The Invalidation was an active state. It required continuous commands from Finn’s mind to maintain a constant stream of intent declaring the space he occupied as invalid for external interference...
Slow the source of those commands down enough and the window between one refresh and the next would beco an opening wide enough to push an attack through before the next command could close it.
A direct assault on the chanism rather than the effect. Genuinely clever...
The thought moved through Finn’s slowed perception with unhurried clarity. He was watching and deciphering the spell with the sa detached analytical pleasure he might have brought to examining sothing in a library.
He could have stepped outside Madoc’s range at any point — casting a spell as exquisite and intricate as this demanded extre focus, and therefore, Madoc hadn’t moved since casting it... Which ant he couldn’t move without destabilizing the entire construct. For Finn, moving out of range was the simplest solution available.
But he had other ideas. He was more interested in understanding the chanism fully than in ending it quickly, so he stayed where he was and let the spell continue running while he read it.
The smile on his face stayed put.
And that smile seed to irk Madoc considerably.
The Anaelle roared and launched the singularity. It blasted forward with speed, unraveling as it traveled, the compressed space within it releasing outward in a violent shearing force that tore the stone floor into jagged ribbons along its path. Chunks of rock splintered and were dragged into the wake of the expanding distortion. A crack split the ceiling and ran the full length of the room before stopping. The false, already-dull stars overhead flickered and a cluster of them went dark entirely.
Finn’s perception had slowed to near standstill as the singularity closed the distance, the ti dilation effect reaching its maximum intensity as the source of it drew near.
From his perspective the attack seed to hang in the air, each incrent of its approach drawn out across an enormous span of subjective ti. He could see every fracture in the spatial fabric around it, every detail of the compression chanics, the precise layering of the inversion Madoc had built into it, the full construction visible and readable at this speed.
But from Madoc’s perspective, the attack was moving at full speed toward a target that hadn’t even had the ti to blink.
The Anaelle’s expression relaxed. The tension in his shoulders dropped fractionally... He watched the singularity settle over the Pioneer’s chest, the event horizon of the spell beginning to warp the air around Finn’s throat...
It was over. He had won. He had found the gap and pushed through it and the young Pioneer... or rather, "whoever inhabited his body" was about to be unmade.
But in the last fraction of a second, Madoc’s expression broke apart completely.
The singularity stopped three inches from Finn’s face.
It held there, spinning in place, the compressed space releasing outward and tearing violently at the air around it with nowhere left to go. Spatial distortions gnashed at the air around it in a wild frenzy, but no matter how chaotic it was, it simply stayed locked in place.
"How is this possible!" Madoc bellowed with a look of utter incredulity on his face. And slowly, that look sohow morphed into an even deeper version that bordered on a shattered worldview.
"You figured it out." He stared. "H—How? Who... What are you?"
Finn simply chuckled in response.
He raised his hand slowly, and as his hand rose, the violent spinning of the frozen singularity llowed by degrees, the spatial distortions smoothing outward from his approaching palm until he closed his fingers around what remained of it and pressed it into nothing.
The erasure was absolute. There was no explosion of released energy, no dissipation into the atmosphere. The singularity simply ceased to exist, as if Finn had reached into the source code of the world and deleted the line of intent that sustained it.
The pressure in the Sanctum released all at once. The groaning stones went quiet. The debris that had been sliding toward Madoc dropped where it was. The dust fell.
Then Finn turned his head, still standing in the exact spot he had stood, unmoved since the beginning of the whole exchange, then looked at Madoc.
"That was genuinely ingenious," he said with a surprising excitent to his voice.
Madoc stared at him. All thoughts of a follow-up attack had visibly vacated his mind entirely, replaced by the stupefied expression of watching his most sophisticated and most carefully constructed spell be stopped and dismantled like an idle curiosity. The Anaelle slumped slightly, the explosive vigor his body had had seconds ago dimming as his mana reserves finally bottod out.
Finn continued, his tone analytical and unhurried, carrying none of the performance of soone trying to make an impression.
"I’ll admit, seeing you again, I imdiately wanted to test the level of strength required against soone as strong as you," Finn said, walking toward the trembling Anaelle. "I needed to calibrate myself. After all, I’ve been away for a very long ti, and at the scale of power I was operating at in that tiline... it’s easy to lose perspective of the present."
He stopped a few feet from Madoc, looking him over with an analytical gaze.
"You didn’t disappoint. That trick with the inverted ti dilation? Truly exquisite. You didn’t try to slow down the whole room. You knew that would take too much energy. Instead, you focused the dilation on the cycle of my thoughts. You tried to create a gap between my commands, a lag in my soul’s processing speed, so you could slip the attack through the monts when my [Invalid] field was refreshing."
Finn applauded, a slow, rhythmic sound of palms eting.
"You accounted for the nuances of how spells actually work. You deduced that it wasn’t a passive shield, but an active denial that required constant ntal maintenance. If you could slow my mind down to a crawl, the command wouldn’t be issued fast enough to keep up with a physical attack."
Madoc’s jaw hung open. He looked like a man who had just seen a ghost explain the chanics of its own haunting. Finn had not only defeated the spell; he had understood it better than Madoc himself did. He had identified the specific, secret logic that Madoc had spent years... decades refining.
"To be honest, coming back, I felt a bit of complacency," Finn said, his gaze firming. "I’ve seen things you haven’t. I’ve wielded powers that would make practically any Transcendent fragnt look like a toy. It’s easy to start thinking that everyone in this era are just children playing in the dirt..."
"But you helped prove that point is wrong. You grounded . Even in this age, there are people with the skill to challenge the logic of the Errant."
He nodded, a gesture of genuine respect.
"So, thank you, Madoc. For the calibration. And for keeping your word."
The Anaelle’s eyes searched Finn’s face. He was looking for the intruder. He was looking for the leecher entity that had hijacked the Pioneer’s body. But as he looked deeper, past the terrifying power and the cold, clinical intelligence, he felt that familiar aura. That specific, stubborn resonance of the sa soul he had sent through the portal.
"You..." Madoc whispered. "It really is you..."
"Of course it is ," Finn chuckled. "Your gut and your soul were right. I am Finn... Truly Finn."
"I have experienced the truth of what I am," He continued, his tone more serious. "Of my power, of my history, of what was done to and by whom, and of what I intend to do about it. I ca back with all of it. And I ca back with a score to settle that goes further back than this era, and runs as deep as ti itself..."
He held Madoc’s gaze for a beat longer, and then sothing in his expression settled into a finality that had been building since the mont he had opened his eyes on the floor of the Sanctum.
For the first ti in this age, he introduced himself fully to another living person. Not as the Pioneer. Not as a vague, undefined Transcendent, disguising the fragnt he bore as sothing else. But fully, completely, with the weight of everything he now knew behind it.
"My na is Finn Slade," he said, his tone sending a tremor that seed to vibrate through the very marrow of Madoc’s bones. "Holder of the Authority of Error."
"I am the Errant..."
"I am a Heretic..."
He paused for a mont, then sighed softly, a cold smile forming on his lips, tinged with the vicissitudes of all he’d been through. It was a smile that carried the exhaustion of his nurous lives and the hunger of a new beginning.
"And I have returned to declare war on every single Transcendent."
Madoc’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help but take a step back involuntarily, not just from the massive revelations and declaration, but also from the thick fervor rolling off Finn’s voice.
"On my authority as the Errant Heretic, I swear I will not rest until I slay every one of them and end their legacy in this world forever."
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A/N: We’ve co to the end of the third volu – Forging Nascence. Hopefully I was able to deliver it clearly and enjoyably. Delving into the truth of Finn and how he got here.
Now we move onto Volu 4: Reckoning. We’re back in the Ossuarist world now, and things are truly about to go down.😈😈
For the readers who have been complaining about Finn not being strong enough... well, if you’re still reading till this point, then at least now you understand and can get off my ass!! 😤
Just kidding, though... XD
Enjoy the next volu, and don’t forget to support by voting with Power Stones and Golden Tickets. They help a lot. Also, please drop a comnt, and if you can, drop an official review too. I’d like to hear your thoughts so far.
Cheers 🍻
Astrl
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