Warlocks gambit an urban.., p.29
Warlock's Gambit: An Urban Fantasy LitRPG Adventure, page 29
CAN-YOU-HELP? Trevor projected, taking a risk.
The entity’s attention intensified, and for a moment, Trevor thought he’d made a fatal error. Then something like laughter rippled through the void. It wasn’t malicious, not exactly, but seemed genuinely amused.
SMALL-WALKER-ASKS-ANCIENT-FOR-AID. AMUSING. BRAVE. STUPID. PERHAPS-ALL-THREE.
The void around Trevor suddenly compressed, and he found himself moving at incredible speeds through the non-space. The entity was helping, catapulting him toward his destination while shielding him from the worst of the void’s effects.
Trevor’s head was thumping in sympathy. The perception of moving/not moving caused his senses to rebel in the only way they knew how. Pain flared, yet it anchored him and allowed him to maintain his idea that he was fundamentally human.
GIFT-FOR-AMUSING-ANCIENT. REACH-FOOL-WARLOCK. STOP-PAINFUL-CONVERGENCE. BUT-KNOW-PRICE-EXISTS-ALWAYS.
Before Trevor could ask what price, reality snapped back into focus, and he erupted from the void at the temple’s apex, arriving in a space that existed in all seven dimensions simultaneously. Quite frankly, it was a huge relief. Void space was not for the faint of heart.
Yet before him, the scene was chaos.
Thorne stood at the center of a massive ritual circle, his form flickering between human and something far more alien. The midnight-blue of his aura had deepened to near-black, shot through with veins of pure void energy. Around him, dozens of Threshold operatives maintained smaller circles, feeding power into the central working.
The dimensional engine was more than a machine. This was a fundamental rewriting of reality’s rules. Trevor could see the equations written in energy above the temple, formulae that described how dimensions should interact, being systematically rewritten to force convergence.
“Nineteen hours, fourteen minutes,” Thorne said without turning around. “That’s how long before the convergence becomes self-sustaining. I’m impressed you made it this far, but you’re too late to matter.”
“Your math is wrong,” Trevor said, drawing Veil-Cutter… wait, no. He didn’t have that sword yet. That was... a memory that hadn’t happened? The dimensional chaos was affecting his timeline perception.
What had happened to him in the void?
He drew his dao sabers instead, the resonance imbued steel humming in response to the dimensional instability.
Thorne finally turned to face him, and Trevor saw that the ancient Warlock had changed. His eyes reflected infinite depth. His dilated pupils were literal holes into the void. Maintaining the convergence was transforming him into something that could exist in merged realities.
“My math is perfect,” Thorne replied. “Eight hundred years of calculation, refined by studying every failed attempt throughout history. The Great Sundering failed because they lacked sufficient power. The Atlantean Convergence failed because they couldn’t stabilize the dimensional anchors. I have corrected every flaw.”
“You’ve missed one,” Trevor said, falling into a combat stance.
“Oh? Enlighten me.”
“You’re assuming the dimensions want to merge. But I just had a conversation with something that’s lived in the void since before Earth existed. It finds your convergence painful. Unnatural. The dimensions themselves are going to reject what you’re doing.”
Thorne’s expression flickered. It was just for a moment, but uncertainty sprouted. Then his composure returned.
“The opinions of void-dwellers are irrelevant. They are chaos without purpose. I am imposing order.”
“You’re imposing extinction,” Trevor countered. Through the mind-bridge, he could feel Yangchen, and by extension of his grounding, he could feel Pemba still fighting toward their position.
“Just a little longer,” Yangchen sent. “Hold his attention for only a little longer.”
Thorne must have detected the mental communication because he smiled coldly. “Ah, yes, the mind-bridge. How romantic. How futile. When the convergence completes, such connections will be meaningless. We will all be one with the infinite.”
“That’s not transcendence,” Trevor said. “That’s dissolution.”
“Semantics.” Thorne raised his hand, void energy crackling around his fingers. “Void Rending.”
The attack came from the six other dimensions at once. It was simply impossible to dodge because it existed in all the spaces Trevor could occupy.
But his new Void Walking ability gave him an option he hadn’t had before. Instead of dodging through space, Trevor stepped partially out of reality, existing just enough in the void to avoid the attack while maintaining his presence in the temple. A kind of phasing ability that seemed inspired.
New Technique: Void Step.
Effect: Partial phase into void for defense.
Resonance Cost: 3 Current Resonance: 67/95.
Thorne’s eyes widened slightly. “Impossible. You haven’t had the training to…”
Trevor attacked mid-sentence, his sabers leaving trails of indigo energy as he struck from multiple dimensional angles, converging, not on a single point in time-space, but through multiple layers.
His consciousness could now split across realities, and leveling up in the void had given him an edge that he would be foolish to ignore. He moved to attack Thorne in the mundane while defending against Thorne in the spiritual, all the while setting up a strike against Thorne in the Fae.
That was as far as he got, though, unable to diverge into more dimensions, unable to fathom the scope of what was possible. The limit was more to do with his mind and training than with what the skill could do.
The ancient Warlock hadn’t survived eight centuries by being easy to defeat. He moved with fluid grace, each motion perfect, economical. Where Trevor attacked with raw talent and instinct, Thorne defended with centuries of experience.
“You fight like Lirien has been training you,” Thorne observed, parrying a strike that should have been invisible. “The same aggressive boundary manipulation, the same creative interpretation of dimensional laws. But you lack her discipline.”
“Maybe,” Trevor admitted, pressing his attack. “But I have something she didn’t.”
“ Oh… What’s that?” Thorne seemed amused.
“Friends who are really pissed off with you.”
At that moment, Yangchen burst from the spiritual layer, her silver-white aura blazing like a miniature sun. Her staff struck one of the maintaining circles, shattering it and sending three Threshold operatives tumbling into the void. A heartbeat later, Pemba erupted from below, his hammer smashing through the temple stones themselves to destroy another anchor point.
The dimensional engine shuddered.
“No!” Thorne snarled, his composure finally cracking. For the first time, Trevor saw real emotion on the ancient Warlock’s face. He saw pure fury mixed with a hint of fear.
Good, let the fear build.
The convergence was still proceeding, but it was no longer stable. The careful equations above the temple began to show errors, reality reasserting itself against Thorne’s imposed mathematics.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing!” Thorne said, desperately trying to maintain the central circle while fending off the three attackers. That they had arrived alive, relatively unharmed, was a miracle, and this time it had been a concerted effort by all three.
They weren’t here relying on him to save the day; they were digging in and getting their hands dirty as committed and dedicated to stopping Thorne as he was. It was awe-inspiring, and Trevor’s hope surged. He barely paid attention to what Gramps was prattling on about.
“Without controlled convergence, the dimensions will snap back violently. The backlash will tear holes throughout Southeast Asia!”
“Then stop it,” Trevor said simply.
“I can’t! It’s too far along. It needs to be completed or…”
The temple shook. Not just the physical structure, but its existence across all dimensions. Cracks appeared in space itself, revealing the chaotic void beneath reality’s skin.
Through the mind-bridge, Trevor felt Yangchen’s realization. “He’s right. If we just destroy the engine now, the dimensional snapback will be catastrophic.”
“So what do we do?”
“We need to complete it differently. Stabilize the dimensions in their separated state instead of forcing them together.”
“That would require someone to anchor each dimension simultaneously.”
The unspoken conclusion hung between them. Someone would have to sacrifice themselves, becoming a living seal between realities.
Trevor looked at Thorne, who was desperately trying to salvage his eight centuries of work. The ancient Warlock’s perfect control had shattered, leaving him looking suddenly, terribly human.
“There is another way,” Thorne said quietly. “We could still complete the convergence. Controlled. Manageable. Some would die, yes, but humanity would evolve. We would become something greater.” He was almost pleading. It did not fit his persona. It had to be an act. Thorne was up to something. Trevor wanted to nip that in the bud.
“Or we could become nothing at all,” Trevor replied.
The dimensional engine pulsed again, and this time the separation was violent. Trevor felt himself being pulled apart, existing in too many dimensions simultaneously. Through the mind-bridge, he felt Yangchen experiencing the same dissolution.
Time was running out. A choice had to be made.
And Trevor knew, with cold certainty, what that choice would be.
But first, he had to stop Thorne from making things worse.
The ancient Warlock was channeling massive amounts of void energy, trying to force the convergence back on track. The power he wielded was staggering. The eight centuries of accumulated knowledge and strength focused into a single desperate act.
Trevor charged, not with his Dao sabers but with his whole being. He activated every ability simultaneously.
Boundary Definition, Bond Severing, Veil Glimpsing abilities all activated. Every skill within their full range was twisted, focusing everything on a single goal: disrupting Thorne’s control.
The collision of powers sent shockwaves through all seven dimensions. The tooth, though, remained aloof. Trevor took that as a sign; it wasn’t his moment. Yet still Trevor and Thorne grappled not just physically but metaphysically, their conflicting visions of reality tearing at the fabric of existence itself.
“You fool!” Thorne snarled. “You’ll kill us all!”
“Maybe,” Trevor gasped through gritted teeth. “But at least we’ll die as ourselves, not as some homogenized cosmic soup!” The man had skills, he had to admit. He was pushed to the limit, and beyond.
The struggle intensified. Through the mind-bridge, Trevor felt Yangchen and Pemba adding their strength to his, not through direct intervention but by systematically destroying the remaining anchor points. The dimensional engine was failing, reality beginning to reassert itself, but the process was violent, chaotic.
That’s when Trevor remembered something. It was a technique from his earliest training, something so simple he’d almost forgotten it. Sometimes the best solution wasn’t force but redirection.
Using Tai Chi principles applied to dimensional energy, Trevor stopped fighting against Thorne’s power and instead redirected it. All that void energy meant to force convergence, turned instead toward separation, defining clearer boundaries between dimensions rather than erasing them.
“What are you… NO!” Thorne tried to pull back his power, but it was too late.
The dimensional engine inverted.
Instead of pulling realities together, it began pushing them apart, reinforcing the natural barriers between worlds. The process was still violent. The energy had to go somewhere, but now it was working with reality’s natural tendency toward separation rather than against it.
It felt … right.
Thorne staggered back, his void-touched features flickering between human and alien. “You still don’t understand! The barriers were weakening naturally! The convergence was meant to be controlled, purposeful! Now it will happen anyway, just slowly, chaotically, over centuries instead of hours!” His words became a desperate scream. The man was beyond unhinged.
“Then we have centuries to find a better solution,” Trevor replied, trying to inject a calm sanity to their interaction.
The temple shook again, more violently. The dimensional separation was accelerating, and the excess energy needed an outlet. Someone still needed to channel it, to become a focal point for the dimensional rebalancing.
Trevor stepped forward, ready to make that sacrifice.
But Thorne moved first.
CHAPTER 22: THE WARLOCK’S GAMBIT
Thorne’s movement was so unexpected that for a heartbeat, nobody reacted.
The ancient Warlock stepped into the center of the failing dimensional engine, spreading his arms wide as void energy coursed through him. But instead of trying to complete his original convergence, he was doing something else. It was something that made Trevor’s enhanced perception recoil.
“If I cannot force evolution,” Thorne said, his voice carrying across all seven dimensions, “then I will become the evolution itself!”
He was absorbing the dimensional instability directly into his body, transforming himself into a living convergence point. Not to save anyone, but to become something that could exist in all realities simultaneously. He would be a god of the spaces between worlds. A many times worse version of the Shadow at Wudang
“Stop him!” Yangchen shouted, her staff blazing with silver-white energy as she struck ineffectually at Thorne’s expanding form.
Her attack passed through him harmlessly. Thorne was becoming less solid, less singular, more a concept than a person. His midnight-blue aura exploded outward, consuming the temple’s apex in a sphere of writhing void energy.
“You see?” Thorne’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “This was always the backup plan. If controlled convergence failed, I would become the convergence. I will exist in all dimensions, able to reshape reality according to my will!” The manic glee in his eyes was not something Trevor ever wanted to see twice.
Through the mind-bridge, Trevor felt Yangchen’s desperate analysis. “He’s dispersing his consciousness across dimensions. If he completes his transformation, he’ll be virtually omnipotent within the affected area. He’s basically doing what you wanted to do, but with his control, his ability, he may be unstoppable. His goals are not the same.”
“How large an area?” Trevor asked, though he dreaded the answer.
“Starting with Java. Within a year, all of Southeast Asia. Eventually...” She didn’t need to finish.
Pemba’s response was characteristically direct. He slammed his hammer into the temple stones, sending a massive grounding pulse through the structure. “If he wants to exist everywhere, then we anchor him nowhere!”
The grounding energy struck Thorne’s dispersing form, causing him to solidify momentarily. Trevor saw his chance and activated Blind Rage, focusing all his fury on the ancient Warlock.
It was a Hail Mary move. He had been reluctant to activate this skill, not sure what it would do, or what he would become when doing it, but he had nothing else left. This was it.
Title Activated: RUTHLESS - Blind Rage.
Target: Marcus Thorne.
Effect: All buffs stripped from target and applied to user.
Warning: Cannot engage other enemies until target is defeated.
The effect was immediate and overwhelming. All of Thorne’s accumulated enhancements, the eight centuries of carefully constructed defenses and augmentations, all of them suddenly transferred to Trevor. The rush of power was intoxicating and terrifying. He could feel centuries of knowledge trying to integrate with his consciousness, some of the more esoteric thoughts, like worms burrowing into him, threatening to overwhelm his sense of self.
But it also made Thorne momentarily vulnerable.
Trevor charged, his body moving with speed and precision beyond anything he’d achieved before. The rage he experienced wasn’t even manufactured. Everything about his recent life had changed because of this man.
All his struggles sprang from this man’s meddling influence. To say he hated him would be perhaps an effect of the skill, but if it wasn’t hate, it was pretty darn close. Red tinged his vision as he committed himself forward. The dao sabers in his hands hummed with combined energies.
He now had his own Hollows affinity mixed with Thorne’s void-touched power. He struck from all six other dimensions simultaneously, each attack targeting a different aspect of Thorne’s dispersing existence. There was no escape, no place he could hide. The man would face him, or he would rend the earth to find him!
Thorne snarled, his perfect composure finally shattering completely. “You dare use my own power against me?”
Trevor’s snarl was equally vicious. “Learned from the best, Gramps.” Trevor pressed his assault. Nothing else mattered.
But even stripped of his enhancements, Thorne had centuries of experience. He flowed around Trevor’s attacks like water, his form becoming more fluid, less human with each passing second.
“You’re just delaying the inevitable,” Thorne said. “The dimensional energy needs to go somewhere. If not into me, then into someone else. Are you volunteering, Warlock?”
That was the horrible truth Trevor had been avoiding.
Someone had to channel the massive energies unleashed by the failed convergence. Someone had to become a living seal between dimensions. And with Thorne trying to corrupt that process for his own ascension, Trevor might be the only one who could do it properly. This was as it was meant to be.
Through the mind-bridge, he felt Yangchen reaching the same conclusion. “Trevor, no. There has to be another way.”
“If there is, I don’t see it,” he replied, parrying a strike from Thorne that replicated his multidimensional attack. Only three dimensions were used simultaneously.
