World Keeper

Chapter 518: Infinity Mirror

It only took a few days before my chakrams arrived. During that period, I spent most of my time self-training to further practice my fighting style. I decided that it was necessary to add another layer of illusion to my technique. If the Keeper, the big boss that they were expecting to fight, opened up with a special move that seemed to deal no damage, it would seem really suspicious.

As such, I had to disguise the crimson ki of Beginning Fire as a normal ki, and modify the illusion so that it appeared as though they took damage from a regular attack. To my surprise, that second part was actually fairly easy once I had gotten the hang of the first.

By the time they would need to take the damage, the ‘victim’ was already an illusion themselves. After testing it with a few monsters, I began to realize that they would interpret illusory attacks as real ones. As long as my attack had the appearance of ki and corresponded to the illusion I created for them, their bodies would believe it to be real.

However, it seemed that adding the extra layer of illusion further compressed the area my Beginning Fire ki could affect. Without any added effects, Beginning Fire was capable of destroying space in a ten kilometer cone. That alone would have been enough for me to utterly destroy the testing group that Accalia created for me, as they were only set to be ten kilometers away.

Doing that makes the attack more obvious, though, and it becomes easier to plan around. Which was why I created my Battle Illusion technique. But, when I added in the divinity to conceal the effects of Beginning Fire with an illusion, I found that its maximum range decreased from ten thousand meters to a mere one hundred. Only one percent of its initial range.

One hundred meters was still plenty, though. I was just worried that adding a second layer of illusion might condense it to just one percent of that, meaning only a one meter range. That wouldn’t be very effective to me, as I couldn’t completely encompass a target with that small of a range.

Thankfully, my worries did not turn out to be true. From one hundred meters, the effective range for my attack shrank to fifty meters. This was still plenty for me to utilize in battle, as it would not be often that I came across enemies larger than fifty meters which required me to use that technique. If I did fight such a foe, I would simply resort to my other abilities.

Which was where my pair of chakrams came in. They would not be utilized for my illusions, nor my Ki of Beginning. The weapon of the God of Illusions was secrecy, so these would become the weapon of the God of Mirrors.

Once my chakrams arrived, I promptly had them enchanted and then turned them into my holy relics. Their effect was incredibly simple… to be able to create a mirror within the center of the ring. Now it was time to create a fighting style based around these.

Tsubaki sat at the edge of the courtyard, her legs hanging over the side as her nine tails swayed happily behind her. Her eyes seemed to stare off into space, almost unfocused. However, there was a bright smile on her face.

“Watching him again, Tsuba?” Dana’s voice spoke up from behind Tsubaki in a playful tone, the smaller elf moving to sit next to her. “Hasn’t it been a month, now? I thought you’d find other projects to work on.”

“Avatars are handling them. This is better.” She nodded her head confidently, lifting her hand to rest on Dana’s shoulder. Suddenly, Dana was able to witness the same scene that Tsubaki saw.

It looked like the Keeper was just beginning another round of training, holding his chakrams at his sides as he took a deep breath. When he released that breath, he threw the two chakrams up into the air, rising parallel with each other. If one were to look closely, they would be able to see that the interior of the ring for each chakram was a mirror reflecting the other. This created an effect known as an infinity mirror, and Dana’s eyes widened when she realized what that meant.

Although there was no sound transmitted by Tsubaki’s light-based peeping, there was the… feeling of something shattering. The mirrors within the chakrams seemed to break, and dozens of extra chakrams appeared behind them. “I thought he was just going to use them to reflect attacks back, or as a medium to trap targets…”

“He finished training those a couple weeks ago.” Tsubaki spoke up. “Right now, he’s practicing to see how many of these he can control at once.”

Dana nodded her head in understanding. It had to be known that the weaponmaster class was quite rare for a reason, because it was difficult to control multiple weapons independently with the same skill of a warrior at an equivalent level. Although it had its benefits, it was far easier to just train in using one or two weapons at a time.

However, she watched him controlling each of the weapons, causing them to fly ahead and create a dome of spinning blades. This dome then began to rotate in different layers, the concentration on the Keeper’s face evident for a moment.

“Wait, why did he leave one behind?” Dana asked, bringing Tsubaki’s attention to the lone chakram that hovered in the air at its original position. The kitsune’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as well.

“Maybe that is his limit right now?” She asked, though seemed unsure of herself as she had witnessed him wielding more than this number at earlier points of his training.

Their answer arrived soon, as the lone chakram tilted to face the sun. Tsubaki’s eyes widened, and she immediately dimmed the illusion for Dana’s sake. Just as the smaller elf was getting ready to complain, her vision erupted into terrifyingly bright light.

“Using the mirrors as a medium to capture the light and send it through the other weapons, and my domain to amplify that light into an attack.” Tsubaki muttered, her smile growing wider. Even indirectly, she was happy to be of assistance to him.

I let out a small sigh of relief when I saw the effects of my little experiment. The ground within the area I targeted had been completely scorched, looking almost molten. By assigning those mirrors to all look through the one I angled at the sun, it created the effect of each of them displaying the sun themselves.

The mirrors that I had previously been using for this experiment were all still floating along the path that I had designed for them. If my Battle Illusion technique was designed to combine my Aki Seppo, Saint of Five Lights, and Illusion domain, then this would combine my Mirrors domain, Tsubaki’s Light domain, and the Thousand Arms, Ten Thousand Threads martial art.

Normally, I would need to control each chakram with a chakra ‘arm’, condensed from ten threads. If that was the case here, I wouldn’t be able to control the sixty-four mirrors that created this effect all at once. However, I discovered a way around that shortcoming thanks to the fact that the chakrams were items imbued with my divinity.

So long as I assigned a path for them to follow, I would not need to use an ‘arm’ to control them, only a ‘thread’. This increased the number of chakram that I was able to wield at once by ten times, but required a more delicate setup. After all, I was not dynamically controlling them, but simply creating paths for them to follow.

If I wanted to be able to respond promptly in a battle, I would need to change these paths dynamically, which required the use of an ‘arm’. In short, I would only be able to control a larger number of chakram at once if I were using special attacks such as this. Otherwise, I’d need to limit myself to around twenty.

Still, I was satisfied with this amount. Rather than let that martial art fall into obscurity, I would integrate it into a battle tactic suitable for me. Over time, maybe, I would be able to manipulate more and more threads through constant practice. I doubted that I’d ever reach the pinnacle, but that wasn’t unexpected for a ‘failed’ product.

Next, I just have to work on different ways to fight with this. If I can make this my primary style, and make it look like I have to fall back on battling with just ki after it is countered, that will maximize the effect of my second style.

I gave a small nod to myself as I created my future plan. The more that I seemed to rely on these mirrors, the less an enemy would suspect that I had an entirely unrelated trump card in reserve.

Of course, I didn’t really have much time left to practice before the invasion began. By my calculations, it should be only a couple of weeks away. However, I would still be able to practice during the invasion, until the enemy had been located.

Two weeks was all too short of a time, and passed before many were really aware of it. Those that knew the significance of this period had rushed to finish their preparations, while those that didn’t remained in blissful ignorance.

Atop an isolated island in the middle of the ocean of Earth, there was a flash of blue lights. One thousand figures appeared, dressed in various styles of battle gear. They immediately looked at their surroundings, preparing to launch an all-out attack if they saw anything amiss.

“All clear!” One of them called out, looking to be a scout, and the others relaxed slightly. With waves of their hands, they changed into more casual civilian clothes.

“Alright, everyone. We don’t know what to expect in this dungeon.” The leader said, stepping forward. He appeared to be a human with silver hair, wearing a pair of thin-rimmed glasses. Judging by the armor he had previously been wearing, he was some form of heavy infantry.

“According to the description, this is an unknown infiltration-type dungeon with a ‘Mythic’ scale.” Everyone nodded their heads as they heard that. “Make sure to keep all important communication over the private chat channels. Everyone already has their groups, so we’ll split up here.”

Given the size of the island that they appeared on, it would be easy for them to see if there was an invading enemy. However… that also meant that they’d be able to see if there were the resources needed to get off that island. Yet, somehow that did not seem to bother them.

“Gandr’s Grace.” A number of men and women called out, holding up either staves or wands as they aimed towards the nearby water. There was a shift in the surface of the ocean as the water moved, swirling up and freezing into the shapes of large boats.

When the leader’s voice rang out again, it was directly transmitted into the minds of the rest of the one thousand individuals. Everyone, report in when you reach land. Try to find any information you can about this dungeon’s Keeper without drawing suspicion. Name, location, abilities, you know the drill.

Relax, boss. One voice spoke up to meet him. This isn’t our first dungeon run. I wonder if this one has any fun surprises for us. Remember that one a while back, with the weird sewing magic?

The leader’s lips curved upwards in a small smirk as he nodded. I remember you lost an arm because you thought that there was nothing to fear from… what was it you said? Oh, yeah, ‘old nannies with sewing needles’.

One of the mages controlling the boats winced, gripping his arm at that. Thankfully, he had been able to recover his arm after that battle, but it was still a sore memory for him. Okay, okay, fair point.