Timeless Prominence

The approach of this bulky man with layered armor plates with three hypnotic rings for a sigil was stopped by another javelin. This javelin was clearly of a higher grade compared to the ones in Rein’s possession, as it transformed itself into a snake before curling and wrapping itself around the advancer’s position in the air, as its tip repeatedly attempted to bite and poison the outer advancer!

If Rein were to guess, this had to be a shell-realmed javelin of heaven. Shell advancer arts sometimes had the ability to transform the exterior of the user after all.

Yet, Rein saw no concern in this bulky man’s eyes-- only derision! He knew that the man would soon shatter the javelin that currently bound him in place. The bulky man’s mouth opened wide in an invisible shout.

“Run! It’s the--'' Rein looked to his front left to see Chirh’s mouth moving at the other members, yet he could no longer hear his voice, or anything for that matter. There was only a soft ringing buzz in his ears.

Looking up, Rein could see a hint of white and half-transparent aurae emanating from the burly layered man’s open mouth that seemed to radiate towards their location. This outer advancer’s image then blurred in the same position in the air, and the green snake that had imprisoned his body shattered into a thousand useless pieces that dropped onto the plateau!

Rein and Xeeseir simultaneously glanced into each other's eyes before sharing a sly smile. Despite having just met, they knew exactly what the other was thinking.

Rein’s ears were still filled with that soft buzz that drowned out all sounds when the bulky-layered-armor man, with a silent clap of the hands, formed three hypnotic half-transparent white circles. The three circles seemed to come together and combine into a foot-sized sphere that the burly man stepped on, shooting him directly at Rein!

His speed was imperceptible to Rein, or any inner advancers for that matter.  However, Rein had zero need to know the bulky man’s position. Rein rolled behind Xeeseir, who immediately wrapped himself around Rein as a form of protection.

Beyond that, Rein aso instinctively activated the wood type spell of the soak staff to strengthen his body while holding out his staff in front of his chest with both hands, hoping to protect his heart and block any incoming attack that might slip through Xeeseir’s defenses.

“Idiots. You think I can’t pierce through flesh and bone? You’re nothing but paper to me!” A derisive snort mocked Rein and Xeeseir.

The flitting form of the burly plate-layered man rammed into Xeeseir’s body with a crushing force using his left shoulder. Only then did the bulky-layered man discover something to be wrong!

Despite Xeeseir activating his origin skill, Rein was shocked to find that the impact sent both him and Xeeseir flying like kites with their strings cut into the woods behind their backs!

Unfortunately for Rein, he crashed directly through a broad and sturdy tree trunk, causing the soak staff placed in front of his chest to crush his sternum and knock his breath away. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had already begun the body tempering arts of the draconic body, he might have died from such a collision! The soak staff was certainly of a tougher material than his body. 

Things were much worse for the bulky-layered man. The aurae he had used to augment his ramming motion seemed to have reentered his body. Xeeseir’s origin skill had reflected the magic back to the user.

“What are the chances…” Those were the words he muttered as a turbulent release of aurae consumed his left shoulder! He very much regretted thinking that he could simply kill that javelin-throwing youth through the balding middle-aged man!

“You fucking origin advancers!” The bulky-layered man roared in pain and fury. “By the fallen gods, I’ll have your fucking heartblood and secrets mine!”

Rein was still dazed and skidding to a stop into some part of the woods when he heard this declaration. He groaned as he came to a stop underneath a bush, then coughed, unable to even draw breath, only feeling a throbbing dull pain in his chest. Tipping his chin to his sternum, he found his chest a caved-in bloody mess, and he gave a hacking cough as he spitted up blood. His injuries were much more significant than he thought!

He finally understood the pain of the inner realm that depended on drawing aurae through breath. His lungs were clearly punctured, and he found himself unable to even stand and recover without being able to breathe properly.

Rein did his best to crawl and roll onto his side in a bid to have a better look at his surroundings. He immediately saw the figure of that burly man had lost his left arm, and his left shoulder was a disgusting fleshy wound that sprinkled blood. Yet, the man flew to and fro in a deranged and erratic manner, gradually meandering toward Rein direction with an absolute disregard for his mangled left shoulder.

These were desperate times. Rein realized his life was truly on the line now. He forcefully activated the flow of his aurae and formed a circular blackish-purple sphere between his palms. His low vantage point underneath the bush allowed him to teleport to another point under cover. 

In a heartbeat, his original hiding spot was crushed by an invisible white sphere that expanded outwards, forming a crater in the ground of his last location.

“Huh? Were my senses off?” The sound had returned, as Rein heard the outer advancer exclaim in surprise. Rein knew that outer advancers had only begun developing the telekinetic sense. Only when one entered the telekinetic realm would one fully sense those in close vicinity. 

On the other hand, outer advancers needed to intentionally reach out with aurae tendrils to sense the environment, and even then, it would be not dissimilar to one grappling and identifying objects by hand in a dark and enclosed box.

Even so, Rein knew that his secret would be out if he used his origin skill one or two more times in a similar manner. For now, he had barely escaped the wrath of that outer advancer!

Rein’s teleport sent him quite close, back to the edge of the plateau again. Is that advancer still in pursuit? Rein cocked his head, but saw no shadow of white spheres or the form of that burly man. He still wasn’t sure on how he had been thrown so far in a single clash, but he knew he was in trouble.

He got on his feet and was relieved to see Xeeseir’s face and form appear under the dim moonlight. Unlike him, Xeeseir’s body had no injuries. Rein could only surmise that Xeeseir’s origin skill thoroughly protected the man. Though Xeeseir blocked the bulky-layered man’s attack, some residual power must have been transmitted through to Rein.

Once closer, Xeeseir’s eyes widened as he took notice of Rein’s extensive injuries along with his struggling breath.

“Look out!” Xeeseir abruptly shoved Rein to the side that sent him rolling in pain.

That burly plate-layered man had not given up after all! Twelve hells, why is that man so bent on killing a little ant like him?! Rein lamented his own misfortune. Surely, this burly-layered man should retreat and heal his left arm? Why go so far to pursue him?

Amazingly, Xeeseir had blocked their foe’s godly punch. The burly man’s flesh seemed to ripple a force down his right punching arm on contact with Xeeseir’s body. However, once that ripple met Xeeseir’s body, it reversed its direction, the force pulsating straight back up their foe’s right arm.

“So. This is the origin, Rebound. Hmph.” The man’s voice was derisive. This was another common name used for Xeeseir’s origin magic that appeared way too often in the history books.

He controlled another wave of flesh that flowed down his right shoulder and clashed into the returning pulsating flesh. The man grimaced as the two pulsating waves traveling through his arm clashed, causing a white sphere to explode in his right elbow. His right arm remained fully functional.

Unlike the previous time, this outer advancer seemed to have controlled his strength. If Rein were to guess, this man now ensured that he only used a power strong enough to kill an inner advancer, but not strong enough to cause damage to himself as an outer advancer.

Xeeseir was also completely unharmed by this exchange.

The burly man leaped backward and slapped his remaining right hand to the ground. Rein felt the ground vibrate lightly as Xeeseir found himself sinking. Somehow, the burly man had turned the soil into fine grains of wet sand that functioned like quicksand.

Noticing the events occurring, Rein willed himself through his pain to move as he detached his jolster, and while coughing up more blood, assembled another javelin. He discovered that when he was previously rammed flying, he had somehow lost the sections of two javelins. Thus, he only had two left that he could use.

Breath using your skin pores! Rein internally psyched himself up as he took quick shallow breaths while doing his best to practice what the mantras taught as absorbing magical aurae through the skin-- a practice that all who have reached the shell realm would have mastered.

With a click, the javelin was assembled, and Rein popped one of those special pills, necessary to control objects at range, into his mouth as he struggled to stay upright to launch the spear.

Deeply inhaling and forcing down a cough, Rein launched a javelin directly at the burly man, dropping down onto his knees as he barely kept his head looking in the right direction, with three fingers raised to control the javelin.

He focused all the strength of the javelin into its tip. With this burly man’s defenses, the only way his low grade javelin would cause any harm was if he could first pierce it through the body. And the tip of the javelin was designed to be the strongest.

The burly man under the sigil of the three hypnotic circles derisively rolled his eyes, leisurely throwing a few flying daggers that stabbed into Xeeseir’s two thighs with his remaining right arm. 

Xeeseir, though his feet were sinking and glued to the quicksand field, managed to twist his body, firing an arrow from his bow that amazingly clashed with a flying dagger aimed at his chest. None of these daggers had any inscriptional patterns on their surface, nor were there any magical attacks activated as a follow-up.

With a satisfied smile, the burly man easily side-stepped Rein’s thrown javelin. The lack of space in the edge of these woods made it difficult to change the javelin’s direction. Frankly, it was not as if Rein’s low grade javelin could make flexible directional changes to threaten this man anyway.

Thus, Rein activated all five layers of the javelin, and the inscriptions flashed as the whole javelin shattered and burst in a shower of elemental bombs. Once again, the burly man easily defended against this style of attack. He snapped his fingers a few times and a transparent white sphere expanded and blocked the elemental explosions, creating a safe zone surrounding his body.

He then shifted his position in the air and slipped three flying daggers between his four right fingers. He casually flicked his wrist. Xeeseir grunted as another struck his thigh, one in his abdomen and another on his right shoulder. By now, Xeeseir had sunk down to the knees, making it impossible to properly turn his body and fire any arrows toward the position that the foe had moved to.

Rein understood the dire situation that Xeeseir was in. By now, he could see exactly the method that the burly plate-layered great sect advancer was using. Quite obviously, Xeeseir’s origin skill worked by rebounding magics. The enemy had chosen to simply limit Xeeseir’s movement while mobilizing mortal weapons to slay the man!

Rein once again assembled another javelin-- his last remaining one. He consumed another magical pill-- there was more than enough time remaining on the magical effect from the last one, but Rein needed to be certain of his link to this last javelin! WIth a deep lunge, he let the javelin fly again, barely maintaining his consciousness, particularly with his increasing loss of blood and struggles breathing.

He collapsed onto his knees again, only able to keep one eye open to keep track of the flying javelin.

“Fool,” smirked the burly man. He had three daggers between his fingers again, and regarded Rein’s javelin as nothing but an inconsequential attack easily to dodge and circumvent. Yet, at the exact moment when he was about to flip his hand to launch those daggers at the motionless Xeeseir stuck in the artificial quicksand, Rein smiled.

Now! Rein formed a circle with his two hands. The blackish-purple spatial aurae filled the interior of the javelin and the javelin teleported directly above the burly man’s left shoulder, aimed at the man’s mangled wound, at a diagonal angle from left shoulder to the right hip!

The burly man still had a smirk on his face when the javelin easily broke into his body through the unprotected flesh that is his left shoulder and then through his chest and to the right hip.

“You… also--” Those were the only words the burly man managed to get out before Rein activated the bits of the javelin. The man’s defenses were nothing with the shattered javelin bits erupting from within his torso. The bits of the outermost layer first detonated followed by the second and so on. A total of five chain explosions of many simple elemental magics augmenting each other completely decimated the whole torso of this outer advancer in a rainbow cloud!

Rein’s vision flashed white as he tried to confirm the kill. The burly man’s torso had been frozen by ice, slashed with wind blades, boiled under heat, pierced by a thousand insidious metallic sand, its vitality stolen among many other effects! Truly a spear of heaven, so thought Rein.

This was the only winning move he could think of. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but since the origin skill worked on his body, he assumed that with the help of that pill connecting him to the body of the javelin, he should be able to exert the origin magics on the javelin as well!

Luckily, the man had not seriously tempered his body in any way. Rein knew that the javelins of the Hall of Heroes must be made of some unique metal alloy that made them dangerous even against incredibly high-realmed advancers, but still, they would have been in far more trouble if the javelin failed to penetrate through the whole torso! 

He finally collapsed onto the ground, his vision fading. Shockingly, the last thing he noticed was that the head of that burly man’s body had somehow started flying away with the limp lower half of the body floating behind.

His last thought was his lamentation of his failure to keep his origin magic a secret.