The quiet night, if one dares to even call it that in this world, had been plunged into utter chaos.

  The entire mountain range has become something simir to a hornet's nest stirred into fury.

  First, millions-strong hordes of Nyctors were incinerated into ash and flesh scraps, terraforming two mountains into seething va kes. The liberated souls from those deaths then attracted groups of necromancers, causing conflict between each other which inadvertently attracts even more hidden beasts in a deathmatch for the resource boom.

  Next, the sudden revetion of a dwarven vilge on top of one of the richest mountains sparked another frenzy. A myriad of creatures, mostly insect beasts with nyctor characteristics, rush towards the vilge. There were also signs of an unknown number of interest groups looking at the flickering dome of light, but they were taking a wait-and-see attitude, refusing to join in to the chaos.

  At the center of this maelstrom and also the one who caused this mayhem, Mizuki remained calm.

  Fshes of strategic killer moves erupted across the battlefield, scarring the terrain permanently. But to him, they were not a dispy of dominance, but merely the desperate attempt taken by his cohorts to contain the chaos.

  Still, as long as his men suffer no true death yet, it can still count as a win. His losing condition for this campaign would be the extermination of the dwarves, but their corpse and soul can be recycled. It would definitely hurt his effort in rebuilding his ship, yet it would merely be a small setback.

  Nevertheless, it is still in his best interest to keep them alive.

  He palmed the lightcrystal, its shine flickered like a dying star. His fingers traced around the artifact as if reluctant to touch it, yet unsure what to do with it. The faint, erratic shimmering across its surface reminded him of a colossal whale-like void creature that he had encountered in dark space.

  For a long moment, he stared bnkly at the waning lightcrystal, unmoving, eyes dim. He had tried to tune his AT-Field with the lightcrystal’s frequency, using the artifact as an extension of his soul to project the light of his soul.

  Yet, it failed miserably. Mizuki didn’t flinch, but something in his eyes flickered, the faintest crack in his otherwise calm mask.

  His early attempts had been mechanical, clinical. Feed the lightcrystal with the only energy he has, Soul Essence, cycle it through the artifact, and adjust the undution to force a synchronization with his AT-Field.

  Taking this approach came naturally. After all, the Armored Soul Tribe of the Human Imperium were experts in this field, having inherited the knowledge of the Undead Ancestor, Grimsong Specter: the [Shield Harmonics True Inheritance].

  In its essence, the Shield Harmonics True Inheritance encompasses far more than mere shieldcraft. It is a comprehensive doctrine of defense and subversion, teaching not only the art of erecting resilient barriers and tuning ther harmonic frequencies to negate specific types of damage or interferences, but also the means to unravel and destroy all manner of barriers, even those separating between yers of existence. It is this legacy that empower all Armored Soul Tribes to manifest and wield their AT-Fields, allowing them to defend against even the entropic corrosion of Hyperspace.

  Drawing upon every scrap of his mastery over dimensional ws and the esoteric principles of Shield Harmonics, he conducted thousands of experiments in a short period of time: injecting soul essence under countless permutations of variables. And yet, each attempt ended in catastrophic failure.

  He exhaled a long, weather sigh. Of course it wouldn’t work. This artifact functions on the mysterious ‘mana’, a type of energy that he cannot detect or interact with at this time. No matter how many times he experimented, without substantially changing his soul essence or the lightcrystal, it might never work as he wanted.

  His finger hovered over the lightcrystal, staring at the fading glow with reluctance. It’s not like he has no other method to try, but returning to that path… wasn’t something he wanted.

  It was too easy to slip into old habits. Too tempting to feel that rush again, the way realspace peeled open, of how reality works under his desire, of how the ws of physics bent according to the weight of his will.

  He had turned away from that path for a reason. After his death, he has chosen the path of a Techno-Magus as it was cleaner, simpler, and safer.

  But as he sat there, Mizuki could feel the inevitability creeping in.

  Having water-path as his primary cultivation, there’s no elemental affinity that he can lean on. Due to the darkness and quantity of metal in this region, the dimensional ws were skewed on dark-path and metal-path, with other elemental paths highly suppressed. The lightcrystal dimming at a visible rate, his machinery becoming inert, while his cohort is buying him time in desperation.

  Which left only one path, one that he didn’t want to walk again.

  Yet, he took the decision nonetheless.

  As he tears down the st mental blocker, he could feel it.

  His mortal shell is equipped with a rare Terra-pattern Artifact known as Psychic Emitter. Although it was not as rare as Soul Gems or even Soul Phyctery, it was still an expensive and rare artifact that is quite difficult to mass produce.

  The artifact only has a very simple function: to convert soul essence to psychic energy.

  To most undead of the Imperium, this equipment is worthless as they could not utilize this new energy. It would be like an electric motor being fed with diesel without a diesel engine. Even if they can use psychic energy, using them for psychic arts is another world as complex, if not more dangerous than the soul arts that they are more familiar with. Why would the undead waste time and energy to learn psychic arts if they already have soul arts?

  However, it was different for Mizuki, who, before his death, was a Magus Psyker.

  As his soul essence kindled, a ripple surged outward. The world around him dimmed, not by darkness, but as if it grew pale in the presence of something deeper. From his silhouette, a soft cerulean radiance bled. It is what the Imperium would refer to as Psychic Glimmer, manifesting as a ghostly Cherenkov-blue glow, like starlight bleeding through reality’s seams.

  Soul Essence was a foundational energy that every living being with a soul has. They are retively more stable across all yers of observable reality, from the dense weave of realspace to the chaotic flow of hyperspace.

  Psychic Glimmer, however, was something far more votile. It was not merely a radiant energy of the mind, but a signature, a metaphysical weight, a measure of how one’s consciousness could impose its will upon the fabric of reality. If soul essence has best efficiency on sacrificial rituals, necromantic arts, and curses, then psychic power is something else.

  It was a force that twisted causality and bent dimensional ws through sheer will.

  Where soul essence hover between following and denying the ws of reality in a sacrificial manner, Psychic Power crushed it through brute force.

  To the Imperium, one’s Psychic Glimmer is categorized by observable threshold.

  Stage 0 - Absentia, the null state. Little to no psychic activity, no distortion. Realspace remains untouched and inert, all dimensional ws work as intended. Psykers can barely use their powers to bend the ws of physics.

  Stage 1 - Vermis, is the first ripple of transgression. Minor distortions occur around the psyker, such as flickering shadows, manifestation of non-standard human features, strange whispers, and fleeting glimpses of otherworldly entities superimposing with real entities are the standard symptoms of Vermis. These anomalies are unsettling but not immediately dangerous to the psyker.

  When Mizuki’s psychic energy congealed into a cherenkov blue halo on top of his head, it was a clear descent into Vermis-stage. Within the Human Imperium, this luminous crown of halo was the unmistakable sign of an Official Magus Psyker, a beacon of power and a harbinger of destruction.

  But Mizuki did not stop.

  His goal y further beyond the threshold, and hesitation was a luxury he had long since abandoned. With each passing moment, he sacrifices more soul essence, igniting it through the Psychic Emitter. The crystalline engine on where the brain should be shuddered in stress, as it was a rank 1 artifact. It should have never been used to sacrifice the soul essence of a Paragon. It was like a diesel engine fed with Avtur.

  The two-dimensional halo above him shuddered as it gained more thickness, kindling with streaks of deep violet. Purple fme licked outward from his ‘brain’, seemingly feeding more energy to the halo.

  As the Psychic Glimmer fred even stronger, his seven orifice started to leak liquid crystal as the psychic emitter melted. Yet, the molten pieces of the psychic emitter were attracted to the halo above his head, becoming one with his manifestation of power.

  The halo no longer pierced the darkness, it drowned it.

  Air becomes thick, as though submerged beneath an invisible sea of mental pressure. Time staggered in its strike, gravity buckled, uncertain of its own pull. Realspace whimpered, then screamed, fleeting vissages bled through. Unknown limbs that ended in fractal spirals, eyes that opened in impossible pces, demonic runes that screamed in nguages no living mind had ever known.

  The pink-purple mist meant the reality corrosion was no longer in Vermis stage. It was the next threshold, Erosion.

  Realspace began to corrode, fray, and peel under the strain of Mizuki’s powerful psychic energy. But unlike the reckless Magus Psykesr who burned their minds in their own radiance, Mizuki had control. As an Armored Soul Tribe, he manifests his AT-Field using his knowledge of the Shield Harmonics True Inheritance. With precision, he stabilized the turbulent space, caging the chaos particles that had begun to seep through.

  Normally, such feats required a specialist, one trained in the defense against hyperspace entities and the reinforcement of local reality, but Mizuki was exactly that specialist.

  Yet, it came at a steep price.

  The soul essence consumption rate spiked dangerously. Maintaining the current AT-Field alone was taxing. The synchronization experiment with the lightcrystal’s frequency had already burned through a rge reserve of it. Then, added to the fact that he now has to force realspace into a superstable condition? It was like stopping a fire with gasoline.

  Then, CRACK!

  There was no actual sound, yet a shudder rippled through the fabric of existence. Dimensional waves fractured the nearby space like splintering gss. Mizuki didn’t need to get a glimpse of it, he could feel it.

  Fracture, the third stage of reality corrosion due to one’s Psychic Glimmer.

  Hairline tears opened across local spacetime, subtle but catastrophic. Through these micro-fractures, they slithered in.

  Hyperspace entities.

  Demonic nature, their existence formless and not limited in the 3rd dimensions. As of now, most that had stepped into reality were microscopic, or imperceptible to the naked eye, existing on the edge of cognition, like a thought you could almost remember but never fully grasp. Their presence alone is a curse for all near the psyker. For some, a single glimpse of their form was enough to induce seizures, madness, or soul liquefaction.

  Mizuki clenched his jaw. He could sense at least a rank 2 demonic entity having crossed over, attracted by his psychic glimmer. If mortals were to even gnce at its true form, their mortal minds would colpse into irreparable ruin.

  At once, he gathered his will. “Rank 3 water-path killer move, [Cryosphere]!”

  No incantations. No mnemonic chant. No seals. No hand signs. And most importantly, no sacrificial ritual.

  Psychic Arts can be activated through sheer will alone. A luminous sphere of water exploded outward, only to fsh-freeze into a perfect sphere of shimmering frost. Though from the outside it resembled flowing water, every molecule, every atom within this small sphere was motionless. Ice suspended everything at quantum level, even time stopped flowing.

  At least, it was what was supposed to happen. Instead of relief in this temporal locked space, a grimace carved into his face.

  “Damn…” he whispered, frustration evident in his tone. “In Holy Terra, [Cryosphere] freezes time by dropping the localized temperature to absolute zero of minus 273.15 degree celsius. But here…it merely slowed down quantum activity by at most forty percent...”

  His only saving grace is that the demons that had phases in and the localized dimensional fracture is contained within the ball of ice. The cryogenic temporal lock, despite its heavy stutter, had done its job for the time being.

  But it was not enough.

  Stage four, Prepsis.

  It was the fourth threshold of reality corrosion, only achievable by a Paragon’s psychic glimmer.

  Reality begins to bend and reshape in unnatural ways around him. Physical ws become inconsistent—gravity loses its meaning, time may stutter or skip, and space warps in impossible geometries. Objects and even people near him may spontaneously mutate or phase in and out of existence. The boundary between the hyperspace and reality thins dramatically. It was no different to creating a gate that connects realspace and hyperspace; semi-corporeal entities can simply phase into this reality as there’s simply nothing that stopped them from doing so.

  Pinkish-purple entropy of the hyperspace surged through the fractured space. Along with it, it carried the unexpinable existence of hyperspace entities with its infinite variation and unknown dangers.

  Fortunately, the corrosion is confined within such a small space.

  Unfortunately, it only sted for 2 more seconds. Yet, for a Paragon, that precious two seconds is as long as two hours.

  In that short period, his psychic glimmer bzed again, violent and unruly. The halo above his head split into rings of refracted blue, violet, silver, and myriad other colors, rotating in opposing directions, each color representing ws. The pressure of the air condensed to the point that even light slowed down.

  His will reached the lightcrystal.

  “I’ll refine you!” he whispered. “If you won’t accept my soul essence… I’ll rewrite your reality.”

  His finger, trembling from the slowed-down time, pressed into the artifact. Psychic energy surged from his core, not projected outward, but forced inward, channeled into the heart of the lightcrystal. The cryogenic sphere around him cracked with aurora-colored veins, responding to his will.

  One by one, he began engraving the dimensional ws that he is more familiar with, ws that are closer to Holy Terra rather than of this world. Each dimensional w burned into the lightcrystal like a brand, with every stroke of his mind, the artifact pulsed, mutating from a passive mana-reactive artifact into a dimensional anchor that would project the ws of Holy Terra.

  But this was no smooth process.

  It was like attempting to paint a masterpiece on canvas, except there was no paint, only the raw intent of creation. As he has no choice, he uses his truesoul as the pigment, and his psychic power, the brush. With each stroke, he wasn’t merely painting, he was rewriting the fabric of reality, engraving dimensional ws into existence through sheer will with a piece of himself.

  His mortal shell, already overtaxed by the cryosphere, began to melt. The energy produced by igniting the soul essence, and at this point, the truesoul of a Paragon is never something that a rank 1 artifact could handle. His psychic emitter, or rather, whatever left of his mortal shell’s head had already sublimated, mixed into his psychic glimmer. The whole metal body is already melting, fused with the ws, its structure unable to endure such concentrated metaphysical stress.

  And still, he continued.

  “Rank 4 water-path killer move, [Domain Expansion: Kiri no Mach!”

  With the st vestiges of his strength, Mizuki released a surge of Cherenkov-blue light that rippled outward in a wide radius, like a tidal wave of will. It surged against the surrounding space, repelling the invasive dimensional ws and dispcing the flickering AT-Field. In its pce, a permanent yer of stabilized reality bloomed, a sanctuary of Mizuki’s own making, a domain of his own design.

  But the price was steep.

  The top half of his mortal shell disintegrated, atomized by the backsh. His psychic glimmer extinguished in an instant, and the hyperspace phenomenon colpsed inward, annihiting what little of the foreign entities had phased into this world.

  From the ruins of his mechanical body, Mizuki’s holographic truesoul flickered into view, hovering like a ghost above the wreckage. His expression was drawn, exhaustion etched into every line of his luminous visage, yet his smirk betrayed a stubborn pride.

  Before turning to inspect the Cherenkov-blue lightcrystal, now slowly exuding thick, roiling mist, he took a moment to assess himself. His truesoul was shredded, fragmented beyond casual recovery. The energy signature he could muster barely registered at the level of an Official, flickering dangerously close to the brink of colpse.

  “But with this…” he muttered, gaze sharp despite the fatigue, “I should be able to use Terran tech up to rank 2...”