Chapter 172: Braving the Darkness

Light speared through the darkness, illuminating a long, mile-wide area. A bright path stretching from the middle of Space Ring to an exit tunnel leading to the next ring.

As Jack’s group found themselves flying through the light, he was stunned and speechless. Just a hundred feet away, the darkness was impenetrable. It could hide the richest treasures or greatest dangers of Space Ring, and nobody would know.

Bubbles occasionally floated through the light, entering from one side to quickly disappear in the other. They weren’t fast enough to be dangerous, just impressive. Unfortunately, since no one could see them coming, and they were pretty rare, being at the right spot to catch one would be very difficult.

The space monsters never entered this area of light, just like they never entered bubbles.

There were many light beams like this, scattered around the inner side of Space Ring. Each led to an exit tunnel. Just one more stunning sight of Trial Planet.

Jack watched the walls—where bright light met pitch-black darkness—to the left and right as they flew. He imagined monsters lying just beyond. Tentacles shooting out to grab him and recede into the darkness, where space would muffle the screams.

His enemies’ screams, that is. Because he would punch them.

The main reason why he stared at the walls was that looking ahead, towards the base of the light beam, was painful for the eyes. According to Gan Salin, there were a bunch of sun mushrooms in a bowl-shaped alcove, guiding their collective light into this single column.

Suddenly, Nauja raised her hand. Jack and Salin slowed down beside her. They couldn’t speak in space, so all their communication came as hand signals, along with what they’d discussed before leaving the last bubble.

Nauja pointed down, indicating that this was the place. Then, her face taut in concentration, she turned to face a wall of darkness. She raised her hand. The moment she dropped it, they would have to dash.

Into the unknown.

Jack gulped. He distracted himself by admiring Nauja’s abilities. He couldn’t even tell how far away the palace bubble had been, but she managed to calculate its precise trajectory at a single glance. Thankfully, she had a skill about that. It was supposed to be used in archery, but there was no rule against using it on space-traveling air bubbles.

Still, it was damn impressive.

Nauja’s hand shook a bit. Jack almost started running before catching himself. Between his arms, he felt Brock stiffening.

Her hand dropped.

Nauja was the first to run. She expelled air Dao from her back, propelling her fast into the darkness without a single glance back.

A brave woman.

Jack and Salin followed immediately. One after the other, they dived out of the light and into the darkness. Jack rushed to avoid thinking about it.

The feeling was like plunging into dark, cold water. Besides the noticeable change in temperature, Jack immediately lost his sight. He couldn’t even see Gan Salin anymore.

He also couldn’t speak. Couldn’t hear anything. Couldn’t smell. Couldn’t touch. He was all alone in infinite, monster-filled darkness, with Brock being his only company.

For a moment, he was petrified before his Dao Root of Indomitable Will protested, propelling him into action. Jack could sense the hints of the Dao of the Fist he’d left behind, using them to maintain his sense of direction. He shot forward.

There could be monsters everywhere. This was a gamble. According to Nauja, the bubble would be close to them now, just a minute’s dashing through the darkness. They just had to hope there weren’t any monsters in between, but monsters generally avoided the light. It should be fine.

Jack traveled through the darkness. There was faint light behind him in the form of the light beam, but everything else was black. Even the light of the sun mushrooms didn’t make it here, blocked by some property of space that Jack wasn’t sure was magical or scientific. Probably magical. Light was supposed to cross the vacuum without degrading.

The seconds flowed on. Jack’s blood was drumming on his temples, the cold vise of fear tightening around his heart. He was short of breath.

He thought he saw faint shapes lumbering in the darkness. A tentacle-shaped patch of black deeper than its surroundings. A giant eye, barely distinguishable and very close-by. A hint of Dao coming from his left.

He didn’t know if he was imagining those or if they were true. Darkness had a way to claim the mind, to upset and terrify it, make it materialize its fears to fill in the absence of visual input. Jack was aware of how the brain had evolved to work in the darkness, but all that did was enhance what he already felt: the dark was dangerous.

Has it been a minute already? he asked himself. He didn’t have a clock. All he could do was count his own heartbeats, estimating them to be sky-high, but that wasn’t accurate.

The plan was to find the bubble within a minute. Whoever found it first—the three were slightly spread out—would unleash a bunch of Dao to inform the other. If no one did, they had to turn around after a minute and dash back to the light.

At the E-Grade, their ability to sense the Dao was there, but very limited.

A little bit more, he promised himself, acutely aware that the bubble could be anywhere outside of his path, and he could diving head-first into a bottomless pit. He wouldn’t even see it as he approached, just sense the faint Dao that the bubble structure itself exuded.

For the first time in a long while, Jack wished he hadn’t lost his phone. It had a flashlight.

Something wet and elongated slapped him out of nowhere. Jack was sent off his path, letting out a scream that only he could hear, spinning head-over-heels in the vacuum of space. He punched out where the hit had come from.

A purple meteor bloomed in the darkness, illuminating nothing. It flew farther and farther away from Jack, showcasing just how vast the blind void around him was, before it slammed into something. Jack caught a glimpse of a purple shape, a squid with tentacles jutting out all over its body.

It thrashed as the explosion happened. It must have gotten injured. E-Grade space monsters were barely sentient sacks of Dao, and Jack sensed the Dao escaping, leaking out of the squid where the meteor had struck. He could track it now. In the absence of all light, his Dao sense was clearer than ever.

He sensed another beacon light up nearby. A twisted knot that screamed of confusion, of persistence, of single-minded ramming into what didn’t make sense. Insanity.

Jack realized that he, too, must be such a beacon. He also realized that, if he could sense them, so could the space monsters sense him. By fighting here, he was summoning everything within several miles, and the first monster was already here. His blood ran cold. They had to hurry. There was no time to search for bubbles. They had to retreat back to the light.

The Dao of Insanity collided with the squid and lost terribly. The monsters here were at least peak E-Grades. This was a high-level area. And Salin was only level 78.

The canine had been flung back from the impact, away from the light. Jack hesitated for only an instant before dashing after him. There was no time to think. He simply followed his instinct.

Was the squid chasing? Definitely. Jack twisted to the left, releasing a meteor that crossed the darkness, barely missing the source of the Dao leak—the squid’s wound—and dissolving into nothingness a few hundreds of feet away. He cursed and tried again. A meteor shower bloomed in the darkness, a shining beacon for anything hungry, and went flying for the squid. It responded too late. Its body got pelted, the meteors smashing into its squishy flesh and ripping it apart, leaving gaping holes and open wounds.

The squid thrashed, trying to cope with its injuries, as Jack realized he couldn’t hold back. He was in total darkness. He reached inside his soul, tearing away the veil that kept the Life Drop’s powers at bay, and felt himself grow larger and stronger, two arms sprouting under his armpits.

With a loud roar that echoed in his ears, trapped inside the helmet’s barrier, he exploded through the void and after the still-flying Salin, whose trajectory hadn’t changed in the slightest. He must have been unconscious.

With the power granted by the Life Drop, Jack accelerated fast. He reached the canine and grabbed him, then turned to look towards the light. The squid was retreating. It was probably too injured to fight. Jack felt a hint of relief.

Then again, since when did space monsters retreat?

Jack’s eyes went wide as he glanced around, but there was only darkness. Then, something blocked the light in front of him. He hurriedly blocked with three of his arms—the fourth held Brock and Gan Salin—barely enduring the strike. It felt like getting struck by lightning. His entire body shook and jittered. He was sent flying back, barely managing to right himself after a while.

The void in front of him blossomed with electric blue light. An eel the size of a bus was swimming through space, directly towards him. Its eyes were red slits filled with malice, while lightning arced all over its body.

“Fuck,” said Jack.

Space Monster, Level 124 (Elite)

Experts speculate that, when large quantities of the Dao are left undisturbed for a long time, they can spontaneously coalesce into a Space Monster. While this is a very rare occasion—

He had no time to read the description—he’d seen it before, anyway. He focused on the monster’s level and its Elite tag.

Going after the palace had been a calculated risk. But calculated risks sometimes backfired. Now, he had to fight his way through and hope to survive.

Jack’s body erupted with power. His three Dao Roots were brought to the fore, blending with his Dao Seed of the Fist to unleash the greatest strength he’d ever revealed. The eel was almost blindingly fast, but his brain was processing things so quickly that he could follow its movements. The world had slowed down.

He felt the power gathering in his arm, suffusing it. He let it rip. A blinding meteor speared the darkness, exploding on the eel’s nose and pushing it back. Jack’s remaining two fists—one arm was holding his friends—also smashed out, each hitting the eel at full power.

It hadn’t expected that. In its senses, Jack was weak. It had underestimated him.

Still, a few surprise strikes weren’t enough to take down an Elite. This monster was far stronger than Jack’s last real opponent, Bocor, had been. It absorbed the recoil and wound around him, seeking to entrap him in lightning. Jack kept punching. One meteor led to another until a shower was formed. The eel’s slick skin made the strikes slide off, but their real purpose was to achieve momentum. Jack was propelled backward at absurd speed, escaping the eel’s encirclement and flying into the darkness, towards the light. He’d managed to turn around the first time he hit it.

The eel pursued. Faster than he could ever be. It was upon him in an instant, opening its jaws wide and biting down. Jack smashed out above his head, altering his trajectory downward and barely escaping its jaws, which clamped shut right above him.

His entire body leaned into an uppercut. Unfortunately, as there was no ground to stand on, its power was limited. His fist dug into slimy, slippery skin. The eel’s head jutted upward, but it wasn’t too injured.

Right then, wind invaded the void. It was fast and straight, like an arrow. No—it was an arrow.

An arrow made of wind came out of nowhere to strike the eel, embedded deep in its eye. It raised its head and screamed—though Jack heard nothing—then swiped its tail at Jack, who ghost-stepped out of the way. It took a lot out of him. That skill was best used on solid ground.

His Dao perception expanded. He tried his best to push it out as far as possible but felt nothing. Still, he’d seen the arrow’s direction. He knew where it came from. It was sideways into the darkness. He kept shooting out punches to head that way.

Suddenly, he felt it. A hint of the Dao, like a gentle breeze caressing his skin. Nauja was somewhere over there, no doubt unleashing her power as strongly as possible to make him sense her. Jack spared a second to focus.

She was moving. Slowly, smoothly, and laterally to the light beam. Why would she be moving that way?

Because she’d found the bubble.

That was the plan. Since they all moved at different speeds, whoever found the bubble would galvanize their Dao as intensely as possible to let the others sense it and fly over.

Jack oriented himself at Nauja. However, that moment of focusing on her had given the eel an opening. It jammed its head at him, headbutting him. A strong electrical current flowed through his veins. His entire body seized. All four fists clenched by themselves.

Thankfully, Jack’s momentum was already going, and there was nothing to slow him down in space. He kept flying backward, further propelled by the eel’s strike. The pain was burning him from the inside out, but he’d been through worse. He refused to yield. He frowned deeply and forced his twitching muscles to obey. His Indomitable Body purged the lightning.

“AHHH!” Jack roared. His three arms blurred as he shot out another meteor shower, pelting the eel with his full strength. It weaved through the attacks, sliding them off its skin, but some got it. One found it at the nose, another under its chin, one at the side of its tail.

Jack had his front towards the eel and his back at Nauja’s presence. He was using the meteor shower to simultaneously keep the eel at bay and accelerate backward. Already, his speed was incredible, though he had no way to perceive it in the void.

Unfortunately, the eel was even faster.