, the same 'spell' Sam created appeared in the air, though in miniature, before it was sent off against one of the remaining dummies.

He watched intently as the spell flew through the air and impacted the dummy, which vanished at the same time, and so did several of his friends.

"The void seeks to consume. You do not have to waste energy and effort to make it so," she stated as another ball of void flew off at the dummies that reappeared within a second. The ball of chaotic mana impacted the middle dummy, but it did not explode in a way Sam expected.

Instead, giant tentacles made of void emerged that wound themselves around the rest of the dummies and, with a horrible squelching sound, dragged them back into the void ball, which in turn shrank until it was nothing more than a pinprick that literally popped out of existence. Sam looked thoughtfully, already a bunch of ideas percolating around his head. Though almost all of them were devoid of tentacles. He most definitely didn't want to go there…

As he mused over the newly gained information, still sitting on the surprisingly not cold stone of the courtyard, Katie eagerly stepped forward as if the previous slight had already been forgotten.

"What about me? How can I get better?" The Void Lady waved her closer, and as Katie stepped next to her, she leaned forward and began to whisper into Katie's ears. Hearing the demented giggle that escaped his crazy friend's lips, Sam decided that he didn't want to know. It was a toss-up if future generations would bless him for that or curse his name… [You acquired a new quest!] [Into the breach, once more: One more Round!] [You need to survive.] [Time: 2: 59: 11] [Penalty:???] [Reward: Survival] Another flash of light, and the two of them found themselves back on the same island in the chaotic sea. Though it was much diminished from before. By Sam's estimation, it lost almost a quarter of its original area, and most of its surface was cleaned of anything taller than a shrub. The moment their feet touched the gray and lifeless soil, the nothingness around shook and immediately began to disgorge an endless number of monsters.

It seems this time they wouldn't have the luxury of dealing with waves of voidlings. Sam took a deep breath and focused inward.

'If the void wants to consume… I should let it do so. Less constraint… more direction…' By the time he opened his eyes a second later, Katie was like a dervish, dancing around him with glee as she began to engage the first few monsters that reached them. Raising both hands, not unlike a conductor, he listened to the sound of battle for a fraction of a second before reaching deep and unleashing a wave of void, aimed all around him.

He watched, through his senses, as the first wave of his attack reached the monsters, latching onto them, avoiding Katie, who still hadn't stopped. For another moment, he held his breath, then relaxed his hold on the magic. It was as if the world held its breath for a second before the same screeching sound exploded around them, and the magic simply began to consume.