Floating amidst a variably charged gravitational field situated in the middle of a star cluster composed of three giant stars was Lucius.
His figure, standing straight as a spear, was surrounded by a translucent barrier of soul power that vaporized all chunks of ice and rock that flew towards his body at speeds unseen by the naked eye.
With his hands folded behind his back, Lucius looked around at the chaos surrounding him.
An innurable number of space-debris flew at alternating speeds, influenced by the varying levels of gravity exuded at specific spots by the three massive stars forming this cluster.
Tumultuous waves of invisible energies constantly clashed, aiming to destroy anything and everything that was unfortunate enough to cross their paths.
The stars radiated enormous heat and radiation while imposing a trendous amount of pressure on the objects within the star cluster. Debris that flew too close was directly evaporated, while those far apart were torn by the stars' gravitational field.
Of course, Lucius who stood at the center of this 'death zone was obviously not exempt from these dangers.
However, judging by the bored, unconcerned look on his face and the causal movents of his body, it was evident that this zone barely qualified as 'dangerous' to him.
Continuing to look around while uncaring of the chaos around him, Lucius opened his mouth and lightly spoke, "There is nowhere for you to run now. Stop hiding."
His voice was soft and barely audible. However, it resounded everywhere within this star cluster with impeccable clarity, carried by waves of his soul power.
HISS!!!
A piercing snarl, sharp enough to make one's ears bleed from the sound, suddenly resounded from sowhere within the star cluster, seemingly in response to Lucius' words. However, unlike his casual statent, the response was filled with obvious malice and murderous intent.
"Oh, there you are," Lucius' head snapped towards a certain direction, as he calmly replied.
Soul power crept into his eyes, enhancing his vision and allowing him to lock onto his target. A few dozen kiloters away, hidden beneath the shadows of a large rock and wildly clashing energies was a large, spiky fish.
The fish's body was almost a kiloter long in length and its entire body was covered by malevolent, hair-like spikes which replaced its usual scales. Its figure was shadowy and partially illusory, allowing it to slip into the gaps of space to travel through the cosmos.
The na of this strange creature, whose aura placed it in the peak of Stage 3, was Abyssal Spiked Fish; A native of the upper layers of the Abyss and a frequent traveler of the cosmos.
HISS!!
Its piercing snarls rang once again, as it opened its enormous maw revealing hundreds upon hundreds of grey, nail-like teeth. Strands of viscous potion coated its teeth, whose toxicity was infamous for being able to instantly lt the body of any Stage 3 being.
Suffice to say, the Abyssal Spiked Fish was not an opponent for the Stage 3 realm.
Even those belonging to the Stage 4 realm would find it difficult to hunt this fish, thanks to its incredible danger instincts and cheat-like innate ability.
Lucius, however, cared for neither. He had already spent the last dozen hours chasing after this fish and was more than eager to end this here.
'Ugh, I have to use my void abilities again,' Lucius inwardly sighed.
The reason Abyssal Spiked Fish was difficult to hunt was due to its partially immaterial state; physical attacks had no effect and ntal attacks were difficult to administer owing to its highly elusive nature.
This issue was more pronounced when one wanted to capture the damned beast, rather than to kill it. As Lucius was doing currently.
"[Void Hands] go," Lucius softly muttered.
In the next instant, multiple holes opened up in the area surrounding the Abyssal Spiked Fish, dozens of kiloters away. Following the appearance of the strange holes, were thousands of pitch-black tentacle-like appendages, composed of a very strange.
The Abyssal Spikes Fish, which was entirely focused on the dangerous creature floating in front of it at a distance, failed to notice the tentacles at the instant of their arrival. By the ti its instincts noticed them, it was already too late.
Similar to a curtain of raging water falling atop of a boat, the thousands of [Void Hands] fell upon the Abyssal Spiked fish. In just a second, the tentacles had tightly clutched onto its illusory body and shrouded its figure behind a curtain of death.
HISSS!! HISSSS!
The Abyssal Spiked Fish hissed and snarled in rage and Indignance. For many hours it had been running from this dangerous and equally annoying creature, and it was not going to fall now.
Struggling furiously, it put up a valiant effort in escaping from these disgusting, clawing organs. But alas, it was hopeless. For the curtain of [Void Hands] were never-ending.
The Abyssal Fish continued to moan and cry, slowly its tone changed from that of Indignance to that of fear. Slowly but surely, it was losing, both its energy and its body.
Looking at the successfully ongoing capture, Lucius nodded his head, opened [Void Storage], retrieved a few corpses, and started to feast on them.
While the capture looked smooth in its execution, it was draining an enormous amount of void energy from him. As such, Lucius had to continuously eat through his stash of food to refuel his body.
While munching on a slender arm of a Sword-Winged Angel, Lucius thought to himself, 'It's working better than I expected. The Rule of Void effortlessly trumps over the Rules of Space and Darkness, composing that thing's body.'
The Abyssal Spiked Fish was one of the incredibly rare creatures that possessed a 'Body of Rules' while only being in the Stage 3 realm. This gave it a massive advantage and made it vastly superior to other creatures within the sa realm.
It had to be said that the 'Body of Rules' was sothing that only those of the Stage 4 realm would usually possess. It was sothing that was gained after a living organism had undergone its first 'Transcendence'.
Lucius, himself still possessed a mortal body even though his race was the cheat-key of the Universe. Even he had to ascend to Stage 4 before gaining this feature.
Not having a 'Body of Rules' ant that a living organism, Lucius included, was susceptible to aging, illnesses, and many other factors that made mortal bodieswell, mortal.
Gaining a 'Body of Rules' would make them immune to many things while improving their very existence by a vast degree. In other words, it was an excellent thing to have with almost no drawbacks at all, with the word almost being the keyword here.
No matter how excellent and fantastical a 'Body of Rules' was it also had its own drawbacks, one of them being highlighted in its very na; A body of Rules.
Since gaining a 'Body of Rules' ant that one's physical body would be composed entirely of Rules, it ca with the weaknesses that the Rules had, naly; being weak against conflicting Rules and strong against similar Rules.
For example, suppose an individual 'A', who was predominately composed of 'Rule of Water', was to fight against an individual 'B', who was predominantly composed of 'Rule of Fire', it was obvious what would happen.
Due to the conflicting nature of their Rules, both their bodies will be extrely weak against the other and would be susceptible to more fatal hits and greater damages.
On the other hand, if both individuals had Rules of similar natures, then the one with the superior Rules composing his/her body would be the victor. The number of fatal injuries would also be less.
Returning back to the story.
The capture of the Abyssal Spiked Fish lasted for almost an hour before it finally collapsed from exhaustion. Lucius then reeled in the creature towards his location, pushed aside the [Void Hands] covering its head, and laid his palm atop its nose.
Lucius' pitch-black eyes stared into those of the Abyssal Spiked Fish as he slowly spoke, "Give two liters of your essence blood and I will let you go."
Hearing his words, the two eyes of the Abyssal Black Fish shrunk from unwillingness as it trashed its body about as a sign of refusal. It was evident that the creature was no willing to trade.
Essence Blood represented the lifespan, foundation, potential, and overall strength of a Wild Beast. It was incredibly precious and each and every drop counted.
Asking for its essence blood was like asking it to part with its current strength and future growth. No one in their right minds would agree to this.
Having expected this reaction, Lucius infused [Annihilation Energy] into the creature through his palm. The incredibly volatile and highly destructive energy entered its interiors and wreaked havoc.
Through its bounded mouth, the Abyssal Spiked Fish cried with pain. The incredible amount of pain it was feeling currently felt worse than death!
"Give it," Lucius said once more.
If not for the fact that essence blood had to be willingly given by its owner and would imdiately dissipate upon death, Lucius would not be willing to waste his ti torturing a re fish.
"Give it to ," Infusing more soul power, Lucius asked one more ti.
Unable to handle the torture, the creature hurriedly moaned a reply of compliance, asking Lucius to stop the torture.
Hearing its voice of obedience, Lucius dissipated the soul power within its body and waited for the creature to give its lifeblood.
Looking at Lucius with eyes of unwillingness and pain, the creature released the required amount of essence blood through its eyes, which Lucius promptly collected and carefully stored. He then released the creature and gestured for it to run away.
Flashing a great distance away, the creature turned around one final ti, looked at Lucius with horror and pain, and quickly slipped into a gap in space to run away.
It feared that staying any longer would prompt that terrifying individual to ask for more its blood. Having given away more than a fifth of it already, the Abyssal Spiked Fish was not willing to stay around and find out.
anwhile, Lucius had already forgotten about the Abyssal Spiked Fish and looked at the two bottles within his hands.
'Finally, the final material has been gathered. We can directly head towards the Master Forger now.'
Storing it within his [Void Storage], Lucius casually turned around and started to fly in the direction of his spaceship, following the soul tether between him and Ka'lor'ah.
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