For the next few days, Zeke fell into a cycle of rest and meditation. Each time he pushed the boundaries of his personal domain within the cube, he could feel the limits within his mind loosening as well.
The progress was tangible, driving him to push even harder. He could sense it, taste it, feel it. He was on the verge of grasping something—an essential principle of spatial manipulation just beyond his reach.
Just a little more, and it would be his. Or so he thought.
However, no matter how hard he pressed, no matter how desperately he reached for it, the knowledge remained elusive. It was like a word on the tip of his tongue, infinitely close yet forever out of reach.
It was maddening.
Waking from another short nap, Zeke stretched in his seat, his gaze drifting away from the portal for once. Instead, he looked out the windows of his cabin, where an endless sea of green stretched beneath them.
Over the past few days, the Alexandria had finally reached the border of the Irroch Jungle, soaring high above its towering canopy.
Zeke scanned the trees warily.
Among everyone on board, he was likely the most familiar with the dangers lurking below. Beasts of legend roamed these woods, and if his memories from the Dreamwaker brew and his encounter with Thea had taught him anything, it was that even dragons and titans could be found here.
...But surely, his luck wouldn't be that bad.
Zeke frowned. Did he really have to tempt fate like that?
Well, if it came down to it, he would deal with it. After all, his last encounter with a Titan had been surprisingly pleasant. Who knew? Maybe it would turn out to be another stroke of luck.
Somewhat reassured, he turned back toward the portal, ready to continue his experiments. However, before he could take a single step, Akasha's voice echoed in his mind.
[Notice]
There is a disturbance among the sailors. They seem troubled by something.
"Can you sense what it is?"
[Answer.]
Negative. It is beyond my perception, and from their conversation, they do not seem to know either.
"Any chance its Dragons or a Titans?" Zeke asked, just to make sure he hadn't actually cursed them.
[Answer]
Unlikely. However, I suggest Host investigate immediately.
With a reluctant sigh, Zeke tore his gaze from the portal and focused on a spot on the ship's deck. In the blink of an eye, he appeared beside the captain.
The man whirled around, visibly tense, but relaxed the moment he recognized Zeke.
"Report, young lord," he said with a crisp salute. "We have spotted a dark shape approaching from the east."
"...Any chance it's just a cloud?" Zeke asked hopefully.
The captain shook his head. "Moving too fast for that... and against the wind," he added after a brief pause.
Zeke nodded and stepped toward the railing for a better look. It didn't take long to spot the source of the sailors' concern—a dark mass closing in on them, traveling at their altitude with considerable speed. But the most unsettling part? It was heading straight for them.
It seemed... deliberate. Still, better to be sure.
"…Lower our speed," Zeke ordered, keeping his eyes fixed on the approaching shape. If it was actually targeting them, the course adjustment would make it veer off track—unless...
His expression hardened as the formless cloud shifted ever so slightly, correcting its path to stay locked onto them.
"Full speed ahead!" he ordered without hesitation. No point in making it easy for their pursuer. A moment later, the ship lurched beneath him as its enchantments surged to their limit.
But Zeke's focus never wavered. His eyes remained locked on the approaching mass. He leaned forward, concentrating on one particular spot. Then, his pupils narrowed into fine slits, and his vision sharpened.
Now, he could see them clearly. It wasn't a single massive attacker pursuing them but thousands of smaller ones, flying so closely together that they had appeared as one from a distance.
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The creatures were bizarre—resembling oversized insects with powerful legs and unnaturally large wings. Their sharp mandibles were not built for nibbling on leaves but for tearing through flesh. Individually, they were likely no threat to him or his crew. But thousands of them?
Even if Zeke could protect himself, the others would be slaughtered in the onslaught. His expression hardened as he expanded his vision again, taking in the full extent of the swarm. He needed to act before it reached the ship, that much was certain.
They were still beyond reach, but as soon as—
Huh?
Zeke paused. The thought irritated him. No, more than that—it offended him. It felt like a thorn in his side, a hidden barb lodged deep in his mind.
Out of reach? Out of reach from whom? Him?
How could anything within his line of sight possibly be out of reach? It was right there, wasn't it? If he willed it, he could simply extend his hand and...
Without fully realizing what he was doing, Zeke raised a hand and struck out. There was nothing before him, yet instead of hitting empty air, his fist connected with something solid. The sensation was unmistakable—chitin, tough but brittle. His prodigious strength tore through it effortlessly, piercing something much softer beneath.
What... had just happened?
Zeke looked down at his outstretched hand, now coated in deep purple liquid. His gaze snapped to the distant swarm. Near its center, he spotted one of the creatures plummeting from the sky.
He focused, his enhanced vision sharpening. The insect's shell was shattered, its insides reduced to pulp. It was dead.
Zeke turned his attention back to his fist, still slick with the creature's blood. He didn't understand how he had done that. This wasn't magic. No Spellform had been cast, no Intent imbued, no Will infused. Yet somehow, he had reached through space to kill the creature.
For the first time, he couldn't comprehend what had just happened. He had acted on feeling, on instinct, on that nagging sensation in the back of his mind. And it had worked. The principle behind his success? He couldn't even begin to put it into words. But one thing was clear—he could still vividly remember the sensation.
His eyes narrowed, and his heart began to race. He was unwilling to let this feeling go. He needed to act quickly if he wanted to capture it fully.
[Notice]
Does Host need my assistance?
"I got it, Akasha," Zeke mumbled, his mind already working on the best way to apply the principle he had just begun to grasp.
It was an impossible task.
The more he tried to define it, to understand it, the more it seemed to slip from his grasp. Zeke gave up. There was no point in trying to force himself to understand something that his mind simply couldn't comprehend.
He could sense it, and that would have to be enough.
Zeke focused all his attention on a single drop of blood forming at the tip of his finger. He compressed it, then compressed it further, until what had started as a drop was now the equivalent of a bucket's worth of liquid.
Next, he infused that feeling, that sensation, that principle of space into the blood. How it worked, he couldn't explain, but his senses told him it would. The moment he seeded that idea into the drop, he felt his Core stir. It came to life like a carriage wheel suddenly pushed down a steep hill.
There was no stopping it now.
A profound tiredness gripped him as the mana left him. He felt like a dam that had been broken, completely unable to stop the flow. He could feel the strain on his Core, signaling that he was close to failure. But there was nothing he could do. Even if the drain tore his Core apart, he couldn't stop it.
Fortunately, that didn't happen. Before he was completely spent, the drain ceased as suddenly as it had begun.
Zeke's attention snapped to the drop of blood on his fingertip. It seemed completely unchanged. But Zeke wasn't fooled. That amount of magic couldn't have just disappeared without leaving a trace. More importantly, he could sense the change in the blood. It had been altered in a way he couldn't describe but instinctively understood to be profound.
Zeke smiled at the tiny, marble of blood.
"Let's see what you can do, little friend."
It was time to find out if he had been right to trust this sensation.
With a small effort of will, he commanded the drop to change form, elongating until it became a fine needle. It almost looked like a claw as it extended from the top of his finger.
Zeke extended his hand, curling all his fingers except one. Now, only his index finger, adorned with the thin red claw, pointed toward the approaching cloud of insects.
He paused. It wouldn't do to waste this much effort on a single attack, would it?
Definitely not, unless it could completely shift the flow of battle. So, before he released his attack, he decided to incorporate something he had been wanting to try in his spells for a while.
Will.
It was the hallmark of a Grandmage.
He had first encountered it when facing the enemy Progenitor, whose poison had a Will of its own, turning it into a creature that seemed almost sentient. Zeke had no illusion that he could do something similar, but a simple command? That much he could manage.
In his mind, he formed a perfect image of one of the insects approaching them. Then, he pictured a thin red needle piercing its head. That had to be enough.
He focused on that image, solidifying it as much as he could before using it in his spell. As he did so, he felt the seedlings inside him stir, helping him infuse his Will. It was a strange sensation, but he immediately knew when it had worked.
The idea had taken hold. How it would manifest remained to be seen.
With his preparations complete, Zeke pushed his finger forward, and the needle... simply disappeared.
He stood there, dumbfounded, unable to understand what had happened. He couldn't feel it anywhere; his link to it was completely shattered. It was as if the spell had failed at the last moment, but that was impossible. If so, where had all his blood gone?
"Look!" someone screamed next to him.
The man was pointing east, straight at the cloud.
Zeke followed his finger, and his eyes widened.
There, in the distance, the cloud was... thinning?
Zeke strained his eyes, taking a closer look. What he found shocked him even more. The cloud wasn't thinning—it was losing insects at an insane speed. Dozens were dying every second, suddenly falling without any visible sign of injury. At least, none that a casual observer could notice.
However, he could see it clearly. It was a very fine puncture wound to their skulls, like the one he had instructed his needle to cause.
However, there was no trace of the spell. Moreover, the insects that fell were not at all close to each other. In one second, the needle struck at ten different places spread across the swarm, as if distance meant nothing to it.
Zeke's eyes widened at the realization.
With a mixture of horrified wonder, he continued to watch his spell decimate the swarm. At one point, the insects even tried to flee, but the needle was relentless. It had been given a mission, and it would continue until that mission was finished or its magic was spent.
Less than five minutes.
That was all it took for the needle to kill every single insect in the swarm. As the last body fell, the spell ceased. Zeke hadn't instructed the blood to return, but he was fine with the loss.
His eyes remained fixed on the spot where the swarm had been only minutes earlier. This spell had been the first collaboration of his Blood magic and space, and the effects were far more devastating than he could have imagined.