Chapter 317: Atleast My Mind Is Alpha Plus
I grinned and spoke, "And you won’t be the only one playing with space this time."
I transferred all the Essence I had in Psynapse.
The panther growled low, eyes narrowing as if it understood me and then it charged.
I held my ground.
This time, I wasn’t just reacting. I wanted to test my new understanding. I was going to do exactly what it had done to me in our last fight and see if my level one space control could hold up.
As it ran, I raised my hand and pointed forward. My perception spread outward, covering the space between us in a heartbeat.
I felt the spatial particles around me, the tiny threads that made up the fabric of the air, the distance, the points in between. It was like sensing the invisible structure of the world itself.
At the tip of my finger, a faint glow formed. A narrow beam of light gathered, focused and clean.
I fired.
The beam zipped through the air toward the panther but before it hit, I reached out with my mind and shaped the space between us. I mimicked what the panther had done.
A ripple shot out from my finger and another from a fixed point just ahead of me. I pulled the space tight between them, bent it, folded it like a sheet and opened a linked tunnel between two fixed points. A single, directed transfer.
The beam that had flown straight suddenly bent unnaturally and reappeared at the panther’s side, coming from the ripple point.
It saw it coming a second too late.
The beam scraped along its side, cutting a clean line through its fur. It hissed and rolled away, tail lashing, more alert now.
I grinned wider. "Oh yeah, this is gonna be fun."
The panther didn’t slow. It came at me with renewed speed, vanishing mid-charge into a pool of flickering shadows.
But this time I was ready.
I didn’t look for its form, I looked for the space. And sure enough, a moment later, I felt it. The tug at my position, the way the space particles trembled near me. My presence in the world was being challenged again.
I raised my hand and whispered, "[Space Lock]."
The world shimmered. I carved a cube of sealed space right above my head, just where it had appeared last time. The moment the beast flickered into view, it was already surrounded by the violet shimmer of locked space.
Its claws came out mid-leap, but they hit the cube and not me.
BOOM!
The panther’s body bounced off the inner wall of the space cage. It twisted midair and landed back inside, growling furiously.
I let it out after two seconds, just enough to make a point.
"Let’s call that... payback," I said casually.
The panther roared and rushed again, clearly angrier now.
I stepped back and activated [Sovereign Absorption]. The vortex formed behind my back, waiting.
I flicked my fingers and cast a weaker light beam, letting the panther see it. It dodged easily but just as it prepared to blink again, I manipulated the space in front of me. This time I didn’t create a tunnel—I compressed the distance itself.
Instead of traveling a full twenty meters, my beam only had to travel five. The rest was skipped over. The panther didn’t expect the hit.
The beam hit it directly in the shoulder.
It howled and rolled across the ground again. Dust and stone flew as it skidded back.
"Come on," I said, waving it forward. "Let’s see who’s better at playing with space."
It came again, claws flashing. I didn’t retreat.
Instead, I raised my hand....not to block, but to strike.
I channeled the Essence to my fingertips and willed space itself to split. The idea wasn’t to throw a physical blow, but to cleave the space between us. Like a sword slash made not of metal, but of space...not existing.
A shimmer formed in the air—barely visible, like a ripple on glass.
I dragged my arm down through the air, mimicking a sword swing.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the space between us cracked open in a sharp, distorted line. It wasn’t clean, not yet. The edges trembled, unstable, and the pressure it gave off was weak. But it moved fast.
The distorted wave of cleaved space raced forward and hit the panther in its other shoulder.
The strike didn’t cut it deeply, but it staggered, growling in surprise and pain as its paw buckled. It fell sideways with a thud, claws scraping at the ground to stay upright.
I kept my hand raised, eyes locked on the fading shimmer.
"That worked," I muttered. "Not well, but it worked."
The cleave wasn’t powerful, it wasn’t even sharp enough to cut anything solid. But it disrupted the panther’s balance and position. A twist in space, not a wound.
I exhaled slowly, letting the new understanding settle deeper into my mind.
After that, I didn’t move. I just stood there.
The angry panther roared and charged at me again. It began throwing everything it had—claws, punches, dark beams from its horn, even those writhing shadowy tentacles but I remained still.
Each time an attack came close, I activated [Sovereign Absorption].
A faint violet vortex shimmered around me, and I absorbed the energy behind every blow. My body took the hits, but my core took the power.
The numbers in my Essence storage kept ticking up with each blocked or redirected strike.
It didn’t take long before the storage was full again.
I took a deep breath, then stepped forward. In a flash, I burst ahead, one second on the ground, the next floating above the creature.
My fist cocked back, crackling with force.
Then it smashed down, directly on the panther’s forehead.
BOOM!
A shockwave exploded under the impact. The beast was thrown down, slammed into the hard ground. And this time... it didn’t get up.
It stayed still.
I hovered above it for a moment, taking in the sight.
Then I looked inward.
I had two clear options and more than enough Essence to do both.
First, I transferred a full charge into the Null Heart.
The white sphere in my core lit up and began spinning faster and faster, until it became a blur of pure white light.
- Null Heart Charge: 1000 / 1000 Essence
- Soul Shackle: 3
Another bond was now available.
Next, I focused on my Psynapse.
I poured the rest of the Essence into it, pushing its capacity past the threshold.
- Psynapse: 2001
The moment it crossed 2000—permanently—I felt it.
A tremor shot through my spine, then up into my head.
Pain followed instantly.
But I didn’t panic.
I closed my eyes and stood still as the pain surged. My brain was changing. Restructuring. Adapting.
Along with the pain came clarity.
New pathways formed. I could feel my control over my body becoming sharper. I could recall every mistake I’d made during the fight with perfect detail.
And without even meaning to... I began thinking about space again.
Every moment I had interacted with it ... .studied it, bent it, cleaved through it, all of it came back to me, piece by piece.
The static structure, the points of tension, the way Essence wrapped around fixed coordinates... it all clicked.
A new chime echoed in my mind.
[Minor Law of Space – Level 1 → Level 2]
I opened my eyes slowly.
And I smiled.
My eyes locked at the new panel.
Psynapse : Alpha + (2001)