Bro, I'm not an Undead!



Replicus wasn't as surprised to see the odd shape suddenly surge and lunge at him as it did. He had begun to imagine that there was something awfully wrong with the Paladin Champion from the moment whatever stopped his wounds from healing began to actively guard against his Null Life Essence.

Without even bothering to dodge or block the attack that came his way, he infused his mana into a particular concept, and in a blink, he, the bed and the Paladin appeared somewhere terribly dark.

The burst of Undeath then finally arrived to smash against his armour, but did nothing.

Replicus looked at it closely.

It looked like a caricature of a typical evil spirit: great horns over its head, large eyes fuming with a red light; a jagged mouth curved into a grin; thin limbs that ended with sharp claws.

The most impressive thing about this thing was how much energy it had. Its form constantly switched between firm and unstable, wobbling about as though it would explode at any second. Because of that, Replicus had taken his work to Stagnant Space.

"You don't like Null Life Essence very much, do you? You let the Supreme potion pass because you knew it wouldn't work, right?" Replicus said, more to let some manner of sound eradicate the chilling silence than to actually address the creature.

Naturally, it didn't respond.

In fact, it remained still, floating from the Paladin Champion – from right above the cavity on the right side of his chest – looking at him with a fixed visage.

Replicus raised his hand. It still retained the glow of whitish-green.

Through the Null Life Essence skill he had finally managed to acquire, [Greatest Null Weaver], he not only learned to how to control Null Life Essence, but got a knack of how other forms of Null Life Essence worked.

Quickly, he learned how to imitate certain forms of Null Life Essence – some without the need to use [Greatest Null Weaver] – like for instance, the properties of this whitish-green variant, which was extremely quick and much thinner than the standard form.

The moment he drew closer with it, the bizarre of incarnation of Undeath lunged at him violently. Replicus enhanced the glow in his hand, turning it into a vicious ball of the energy that he used to smack the Undeath creature to the side!

The fierce form of Undeath screeched, seemingly genuinely hurt by the Null Life Essence. By the time it recovered, Replicus had already planted his hand back on the Paladin, infusing more Null Life Essence into him.

"NOO!" the creature suddenly let out a hoarse scream that made the Penetrator turn to it with mild surprise.

It grew larger and broader and desperately attempted to skewer Replicus with its sharp ended hands, but...

Three nasty, violent slashes tore through its body from nowhere, making it let out a deafening screech!

It couldn't see, it couldn't have seen, but Replicus had propped the fingers from his free hand towards it, striking it with Null Life Essence, as he had done to Nedalia!

Like her, the creature wasn't easily killed – if it even could be – but Replicus had bought himself enough time to see if what he was attempting would work or not.

The Champion's body became engulfed in a blaze of whitish green that almost made day in the Stagnant void.

'Is it working?' Replicus thought as he looked closely.

As his Null Life Essence travelled through the body of the Paladin Champion, he felt the activity within his body.

It was chaotic.

It seemed as though at least a third of his cells were somehow infected with Undeath energy that took the form of a greenish-black flame, but there was no actual harm done to them.

It was almost like whatever was happening to him was biding it's tim-

...!

Suddenly drew back.

His Null Life Essence which had sunk deep into the Paladin Champion's flesh was pushed out firmly by a rather powerful influence that resisted with a passion.

However, that hadn't been what caused him to take steps back.

That honour belonged to the fact that the Paladin Champion, while visibly incapacitated, had suddenly raised his left hand and made at odd gesture with three of his fingers!

"Causality Vector."

Right when a voice without a visible source sounded, a determined, transparent bubble flushed out of the Paladin Champion's chest, widening with every micro moment until it reached the Penetrator.

Shockingly, it drained the colour out of everything – the bed, the Champion's features – however Replicus got the feeling that its effect was worse.

So much worse.

As it expanded staggeringly quickly, the only thing Replicus managed to do was expand a sphere of a cobalt blue Null Life Essence around him, which shook vehemently as the bubble from the Paladin flashed around it, evidently eager to touch the one inside it.

Replicus felt the influence of the thing spread out viciously into Stagnant Space, almost seeming to intend to devour it all.

At that moment, something represented in a series of grey tones materialised from the remnants of the manifestation of Undeath energy Replicus had just sliced.

It looked like the carcass of a massive bull raised on prime feed to maturity, with large horns and a particularly unfriendly look to its face which spotted an unnaturally crooked snout, under it rows of sharp teeth, much like a shark's.

It stood upright, the excessive amount of bones it had giving it a very intimidating stature.

This creature then spoke.

"If you know what's good for you, throw this man back into the ocean, and turn back."

Replicus merely looked at the creature for a while. Even while limited in the expressions of its colour, it still featured a greenish-black flame in its dry sockets.

'It's a reanimated beast. One with impressive stats...' Replicus thought, staring at the information given by his guidance field, distinctly categorising the creature as a Tier 25, Definer of Causality.

"What does your master want with this man?" Replicus ignored its warning and asked.

The creature let out a bellow of visible steam.

"Causality will descend as I have guided. Heed it or ignore it. Your choice counts, but only for a limited time," it said.

Replicus didn't like what he heard.

Worse yet, the creature turned back into a burst of stability and instability forged into a cruel shape, and was drained back into the Paladin Champion's body.

As that happened, Replicus felt the field the energy that had been cast just now recede from wherever it managed to reach.

Curiously, he poked his finger out of his sphere of Null Life Essence, and made his starry armour reflect his properties.

Replicus' finger was only exposed to the colour-dampening energy for two seconds, but the result was already stunning.

[Higher-Level concept detected. 'Wider Causality'. To learn the lesser fundamentals, an investment of 80,780 Null Life Essence is required]

The Penetrator's sockets gushed with visible surprise.