Chapter 165 Escape
A feeling of sorrowful warmth spread over Dorian's mind as he walked outside. In that moment, as he let go of everything to continue his journey to save Helena, his soul went through a kind of cleansing. It was as if he was being reborn from nothing.
At the same time, Dorian felt two of his Laws seem to call out to him. The Law of Valor and the Law of Mercy.
"Hmm?" He blinked.
An instant later, as Dorian experienced this type of cool enlightenment, he felt another energy source, one that resonated with the Law of Valor and the Law of Mercy. This energy source was one that was calm and peaceful, one that took hits and kept moving without pause, slowly and steadily.
As he sensed the fleeting sensation of this energy source, Dorian was able to recognize it.
"The Law of Charity." He instinctively knew what Law it was. The feeling vanished as soon as it arose, but left a permanent imprint thanks to Dorian's Jade Memory.
"Ahh. I see." He muttered, closing his eyes peacefully. His act of giving up everything that he desired here, to be reunited with his family, had sent reverberations through the Laws of the Universe.
"It seems Laws that are linked together can act as a draw for other, similar Laws. My soul's unique makeup and connection to Fate makes it easier to sense other Laws, and the fact that I'm studying two Laws that seemed to be interlocked and related are building off of each other." He observed, smiling sadly. He was happy to have sensed a new Law, but the sadness of walking away from his family stuck with him.
He sighed and kept moving.
HONK
The sounds of the city jarringly interrupted his musings as Dorian walked out from the lobby to a street that connected to the hotel. A maze of vehicles and people were visible, flashing lights and fast movement everywhere.
He tapped his foot lightly on the ground, the familiar feeling of a concrete sidewalk appearing.
CRACK
His light tapping had accidentally smashed the concrete sidewalk, cracking it. Bits of dust and rock swirled around his foot.
"Whoops." Dorian muttered, apologizing to the floor. He'd forgotten that, when he channeled the Law of Valor, his physical form became abnormally powerful.
Out in front of him, he could see a few police officers walking down the same sidewalk. When Dorian damaged the ground in front of him, the officers turned around and waltzed up towards him. They had appeared to be eyeing him already, a bit abnormally.
'Huh. Hold on. These are American cops? Why would they be operating here in Australia? This is Australia, right?' He thought, staring oddly at them.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing!" One of the uniformed police officers, a burly man with short red hair and a small red mustache, walked right in front of Dorian, looking incensed. His right hand rested on his pistol as he yelled out,
"Get on the ground!!" He glared at Dorian threateningly, jumping from zero to one hundred in mere seconds.
'What? None of this makes any- ah. This is the Dream Zone's doing, right?' A light of understanding appeared in Dorian's eyes.
This situation wasn't at all from his memories. He recognized the police officers as cops from Texas, by their uniforms, though they appeared far more trigger happy than he remembered.
The Dream Zone operated using his own memories as its power. However, he had no memory of any Australian police officers. Thus, when the Dream Zone went to create a situation to take him out, they searched and found a different authority figure, one he did recognize.
'If I didn't have my memories, I would just be a regular human. I would probably be celebrating with my family right now, or at least talking to them in the hotel. If I die in here, I'm guessing I will die or take severe damage in real life. I would be a sitting duck to several armed and murderous police officers in a normal human's body.' Dorian thought as he examined the police officers. All three cops had their hands on their pistol grips and were glaring at Dorian, yelling at him.
'Balance Demon form, switch! Perfect Body, activate!'
WHOOSH
"Open fire!" The police officers opened fire in record time as Dorian's body blurred.
Dorian blinked.
Unfortunately for these cops, Dorian was anything but normal now.
The world around him had lost a great deal of its color. This got balanced out quite a bit, however, by his Balance Demon form's superior senses. His regular human form was only so-so at best.
As the world transformed to become a bit duller, the Law of Valor and Law of Greed flushed powerfully in Dorian's soul and body, enhancing him. He didn't have the time to add the Law of Charity to his list yet, so he'd postpone that until after.
"Oh wow." Dorian muttered as he looked around him.
"Is it because of the Dream Zone? There's no way I'm this fast normally."
The world around him was operating in incredible slow motion. The police officers had expressions of rage frozen on their face.
In the air between them, three bullets were visibly moving towards Dorian, piercing towards him.
Dorian blinked again and looked around.
The world around him had become frozen. People froze in mid-step, fast moving cars slowed to a complete halt. He could see traffic lights that would normally be blinking holding still, children frozen in mid-jump. It was incredibly surreal to see. The only thing that convinced Dorian the world wasn't completely frozen were the three bullets slowly hurtling towards his chest.
WHOOSH
The air around him quivered and then froze again immediately as he stepped to the side. He then tapped on the bullets as they flew past him, adjusting their path so they were shooting more towards the ground.
"Huh. Perfect Body, deactivate." He muttered, an idea coming to mind.
WHOOSH
The world around him returned to full speed. The frozen cars sped up to normal, people continued to walk. A good dozen or so nearby pedestrians all turned to stare at Dorian and the police officers, many of them fleeing as they heard gunfire.
WHIZ
All three bullets shot off into the distance.
"Get on the- huh?!" The three police officers froze, staring at where Dorian had been.
THUD
Almost as one, all three collapsed as Dorian's right arm knocked against their heads, downing them all in one smooth motion. The trio collapsed, falling down on the concrete.
"Murder! Somebody help!"
"There's someone attacking the police!"
"What is that?!"
"Yo dude, is this a movie?"
A deluge of voices sprang out as everything came to a head. Dorian ignored this as he turned around, headed back towards the pier.
'My Perfect Body Ability let me slow down time drastically when it activated here, in this Dream Zone. I wonder why?' He frowned as he walked away. After about 100 meters of walking, he reached the pier. The chaos from the police hadn't seemed to spread this far, leaving him relatively unobstructed.
'The Ability description did mention that this Ability is an 'Incomplete Divine Ability.' Maybe if I figure out a way to complete it, that is what it does? Or it could be something else entirely.' He shook his head, unable to make heads or tails of it.
It seemed the original plan of the Dream Zone was to have those police officers take him out after trapping him with his family. When that failed, it didn't seem to have anything else to throw at him, at least not yet. He would need to find a way to break the dream himself.
People that saw him as he walked turned and stared, several taking out their smartphones to take pictures. Dorian's physique looked like a thing out of legends and myths, and therefore had to be some type of costume to most.
"Bro! Sick cosplay! Mind if we take a group pic?" He even got approached by a trio of guys wearing jogging clothes, one of them holding out a phone to take a selfie.
Dorian stopped to pose with them out of politeness, holding up two fingers for the picture. He then mentally berated himself.
'None of these people are real? Why did I do that? Who cares if I appear as a nice demon on this Dream Zone's Facebook.' He shook his head bemusedly, feeling a bit more cheerful.
He breezed past the rest, walking to a spot near the end of the pier, back where he had originally started.
He looked out across the sea, where the nice hotel on the other side gleamed lightly, sunlight reflecting off of it. Now that he looked closer, he saw that the hotel seemed to have, of all things, a submarine of some sort connecting three different towers to each other at the very top.
'Hey… I know that. Isn't that… Isn't that a hotel I saw when I visited Singapore? Why is it here?' Parts of the dream weren't accurate, going to show how unreliable his memory, when he was a human on earth, had been. That, or the Dream Zone was mixing things up haphazardly, unable to recreate everything perfectly.
He turned to look at the statue of the lion resting to the side of the pier. An idea came to mind on how to escape this dream trap.
"You are not real." Dorian spoke aloud, staring at the statue. He pulled on his will, commanding his soul to twist Fate.
"You are merely a dream. I command you to shatter! Break for me! Awaken!" He held out his hand.
"Touching Light! Activate!"
WHOOSH
A sword made of pure, gleaming light appeared in Dorian's right hand. Dorian pointed it at the statue, glaring.
"BREAK!"
BOOM
The statue exploded as a bolt of pure light energy shot off from the sword. The attack itself became rather weak as soon as it left Dorian's direct control, but was still more than enough to shatter a statue made of stone.
shudder
shudder
The world around Dorian seemed to twitch and shiver. Dorian smiled as he felt that. His guess had been correct. The more he introduced concepts that shouldn't exist here, the more he would strain this dream.
"I COMMAND THIS DREAM TO END!" His voice thundered out loud as he infused it with the power of Law, carrying authority and power.
SHUDDER
"ROAAAAR!" A loud, raging roar caught Dorian's attention as he turned around, back towards the front of the pier, in the direction of the other fancy hotel.
A huge, towering, lion had appeared, made of pure, rippling darkness, like a beast out of nightmare. Its body was still forming as it swarmed into existence, causing the sky above to darken. Raw, nightmarish power visibly swirled around the creature, giving it a huge presence. It was covered in scales and had a long, shadowy split tail that ended in fins, like that of a shark.
(Image – https://i.imgur.com/O5Iwiih.jpg )(Doesn't Open In App)
"Now THAT is more like it! A giant monster lion. Is it… a Merlion? Singapore again…" Dorian smiled as he saw this, recognizing it as a mythological creature famous to Singapore. He began to walk towards the very end of the dock, his eyes locked onto the creature.
Instinctively, he knew if he killed this creature, he would escape this dream.
"Woah?! Is that an optical illusion?!"
"Dude! Look at that! Is it made out of smoke?!"
"What the hell?!"
Dorian ignored the random people that exclaimed around him as he focused.
"ROAAAAAR!" The lion roared again. As it yelled a huge ball of darkness began to swarm into the air in front of its mouth, similar to the Hyperion Beam attack that Dorian possessed.
"Copying some of my Abilities, eh? Let's see you copy this."
"Law of Valor and Greed, enhance me!"
"Moving Force, activate!"
"Expand, activate!"
"Touching Light, stay active!"
"Law of Wrath and Mercy! Combine into my sword!"
Dorian's Balance Demon form expanded into a towering, 60 meters tall demonic creature. In this dream state, he seemed to be able to use all the Abilities he had ever learned, even ones that had merged with others and he no longer had access to, like his Expand Ability.
People shrieked in fear and terror as Dorian's behemoth figure made an appearance, like a demonic king out of legend. No matter how Dorian would try to describe himself, he looked exactly like how everyone would expect the villain to appear. A hideous, gargantuan demon that appeared as if it had dragged itself up from the depths of hell itself, wielding a massive blade of light in its hand.
He even accidentally crushed a family underneath his foot, killing them instantly as he transformed. He made a mental apology towards them before berating himself again. This was just a fake dream, he hadn't actually hurt anyone for real.
"Monster!!"
"It's the Devil!"
"Run away!!"
On the bright side, at least the Law of Valor made him seem like an extremely brave and righteous evil demon.
"Die, beast!" Dorian's yell caused a shockwave to form as he launched himself forward across the small gap of water, obliterating the pier and all the dream people on it. His body hurled through the air, crashing down upon the giant, ghostly lion like a meteor storm.
WHOOOSH
The dark, ghostly lion swung its jaw down as it launched its own rendition of a black Hyperion Beam, aimed directly for Dorian's sword. Black energy crackled and shook in the air, forming a shockwave that blew out the windows of the grand hotel the lion was standing next to.
BOOM
Dorian's blade of light cut the beam attack in half, his prediction of it accurate. He didn't allow himself a moment's rest as he continued forward, his enormous body, slamming into one of the towering hotels and obliterating it as he charged directly into the lion.
Huge blocks of stone and wood exploded, leftover glass scattering into the air as hundreds of innocent dream people were thrown up into the sky. The horror and panic coming from the falling dream people felt so real Dorian almost apologized then and there, trying to explain himself.
SHKKKK
His blade of light stabbed directly into the chest of the enormous creature. Immediately, flashes of black and white light swept across his vision and he felt the world around him seem to distort.
The dream lion had been the core focus of the dream Dorian was in, raised to life to defend it when Dorian began to attack it. With its death, the entire dream began to cascade as it fell apart.
Dorian blinked again.
The world around him, once more, transformed.
His mind, body, and soul all seemed to waver as his vision of a half-destroyed hotel and a dead Merlion was replaced with that of a wooden ship, where a good dozen Martial Artists lay on the deck, unconscious.
"Ah! Holy Highlord! You escaped so quickly, despite being at the Lord Class? You truly are an expert that can fight above his standard!" A worried voice greeted Dorian as he came awake.
The King Class Mystic Martial Artist Fabian, the only warrior that was awake on deck. The Flying Ship had fallen still, hanging in space above the World Bridge.
"How long was I out?" Dorian immediately asked, standing up. He had fallen to his knees when he entered the Dream Zone.
"About 4 seconds, Holy Highlord. The attack just hit! Old codgers that have reached the King Class are resistant to such attacks thanks to our mastery. For those at the Lord Class, however, it can have a much greater effect." The Mystic Martial Artist explained himself, nodding fiercely.
"No one else has attacked again or anything?" Dorian replied, looking around the deck.
"No, sir!"
"Alright. We need to get these Shades awake before we try to leave fully. I don't want to risk leaving them stuck in some type of permanent mental dream." The Dream Guide had talked a bit about how it was dangerous to transport anyone stuck in a dream away from Ballians due to the possibility of leaving their soul eternally trapped.
"I agree, Holy Highlord. Only, even the Dream Guide has been caught! Only you, I, and the other two Captains are still awake. The other two are tending to the Lord Class fighters below deck, trying to help them. We don't know how to help." Fabian responded, his hands held out to the side helplessly.
"How indeed…" Dorian muttered, looking at the sleeping figures. He mentally ran over his available Abilities, trying to come up with a plan.
As he came upon one Ability in particular, he smiled.
"I have an idea." His eyes flashed.
"Fabian keep watch and guard the ship. I have a technique that might be able to help the fighters escape from the Dream Zones trap with ease. My appearance will look odd, however." He spoke and acted quickly, not wanting to let any of the trapped Shades fall victim to any attacks.
"Oh, a type of special technique? Of course, Holy Highlord. That makes perfect sense." Fabian took it for granted that Dorian had a solution, trusting his word immediately. He then went on guard, a powerful King Class Aura rippling around him as he glared out at the undulating Dream Miasma.
Dorian stepped forward to one of the downed fighters, a Lord Class Shade at the Middle of Lord Class. He closed his eyes, focusing.
"Wise Jade Dragon form, transform. Humanoid Form, activate!" His Shade body blurred and was then replaced with a pale, jade-skin colored humanoid male, one with long, white hair and piercing green eyes.
"Calm Aura Ability, activate!" He activated an Ability he had gained a while ago, but never put to use. An Ability that was restricted to his Wise Jade Dragon form.
–
Ability: Calm Aura
A peaceful Ability that releases a soothing Aura, this power can be found in Bloodlines that have similar, calming natures. This Aura dampens emotions, and does so by drawing upon the Laws of the Universe to form a large, invisible bubble that minutely affects the mental state of everyone within it. It also grants the user an air of peaceful elegance, shaping the appearance others see.
–
Dorian felt a cool, peaceful Aura spread out from around him. An Aura that was relaxing, one that was calming and filled anyone in it with soothing strength.
'Come on, now…' He muttered, testing the Ability on the Shades before he would run down and use it to help Helena.
'Wake up!'
.