CHAPTER 130: THE ESCAPE (3)

But something as violent as this couldn’t be imperceptible to those powerful enough.

On the outside, the Exalted One’s previously calm look had turned into a fierce scowl.

"LAW! TELEPORTATION IS PROHIBITED HERE!"

He waited for the effects, but he could still feel the power building up from somewhere in space.

"LAW! BLINK IS PROHIBITED HERE!"

There was still no effect. The Exalted One began to lose composure.

"LAW! TRANSIT IS PROHIBITED HERE!!"

He pressed his will on the surrounding areas outside the dome, constricting the space even further to the point that even the molecules in the air began to slowly stagnate.

A wide radius of 30 miles (50km) around his position, where his law was in effect, began to dim slightly.

The temperature began to drop slowly as his law started to affect the molecules in the air, slowing their movement down little by little.

All life that had been caught within this radius, be it reptiles, insects, or even birds, began to swell like balloons in their already frozen positions as the air pressure started to drop to near-void levels.

But still... The Exalted One could feel that mind-boggling power continue to build up somewhere inside Freehold.

He snarled in frustration, feeling tempted to try enforcing a more direct law... One that would address whoever was trying to escape more directly... not this roundabout way he was going about it...

But he caught himself and instead attacked the barrier with more power.

He couldn’t dare it.

Laws like that would require declarations that he could not handle at his current level. Even these few he had declared were cutting it close. He was already beginning to affect some aspects of fundamental physical reality that he couldn’t handle the repercussions of.

He aggressively redoubled his efforts at the barrier, quitting his previously leisurely approach. His gut was telling him that the Pathfinder he’d heard about in the report... his major goal for coming here himself... was the one escaping.

He pounded on the barrier with a mad vengeance, wreaking spatial chaos with enough power to wipe out a whole region of more than ten million inhabitants clean of all life within the short span of a few seconds.

His expression had turned livid, and he went at it with everything he had, causing the Freehold barrier to begin to groan under the intense pressure.

The fact that it had held up even to this moment was a testament to the ingenuity of the natives that built it over the millennia.

But this was a Lawbearer in the flesh. The Exalted One.

There was no way he wasn’t going to be able to trump this.

.

.

"You’re doing great, Komi! Hang in there! We’ve only got six more slots to go!" Zephyr encouraged Komi through the oscillating mess their bodies had devolved into. The whole space was now vibrating so intensely that even the sound coming out of Zephyr’s mouth was having the same effect.

He could feel his insides vibrating in a way that would’ve made him sick if he was normal like everyone else. This made him marvel at Komi’s resilience even more. Despite all this, she was still weaving the spell.

He was sure she wasn’t even hearing his words at all, but the intense tension and the chaotic oscillation around them made him yell the words of encouragement regardless.

Komi had stopped making a sound for the last minutes now, and even her eyes were nearly glazed over. She looked like she was running on autopilot—like she was running simply on the will that drove her... without any thoughts of anything else in her mind.

.

.

On the outside of the pocket space, still inside Freehold, the entrance to Sage Maximus’ estate had become the focal point of the whole sanctuary. Even non-combatants could feel traces of the intense energy radiating from somewhere in space.

It wasn’t visible to them— it wasn’t even in the same space as they were, but the energy radiating from that general area made everyone, even in the far corners of Freehold, feel extremely uncomfortable.

The radiation from the build-up of stellar mass levels of energy was beginning to seep through the spatial wall of their reality itself.

Lionel was at the forefront—as forefront as he could safely be—with barrier spells stacked right in his front to prevent the radiation from burning him to a crisp. He was frantically firing spell after spell at where he thought the opening to the pocket space was.

All semblance of his previously ’in-control’ air was fully gone. His clothes were totally disheveled and his hair was scattered about wildly as he fired advanced spell after advanced spell that did nothing at all. They barely even reached the vicinity of the pocket space before they were dissolved into nothingness.

At the back of his mind, he knew that even if he was able to somehow break the pocket space open, he would immediately be incinerated to a crisp. The energy that he could feel from the distance he stood alone already made him tremble.

It had overshadowed the energy he could feel from the Exalted One’s spell by far... And yet this was only from the very minute trace radiation seeping through the spatial wall.

Even for the whole Freehold Sanctuary, this was the place that they felt the most threat from now.

The Exalted One had redoubled his effort, and the barrier that protected them was about to break... but some were actually eager for this to happen. At least with that, there was a chance of survival. It was a man-made chaos on that side, while this... what they were trapped in here with... felt like absolute destruction.

Eventually, even Lionel had no choice but to move further and further back along with the residents of Freehold.

The minute trace radiation had begun to drop people like flies.

Somewhere in the scrambling mass of people, Veronica had a barrier around both herself and her disciple—Rita, who had at some point met up with her teacher, and was now supporting her weakened body.

Florian, who had previously been marveling at the Exalted One’s power, was also among the scrambling crowd, stacking barrier spells around himself when his metals proved unreliable. There was no trace of admiration on his face this time. This was different.

The same was happening all around. Everyone that could cast barrier magic already had them up, scrambling further away from the intense energy source, loyalists and traitors alike. No one cared anymore. People further back were dying from the energy radiation, and all the others wanted to do was just survive.

Suddenly... there was a change.

A/N:

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