He looked around and found the source of movement.
‘Fuck.’
The statues snapped their heads toward him.
Their lifeless eyes locked onto him, and their mouths creaked open, as they let out an ear-piercing shriek.
“Get out! Get out! Get out!”
Tears of blood began to stream down their stone faces.
Then, they moved.
Some statues crumbled to pieces the moment they tried to run.
Others surged forward with terrifying speed, faster than the Paragon Demigods Neo had seen in the past.
“Get out! Get out!”
They reached for him and their stone hands clawed at his clothes and limbs, trying to tear him apart.
Neo fought back, but he knew it was useless.
There were too many of them, and each one was unnaturally strong.
Worse, he could sense those stronger than Paragons rushing towards him.
‘Fighting them is a waste of time and energy. I need to look for a way back.
This place was swarming with statues.
Clenching his jaw, Neo made a quick decision.
He turned toward the nearest entrance to the Gap.
‘Anywhere is better than here,’ he thought as he stepped into the Gap.
The familiar sensation of slipping returned.
His body lost control as he tumbled through dimensions.
He tried to stabilize himself, to regain control of his movements, but nothing worked.
Moments later, he crashed onto another cold, hard floor.
The impact rattled his bones, worse than before.
A groan escaped his lips as he pushed himself up.
“This…”
Neo words were caught in his throat.
The dimension was eerily similar to the last one.
Dark sky, stone floor, mist and….
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Statues. Countless statues.
‘Wait, these statues are different.’
They had two legs and two limbs. That was where the similarity with the previous statues ended.
Among the new ones, some were enormous.
Their heads seemed to touch the sky.
Others were small, barely reaching his knees.
All of them shared one thing in common.
They were facing a single direction.
Neo looked around.
He stayed quiet, trying to avoid alerting the statues, but the moment he took a step forward, his senses screamed danger.
Their necks snapped towards him.
Neo froze as their mouths opened unnaturally wide, stretching far beyond the limits of anything remotely human.
A bone-chilling shriek erupted from them.
“Get out! Get out!”
Their cries echoed, overlapping with one another, growing louder with each passing second.
Neo didn’t wait.
He swiftly entered the Gap again, not wasting any time.
The familiar sensation of slipping through dimensions enveloped him.
It was a disorienting mix of vertigo and weightlessness.
‘I think I can move better this time.’
He believed he could control his movements after two tries.
But he had been wrong.
The moment he stepped into the Gap, he slipped.
The sensation of falling uncontrollably through the void was unpleasant.
It lasted for three seconds before he crashed, hard, onto a cold, hard stone floor.
‘Goddamit, not again.’
Groaning, Neo pushed himself up and scanned his surroundings.
The same dark sky, the same lifeless stone floor, and countless statues, all facing in the same direction.
There was one difference.
The statues’ appearances had changed.
They no longer resembled humans, missing even with two arms and two legs that every statue in the previous dimension had.
Some had long, serpentine tails that coiled beneath them, while others stood on three legs. Some statues floated eerily above the ground.
‘The statues look like they are losing more of their humanity each time I slip into the Gap.’
Less than a second had passed since Neo appeared in this dimension when one of the statues suddenly lunged toward him.
Before Neo could react, its stone hand grabbed his face with crushing strength and slammed him into the ground. The
impact sent a shockwave of pain through his body, leaving him stunned for a split second.
‘Damn it!’ Neo thought, struggling to move.
Before he could get back on his feet, more statues closed in on him.
Their movements were swift.
Each one was as strong as the first.
Neo tried to escape into the Gap again.
A statue suddenly blocked his path.
The entrance to the Gap closed on its own, vanishing before his eyes.
“You guys can do that?”
He fought back with everything he had.
The statues overwhelmed him with sheer numbers.
Not only were there too many of them, but each one was at least Exalted rank in strength.
“Give me a break, fuckers!”
The statues fought like wild, rabid monsters.
Their movements were erratic yet they were coordinating with each other.
A few tried to bite into his skin.
Neo had no room to breathe.
His movements were restricted, and every attempt to create an opening for escape was thwarted.
As he battled, he caught the faint sound of giggling.
The Air Elementals.
Their laughter echoed faintly, mocking him from somewhere he couldn’t see.
Neo clenched his teeth in frustration.
He didn’t have the time or energy to be angry at them.
His focus remained on the statues as he fought with everything he had.
Giant sword slashes capable of tearing continents flew through the air. Red lightning bolts crackled, surging across the battlefield like violent storms.
Neo continued to kill the statues.
No matter how many he destroyed, more statues emerged, seemingly infinite.
‘I need a stronger attack,’ he thought.
Neo took a deep breath, and forced himself to be calm.
The world around him blurred into the background as he tuned out the distractions—the sound of shattering stone, the crackle of lightning, the relentless screams of the statues.
His grip on the sword’s hilt tightened.
Wisps of white energy began to gather around the blade.
Neo didn’t notice it happening.
His focus was on a single point—on creating an attack as lethal as possible.
A sword cuts.
Unlike before, Neo abandoned any flashy or complicated techniques.
He stripped his approach down to its core.
He fused the Intent of the most basic understanding of the sword—a sword cuts—into his blade.
The air trembled as the blade moved.
Humongous amount of power began to surge from Obitus.
A blinding white slash flew out, slicing through the darkness like a beacon of destruction.
It was smaller than his previous attacks.
But the power contained within was unparalleled.
The slash tore through the statues in its path with ease.
The force of the attack left a deep gash in the stone floor—something none of his previous attacks had managed to accomplish.
[Modification of Question 5 ‘What is Sword Intent’ is completed as user has created Sword Intent successfully.]
Neo had no time to celebrate his achievement.
The statues suddenly grew frenzied, as if they had been wary of the power he had unleashed.
They tried to finish him before he could use Sword Intent again.
Just as he was on the verge of being overrun, the dark sky above shifted.
It moved unnaturally, as if it was alive.
‘LeaveNeoalonedonnothurtNeoNeostaysafepleaseNeoNeoNeo.’
The voices of Darkness echoed in his mind, growing louder with each word.
The dark sky came crashing down like a tidal wave.
It crushed the statues in an instant.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling across the floor, momentarily blocking more statues from approaching him.
From the shadows, the Darkness Elementals emerged.
‘Areyouhurtareyouhurtareyouhurt.’
Their voices overlapped.
Unlike the Air Elementals, who each spoke with distinct individuality, the Darkness Elementals repeated the same words over and over, like a broken tape recorder.
Despite the unsettling way they spoke, Neo could sense a genuine concern in their voices.
‘CalltheSpaceSpacecanhelpyou.’
‘ComeoutSpaceHelpNeoHelpNeo.’
‘No.’
Suddenly, another voice appeared.
This one was calm and collected.
‘HelphimHelphimHelphim,’ the Darkness Elementals pleaded.