The hundreds of D-ranks moved faster than the speed of sound—by Shen's estimates, at around Mach 3. He doubted Marzia's crystal operators could target those gnolls or that the beams could even accompany the enemy at such speeds. Humanity's modern weaponry would fare no better because even hypersonic missiles didn't have enough maneuverability to chase such fast targets.

And yet, that speed was way too slow for D-ranks.

Pure D+ agility alone, without any movement art, let one move at Mach 10 speed. Even back in the rift, using only his Foundational Qi while being suppressed by multiple monoliths, spells, and Skills, Shen had moved at Mach 5 speed.

Now, he had access to all Skills and Path and wasn't slowed down by anything. Without qi or actively using his aura, he could easily reach Mach 15 almost instantly. That's how good his Path and techniques were—and how slow the enemy was.

Shen was five times as fast as the gnolls even without making any effort. He guessed they were moving at that speed either because they were being suppressed by the monoliths or wanted to give him a false sense of security.

Regardless of the reason, he went to meet them as soon as they crossed the gnoll tank line. The only way to find out whether it was a trap was by springing it, and it was better if none of his E-ranks or tanks was around to get killed by a random missed attack.

The D-ranks made two lines as they moved toward Shen, each coming from one of the portal edges.

To Shen's left, the first D-rank was an eight-foot-tall gnoll with massive muscles barely hidden by what looked like a human female swimsuit made of magic black leather. Their arms and legs had two silver bracelets each, and three thin golden metallic chokers covered their neck. The gnoll's pelt was dark gray with streaks of a lighter shade, and they wielded a massive two-handed ax.

To Shen's right, the first D-rank on the line was dressed more traditionally. Their dark red metal armor was lithe and had no openings except two thin slits for the eyes. The metal reshaped itself almost like fabric as the gnoll moved thanks to magic—Shen could tell because black runes shone throughout the defensive equipment every time a bent was added or removed. The gnoll wielded what looked like two dark gray katanas.

Shen chose to go against the katana one first, who supposedly had the better defense. If he was about to step into a trap, he would rather know how well he fared against that equipment when things went downhill.

The only alternative was fleeing, but he had already decided to give it his all in this battle.

The armored gnoll slowed down as soon as Shen started moving their way. The ones behind the first moved sideways as if aiming to surround the cultivator. They wore all kinds of armor and weaponry, albeit all close-range. Now that he thought about it, there was a pointed lack of ranged weaponry among the D-ranks he had seen until now.

Shen had been awaiting four hundred yards from the portal. He had waited for the gnolls to cross the enemy tank line, located one hundred yards away from the portal.

At Mach 15, Shen could traverse fifty-six hundred yards in a single second; the three hundred yards between them were gone in a tiny fraction of a second.

When they met, most humans hadn't even had time to understand that the blurs coming from the portal edges were their most dreaded enemies.

Shen's monolith-limited aura only touched the enemy when he was fifty yards from them. It was a small area but still much better than his mana sense ring.

It only let him feel mana twelve feet away.

That's how close Shen was when he felt the magic barrier surrounding the enemy. His ring allowed him to feel the invisible spell, and his aura let him feel more; it improved all his senses, even the ones that weren't naturally his. He could tell that the barrier was made of condensed air and contained more than mere mana.

The gnolls could use Concepts even inside the monoliths' area of influence—as Shen had feared.

Fortunately, things weren't as dire as he had expected because he could deny the monolith's influence with his aura, too. He wasn't wholly outclassed just yet.

The gnoll he was targeting had hoped Shen would notice the barrier too late to do anything about it. It had been erected ten yards away from the gnoll, just enough for Shen to meet it face-first at the worst moment—as he positioned to attack. The scheme even worked to some point despite his awareness of the barrier. Shen moved so fast and was close that he would have trouble dodging it if it had been his intention—unless he used qi and his aura to improve his movements, of course.

But Shen didn't want to dodge at all.

He needed to test himself against the enemy D-ranks as soon as possible to understand their capabilities and tell his army to move accordingly. This first contact against a single D-rank was his safest bet to accomplish that.

So he met the Concept-infused air barrier head-on with the tip of his spear—and added his Foundational Qi to it.

The blend of War, Combat, and Sharpness filled his spear and spearhead. Shen and his weapon hit the barrier like a comet.

Both were instantly locked in place.

When mystical energy met competing energy, they were frozen in space no matter how fast either of them might have been going previously. So the air barrier couldn't go anywhere, just like Shen's spear—filled with qi—was stuck mid-air.

A connection was formed between Shen's and the gnoll's wills, and a fight for supremacy started. They would be freed from the impasse when one defeated the other or let go of the energy touching the enemy's.

Yet, the universe didn't disregard the physicality of the actions leading to that mental fight. Shen felt like his spear had just met an unsurmountable wall, and the physical shock spread throughout his body.

| Health: 197 / 200 | -3

Even with his D+ resistance, he still took some damage—both from the shock and because he forced himself to abruptly decrease his tremendous speed so his body didn't keep moving and he met the barrier head-on. Only his spear was frozen; he wasn't. His joints cried, and his muscles ached. Yet, he still held firmly to his spear.

He sought to use the attack to aid his mental assault against the enemy's mind.

It would be too easy if anyone could stop anyone, regardless of the physical powers involved, just because magic energy had met opposing magical energy. The universe wasn't that unfair. The more significant the gap between the physical forces related to the energies, the greater its toll on the weaker side.

So Shen's speed, qi, mass, and resulting force greatly aided his mental assault.

That wasn't the only factor in his favor, either. Whatever that gnoll had experienced in their past was nowhere close to Shen's experiences—or maybe recent events had turned that gnoll soft. Shen felt merely two times Alicia's willpower pushing against his. He pushed back with a will it couldn't compare to.

The magic barrier shattered less than a tiny slice of an instant after his spear met it.

Shen didn't expect such weakness, and it took him a little longer than he wanted to continue. It was still fast enough to catch the dazed gnoll before they could recover.

His spear found the same resistance in the gnoll's armor as a sharp knife going through rotten wood. It was one of the better armor Shen had seen to date, yet it couldn't withstand everything behind his attack.

He had to remove his qi from the spearhead when it was about to reach the gnoll's skin, or he would have to go through another battle of willpower. Although he was confident of his victory, it would also slow him down a little more, and he hoped to leave before he was surrounded.

The weapon pierced the gnoll's heart. Shen used his footwork to run a circle against the gnoll, bending metal, shattering ribs, and rending flesh. Before he had gone full circle, the poor bastard had already turned into light.

| Rift Dweller (D) | +1,250 → 966,082 AP

And then, Shen was encircled.

The gnolls that had been moving at Mach 3 speed suddenly were twice as fast. Yet, Shen wouldn't have done anything differently—he needed to attack at some point. More importantly, his troops needed both the relief caused by the D-ranks focusing on him and the time to maneuver accordingly to their training.

The instability of his actions and his goodwill toward humanity wouldn't keep him alive while encircled by the enemy though.

It was time to give all he could without expending too much qi.

Shen strengthened his entire body with his qi and every single one of his Concepts—something he found out he could do with ease now that he had an aura. Mentally and conceptually, Shen was his Path, but Qi made that even truer.

His every cell was suddenly War made manifest. They waged a campaign against any imperfection in his body, planned and acted against invaders, and made his brain better suited for tactics and strategy.

His existence also became Combat, which aided his warring cells in destroying everything inside him that was not him. His muscles, bones, joints, cartilage, and tissue were further pushed into alignment to turn him into a perfect killing machine—even more than being at peak D-rank already made him.

Sharpness became a part of his every movement—his every breath. It adjusted the changes happening in his mind, pushing him to see the world in shades of getting-cut potential. How easily could he cut something? His body was also adapted for speed and elasticity, making his spear movements more penetrating.

Arc Flash pushed him in three directions: speed, explosive power, and weak points

The extra speed, brought straight from the Laws of Lightning, greatly aided the previous Concepts—he could think faster, move faster, and cut more quickly.

On the explosive power front, Arc Flash fought with Sharpness to make his attacks spontaneously explode yet lost the fight because Sharpness was a Foundational Concept. It added a punch to Shen's attacks but, sadly, not naturally occurring electrical explosions.

Weak points pertained to the nature of arc flashes. They occurred when an unintended arc was created by a current flowing through an unplanned path—like a wire getting corroded or snapped. So Arc Flash helped Shen identify and fix weak spots that could become an issue in his body, thoughts, and movements and identify and exploit the same in his enemies.

Zephyr made minute adaptations to Shen's body and mind. It told Shen that not everything had to be cut or blown up—sometimes, simply avoiding the danger was much better.

The Concept was much more effective at countering the Sharpness than the Arc Blast, primarily due to its non-combative nature. It moved around the Concept of Sharpness and softly pushed it here and there, making Shen's mind more malleable to killing in other ways if needed and his body more effective in small movements, especially dodging. It also slightly decreased the hold that War and Combat had in his mind, ironically letting him use War more effectively—seeing the bigger strategic picture rather than just the enemy to be destroyed. As for Combat, Zephyr let Shen see ways out or around his enemy rather than only an obstacle to be crushed.

Flow brought balance to everything. Wherever Concepts fought, they became flowing streams that almost blended together. The previous disagreements were solved just like that, and Shen started getting the best of all his Concepts without any downsides. He saw things to cut and blow up, sought to win the war in front of him without losing himself, and understood there were times to advance and retreat. He also became more attuned to the Flow of battle and the movements of everyone involved in that Rift War, including his, which became more fluid.

Finally, Boundlessness pushed that unified system further, potentializing Shen's abilities beyond what should be his maximum.

Then he pushed his Path-filled qi Path into his spear too—not around it, into it. He kept the qi a small distance from the surface so it could strengthen the weapon without ever getting in contact with any external mana.

Shen had looked back at his fights, then asked Alicia about something that led him to an important discovery: mana couldn't be infused into objects like qi. Qi flowed seamlessly into any item, especially if there was a matching Concept—like a Concept related to the spear going through a spear—yet mana was held at bay by the physical constraints of any object. It was better than light at going through things, but not by much. Only engraving the objects with magic runes allowed mana to circumvent that restriction.

So what Shen had been doing all along, strengthening his spear to keep it whole as he fought, had a reason to work.

Qi was inside and around him. Qi was in his spear. He was more powerful than ever before.

And his aura pushed him further—40% beyond his already Boundless limits, to be exact.

Shen reached Mach 21 speed; he could run around the Earth in one and a half hours.

He had used part of the last nine days to assimilate all his improvements in the rift and refine his gains. Not only was he fast but also agile; he could make a ninety-degree at top speed in less than five yards without damaging his body. Now, he also made his spear as sharp and resistant as it could be without qi on its surface. The power of his muscles propelled the weapon ahead and gave it stability without equal.

Shen turned to the closest gnoll, a tall one wearing tight plate armor, holding a small round shield in front of themselves and wielding a mace. He stepped closer to them—and thrust.

He didn't push any qi outside his spear to increase its power or himself to improve his defenses because he expected spells to get in the way, and he was right. A gnoll used an area spell around him. It was as if he was suddenly at the heart of an iceberg, and the cold tried to slow him down. The mage who had cast the spell it was good; it could affect Shen without any mana touching him. Even his D+ resistance couldn't completely disregard the extreme cold.

However, unlike in the rift, Shen knew how to use his aura this time. He willed it, and the spell and all its effects disappeared in the area fifty yards away from him.

Meanwhile, Shen's thrust continued. He willed his aura to make his spear sharper and faster without any qi expenditure. He also used it to fight against his target. He willed it to weaken, cut, and blow up the shield in front of him and the enemy hiding behind it.

Shen had yet to find a limit to how many things his aura could affect at once. If he could think of it, he could do it.

Auras were that strong.

The gnolls put more spells on his way, and Shen didn't use his aura to remove them. There was no need to. Shen's spear surface had no qi, and when magic met a purely physical object, it all came to the more mundane rules of the universe. His crystal-like hypersonic spearhead met ice, fire, earth, rock, stone, metal, and gravity spells on the way to his target and easily cut through them.

Then it also went through his enemy's helmet, skull, and brain—where it created an Arc Flash and exploded the entire head in a moment.

Before a single drop of blood could reach Shen, he was already killing his next target.