Chapter 247: Traversal Speed

William Oh is so fast, he arrives at his destination before he’s set off.

William Oh is so fast he delivered a pizza in the middle of a fight.

• Greg Adams, level 25 Courier

William Oh is so fast he delivered a baby in the middle of a fight.

• Jason Salazar, level 50 Prophet of Ouroboros

William Oh is so fast that when he punches someone, their mom feels it at the moment of conception.

• Emery Wood, level 32 Plumber

119 Charges remaining

“Well, that was disappointing,” Will said, arms crossed as he activated the wand, with Stevie arriving directly in front of him. Will kicked himself for blowing a whole fifty-five Charges for what was supposed to be a probing maneuver. He should’ve sent just one or two butlers.

But there was no time to go back, only forward, and kicking yourself was unproductive.

“My deepest apologies, sir,” Stevie said, fear rolling off him in waves.

I know for a fact that he’s not afraid of abandonment or death…what is that fear? I haven’t seen it before.

“No, it was my mistake. Stevie, can you feel fear?” Will knew the answer to that question, but it was best to lead into these conversations naturally.

“Yes, my lord.”

“What are you afraid of, exactly?”

“Failing to perform to my master’s satisfaction.”

“Hmmm.” Will mused for a moment, then snapped his fingers.

“Let’s copy the raven guy.”

“Excuse me?” Stevie asked, the butler looking up at him with mild confusion.

94 Charges remaining

Will summoned another five butlers.

“Maintain a range of 100 yards beyond the distance where Void caught you the first time. Spread out and keep moving so they don’t get a bead on exactly where you are.

“Yes, milord.”

“And keep one of you here, safely behind the Key Site. And your job will be to fear failing to perform your job as hard as you can. I’ll be very dissatisfied if you don’t manage to do it.”

“Right away, sir.” The butlers said before scattering.

Will turned his attention back to the distant barge, which was nearly at the edge of his map’s update radius. Thanks to the Wristband of the Lookout, his range was now a bit over sixteen miles.

Let’s see….fear of giant snakes…there we go. Will spotted the dozens of Climbers as they entered his map, many of them radiating fear of the giant snake approaching the barge.

Ironically, the Climbers that the worm had assembled around himself as meat-shields also made excellent fear-markers that Will could teleport to.

This was where the Ring of Traversal really shone.

Ring of Traversal

+8 Strength

+8 Resistance

+8 Kinesthetics

+8 Acuity

+8 Focus

+40% Potency to Terrain-related Abilities

Increased Movement Speed. Scales with Kinesthetics.

Environmental resistance to movement across all terrain lowered. Scales with Resistance.

Ever since Will had managed to escape Kincaid’s stomach by creating a bridge of fear and crossing it, effectively teleporting, he’d been looking for a way to make this cantrip easier to pull off. Practice had made the process smoother, but it was never easy…until the Ring of Traversal.

There was a lot of resistance against Will traversing through fear, which made it slower and mentally exhausting to do multiple times in succession. The ring greatly reduced both of those downsides.

Incidentally, the ring also made it much more comfortable to fly at high speeds, allowing the air to slip around him without causing drag.

It really let him take full advantage of his high movement speed. When he was first getting started, Will had never taken wind resistance into account, but he’d come a long way.

Will took a moment to practice teleporting to the butlers, matching their fear of failing him so that he could do it seamlessly.

…Now, let’s try poking him a bit and see what happens.

From what Phantom Eye could see from its vantage point, the worm was near the rear of the ship, protecting the engines with his summoned fae.

Will focused on the fear of giant snakes, cultivated the same fear inside himself, linked the terrains together…then dove into the pool of fear at his feet and crossed the bridge.

The air pressure and gravity changed as Will popped out into existence beside a confused Climber.

Will struck him with the back of his tomahawk and leaned out of the way of a faefire explosion, pushing off the air and charging towards Void while concentrating on matching his distant butlers.

He felt Void seize the air in front of him, so he teleported to one of his butlers.

Through Phantom Eye, which was hovering high above the ship, he saw Void’s head scan the bridge, and when it was facing away from one panicked Climber in particular, he manifested a cannonball from Phantom Hand towards the aft of the ship to distract Void while Will teleported to the man outside his line of sight.

Will appeared, kicked the Climber out of the way of Void’s reflexive snap shot, just as Void’s undead deflected the cannonball, causing the entire barge to shudder in place.

Will sprinted past Void’s counter, flared unstructured miasma from his left hand to part the faefire aura and slammed the blade of his Tomahawk into Void’s neck…accomplishing nothing.

The blade dimpled the man’s skin, but nothing more.

Will’s Strength had been in the high four hundreds with Hammer of God, but the Wand of the Undead Retainer had zero bonus to Strength, so Will’s Strength was closer to one-fifty at the moment.

Which wasn’t terrible, but…

“Crap.” Will muttered, ducking under Voids counter and diving into his own fear of failure, teleporting to a butler before Void was able to swing that dagger back around and stab him in the face.

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Okay, so he really is reinforcing his Resistance, Will thought, shaking off the lingering remains of the corrosive flames prickling his skin, taking extra care to make sure Abby didn’t get hurt.

Even with lower Strength, concentrating that much force onto an axe head should at least break bare skin….unless Void’s effective Resistance was in the thousands

…I just need to figure out how he’s doing it…and how to trick him into overdoing it, until his brain-meat is stronger than Blessed Steel.

For all Will knew, his synergy allowed him to gain Resistance based on the mass of undead he had, or how many kills he’d strung together in one combat or…

Ah, shit!

Will slapped his forehead.

He should’ve captured Kyle and the others and interrogated them while he had the chance!

They were obviously vassals working for Void, but they were cowardly and would certainly spill their guts it pressed. He could probably drag some key details out of them, especially since the time dilation made things pass by too fast for Void to notice.

Too fast for Void to notice?

Will glanced at Steve. The undead was turning towards the island, likely with the purpose of wrapping around it and exploding. If it blew up from every direction, the Key Site wouldn’t be able to protect anyone.

Someone’s speeding it up again…I wonder.

Will focused, picturing himself in their shoes.

They’re being used to generate Influence at a high rate of speed for Void, and they’re surely going to be aware that they’re being taken advantage of.

I’m afraid that worm is going to leave me on this snake, that I’ll wind up being used up and discarded burned to ash in an instant without ever being able to- THERE!

Will linked up with someone, and then crossed the bridge, stepping out of Roger’s fear.

Roger shrieked, the ranger swinging his bow towards Will.

Will stepped close and pushed it aside while he scanned the field, locating the other three getting ready to pounce on him.

“Hold a moment,” Will said, holding up a hand.

He checked Phantom Eye, and as he’d hoped, it showed the barge from above, the scene of combat frozen in place.

He couldn’t seem to move the Phantom Eye, as it was also frozen in time, but that was fine.

“Greetings Kyle, Bess, Amy, Roger.” Will said, turning his attention back to them.

“Tell me everything you know about the worm and I’ll let you live. If the info is good I might even pull you out of this little predicament.”

“Anything you wan-

“His Fae summons are-

“I’m pregnan-

“STOP!” Will shouted, holding up his hands. “One at a time. I’ve only got a couple minutes.”

Will didn’t want to be gone longer than a few seconds in real-time, and even though things were moving extremely slow outside, they were still moving. Staying here was a gamble every second.