Champion Gor looked at the plains around him in confusion and quickly glanced up at the sky.
He quickly understood that they were pulled into a secret realm. No, this didn't even seem like a normal secret realm. It was enormous.
While there were definitely sub-spaces that went even beyond this expanse, Champion Gor didn't think this was just another sub-space.
No matter how good the sub-spaces were, they always gave off an unnatural feeling. There was something in them that screamed it in every landscape, every planet, every star.
But here…
This sky, land, and air, they seemed to whisper right into his mind.
'A Synthetic World? No way…' Champion Gor's expression underwent many changes in a few seconds.
As the most loyal to Jataur, 'Slave' Gor quickly came up with a new objective for himself.
Glancing at the young man in front of him, he flared his aura. After so much damage, he was soaked in blood, riddled with injuries and had only a portion of the aura.
Yet, Gor believed it was enough to deter the weak bastard.
Everything in this place was reinforced by powerful aura. Perhaps that's why, when his aura spread out, the blades of grass bent.
For an onlooker, it appeared as if a powerful wind originated from Gor and swept the plains. Following the grass, the plants and trees also began to bend, as if paying homage to his power.
But the man this was all intended towards didn't bend.
Instead, he—
"Heh," Varian let out a smirk.
Gor's eyes widened at his unexpected reaction and a guess surfaced in his mind. 'Wait, is he a member of the Black Rose?'
His senses swept Varian again. The aura from this man only indicated a rank 4 path.
Gor was pissed. He ordered the heavily injured Mor who was standing next to him in vigilance to take it easy and recuperate.
He stomped forward, blood spilling out of his wounds. Not caring about his condition one bit, he sneered.
"A mere rank 4 is fearless in front of my aura. How about I give you a chance? Serve my Lord with me and your life will finally gain meaning that it had been missing all this while.
And inform me everything you know about this Synthetic World. You can assist me in capturing this place and finish the very first mission. I'm jealous of your luck."
Varian heard his words with a surprised expression before his lips curled up even more. "Hehehehe…"
Gor's killing intent soared and he casually threw a small axe at Varian. It ripped open space and reached Varian in a blink.
Even though his strength had been lowered, the axe was enough to slaughter even rank 6s.
"You bastard, do you think I'm jok—"
Varian's index finger stopped the axe.
Gor froze.
A devious smirk adorned Varian's face and his rank 4 aura surged, reaching rank 6.
"Ahahahahahaha!"
A laughter of madness, desire and drive rang across the planetoid.
Looking at Varian's eyes, Slave Gor, the man with unmatched loyalty to Jataur, subconsciously took a step back.
Those eyes…
They reminded him of himself. The intensity in those eyes matched the intensity of his madness in loyalty to Jataur.
Varian grabbed the axe's handle and threw it back. A twinkling black and white light enveloped the handle when it reached Gor.
'He's not strong but I'm too weakened!' Gor raised his arms in defense.
Varian smirked and his aura changed.
A space portal opened up right in front of Gor and the axe passed right through.
Shaaaa!
Thud!
Gor felt his mind blank out for a moment as he stared at Varian with an unbelievable gaze.
'W-What was that? He was a rank 4 Adept, but became a rank 6 Adept. Even that is fine but rank 6 space?'
With a turn of his head, he saw Hybrid Mor with both arms sliched off.
The Hybrid was already fighting hard against the invasive life force. The heavy injuries from the battle against Romanov already turned the situation for the force.
This attack was the final straw.
Unable to hold on, the 8-foot giant crashed to the ground and twitched as the life force wrecked havoc in his body.
"Mor!" Gor's eyes widened and his heart nearly leapt to his throat.
"Don't worry. He will alive." Varian chuckled before his smiled vanished. "He has to live."
"You bastard!" Gor raised his primary axe with a pained expression and decided to slice this bastard to pieces.
"One second," Varian's body blurred and he teleported in front of maid Romanov who was trying to sneak away.
Her injuries were many times worse than Gor's. So, with a single slap to her neck, the maid rolled her eyes and fainted.
With a snap of his fingers, she, along with Mor vanished amidst the fluctuations of space.
"Where did they go?" Gor charged his power into the axe and asked with a menacing expression.
"They'll heal just as much I need them to and wait," Varian replied and gestured Gor to attack.
Enraged, Gor's body flashed foward and the axe swung down with enough power to easily strike down a dozen suns.
The black and white lights that Varian engraved on the planetoid long before this battle lit up and blocked off the shockwaves from disturbing everyone else on Hortus.
Clang!
Varian's sword clashed with the axe and half of his forearm exploded right away.
"Tsk,"
Clicking his tongue, Varian slipped the sword to another hand and jumped back, avoiding a kick that'd have otherwise blasted his skull into pieces.
Even after all the weakening, there seemed to be a huge gap between rank 7s and rank 6s.
But the heavy injuries of his enemies brought them down to a range Varian could not win but could still handle.
Gor's axe kept swinging down, blasting space apart and tearing down everything in its path.
Varian's injuries healed quickly as he seamlessly switched between <Adept> and <Assimilator>.
As he fought against < Paragon Body >, the divine path that origined out of Adept path, it turned into a very fruitfuil session.
With every clash, the bottleneck of Rank 4 Adept was weakening.
'Not enough! Not enough!'
Varian was drenched in blood, his and Gor's. Despite his best efforts at healing himself, his body was injured from head to toe.
He didn't care.
Varian was solely focused on breaking that weakened bottleneck. He needed a push.
His gaze fell on the broken bone, flesh and blood of Gor scattered all around them. With a thought, his path changed to <Assimilator>.
A moment later, they disappeared and a surge of aura flooded Varian, replenishing some of his dried up reserves.
But more important than that, as the power of slivers acted upon the power, a flood of information and experiences flooded Varian's mind.
Crack
A crack appeared on the wall standing between him and rank 5.
A wild smile appeared on Varian's face. He put away his sword, clenched his fists and jumped at Gor.
The next hour was the most frustrating, scary and helpless moments of Slave Gor's life.
Varian never had the upper hand, but he kept fighting back. Unable to kill the weaker enemy, doomed to not even esacpe, this was the closest Gor ever came to crying.
Perhaps what made everything so painful was the smile on Varian's face that only grew with every clash.
'Stop it bastard! Stop smiling! I'm going crazy here!'
Suddenly, Varian's aura fluctuated and climbed further.
Before Gor could wonder what it was, Varian showed a satisfied smile on his face and raised his hand up to the sky.
A vortext formed in the space and under Gor's incredulous gaze, an incredible power, different from an awakener's landed on Varian's first.
'World blessing? H-He's the owner of this world? W-What the hell is going on?'
Gor got no answers. Only a punch straight on his abdomen that seemed to knock everything out of him. Then, an eblow onto his skull which caused him to faint instantly.
Varian sighed in relief after verifying that Gor had indeed fainted.
"The world blessing is a good booster, I guess," He chuckled and staggered back from the accumulated exhaustion.
He had pushed himself to the absolute limit to break that bottleneck. But it was all worth it.
As his vision turned to the sky, he noticed a beautiful woman in black walking towards him one step at a time.
With one step, she appeared on the horizon. With the second step, she was in front of him and with the third, she held him on her lap.
[Adept Rank 5: 0/2500
< Congratulations for breaking the bottleneck that would've taken at least two more weeks> ]
