Chapter 123
Chapter 123
123 Erosion begins
The next day in the early hours of the day a male figure woke up in a cluttered bedroom, he groggily stood up from his bed, he checked the time and it was soon the time that they had agreed they would meet.
Layton silently dressed up donning a simple long dark blue hooded jacket and fitted black pants, his short length dark hair and pale eyes complemented his handsome face and gave him an air of mystique, he wore no ornaments except for a ring on his finger.
It was the ring that was gifted to him by Makarov except that this time there were some changes to it, instead of its simple and bland black colour there was now various dark blue lines that gave the simple black ring a mysterious feel to it. Layton had spent most of his time the night before refining the previous gem with his psionic and combining it with the ring, it had taken a lot of effort and energy to make sure the gem was perfectly combined with the ring without negatively affecting the information it contained. Once dressed Layton activated his mage connector went to the wizard seed section and applied for a dimensional erosion, with his action he quickly faded out of the bedroom and reappeared in a new space, the space seemed blank but there was a ball-like object in the centre of the space filled with numerous interconnected runes that seemed to change randomly every second.
A few seconds later Layton found Zero and Lilith a few meters away from him, Zero donned a dark wizard robe that hid her figure, her short blond hair was not covered with the robe’s hood and as she walked she seemed to disappear and reappear in Layton’s perception coupled with the faint mysterious area that was around her Layton was aware that she had already been promoted to legend.
Not far away from her was Lilith who was dressed in her usual princess like dress munching on a purple coloured fruit that had some mysterious lines on its back.
Layton gave a smile to both of them and quickly congratulated zero on her advancement, in reply she just nodded and Lilith handed over a similar fruit offering Layton a bite.
The fruit tasted like coffee and like its taste it quickly refreshed Layton driving away the last bit of drowsiness that existed in him.
The next moment the floating ball like object seemed to have sensed that all members were complete and so the runes on the ball flashed faster as if looking for something, a split second later it seemed to have locked on to what it was looking for and the flashes soon reduced back to its normal speed, a quaint voice sounded saying ‘position locked, keyword: professional.’
“professional” Zero muttered thoughtfully, the clue was too small for them to easily decide what the word meant.
.....
Layton glanced at Lilith and Zero signalling towards them that they shouldn’t bother and then simply commanded talking to the space succinctly stating “deduct sources increase keywords”
‘deducting... keywords: professional, Astral realm, Modern.’
Unlike the wizard seed test, a formal dimensional erosion did not give a vague direction of the plot or what the plane contained instead keywords were given, keywords which signified important aspects or characteristics of the world which they were going to be headed towards, it was this way because any other clue given by the eroder could be misguided and easily mislead the wizard seeds and this would rashly increase the danger of the trip, not only that there could be other visitors or unexplained changes which would diversely affect the world line of the plane.
To increase the number of keywords given one needed to buy them with plane sources, and it seemed the maximum number of keywords available for the trip.
With the increase in the keywords, they could naturally guess some more clues about the world.
“It’s probably a modern like world,” Zero muttered
Layton nodded agreeing but then continued, “the addition of an astral realm and professionals means that there is most likely extraordinary power in the plane and there are individuals who can use them so we shouldn’t be suppressed too much.”
“An Astral realm usually means the existence of gods, it’s possible once we get in we might be noticed by them.” Lilith who was quiet suddenly added with a worry in her tone
“Since it’s a modern plane it means the gods can’t interfere with the world too much,” Layton stated comforting the red haired girl.
“It’s no use guessing here, let’s begin.” Zero stated simply and when she gazed at the adorable face of Lilith she couldn’t help but be soft and added “Don’t worry when we go in, I’ll protect you.” As she said so she tapped Lilith on her shoulder leaving a magical mark and did the same for Layton.
Looking at the mark that was quickly fading Layton simply nodded in gratitude and then spoke to the space “Begin.” Once those words were stated without giving them time the 3 of them vanished from the space.
The scenery changed and Layton found himself on what seemed like a rock that was floating In midair in what seemed like a space full of chaotic colours, similar rocks, trees building, all kinds of random materials were scattered chaotically in this space full of changing colours, the environment in the air seemed toxic as Layton psionic was automatically urged in order to keep his life in this unfriendly space, from the information that was in the air Layton knew that this was the so called astral realm, the playground of the gods the source of all professions and the burial ground of knowledge.
Layton wasn’t worried about Lilith because he had already noticed the hidden nature of her divine body when they had met in school city, every part of her being was made up of the condensed malice and energy of the whole holy grail war plane, she was also a divine body albeit an incomplete one she still enjoyed the benefits and thus did not have to worry about being harmed by the astral realm but instead sheltered and this ensured she would not be easily discovered by the hostile aboriginal parties.
Zero on the other hand was already a legend, what’s more, she was a legend who was attuned to spatial changes and nature so she had no problem being safe in the astral real as long as she did not provoke anyone and she could easily leave the astral plane at the earliest convenience.
Layton on the other hand was in trouble the laws of the astral realm were unfriendly to non-native and non-divine entities, it seemed only legends could stay in it but only for a short period of time as the domain was required to resist the eroding force that sought to destroy all non-divine lifeforms, apart from this Layton could sense the boundless malice that seemed to overflow from all directions as numerous creatures seemed to gallop towards his location as the psionic energy that was unfamiliar to the astral realm was being constantly emitted by Layton.
Sensing the numerous monstrous shaped entities that came closer and the hidden humanoid intelligent life that stared at his malice and greed, through the mark on his shoulder Layton could sense that Zero was a considerable distance from his side and the dangers were already getting closer. Layton quickly knew he had to make a choice now, the weakest of the monsters were already legends.
With a determined glint in his eyes, Layton flew up fully urged his rune and coupled with the bonus of his rune in the astral realm that had a glaring similarity to the spirit dimension a terrifying surge of psionic oozed out every corner of his body, a second later the surging psionic seemed to be dragged by an invisible force and the psionic quickly converged rushing towards a certain point in Layton’s heart, the enormous amount of energy frantically compressed into one point naturally created an explosion, it wasn’t a simple explosion but one that birthed a star.
Layton had been incarnate as a psionic sun during the holy grail war while he was battling with his other self and he still retained memories of that time it was only natural he could replicate the feat, even if he couldn’t create one as perfectly as the first time he was able to at least create a passable knock off.
To achieve this he just needed a stable point in the centre of his biomagnetic field to compress his energy to a point and for this he naturally chose his heart, using that point he flooded his biomagnetic field with the escaping psionic energy of the created psionic core and with the psionic energy he manipulated the strengthened biomagnetic field to absorb the surrounding information and spiritual energy in the astral realm to feed his psionic core ensuring the core at the middle of the star would keep on creating and radiating more psionic to keep the star running.
Layton naturally wasn’t just doing this to survive, his goal had never changed and that was to create his second rune and he couldn’t do that while being trapped in the astral realm, the creation of the psionic star basically meant the destruction of his body and the surge of enormous energy meant if his mind stayed in the star there was a high probability he would go insane or just become unconscious directly with little or no hope of awakening.
So as soon as the star formation process started he had naturally withdrawn his spirit and will from his body deposited it in the ring that was on his finger and then decide to take advantage of the surge of energy created during the birth of the star which had naturally caused changes in the spatial nature of the surroundings as a mass of energy so huge forming at immense speed naturally affected and influenced the space around it.
Using this phenomenon, he drove the ring to a weak point in the surrounding space and with the massive thrust from the explosion that created the star he broke out of the astral realm and naturally headed towards the material plane.