Chapter 326: Mind’s Eye
Sky shot forward, moving with speed as he thrust his rapier directly toward Vespera’s heart, the blade surrounded by a massive spiraling drill of high-pressure water designed to crush her ribcage upon impact.
To the naked eye, the attack was completely flawless.
But to Vespera’s Rip-Current Perception, it was moving in agonizing slow motion, and the glaring red weak point on his right wrist was practically screaming at her.
Vespera didn’t retreat as she simply took a single precise half-step to the left.
SWISH!
The massive spiraling drill of water and light missed her hood by a fraction of a millimeter.
The force of the attack blew past her ear, shattering a stone pillar forty yards behind her.
Sky’s eyes widened in shock behind his visor.
He had completely overextended his thrust, relying on the blinding light to guarantee the hit.
Vespera smoothly brought the flat pommel of her steel longsword up.
She didn’t use the cutting edge as she didn’t want to kill him so she simply drove the heavy steel pommel directly into the glowing red weak point located perfectly on the inside of Sky’s right wrist.
CRACK!
"GAHH!" Sky cried out in sudden agonizing pain.
The precise impact struck the exact nerve cluster controlling his grip.
His fingers instantly went completely numb as the glowing crystal rapier slipped helplessly from his hand, falling uselessly into the mud.
Before Sky could even process the disarmament, Vespera was already moving.
She used the momentum of her own strike to spin her body completely around, sweeping her right leg out in a low brutal arc.
Her heavy boot slammed directly into the glowing red weak point on Sky’s left ankle.
CRUNCH!
The impact violently shattered Sky’s physical balance as his entire center of gravity completely collapsed!
Sky’s armored frame tipped helplessly backward.
THUD!
The Lord of the Unmovable Wall crashed heavily onto his back in the freezing mud, completely disarmed and defeated in the span of three seconds.
Vespera smoothly reversed the grip on her steel longsword.
She stepped forward, planting her boot firmly on Sky’s chest plate, pinning him to the dirt then she brought the razor-sharp tip of her steel blade down, stopping it exactly one inch from the glowing blue visor of his mechanical helmet.
The rain continued to fall heavily around them as the duel was absolutely over.
Sky lay in the mud, staring up at the razor-sharp tip of the steel blade.
He felt the heavy, crushing weight of Vespera’s boot on his chest.
For a long, tense moment, neither of them moved then, the mechanical vocal processor of Sky’s helmet emitted a deep static-filled sigh.
A loud lighthearted laugh suddenly burst from Sky’s hidden lips, completely lacking any anger or pride.
"Hahaha! Well damn!" Sky laughed, raising his empty armored hands into the air in a gesture of surrender. "You got me, Vespera! I didn’t even see that footwork coming! Your perception is monstrous!"
Vespera kept the blade steady with her purple eyes glowing in the dark.
"You fought incredibly well, Lord Sky," Vespera replied smoothly, honoring the classic Lord. "But your grip was too tight, and your weight distribution favored your left side... Water is fluid, but your fundamentals are too rigid."
Sky laughed again, shaking his head against the mud.
"Fair enough, fair enough," Sky conceded gracefully. "You are the better duelist, and your Vanguard has completely dismantled my frontlines. I know when I am beaten."
Sky slowly reached his hands up toward the latches of his heavy mechanical helmet.
"I officially surrender the Lord War, Vespera," Sky announced loudly, ensuring the network drones could pick up the audio. "The Unmovable Wall yields to the Blessed Land. You have earned your victory today... Let us end this stream and discuss the rest."
Vespera slowly lowered her blade, stepping her boot off of his chest plate.
"A wise decision," Vespera agreed, preparing to sheath her sword.
But before Sky could do anything, and before Vespera could slide her blade away...
The atmosphere in the Umbral Basin underwent a terrifying unnatural shift.
The freezing rain suddenly stopped falling mid-air as the droplets hung suspended in the atmosphere like frozen glass.
The light of the morning sun was violently completely severed.
The entire sky above them didn’t just turn dark.
It was forcefully overwritten by a deep and infinitely vast shade of dark purple light that instantly flooded the entire basin.
Vespera and Sky both froze.
The mana in the air was completely suppressed and it felt as though they had been forcibly locked into an inescapable cage of something.
A single terrifyingly serene voice echoed directly into the minds of every single combatant on the entire battlefield, completely bypassing their physical ears.
"Mind’s Eye."
Sky grunted, immediately struggling to sit up in the mud as the suffocating purple light washed over his heavy blue armor.
"What the hell is this?!" Sky complained loudly, tapping the side of his mechanical helmet in immense frustration. "My HUD is completely offline! The arrays are scrambled!"
Sky looked around wildly at the dark purple void that had swallowed the battlefield.
"Dammit!" Sky cursed. "The stream connection just severed completely! The network drones have been entirely knocked out of the sky by whatever this purple domain is! The broadcast is dead!"
But as Sky was complaining... something was terribly wrong.
Vespera stood perfectly still, her longsword gripped tightly in her hand, staring entirely in shock at the figure sitting in the mud.
Because the voice complaining about the stream connection... was no longer a deep male voice.
It was the high-pitched sweet voice of a woman.
Sky froze mid-complaint.
The Lord of the Unmovable Wall slowly lowered her heavy, armored gauntlets as she looked down at her own chest.
The massive, imposing suit of deep blue and gold mythril battle armor had completely vanished into thin air.
The perception of the Mind’s Eye domain had forcefully stripped away the high-tier illusion magic sustaining the disguise.
Sky was no longer a towering male Lord.
Sitting in the freezing mud was a young woman.
She was swimming inside an oversized extremely comfortable-looking gray hoodie that fell past her knees.
She wore basic dark leggings and heavy mud-stained combat boots.
Her heavy mechanical helmet was sitting uselessly on her head, completely offline and completely dead.
Sky gulped loudly.
Her hands trembled as she reached up, grabbing the sides of the dead helmet.
With a soft click, she pulled the heavy metal off of her head, tossing it uselessly into the mud.
Long beautiful black hair tumbled down perfectly around her shoulders.
Her eyes were wide with panic.
Her soft pale cheeks flushed a deep, embarrassed crimson as she realized she was sitting exposed in her oversized sleepwear.
The disguise... the male persona... it had failed completely.
"Oh... oh fuck..." Sky whispered softly, her voice trembling with horror.
She slowly looked up, terrified to see the reaction of the imposing, ruthless Lord Vespera.
She expected the Lord of the Blessed Land to strike her down for the deception but as Sky looked up... her blue eyes widened even further.
Because Vespera was not standing there.
The sleek silver armor, the intimidating dark spatial hood, the single-armed aesthetic... it had all entirely vanished into thin air, forcefully stripped away by the exact same perception domain.
Standing exactly where Vespera had been was a tall and undeniably handsome young man.
He wore a tight black undershirt that perfectly highlighted his sculpted, athletic physique, and flexible dark canvas combat trousers.
Both of his arms were perfectly intact, gripping the steel longsword with trained precision.
His striking face was set in a hard scowl with his messy dark hair fluttered in the freezing wind.
And his eyes... his eyes were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
They were marked by a dense suffocating golden ring around the pupil that radiated the aura of a sovereign.
Silas stared down at the black-haired woman sitting in the mud in an oversized hoodie.
Sky stared up at the handsome, golden-eyed man gripping the steel sword.
The suffocating silence of the purple domain stretched between them for five agonizing seconds of pure mutual shock.
"Who the fuck are you?" Silas demanded bluntly, his actual deep voice breaking the silence. "You aren’t Sky."
Sky scrambled backward in the mud, hugging her knees to her chest inside her massive hoodie with her face burning incredibly bright red.
"Who the fuck are YOU?!" Sky shrieked back defensively, pointing a shaking finger directly at Silas! "You aren’t Vespera! Where is the Lord of Blessed Land?!"
"I am the Warlord, you idiot!" Silas shot back, immensely irritated that his flawless and carefully cultivated female persona had just been ripped apart on an open battlefield. "You’re telling me the Lord of the Unmovable Wall is actually a woman wearing pajamas in a war zone?!"
Silas had no problem with Sky being a woman but still... he couldn’t say anything about it, Thora had said so after all.
"They are incredibly comfortable!" Sky argued fiercely, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "And at least I wasn’t pretending to be a woman with one arm just to look edgy on a live stream!"
Silas opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort about her gaming chair posture but before they could continue their embarrassing argument...
The suffocating purple light of the domain suddenly pulsed violently around them.
Silas snapped his mouth shut.
His golden-ringed eyes narrowed sharply with his combat instincts instantly overriding his irritation.
He felt the terrifying pressure radiating through the domain.
’What happened?’
Sky stopped pouting, her eyes widening in sudden serious alarm as she felt her mana core completely suppressed by the purple light.
Both of the disguised Lords slowly turned their heads, looking far across the crushed bedrock toward the edge of the battlefield, exactly where the center of the terrifying domain had originated.
"What is that?" Sky whispered, her voice dropping all pretense of arrogance.
Silas gripped his sword tighter, stepping protectively in front of the unarmored girl.
"I don’t know," Silas replied coldly. "But whatever it is... it just locked down my entire Vanguard."
Far across the basin, entirely enveloped in the exact same suffocating purple light.
The massive, sixty-foot crater created by the destruction of the Shield World was dead silent.
Tasmin remained in a low defensive crouch.
Her twin shortswords were held tight in her hands, her eyes locked entirely on the blindfolded man standing ten feet away.
Brida, the Grand Titan Bastion, stood tall beside her.
The razor-thin cut running entirely across the adamantine face of her tower shield glowed in the dark.
Kassandra knelt in the mud slightly behind them, clutching her bruised throat, completely exhausted from the void flames.
And in the center of the standoff stood Hiro.
The blind vanguard of Sky’s army had dropped his dark cloth blindfold into the mud.
His empty scarred eye sockets leaked a brilliant, piercing blue light that actively etched a massive three-dimensional geometric web into the very air itself.
The purple domain surrounding them was the manifestation of that web.
It was a terrifying domain that stripped away all falsehoods, all illusions, and all evasions.
Hiro stood perfectly relaxed with his hands still resting casually at his sides.
"Do not be afraid of the light," Hiro spoke. "My domain, the Mind’s Eye, is not a weapon of malice. It is simply a weapon of truth."
Hiro slowly raised his right hand with his fingers tracing the invisible lines of blue light floating in the air before him.
"When the beast took my eyes so many years ago," Hiro explained calmly, stepping slowly forward, "I thought my life as a warrior was entirely finished. I spent years in the dark but slowly, the darkness taught me something profound. Physical eyes are incredibly flawed. They are easily deceived by light, by shadow, by simple illusions."
Tasmin’s shadow mana flared violently around her boots, desperately trying to find a spatial seam to sink into.
But it was entirely useless.
The purple light of the domain completely suppressed her Shadow-Submersion Drift as the shadows themselves were locked in place.
She could not hide.
"The Mind’s Eye does not see light," Hiro continued, his empty sockets bleeding blue energy. "It sees reality itself. It sees the exact coordinates of every single atom in this basin. It sees the microscopic tension in your muscles, the flow of mana in your cores, and the exact trajectory of your thoughts before you even execute them."