Shen's stamina reserves had been refilled, but he still felt no stamina coming from the system to replenish the little he used as he rushed forward. One of the last system messages he had received in the tutorial taught that mana wasn't freely available during Void invasions. He guessed he was one step beyond that, completely cut from the system.

He was confident he was deep into the Void—if nothingness could even hold a concept such as depth.

His surroundings looked "Real" enough, but he had seen the entire rift getting consumed. Almost everything had been back in place when he was pulled through the portal, but not the fortress' mountain. Instead, a Void hole had occupied its place. And now, he was supposedly somewhere in that very same hole, though it looked like the insides of a mountain.

If being pulled twice into Void holes of different dimensions wasn't enough evidence of him being outside Reality, he didn't know what was.

There was one way to test if the system was around, and he wished he had taught about it before.

"Buy healing crystal," Shen commanded as he advanced.

The system had shown delay issues, so he would have proof of whether it was around in a few seconds.

Not regenerating stamina without the Guardian System had some damning implications. He would worry about it if he survived long enough to return to Reality.

What mattered now was that he wouldn't regenerate stamina or qi—the environment was still void of qi, so he couldn't absorb it. The big question was: could the gnoll regenerate energy?

The answer to that question would let Shen plan better. Unfortunately, he had no way of finding out, so he would have to assume that the enemy could recover while Shen couldn't. He also had to assume the system was gone; thus, he would have no access to healing crystals while the enemy might know how to regrow limbs.

He had to win as fast as possible, which meant going all-out from the get-go.

So, Shen filled his body with qi, not caring about his qi expenditure.

Now that he was his Path, his qi was always Path-filled. In fact, he couldn't remove his Path from his qi even if he wanted it. Not that he would ever want to; his inherently Path-filled qi was easier to manipulate, could be pushed to greater lengths in certain ways, and was perfectly compatible with him.

Shen immediately took advantage of all that. He compressed the energy more than he had ever been able to and pushed more of it into his every cell than would be possible before his enlightenment.

He reached the absolute peak of his power to date.

It also spent qi at a ridiculous rate of five percent per second. Even if Shen didn't use any more qi than that, the fight would be over in twenty seconds.

The actual time would be much shorter, though. He also pushed qi into his spear. He didn't let a single drop of the energy leave his body or spear to avoid getting locked into a willpower battle.

His movement speed spiked to an astonishing Mach 45.

Shen was halfway through the room when the gnoll finally moved—only to raise his hands in what looked like a pugilist's pose. He was either a brawler or hiding his weapon.

Shen kept going, and his aura touched the enemy's.

Once more, he was assaulted by a stronger will, except this time, it was even more potent. The Void had called the gnoll and Embryo, which was clearly developing. The gnoll's willpower assaulted his mind with the power of a dragon pounding on a sheep.

His aura was quickly suppressed, instantly gone. Shen did his best to stay focused on his movements, but he felt such a terrible headache that his speed dropped to Mach 40 at once.

To make things worse, auras couldn't be turned off. His aura kept trying to leave his body, and his mind was constantly pounded by the gnoll's willpower. Unless he left the Embryo's aura, the headache would keep worsening, and thus Shen's fighting ability would keep decreasing.

For the first time, Shen felt what other people did when they were inside his aura. "Standing in the open during a storm" didn't even begin to describe the feeling accurately. It was as if the world was one thought away from deciding he had to die. And if it did, his life would be forfeit at once.

Shen felt at the mercy of a higher power and vulnerable to its every whim.

He hated it with a passion.

Fortunately, not all was bad news. Aura attacks could go through soul resistance. However, Shen found out they did not go through his unified Path.

His Path was a perfect whole that could deny anything other than itself. That had let him resist the Void's attempt to infect his mind. Now, it also fought an externalized Path—an aura—trying to affect it. His body was his Path. It wouldn't be infected, infiltrated, or bypassed. He was his own master and thus the master of any physical space he occupied.

So when the gnoll's aura—an enemy's Path-enhanced area of Reality—tried to make his head disappear, it failed, and Shen kept going.

Things became even more fortunate when Shen's unified Path also stopped him from being affected by indirect spells. He felt gravity change around him like a slight breeze trying to push him. He was unaffected, and so was his spear.

Unfortunately, his Path also didn't make him immune to more direct kinds of magic—or physical objects.

The gnoll let out a low, angry growl, and everything around Shen turned to metal.

Shen hit it head-on.

He had been moving too fast. His body shook from the impact and hurt. Without the Path-based improvements to his body and the qi improving its resistance further, he would have broken all bones of his body and be on the brink of death.

Despite those advantages, he estimated he had still taken at least fifty points of damage—though he got no system notification.

Skin and flesh ruptured. Bones cracked. Worse still, the impact made him dazed for a moment, and the gnoll took advantage of it. Metal grew all around him, skin-tight.

He was locked in a metal suit.

Shen tried to push it away but guessed there were hundreds of yards of solid matter around him. Not a suit, but a block of solid matter. He didn't have enough strength to bend that.

Shen was forced to use his Path Sphere.

His magic ring let him know the enemy's energy filled everything around him. That meant his qi would touch it and push him into an energy-will battle on top of his already lost aura-will struggle.

He had no alternative.

Shen pushed qi out of his body—and instantly regretted it.

He had already been taking a beating on one front, but adding another wasn't just adding one plus one. It felt like a cold spike had pierced deeply into his brain, freezing him while he could think of nothing but pain.

Shen lost his senses.

He came back to himself an instant later, his Path Sphere gone, and noticed small holes all over the metal around him. Most worrisome were the two in front of his eyes. Deep into them, he saw pointy metallic edges moving towards him at high speed.

Improved resistance and qi-filled body or not, he didn't think he could survive more than a few strikes to his eyes, which were still a weak spot.

Shen had never felt so outpowered. The Embryo's will was stronger than Shen's; he could use ranged magic while Shen couldn't; he had an aura while Shen didn't. Shen couldn't even move.

How the hell was he supposed to win?

As the metal spikes approached his eyes, he hated that solid matter couldn't be denied by his impervious Path-body.

Or could it?

Shen was entirely encased by metal. It was skin tight. He couldn't even breathe properly because his lungs could only inflate inward.

He tried to move forward anyway.

A push, a cut, and a dent were nothing but the end result of two physical things trying to occupy the same space at the same time. The Laws of Spacetime didn't allow it, so Spacetime and other Laws came into place to resolve the conflict.

But what if Shen didn't bow to those Laws and demanded his Path simply refuse anything trying to occupy the same space as his body—even when it was matter?

He willed it so.

The metal disintegrated at his touch, turning into grey smoke, as did the metal spikes that touched his eyes.

It had only taken him a chance of perspective.

The ground he stood at didn't melt, nor did his clothes or spear turn into smoke as he touched it. The reason was obvious: that new trick would only work against magically summoned elements. Shen bet magic matter had other limitations humanity wasn't privy to yet.

Either way, he had his way to freedom. At first, he had to focus on seeing things from the new perspective, but he quickly adapted to it. Soon, he was running again, the metal easily giving way to him.

Unfortunately, the grey smoke wasn't as easy to traverse as ordinary air, still resisting his body somewhat. It was still much better than being locked in place, though.

Shen's speed dropped to Mach 38, but he was back on track to reach his enemy.

The gnoll soon understood the futility of trying to lock Shen down like that, and all metal disappeared. Shen guessed the Embryo also couldn't see through it. Flying projectiles came instead, but they all also turned into grey smoke when they touched Shen's skin.

The gnoll still didn't give up. Dark clouds instantly formed on the cavernous room's ceiling. Hundreds of lightning bolts fell on Shen.

The lightning was stronger than it should be and only targeted him. Yet, despite being enhanced, it wasn't magic. No bolt turned into smoke when they touched Shen. They hadn't been directly created with mana but formed within the magic cloud.

Yet, without mana, the bolts were just too weak. The enhancements weren't enough. Shen suffered little pain and no damage.

It did cause him to spend qi even faster than before, though. His qi consumption turned to ten percent per second. Fortunately, only two seconds had elapsed until now.

The gnoll let out a raging roar and finally rushed to engage Shen instead of endeavoring a new trick.

The Embryo moved at Mach 25 instead of the Mach 20 he had shown at the portal. His willpower hadn't been the only thing to improve, and Shen guessed the Embryo would keep growing. That fight was a race against time in more ways than just energy consumption.

Mach 40—the grey smoke was gone—was still much faster than Mach 25, though. Moreover, the Feng Shen Movement Art was created to perfectly take advantage of everything he was.

Shen got close, sidestepped a telegraphed punch, and thrust his spear at the gnoll's head.

He created a qi spearhead around the physical spearhead. He wasn't taking any chances and pushed as much qi into it as he could.

This fight had to end quickly.

The superimposed spearhead met the helmet. Its magic runes shone bright, and Shen found considerable resistance. Almost half the qi spearhead's energy was spent at once to merely penetrate a hair's breadth into the metal. Shen provided the phantom with even more qi, but not before it had moved a small distance forward, so it wasn't completely reformed. Little by little, his physical spear approached the helmet as more and more of his qi was spent.

When Shen's actual spear finally touched the helmet, it entered the tiny opening created by the qi spearhead and broke through the remaining flimsy layer. It didn't slow down, and the gnoll's skull wasn't resistant enough to stop such a high-speed, sharp blade.

As Shen's spear entered the gnoll's brain, he used his Path to create multiple explosions. Shen's weapon only stopped when it met the other side of the helmet.

The Embryo's head and the top of his helmet blew up entirely.

Shen smiled. He had spent almost thirty percent of his qi, but it had been worth it. Victory was—

What remained of the Embryo's head and helmet turned into liquid darkness while his hands grabbed the spear and held it firmly.

He kicked Shen.

Shen tried to dodge without letting go of his weapon, but the very air resisted him. It felt thicker, more solid somehow. He should be able to oppose any spell with his new perspective, yet failing to do so proved the gnoll had brought his magic to the next level.

As Shen touched the invisible magic-filled area around him, he felt a distant echo of a glimpse of what he had felt on Earth when darkness descended.

He immediately understood: the gnoll was using a Law, and Shen's Conceptual Path—and body—couldn't deal with Law-infused magic as easily.

The Embryo had been playing at weakness, waiting for the right opportunity to display his true might.

Shen's Path-body could still dissipate the Law-magic, but not instantly like before. His speed dropped drastically to a little over Mach 10. Seeing he would get hit anyway, he let go of his spear and moved back much as possible to soften the blow.

The gnoll's speed increased further to Mach 26. It was improving more and more.

His foot connected to Shen's left knee.