Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

”...So you want me to break you out of your jail?” Uhtred asked after a short second, frowning in confusion.

”A jail...” the Heavenly Demon played with the word in his mouth and chuckled softly. ”That is an apt description.”

He reached the bottom of the stairs and stood before Uhtred, his presence radiating a far greater, suffocating pressure from the close proximity.

”But you’re wrong about one thing... I don’t want you to break me out of here. You are going to break me out.”

He enunciated each word clearly, a dark, dangerous smile playing on his face.

”Oh, I don’t think so...” Uhtred whispered through clenched teeth. The presence of the Heavenly Demon was domineering, putting a heavy, crushing weight on him, but he still refused to concede so easily.

This whole situation made no sense.

On the surface, what the Heavenly Demon had just explained seemed straightforward — he was like the boss of a game who had suddenly become conscious of what he was and wanted to break free by doing the impossible: leaving his pre-coded, designated area.

But there were glaring holes in that explanation.

First was the fact that Uhtred was now back to square one in his understanding of the Floor’s actual objective.

He thought he had figured it out already — he and the other human champions just had to find anomalies where they were dropped in the scenario world, and perhaps when these anomalies were brought together, some sort of revelation or key to the next floor would be unveiled...

But it turned out that the anomalies were just hoaxes. They were never the objective in the first place. Everything led straight to the Heavenly Demon standing before him.

So, was the Heavenly Demon the objective? They just needed to defeat him and they would progress to the next floor? Was that it?

That just felt wrong.

Not to mention how terribly difficult and borderline impossible it would be to defeat the Heavenly Demon — even if Uhtred and all nine other human champions were to face him at once — there was also the question of what the purpose of the world itself was.

If it was simply to defeat a Floor Boss, then what use was all this? Why did the Tower bring them into this scenario world in different bodies? Why did they have different lives here?

There had to be a reason for that — one that the Heavenly Demon knew... and one that Uhtred intended to find out.

He wasn’t leaving here until he understood the full picture.

”I refuse.”

He shook his head, maintaining his ground. He stared straight at the Heavenly Demon unblinkingly, even as his heart thudded rapidly against his ribs.

”Well then, you’re of no use to me.” The Heavenly Demon waved a hand, and Uhtred immediately activated Slipstream Stride to dodge the attack aimed at him.

He appeared at the far end of the palace, his eyes wide and his blood rushing loudly in his ears.

He saw the spot where he’d just stood vanish in an instant, dematerialized as if eaten up by something otherworldly.

What the fuck kind of spell is that?!

He had never seen anything like it, but it gave him the distinct, unsettling feeling of Esoteric magic.

Uhtred cursed under his breath. As if his situation wasn’t dire enough, now there was Esoteric magic on top of everything else?

His eyes flitted over to the Heavenly Demon, who had a blatant look of surprise on his face at Uhtred’s bizarre movement technique. The fact that a Nascent Realm cultivator like him had dodged his attack was more than shocking.

That surprise made the Heavenly Demon take Uhtred far more seriously.

His casual air vanished completely, and he strode toward Uhtred, utilizing a movement art of his own.

Fast!

Uhtred sucked in a sharp breath and stepped out of the way with Slipstream Stride. He moved in erratic, lightning-fast patterns across the vast expanse of the palace.

Distinctly, he could sense that the Heavenly Demon was chasing after him, attempting to match his speed. It was almost as if it had become a petty competition now — the Heavenly Demon simply couldn’t accept that he couldn’t catch Uhtred outright.

But Uhtred knew this couldn’t last for long. He was merely delaying the inevitable. He still hadn’t recovered to his full strength, and he had no clear way out of this palace. The Heavenly Demon was going to capture and kill him eventually.

His mind was moving at a mile a minute, trying to figure out a way to come out of his current situation alive, but he kept coming up completely blank.

He was truly fucked here.

Suddenly, just when things seemed totally unsalvageable, Uhtred resorted to one last, desperate move.

He activated his Gnostic Eye, almost without expecting it to provide any immediate help in such a high-stakes moment... but the instant he willed it active, his eyes widened in sheer shock.

In a fraction of a second, he halted his use of Slipstream Stride, bringing himself to an abrupt, sudden stop.

The Heavenly Demon, who was now thoroughly incensed from chasing after Uhtred for so long, plowed his fist straight through Uhtred’s chest with the terrifying momentum of his movement technique.

He held him up in the air for a brief moment, the look in his eyes turning oddly calm, and then dropped his limp body onto the ground.

Uhtred wheezed and choked heavily on his own blood, his eyes staring blankly at the distant ceiling of the grand palace.

The black stone floor beneath him felt frigidly cold... or maybe it was simply his own body turning ice-cold as life rapidly seeped out of him.

Goddamn... this shit feels way too real...

That was the last thought Uhtred had before his consciousness completely faded away...

.

.

.

[Notice!]

[You have seen through the Pseudo-Domain of an Awakened Realm entity]

[Congratulations! You have unlocked the sub-scenario: A Heavenly Demon’s Tale of Er-Alith]

[All Multiversal System Functions are currently disabled. Your Multiversal audience cannot view your current location]

[You are now bound by the System-imposed Oath of Secrecy. All that you see in this sub-scenario cannot be revealed to any being besides those also present within it]

[Transporting you to the sub-scenario...]

.

.

Just as Uhtred’s consciousness ’disappeared,’ a string of translucent System messages popped up in his vision.

He sucked in the mental equivalent of a sharp breath, utterly relieved to find he was still alive.

Goddamn! I actually thought I had died or something! That shit felt way too real!!

Right when he had lost all hope of escape from the Heavenly Demon, he had activated his Gnostic Eye — and in that instant, he had nearly facepalmed at what he discovered.

It hadn’t seemed useful to activate the ocular skill in such a hopeless fight, but when he had actually used it, he had noticed something unbelievable.

Within the grand hall of the Heavenly Demon’s palace, a second layer of reality was superimposed like a double image in his vision.

There was the surface layer of reality where the Heavenly Demon was trying to kill him, and then there was a separate layer beyond that — one whose physical details were somewhat vague, but its underlying presence was undeniable and far more real than the reality he was currently fighting within.

Within that second layer, the Heavenly Demon was still sitting on his grand throne, but instead of the empty, cold hall, a grand dinner table was set in the space below, and two figures were already sitting there, waiting.

It had all clicked to Uhtred then.

There were only two choices here. But each one would still allow him to come out alive regardless.

The first was to accept the Heavenly Demon’s order and facilitate his entry to the next floor. It was impossible to kill such a powerful figure anyway, so what did it matter whether he was able to ascend to the next floor or not? As long as Uhtred was able to clear the floor by bringing him along, it was a win-win scenario.

However Uhtred had declined this choice.

Which left the second one:

Defy the Heavenly Demon and die by his hands. Defeating him was impossible even for Uhtred with his Level 47 Nascent Realm strength.

This path however, seemed to lead to a separate scenario first.

Just as the System notices faded, Uhtred felt his consciousness snap violently back awake.

He found himself sitting right in the center of the same grand palace hall where he had just ”died.” He was seated in a plush chair at the exact same dinner table he had glimpsed through his Gnostic Eye.

Slowly, he turned to look at the two figures sitting at the table alongside him — and the moment he did, his eyes widened in genuine shock.

”Zara?”

Zara stared back at him with a light, knowing smile on her face. She didn’t seem particularly surprised to see him appear.

After his own brief moment of shock, Uhtred calmed down quickly. He realized he wasn’t entirely surprised by her presence, but rather by the fact that someone he knew personally had already faced the Heavenly Demon and reached this hidden sub-scenario before he did.

Instead, the person sitting opposite Zara at the dinner table was the one whose presence genuinely stunned him.

”Perfection...”