Beyond The System-Chapter 276: War

“AHH!” A fresh, ragged screech tore through the air, a warbling sound that seemed to vibrate the very space around us.

From shoulder to waist. Opposite sides of the body. Serith had cleaved the older elf in two, his torso sliding apart, his eyes screaming a despair that his mouth no longer could. The cry echoed with Kris’, but his was more final, like the last note of life.

He slid to the ground without a drop of gore spilling free, a strange black residue warping and clinging to the fatal wound, hissing like a fresh brand, an unending burn.

“KRIS!” Drema shouted, paying no mind to his fallen comrade, not even glancing at the bisected corpse. I couldn’t tell if the shout held any genuine care for his champion, or if he was simply panicking at the thought of losing another tool.

But to me, it didn’t matter.

This guy had targeted Mei. Maybe it had just been an order. Perhaps he hadn’t had a choice, perhaps he’d been forced, pushed along by someone stronger—but in the end, I no longer cared to consider those details much. My people could not be touched. Step by step, I walked toward Kris, each footfall heavy with intent.

Ripple.

Again. His domain trapped me. But I was understanding it more now. Locked in place, frozen mid-stride, my gaze never left his. Fury played in both our eyes as he stood, forcing himself upright with both hands and one trembling leg. I circulated my Force, feeling it twist and catch, capturing the flow of the fate mixture swirling around us all.

Then, once I could move and flow within it, I expanded my own power to its limits, pushing it outward, breaking free of the gravitation-like pull his domain exerted on the river of World Force. It repelled it, but pulled at the same time, creating a swirling bubble of warped isolation that trapped anything inside it.

I understood Serith’s words more now. I still disagreed, but I understood. With a great level of control, “any idiot could stop time.” And with enough understanding and power, the same could be said of breaking free of it.

Break the ripple with your own. But only if you can understand it.

I bolted forward, heading straight for him, forcing my body through the resistance.

“You’re too conceited.” A voice whispered just behind me, hot with rage. Drema’s tone brushed the back of my neck. My heartbeat spiked, and I turned instinctively to try and do… anything. To block, to counter, to vanish.

But I didn’t have to. My body was still moving forward. And in the next moment, the only one behind me was Serith.

I had run through a portal placed just before Kris, a tear in space that she had slipped under my feet without me even noticing.

“Just stay here,” she said, panting heavily, sweat beading down her crystalline skin. Amei had found her way over as well, battered but alive, each breath shallow but stubborn. Scales flaked off to ooze blood beneath, the metallic scent hanging faintly in the air. In less than a second, a second portal opened with Mei sliding through.

We had switched sides, standing where they had been before, the battlefield flipped like a board. The other old man looked worse for wear too, him and Amei seemingly evenly matched enough to injure each other significantly. Though, the exhaustion plastered across his face was hardly comparable to the ferocity carved into Amei’s.

“It’s over,” Serith said, clear and steady, voice cutting through the chaos. “That’s enough, Drema. You think you can just attack another Steward like this? Once the Elder—”

Despite what seemed like the odds switching, Drema smiled. Then, laughed, cutting Serith short. Quiet and low at first, like something cracked deep inside him. “Elder? What Elder? Do you really not get it, my sweet disciple?”

Serith didn’t respond, but around her, I could see something. Not Force, but movement. More than repulsion. Force didn’t move away from her. It didn’t arc or flow around. It simply vanished. Within inches of her, nothing existed at all.

A void of power. And it was expanding, slowly gnawing at the air, at the space, at the very presence of energy itself.

“The boundary will fall!” Drema shouted, a crazed glint in his eyes that bordered on worship. “And those of us who stand in the way of that must also fall!” He pointed a shaking finger at her. “YOU. MUST. FALL!”

Silence fell on the hall.

His speech was over, but no one moved.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Not until Serith’s shoulders began to shake. Softly at first, like she was holding something in. Then it seemed like she couldn’t contain it. She erupted in laughter. I mean… genuine laughter. Like she’d just heard the best joke of her life. Everyone turned toward her, expressions varying from confusion to anger, from unease to outright dread.

“WHAT?!” Drema shouted. “What could you possibly—”

She held up a hand, wiping a tear from her eye with the other, cutting him off like she was swatting away a fly. “Oh no. No. Let me guess,” she said, the tension drained clean from her voice, leaving only dry amusement. “You were told of the greatness of the Second Boundary, right? The riches? The density of power?”

He froze, mouth hanging halfway open, the rest of his accusation dying on his tongue.

She shook her head slowly. “Were you planning to scare me? You and your… lovers? Well, lover now, I guess,” she asked, eyeing the man beside him with sharp suspicion and a faint hint of recognition. “I remember you from when you visited. But you look much worse now,” she observed flatly. “You’ve been deceived. Everyone is just a tool to him… including you. I was wondering why he was so young recently.”

He turned his head away without answering, jaw tightening.

She was really breaking the mood. Shattering it, actually.

“I see you’ve been taught some of his power. And these two were your first victims. What was it… Undeath?” Serith shook her head again. “You killed the old man too? Is that it? Or got someone to do it for you?” she asked, sounding almost relieved. “That’s really a load off. Saves me the trouble.” That void—all-consuming—was now expanding around all of us, eating into the space like ink spreading through water.

Drema seemed to finally lose his composure. Not in rage this time, but in something like shaken disbelief, layered over with forced calm. “It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t know,” he said. “It’s over for you. Come back to me, and we can reap the benefits together. Just like before. We—we still want the same thing.”

He held Kris in his arms, and for a moment—a brief, brittle moment—it almost seemed like a genuine offer from someone who actually cared.

Serith sighed. “I’ve been planning for years. And now you’ve ruined it,” she said, her voice heavy with annoyance rather than grief. “All because of the words of some maniac. Have you really not even reached the level to peer into it? Past the boundary that separates us?”

His eyes widened. “No. You couldn’t h—”

Everything turned black.

My body was flipped and thrown across the darkness, my waist tied down by something like an invisible tether stretched across space and yanked. For the first time in a long while, travel felt like actual torture. Not because of the usual reasons, but because of the absence. The lack of it all.

There was no feeling. No sound, no sight, no smell—nothing. Even my power was simply gone, snuffed out. I felt… human again.

But it ended just as it started. Without warning.

The sound of instincts surged back first, like system prompts echoing in my head, followed by the familiar, comforting heat. Then came the vulgarity.

“Shit. Shit. SHIT. SHIT!” Serith was stomping around, her previous composure shattered into pieces. “Why now?! Fucking morons!!” She punched a tree and it flew. Away. I mean, just launched into the sky, vanishing past the upper canopy and beyond. “RRAH!” she screeched and roared at once, sending rippling waves into another tree, which disintegrated into thin wood shavings.

“Serith?” I called out. “What’s going on?”

She froze, turning to me slowly.

It sent a deep chill through me.

“I—you… Hmmm,” her eyes narrowed before she turned away again, jaw clenched. “SHIT!”

Amei, who’d been thrown in another direction, walked over to me and sat down with a faint wince, placing her daughter—who had passed out—next to her, gently laying Mei’s head on her lap. “It’s not good, Peter,” she said quietly.

Serith continued terrorizing the environment around us. Familiar, yet foreign. It was still the tropics, but certainly not my home. “What’s wrong?” I asked, now fully aware that Serith still had plenty she hadn’t told me.

But to be honest, most of my resentment over that had already faded. There was no way I was equipped to handle problems on their level.

“What’s my teacher’s greatest pursuit?” Amei asked suddenly, looking over at Serith as she ripped another tree from the earth.

I looked at the woman who went beyond beauty. The answer was easy. She’d never been secretive about it. “Power. By any means.”

“That’s—” Amei seemed like she was about to refute my words, lips parting for an argument, but she shook her head in the end. “Probably true now,” she admitted. “Now, I’m sure you could feel it when you saw him. The Elder. His power.”

I nodded.

“How can you be the strongest if someone is above you?” Amei asked.

I scrunched my brows, thinking it through. “You can’t,” I said finally. There wasn’t really another answer.

“So…” she led on, clearly trying to guide me somewhere, nudging my thoughts rather than dragging them.

I rolled my neck, tension finally easing under the relative safety. Watching a couple trees ripped from the earth and tossed toward the stars from sheer frustration had, somehow, certainly helped my mood’s recovery too. “You have to become that person,” I said slowly. I thought further on Serith’s words from only moments ago. “She already had plans to—” I cut myself off, not daring to speak the next ones aloud.

Amei sighed, brushing a gentle hand through Mei’s dark hair, fingers combing through the strands with care. “Someone struck first,” she said. “Before she could. They are in position to receive the benefits from that status now. Not her.” Her eyes hardened. “And there’s only one thing left when so much has been left in the open. When two of the strongest Stewards hold dichotomic positions.”

I waited for the answer, but I already knew it. It sat heavy in my chest.

But she didn’t hold back.

“War.”