Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

I might have been blinded by the fireball, but [Magicule Detection] was working at full capacity. I could sense them as three separate masses of magicules. I might have been able to differentiate which was which, but that would take some time, time I didn't have as the moment the flames died down, I felt as one of the masses rushed towards me, magicules flowing and transforming into lightning in the shape of a blade.

I jumped backwards as the electric blade came centimeters away from my face. I sent a few fireballs of my own at them as another part of my mind began casting a healing spell and changing it when the first didn't restore my sight. The spell was a sphere of burning magicules to my [Magicule Detection]. It was a little hard to make out shapes without my real vision, but there was enough magicule around me that it wouldn't make that much difference.

"Where are we?" The same of the woman who was currently attacking me came from behind me. Even though I didn't move my head towards it, I could feel the presence of three more masses of magicules, the exact same as the ones in front of me.

"It seems we triggered a dungeon trap. Look out, Wyvern!" I heard Lindy, the elf woman, saying before sensing how she pushed magicules into her staff, which then travelled towards the crystal on its top and then being transformed into a fireball that she shot towards me.

I jumped out of the way just in time for the fireball to hit the lion woman trying to slash her sword at me. She was thrown backwards but one of the masses got behind her and caught her.

"Thanks, Max. That wyvern is full of tricks" She said.

"I already said. I'm not a wyvern!" I shouted as I jumped out of the way of a lightning bolt that hit the place I was a moment ago.

"It seems they can't hear you" The butterfly that was still on my snout said. "There's a third group of them appearing"

It was right. I felt as another three sets of magicule masses manifested in this weird space, repeating the same thing from the ones before and casting a fireball at me.

I casted another fireball and set it crashing against the one they sent me. Both of them collided midair and exploded. I sent another one at the lion woman from the second group that came rushing towards me with her electric sword, but she sidestepped it and jumped, pushing the blade towards my neck.

Suddenly the ground beneath me vanished as I started falling, making the sword chip at one of my horns, sending a small pulse of electricity to my head. I had visualized the ground being fifty meters below me and it had worked, of course, being temporarily blinded helped with the visualization as I wouldn't subconsciously anchor the "ground" to whatever plane I was currently in.

"It escaped! Quickly, follow it" I heard three distinct voices of Amanda, the lion woman.

As I fell, I felt their presence rushing towards me. I sent a few air bullets, air blades and even a few water jets towards them, but they all hit something I couldn't see, which was probably the shield the human was carrying around.

Flapping my wings to cushion my fall, I landed on the new "ground". I took the opportunity that they were still a while away to cast another healing spell, and this time it started to bring my vision back. Changing it a little more, I managed to recover my vision, which was immediately assaulted by the oppressive white of the space we were currently in. The only thing that broke the white were two scar-like rifts in space that lead to nothingness.

I also noticed the remaining spiders were converging to the rifts and starting to pull them open.

"That's not good" I said, the butterfly looked at where I was looking and agreed with me.

"No, it is not. They are forcing the rifts open. My domain's stability is dropping significantly because of it. If they keep this rate, everything will break in an hour"

A lightning bolt came crashing towards me, making me jump out of the way with the help of my wings. I casted a few air blades and shot at the three groups, but Max, the human with the shield, got in their way and took the hit with his shield.

I began running towards the spider as I casted a few more fireballs, water jets, water bullets and a few wind spells, only for them to be blocked by the three Maxes and their shields.

"This is frustrating!" I shouted as I was blanking on what I could throw at them. I didn't have time to create a new spell from scratch, only to use what I already had or made small modifications on them.

I shot one of the spiders tearing open the rift with an air bullet, causing it to explode and two more appear in the distance. They then rushed to the nearby rift. I looked at my MP and saw that I was down to a little bit less than half. I couldn't keep popping spells forever, I would eventually run out of MP and then I would be fucked.

"Did I ever use my own fangs and claws to kill, while intending to do so?" I asked myself as I quickly approached one of the spiders and used my sharp claws to tear through its torso before it could do anything. My hand tore through the spider's carapace with the same ease as a hot knife through butter. "No, no. I did, yes"

I threw the body of the spider inside the rift, but my hand was still covered in a glitching white blood. I could swear I felt something from the blood, but a sudden sword coming directly at my face made me ignore the sensation and jump to the right to avoid both the blade and the rift.

As I saw Amanda changing her posture to make her next move, I saw the other two Amanda's transforming into electricity and using the extremely fast speed of lightning to almost teleport near me, with blades already coming for both my head and wings.

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A shield popped around me as I used [Magicule Manipulation] to reinforce it on the areas the blades touched. I saw as the shield buckle from the force, but held firm. Flapping my wings I took off backwards, leaving for them a small explosive gift made out of my magic napalm version 1.

The sphere of liquid fire exploded, engulfing the three of them in a raging inferno that stuck to their fur and clothes. Their screams felt like a dagger through my chest. I knew they were trying to kill me, but I still felt horrible by attacking them like this.

I was about to cancel the spell when three fireballs came crashing into my shield, blocking my view from them. I took the opportunity to move to the other rift I had opened earlier.

My mind kept coming back to the three Amandas screaming near the rift. I was too far to cancel the spell. Their screams echoed inside my mind and stabbed my heart like a sword.

The sudden mental image of Jack stabbing his sword against my chest brought me back to reality just in time to see another group of the same people appearing right in front of me. As one part of my mind replayed the stab, and another replayed their screams I used another parallel focus to cast an increased gravity field in the middle of the trio who just appeared and jumped above them as they stumbled because of the distorted gravity that I felt was on the edge of tearing the white space as well.

Ignoring their surprised shouts, I arrived at the other rift and yanked a leg of one of the spiders. Just like the blood, I felt something while touching the spider, I knew what it was, I could feel it, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I gave up trying to remember when I felt a fireball coming in my direction from the trio I had made fall with the increased gravity and tossed the spider into the nothingness beyond the rift and jumped out of the way. The spell also entering the rift and simply dispersing out of existence.

I grabbed another spider that had noticed me and was trying to bite me and threw it in their direction. Amanda slashed through the spider after Max blocked the throw.

Just to test something, I created an electric bullet and shot at them, but Max didn't even try to block it. I saw as the bullet hit Amanda and was absorbed by herself before the electricity traveled down from her torso to her sword and, with a diagonal slash, sent a wave of electric arcs towards me.

Putting more magicules into my shield, I blocked the wave. I was now at a little over a third of my MP left and was starting to feel very tired, which was actually good, it meant that I was using more magicules than mental energy and if I hit 0 MP I wouldn't just pass out on the spot like when the inverse happens.

I started running away from them when I saw three versions of Maxes and Lindys running towards me with tears in their eyes. Their faces showed great pain and anger. The part of my mind that was still repeating Amanda's pain scream felt even worse, because that face meant that those Amandas had died.

It was a weird feeling, having three separate thoughts with one repeating a traumatic event and the other repeating another type of traumatic event and the main one I was using to focus on the fight I was currently on. I wondered if it was like this that hive minds processed stuff on the series I watched back on Earth.

I was running in a giant circle around the two rifts with the four groups following me, the last to appear were behind the other three as they were still cautious about me, but the other three were running with all their might towards me, throwing caution to the wind as they pushed themselves to keep up and reach me, fortunately we had similar speeds.

After a few minutes of running and evading the constant barrage of fireballs thrown my way and the occasional electric attack, it seemed each group couldn't see the others or something in that nature as while one of the Maxes was screaming that he would avenge Amanda, the Amanda from the last group ran right by his side with concentration on her face, I had finally reached the first rift again. I grabbed the spider by its legs and yanked her from the rift, pulling it with me as I ran. I couldn't afford to just stop, else they would reach me.

Two things happened as I dragged the spider with me, making me divide my thoughts yet again, tanking my MP reserves even more. The first thing was that another group appeared in front of me, making me need to cast a blinding light right in their faces as I passed right next to them. The second thing I noticed was the weird feeling I was getting from the spiders. It was time, corrupted and distorted but it was still time.

Each spider felt like a giant ball of that corrupted time so concentrated that it seemed it could burst at any moment. Each spider had more of this corrupted temporal energy than what I could feel around me.

I reached out with [Temporal Manipulation] to the temporal core of the spider, and immediately stopped my other thoughts process and pushed the magicules they were consuming to the acceleration part of the skill.

Everything around me slowed down to almost a crawl. In my hand was a literal time bomb, and I had inadvertently activated it. It was destabilizing even more and soon would break the fragile reality I was currently on.

I pushed everything I had in [Time Manipulation] and tried to contain the explosion. When I noticed it wouldn't work, I changed tactics. If I could stop it from exploding, then I would restabilize it.

As my mind was sped up and I was pushing everything I could into my temporal senses and my skill, I could see the unstable temporal energy was made out of a very tangled web of half formed lines of temporal energy.

I pushed, twisted, cut and reshaped the temporal strands as fast as I could. The pressure inside of the core of the spider was increasing ever so slightly, pulsing like a heart beat of destruction. If it wasn't for the fact that in front of me was the equivalent of a nuclear bomb, I was sure I would still be thinking over Amanda and Jack, thankfully, or not(?), the pressure and anxiety from what I was doing was enough to overrule my mind to just focus on that.

I eventually managed to untie enough that with a final push of a few strands, the remaining tangled mess unfolded itself, the moment it happened it pulled every bit of the pure temporal energy I had released, creating something like a temporal singularity.

Just as I thought I had created something worse, it pulsed, emitting a wave of temporal energy that seemed to cascade out of it and into the reality around the sphere it had become. Reality shook as I felt a radius of 20 meters around the sphere anchor itself and realign something much deeper than I should be able to sense.

I felt [Otherworldly Soul] starting to react, but quieted down by either a lack of energy or something else, I wasn't sure.

As my MP reached 0, I felt a wave of fatigue overcame me and forcefully deactivated my skills.

Time resumed and I saw the four groups running at me. I tried to prepare myself to engage in melee but couldn't, I was too tired. Fortunately, the moment they crossed the 20 meter threshold of the temporal singularity, they transformed into neon green particles that floated for a few moments before fading out.

"This is interesting," The butterfly, which was still on my snout, said.