Chapter: 543 – Unideal Timing

Tala felt her mind straining as the battle continued. Her focus was split across the spheres, rod, shields, Flow, Terry, and a roving perspective attempting to keep a lookout for other copies of the prisoner.

It was excellent practice, and she was enjoying herself overall.

Even so, not everything was going as she’d have preferred. At least one copy of the prisoner had escaped Terry and Tala’s attempts to keep them all contained—partially because they had the higher priority of keeping them away from the breach in the cell—and so the two were expecting more copies to come rushing in from all directions at any time.

They were already dealing with an ever increasing number of copies just from those they couldn’t obliterate near at hand.

My unit would be very useful here… if not for the effect copying.

-Or, you know, the other unit that’s just outside?-

…I’ve got this.

-You can’t avoid new connections, new relationships Tala. It isn’t good. To be fair, now is hardly a good time to draw them in, but it is worth considering if needed.-

…I know, but I can keep any of them from getting hurt, at least this time. Without an ability to prevent the other unit from creating reality threads with the prisoner, they would be obliterated by her and Terry’s efforts against the woman. So, the best way to keep them from getting hurt, was to keep them away entirely.

They might have been able to work something out if they only had their own magics to deal with, but she wasn’t willing to withdraw either herself or have Terry allow such.

Honestly, Tala considered just letting them, as she could then send pulses of dissolution down that tunnel to obliterate them, making any escape attempt useless, especially now that she was maintaining the screen against the prisoner’s retaliation.

Still, she felt that it would be unwise to allow that ‘last line of defense’ to become their only line of defense.

That’s how prisoners escaped.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the cadence of the combat had changed, and there were now dozens of the woman all working to either distract the two invaders or get to the tunnel out of the cell.

Their physicality—while fragile—wasn’t weak; they seemed capable of smashing through any barrier that Tala brought before them.

The Leshkin tower shields would have been obliterated ages ago except that Tala only used them to hamper, rather than truly block.

Even one of her tungsten spheres was somehow dented from where one of the copies had punched it.

It didn’t make sense to Tala, but for whatever reason, it didn’t seem that material could resist them.

Oh… that’s dumb. Tala had been watching closely as one punched a tree instead of Terry—the bird having flickered away—and she’d recognized the effect. She should, after all, it was one her husband used all the time.

The copies were taking the ‘equal and opposite’ force that was acting on their attack, and copying that back into their target, somehow able to target it more precisely.

No wonder this woman was feared. She could essentially take lethal damage and throw it back in your face before walking away unharmed, regardless of the form of the attack.

There had to be more as to why she was imprisoned, but Tala wasn’t in a place to figure out what might be ‘imprisoning’ worthy about the woman.

Besides, Terry was having fun… mostly.

The existence shield was hitting him oddly, and his movements were a bit more erratic, his attacks a bit less precise.

As soon as she noticed that and truly considered it, she understood. I’m somehow cutting off what his concept needs in order to function.

That was… really not good.

She immediately devoted a larger portion of her mind to Terry, her other points of view and defense being slowly forced back lest they be overrun.

She examined him very closely, watching for anything that any of her perceptions might—There!

A little lash of a reality thread tried to strike outward from him. Tala flexed her will, opening the way for it to pass.

A moment later, Terry’s movements smoothed out, and he trilled in triumph.

Of course! That’s how Terry’s concept works. Now I can perfectly replicate it.

-…If you wanted my attention, you could have just asked. Spouting utter nonsense isn’t required.-

Fine. How much longer?

-Twenty minutes at least. Things look to be getting hairy out there. Want to bring in the Defenders?-

No. They’d be overwhelmed unless Terry and I pulled back, and even then, they might be overrun. I can’t just block off the entrance either, because with the workers they have on hand and the ridiculousness of their power, they’d clear essentially anything I could put in their way with time to spare. Inform Master Grediv of the state of things and get back to it. Let me know if you need anything that I can give, or if anything would speed your progress.

-Done, and will do.- Alat fell back into silence, and Tala grit her teeth, diving back into the fray.

She’d already emptied close to half of her siege orbs, which was… a bit rusting insane if she were being honest.

Well, this should be a good time to update them, then… and to create my gravity gun? She frowned. Was it really the time to experiment?

…Yes.

-Oh, Tala…- Alat didn’t spare any more than that.

Tala huffed a laugh, immediately forming a hollow, dangling beneath the sanctum relatively near her artificial lung.

She made it donut shaped and kept any air or other particulates out.

Then, she grabbed four of her backup tungsten spheres and willed them into the donut, immediately amplifying their gravity toward the center, even as she began moving them around in a circle.

She soon hit the limit of how fast she could physically force them to move within Kit.

It wasn’t very fast.

She could move them instantly to anywhere within Kit, but forcing physical speed onto them was something else entirely.

Thankfully, her gravity manipulation was amplifying much faster as a Paragon than it had even as a Refined.

The orbs quickly outpaced the speed that she could make them move ‘manually,’ and soon enough they were positively whipping around the donut.

She had to nudge them every so often when her ramp up of gravity was too fast or too slow for a smooth increase to the sphere’s speed. She also had to keep them from knocking into each other every so often.

This is… actually rather difficult.

She was technically splitting her mind at least twelve ways at the moment—that wasn’t counting Alat or any of the myriad things she was doing—and it was giving Tala a pounding headache.

She was a bit irritated with herself. She’d had the idea for this gravity cannon for more than a month now, but she’d never prioritized it, always assuming that she’d get to it ‘tomorrow.’

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Isn’t that just the way of things.

Still, with her increased ramping up…

Then, as she realized something, she couldn’t help it; she started to laugh.

The prisoner was in the Refined power range. Tala had spent so much time fighting beings and creatures equal or higher than her on the power and magical weight scale, but this prisoner was the opposite.

The prisoner was a cloud of mosquitoes trying to drain a cow dry.

Alat burst out laughing, her work slowing momentarily. -I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but what? Did you just call yourself a cow?-

Tala glared, her own laughter cutting off. You’re kind of a jerk.

-And apparently, you’re kind of a cow.-

Get back to work.

-Yes, me. I always do as I wish.-

Jerk.

Alat refocused, but her chuckles still resonated within Tala’s head.

Tala, for her part, immediately added another split to her mind—despite the added pain—targeting one of the more problematic copies of the prisoner. That one seemed able to even occasionally dodge Terry—not that Terry had focused on her. She’d simply been able to shift away the two times he made slashing passes.

Tala glanced at her hand, seeing where the ‘crush’ rings had once resided. For the first time in years, she missed them.

Still, she had a perfect memory and knew the spellform intimately.