Shen's improved defenses showed their worth as most of his knee's bones merely cracked. His kneecap didn't do so well, though. It shattered into countless pieces.

Shen fell to the ground, rolled back, and stood back up in time to see the gnoll's liquid head revert into metal—undamaged metal. The gnoll's helmet didn't have even a scratch on it, and probably neither did the head beneath it.

Shen was forced to invest some focus on his knee. He didn't know how to use qi to instantly heal himself—or even if that was possible—so he could only use the energy as a puppeteer would use strings. He used his rapidly eroding willpower to make his qi move his lower leg quickly, even without the patella.

He put as much distance as possible between the gnoll and himself. As if the broken knee wasn't enough, he was still surrounded by Law-magic that resisted him.

His speed reached an all-time low of Mach 9.

In other words, Shen found himself with a little over a third of the enemy's speed and wasn't sure the Embryo even could be killed.

The battle had been rigged from the start.

Crying injustice to the Void would be stupid. Even if he lost, at least he would die in battle. That was better than any alternative.

His spear was nowhere to be found. It had lost his Path's protection the moment he let go of it, and the gnoll had likely used the opportunity to get rid of it. That was bad news but not as terrible as the alternative. If he hadn't done his best to lower the damage he received, the Embryo's foot would've gone through his knee and left him even more debilitated. To make matters worse, he would still be close to a being who moved much faster than him without a moment's reprieve to think about his options.

Not that he had many options to choose from.

Of the many tactics Shen could theorize, only one had the slightest chance of working. It was a daring plan that would use up all his remaining energy, and he needed to manage to strike the gnoll for it to work at all.

How was he supposed to land an attack while moving so much slower than his damn enemy?

As if on cue, the gnoll finally moved again, running straight at Shen. Shen guessed regenerating the blown head had made the Embryo freeze for a few instants. If only Shen had known that beforehand! By the time he had formed a plan, it was already too late to take advantage of it.

Shen's mind could still detect fast movements, which let him witness the incoming enemy. It also made him feel terrible; his limbs seemed to move in slow motion as a deadly foe approached. What was the point of seeing something he could do nothing about!?

The Embryo approached and punched. Shen felt the attack was too distant to connect, that it would fall a dozen inches short, but he wouldn't take any chances. He started twisting his body anti-clockwise because the punch was targeting his left shoulder.

It didn't matter.

The empty space between Shen and gnoll seemed to blur and twist slightly. The fist went through it and didn't follow a straight line. It came out just in place to connect with Shen's right shoulder.

Law-based magic was on a completely different level; the gnoll had changed space itself on the go.

Shen's shoulder bones shattered, and he started moving back again, but one step later, he noticed the gnoll was standing still.

The first time the Embryo had stood still, after making it harder for Shen to move, Shen had thought it was because his head was regenerating. Now, he assumed it actually had to do with using a Law at D-rank. It took a toll—though the magic around Shen, slowing him down, remained active regardless. That had been the magic the gnoll had used the first time.

Or it could be another ruse.

Shen's mind worked fast, and he reached a dreadful conclusion: his only chance of winning was betting everything on it not being a ruse. He would put his plan in motion the next time the gnoll stopped. If it was a trick, Shen would be completely open—and soon, dead.

He had no other choice.

He stopped his retreat and advanced instead. The air resisted him. When he reached the gnoll again, it moved.

Shen had moved a dozen feet away the first time. This time, the freeze time had taken two steps and a brief pause in between. Either it had been a ruse the first time, the gnoll was getting resistant to the drawbacks of Law-magic, or the amount of Law-magic being used made a difference—the spell affecting everything around Shen had a much larger reach than twisting space, even though the latter was much more impressive.

Shen was so slow that he couldn't even prepare a strike before the gnoll lowered his head and body a few inches and threw a hook at Shen's midsection.

To add salt to injury, the gnoll didn't use Law-magic in his next attack. He had realized it was an easily exploitable weakness.

The punch connected. Shen's kidney and two of his ribs were almost pulverized. Before he could react in any way, an uppercut was already coming for his chin.

Shen thus made the tactical decision of giving up on most of his focus on the fight—reaching pathetic Mach 5—to focus on how to improve his movement art instead.

His basic moves wouldn't cut it. He needed to dodge. Only then would his enemy use Law-magic for a sure-hit, thus getting frozen in place for a few instants.

His past experiences and everything he knew about movement went through his mind. He reviewed the Zephyr-Gale Footwork, his own Movement Art, everything he had seen his enemies do, the spars he had witnessed back in the Eternal Empire, and everything his Path was.

The gnoll's punch connected. Shen's chin and eight teeth shattered. His neck snapped but didn't break.

Shen's body was shot upwards at a fast speed. The gnoll magic didn't slow Shen's ascent, but it kept his body rising vertically instead of allowing his head to snap back. That would help the gnoll with his follow-up attack because the gnoll's body was rotating as he jumped.

Another uppercut would follow the first.

Shen stopped focusing on everything but the qi protecting his body and developing the technique he needed to survive.

He thought. He focused. He concentrated.

All the advanced moves from the Zephyr-Gale Footwork were discarded. Even if he adapted them, they wouldn't be enough.

He needed more.

So he did his all to think deeply and hard—

The second uppercut connected. All of Shen's lower teeth, half his upper ones, and his philtrum broke. His nose and cheekbones cracked. His body was thrown further up while the rotating gnoll prepared yet another uppercut.

Shen's headache peaked, and his vision blurred, but he was still conscious and working on a solution.

Yet, try as he might, he found no solution to his dilemma. He felt once more like the cripple back in the Eternal Empire, struggling against his fate only to fail in the end.

Men plan, and the Heavens laugh.

The third uppercut connected. Shen's nose and cheekbones were gone. His skull cracked. The world turned black as his eyes failed him for an instant.

The darkness he found himself in made him recall the absolute, true darkness he had felt back on Earth before he was pulled into the portal. And, for a reason that was only on the edge of his consciousness, that reminded him of something else.

A single memory illuminated his Path like a lighthouse on a starless night.

Shen recalled that mysterious being he had briefly felt when he developed his aura. The one who had disappeared when he detected them. Supposedly, his savior.

Reviewing the memory, he found the being hadn't teleported or simply vanished after he felt them. Instead, he had barely felt them turn slightly. After that, there was a split instant where they accelerated, and then they became so fast that he hadn't been able to track them anymore.

Outside his thoughts, Shen was still going up, but the gnoll wasn't below him anymore. Instead, the Embryo was in front of and a little above Shen, and his body was rotating horizontally. His leg was poised for a roundhouse kick against Shen's battered face.

Shen wouldn't make it if that attack connected. His qi wouldn't stop that. He would die no matter what.

Therefore, he let go of his qi to focus extra hard on using that memory in a way that might save him.

Everything he was, knew, and had was put into deciphering that single instant when the mysterious being slightly turned before moving too fast for him to see. All his experiences, theories, expectations, feelings, successes, and failures were used to try to understand such a seemingly simple yet highly complex movement.

As the roundhouse kick approached, Shen analyzed how their feet were positioned, how their body seemed to turn, and how they seemed to disappear yet were only moving ridiculously fast.

He reviewed his memory for everything his aura had felt around the being, how their body affected the space around them, and how Reality reacted to it.

The more he did it, the more Shen deemed that being's movement incompatible with his Path. It wasn't even a conscious thought but a repulse that bothered on disgust as he imagined his body moving the same way.

It wasn't because of the movement itself. The mysterious being was humanoid too, almost human—a female, if he wasn't mistaken. Moving his body one way or another wasn't against his Path.

Yet, he couldn't quite put the finger on what bothered him—

He got it.

The mysterious being's move had a lot of technique, but it used another part of their Path that Shen wasn't using. He was his Path, and that included everything. Until now, he only used stats and Concepts when he created his movements.

A simple change of his perspective had allowed him to ignore conjured metal. That was proof that there was more to a Path than Concepts.

Shen was also his feelings, thoughts, and hopes—and they mattered because they were his Path, too.

The enemy's foot approached.

Shen used the Limitless Denial.

Shen was very good at living in denial. He was good at ignoring some of his senses—like when he had refused to acknowledge that the Rift War was lost. He was good at turning a blind eye to some of his thoughts—like how he repeatedly refused to recognize his arrogance. He was good at pretending he didn't have some feelings—like how he had never told Alicia how much he cared for her beyond saying she was her friend.

Theoretically, he should be unable to deny parts of himself because he was so harmonized with his Path. However, part of his Path was also its refusal to be limited. That paradoxically allowed him to ignore himself when he wanted.

Now, he used the same lack of limits to push his denial beyond himself and into the world.

Shen poured his heart and soul into his qi, pushed qi into his neck again, and moved it back to avoid the incoming kick. Its muscles burned as he moved his head. The back of his head burned as it touched the gnoll's Law-magic that turned space itself more solid.

Feelings of denial and frustration renewed and fueled his crumbling willpower and empowered his Path. His scalp vaporized slowly as it took the brunt of the consequences of Shen doing something he wasn't supposed to.

Shen's head tried to occupy the same space as Law-filled magic, and everything he was demanded the Law give way at once. Not slowly, as usual. Instead, his Concept Path, his existence, denied the hold of that Law-magic over Reality and mandated his body move at his top speed—that Law give way to a Conceptual Path posthaste.

Shen didn't mind the painful consequences of pushing his very existence against Reality itself.

He refused to bow to the natural state and hierarchy of things that placed Laws above Concepts. He refused to have his victory over space come slowly. And further fueling the paradox of his being, he refused to accept a world in which he felt compelled to repeatedly deny his very self.

The skin on the back of Shen's head and neck instantly turned to steam as if touching the sun. Some of his muscles liquified, and only his qi kept his head moving. He was putting his Path itself on the line to achieve victory. He felt something inside him on the brink of shattering from the pressure and could tell he would never recover if it did.

Shen pushed more of himself into the move. He pushed his frustration at being denied a normal childhood because of an assassination attempt. He pushed his anger at himself for denying himself. He pushed his desire to live.

The world was heat and pain. Some of his neck's muscles snapped. The skin on the rest of his head kept vaporizing, and even his skull blackened, dried, and turned to dust. Cerebrospinal fluid and brain became visible, but Guardians didn't bleed, and that extended to preventing anything in their bodies from spilling out.

And then, Reality gave.

He pushed his head back at Mach 30 speed. Not as fast as he could move in peak condition, but although the Law-magic had bowed to his Path, the lack of crucial muscles, the pain from the ability usage, and the losing aura-will battle still took a toll.

It was still enough.

The kick missed.

Over half Shen's remaining qi and all the skin on his head were gone. Before the pain could overwhelm him, he filled his body with qi again and used it to destroy his pain receptors.

Then he looked at the gnoll and smiled.

He didn't have enough qi to dodge another attack and execute his plan. So he could only bait the gnoll. Make him believe Shen had been faking everything, that he had always had a way out. Or maybe that he had achieved sudden enlightenment and felt assured of his victory now.

Either way, the gnoll had to believe he had to go all-out on his next attack, or it might give Shen time to turn the fight around.

Unfortunately, the Embryo chose caution over decisiveness. His body started moving away. The enemy wanted to think things through.

So Shen used his Limitless Denial again.

He didn't have enough qi to move his head so much again, but he invested in another part of his body for a much more limited movement. He barely, only barely, made his pulse twist. That was enough for the entire region's skin to vaporize, his bones to break, and ten percent of his remaining qi to disappear.

Something cracked inside him, but he ignored it. He could still fight, and his enemy was still alive. Only that mattered now.

While his pulse twisted, Shen made a fist and urged his palms to shine brighter, somewhat mimicking what happened when the system was materializing something.

It worked.

The gnoll's movement turned into another roundhouse kick aiming for his head.

Shen's heart beat furiously. If the gnoll indeed kicked his head, he would die because even if he dodged, he would be out of qi. However, he was somewhat confident it was a feint. The Embryo would target another place because Shen had already avoided an attack against his head, which was small and easy to miss.

He was about to bet everything on said confidence.

As the foot approached his head, Shen recalled a system's message in the tutorial's second stage. "The Multiverse Alliance has learned that luck plays a large role in our continuous survival." As had once happened to the Alliance, his survival now depended partly on luck.

Space blurred and twisted between the foot and Shen's body. The gnoll's leg entered the twisted space. Shen paid attention to where the foot would leave from.

Suddenly, the gnoll's whole body was covered by the twisted space, and he reappeared sideways in the air below Shen. His foot was going for Shen's chest toe-first, while his leg would hit all of Shen's lower body and right leg. The Embryo wanted to do as much damage as possible to the largest mass in Shen's body, making it harder for Shen to dodge.

Shen had no way to dodge that—nor did he want to.

Instead, he was glad he had already cut off his pain receptors because he moved his body closer to the attack.

A body moving at Mach 7—the fastest his damaged, Law-magic slowed, and will-battered self could currently do—met a leg coming at Mach 27—the gnoll's speed had increased again.

Shen's chest immediately gave in. His lungs ruptured, his ribs turned into splinters, his stomach and intestines were crushed, his manliness turned into pulp, and his right leg became meat paste.

His heart was obliterated.

That hadn't been in the plan, but there was nothing he could do about it. The gnoll had acted smartly. Even Shen's improved body could only survive without a heart for a couple of seconds.

He was now living on borrowed time and could only hope his plan worked and that the Void healed him after the gnoll died.

The Embryo wasn't done yet. The leg rampaging through Shen's body turned into liquid-looking yet solid darkness. It became even faster and gained considerable weight. It kept going until it left Shen's body by the back, destroying everything in its way.

Shen was left with a long, plate-leg-thick hole on his midsection, and his right leg was but a useless mass of torn flesh and mashed bones.

But he survived.

Heart damage notwithstanding, he had expected to survive a lot of punishment after seeing the extent of the damage Earth's elite survivors had taken yet still lived. He knew Alicia had only 100 HP, but he now had 270. He might have been cut from the system, but the lack of bleeding revealed his body still had HP instead of bowing to more organic and logical rules of health and wellbeing.

The gnoll's body kept twisting, following the kick's momentum. His other leg was coming, aiming to cause more damage.

Shen's body kept moving towards it.

It struck, and more of his chest and lower body paid for it. However, the leg didn't turn into liquid darkness, nor did the gnoll do anything else. In fact, the previous leg also returned to normal.

And then, the Embryo stopped moving—he had used Law-magic and was temporarily frozen.

Shen had moved two yards the last time the enemy froze. So now that he was this close, he would hopefully have enough time for his following actions, even at Mach 7.

That was, of course, unless the gnoll learned how to better resist the drawbacks of Law-magic.

Shen had no time to think of what-ifs. He grabbed the gnoll's leg and crawled over the gnoll's body until he was straight before it. Then, Shen extended his hand, created a phantom qi spearhead around it, and thrust it into the gnoll's chest.

He spent seventy percent of his remaining qi to get past the chest armor and another ten percent to make it large enough for his arm to go through. By the time his hand was inside, enough time for a single step had already gone by, and the gnoll was still not moving.

Shen turned his arm upwards inside the gnoll's chest and pushed it through the gnoll's neck. Then, once more, into his head.

His entire arm entered the gnoll's body.

Then Shen sacrificed his limb.

He exploded everything around his arm. He freely used his qi inside his body to create electric arcs with the gnoll's, then made the arcs fail. He blew up the entirety of the gnoll's innards into dead matter. His arm suffered for it—despite his higher resistance, its mass was smaller than the gnoll's upper body and head.

When he was done, he didn't have an arm to take back out.

Enough time for two steps had gone by.

Shen had as much time as his brief pause to enact the last step of his plan.

He pushed his other arm into the opening but moved it down this time. He blew up the gnoll's lower body and the upper part of a leg. Unfortunately, his qi bottomed out before he could destroy the other leg.

The gnoll didn't move or turn into liquid darkness, even though enough time had passed.

The end of Shen's attack coincided with both combatants hitting peak height. There was a moment of suspension and respite as he pulled his mangled arm from the hole in the armor and wondered if he would die here.

Shen concluded that if he did, it would've been worth it.

Maybe this was the end of his Path, but it was his Path, and he was glad he had walked it.

Then his body started falling a little above what he dearly hoped was a corpse.