The Almighty Ring

Jiang Fei was unconscious. All he remembered seeing was the new energy core flying toward him, which was followed by a bright blue light that covered everything in his vision before suddenly blacking out. He could barely make out the voices of people calling out to him from a distance as his mind was fading away, but was unable to discern who and where they were coming from.

When he came to, the boy found himself in a very bizarre place. Jiang Fei woke up suspended in the middle of a space, but it was neither dark nor cold like the abyss of space that he knew. Everywhere he looked was a blurry display of lights that kept changing in color and intensity every now and then. He was the only one thing present in that never-ending void and he did not know if he was moving, still, or upside-down, for there was also no sense of space or time.

“Where am I?” Jiang Fei asked himself.

“…”

There was no one there to answer him in the endless void, and his natural instincts kicked in, as a primitive fear of the unknown slowly welled up inside him. He needed to escape from here, wherever “here” was.

But Jiang Fei quickly realized that there was nothing he could do in the vast emptiness. He could firmly feel his own existence, but was unable to use his own body like he normally could. It felt to him as if his bodily controls were not the same as before.

As a Level 4 Metahuman, Jiang Fei had already achieved great control over his own body. Although his ability to do that had yet to reach the point where he could isolate and command individual cells like that of a Level 5 Metahuman, it was enough to grant him “vision” and free reign over any single organ or muscle in his body.

But at this very moment, Jiang Fei’s experience with his ability was drastically different from what he was used to. In place of the usual atoms and molecules that make up his entire body that he could vaguely observe and was familiar with, he found clumps of strings instead. Some of them closed, connecting at both ends forming circles, and some short and curved, like randomly cut threads.

Each string was not still and were vibrating by themselves. Every individual string was vibrating at varying frequencies that was also changing over time. And through the strings’ continuous vibrations, atoms were slowly being formed and merged together, eventually combining to form his body.

“What’s this?”

The strings piqued Jiang Fei’s curiosity and he began using his consciousness to investigate them.

HUMMM…

As soon as Jiang Fei started probing one of the strings with his consciousness, the thin fabric made out of a clump of other strings as well as the one that he was probing and was connected to reacted and changed their vibration frequencies.

“ARGH!”

Jiang Fei immediately felt a sharp pain and realized that his left pinky was turning into stone! The sudden petrification threw him into a panic and he quickly retracted his consciousness from interacting with the string. And as soon as he did that, the group of strings reverted their vibration frequencies to normal and his pinky gradually reverted to flesh and bone.

“Holy shit! Can changing the frequency at which the strings’ vibrate also change the element of the object? Is this for real?”

Jiang Fei was amazed. If he could learn more about how the strings worked, then he might be able to put it into practice and this would become a very powerful skill! If mastered well, he could just petrify his enemies and turn them into stone! That would make him unbeatable!

“Fascinating! But how am I supposed to practise using this?” Jiang Fei arrived at a dilemma. He was currently in an empty space devoid of anything he could use to practise on, and the only object that he could apply this to was his own body. So if he really wished to master this new art, he would have to become his own lab rat!

“Well, fine! It’s going to hurt a lot, but my body will turn back to normal when I stop it anyways!” After a brief struggle with himself, he decided that he had no other choice than to experiment on himself even though it could be risky for him.

Jiang Fei had absolutely no idea how to get out from this space. And although learning how to control and manipulate the strings might not help him with escaping, it was the only lead he had right now.

After countless tests, the many parts of Jiang Fei’s body had transformed and reverted again and again. One time, a nail on his finger become shiny with a metallic gleam, and another time, he turned his foot into a puddle of water. But thankfully, every time he retracted his consciousness from the strings, the transformation would cease and return his body back to its original form. Although this was an excruciating process, Jiang Fei believed his pain to be worth it.

“F*ck! I can’t figure this out! I keep trying and trying, but I’m getting nowhere!”

After an inconceivable number of tries, frustration finally got to Jiang Fei. His curiosity had kept him engrossed with his experiments in the beginning, but worry crept in and eventually made him restless.

Jiang Fei remembered that he and the people he cared about were all being held captive aboard Braveheart and at Akatziris’ mercy. But now that he’s in this godforsaken place, what about his parents and the girls? Their lives were still in Akatziris’ hands. And knowing the crazy android, there will be no mercy in how she would treat them!

If Jiang Fei made it back there just to find his family members dead, then what was the use of learning this new ability? If the people he cared about were gone, then him returning after mastering such an obscenely powerful ability was for naught. With that thought in mind, Jiang Fei no longer had the same patience he had to slowly investigate and experiment with the strings and was desperate to get back to his loved ones.

Regardless of his understanding of how the strings worked and his proficiency at using them, this ability to petrify anyone was the power he needed to give him the upper hand when he confronts Akatziris later. So what he urgently needed right now was a way out from this space so he can unleash his wrath upon the one enemy that was threatening the safety of his loved ones right now.

Jiang Fei did not know how long it had been since he entered this space as there was nothing he could refer to there to measure the amount of time that had passed. The flow of time seemed to be nonexistent in the vastness of the void, and that made him anxious about what was happening or what had already happened on the outside.

“F*ck it, let’s just go all in on this!”

In his desperation, Jiang Fei finally decided to risk his body and put all of his hopes on the strings. He had been experimenting with them non-stop for a while, but had exercised caution and carefully probed the strings with his consciousness a little at a time, and stopped every time a part of his body parts changed. But now, he was preparing himself for one huge leap of faith.

“Now, vibrate for me!” Jiang Fei gathered all of his consciousness and slammed it hard against the strings, causing all of them to vibrate immediately!

HUMMM…

The strings started vibrating at different frequencies all at once, and although the changes in their vibrations seemed completely random and chaotic, the resulting vibrations achieved some form of mysterious resonance and order.

SWISH!

As he did that, back in the holding cell that had been detached from Braveheart, Jiang Fei’s body suddenly vanished right in front of Bella and the others’ very eyes!

“What just happened?” Nina turned and asked Ariel, the one who understood the most about spatial-related powers among the girls.

“I don’t know, but that’s not teleportation! We know that dearie can’t teleport by himself, and there was no spatial ripple when he disappeared.” Ariel was also confused.

“If it’s not teleportation, then what is it?” Sylphy asked.

“To suddenly disappear without a trace like that… Is it…” A thought suddenly crossed Ariel’s mind and horror flashed across her face.

“No… That’s impossible!” Bella’s eyes widened as she came to the same devastating conclusion as Ariel did.

“Is this… Obliteration?” Nina herself could not believe it when she uttered the dreadful answer that everyone was thinking about.

Only through total obliteration could someone or something suddenly disappear like that without leaving as much as an atom behind!

“Is hubby… dead?”