Book 5 Chapter 7.1 - Snow Country
Compared to normal people, high level ability users could to a great degree be regarded as a completely different species. Time and space were no longer barriers that were impossible to overcome.
To the north of the olden era federation's border was a vast but sparsely populated country. Before the war erupted, this country with a land size even greater territory than the federation's only had a population of four hundred thousand. Most of its territory consisted of uninhabited mountain ridges, tundra, and forests, with many more areas that were covered under ice and snow year round. The population was mostly concentrated in the southern areas that bordered the federation, as well as the warmer western coastal areas.
In the span of a few days, Su already crossed the olden era's frontier line, entering the vast yet even more desolate north. This new era world was covered under clouds of radiation, the weather here was even colder, with at least half of a year under harsh winter, the rest divided between a cold spring and autumn, with summer being as short as a month or two. There were forests everywhere, but unlike the olden era, these primitive forests had a sinisterness to them. From time to time, unusual and malevolent sky reaching ancient trees could be seen.
War changed the entire world. Close to a hundred years passed, and even ancient trees had no choice but to adapt to the new era. All species that didn't adapt to their environment went extinct, while new life forms would grow and multiply on their corpses. If one looked at it as a whole, this world was still full of vitality.
Su couldn't be bothered to be moved by these things. Towards the era's changes, he actually didn't know that much. Most of his knowledge regarding the olden era came from magazines and books that still remained. As for the sea of information stored on magnetic tapes and disks, under the ever present powerful radiation, few were preserved. After joining the Black Dragonriders, as his military rank and authority increased, only then did Su have access to more and more olden era knowledge. However, looking back to his years with the Black Dragonriders, Su spent every minute and every second on earning money to repay debt and strengthening himself, and later on, he also had to consider the needs of his three subordinates. He almost didn't spend any time on the history of the olden era because back then, all activity unrelated to the increase in strength was incredibly extravagant.
The tangle with the apostle continued. Each day, Su would travel over five hundred kilometers, while time no longer became a decisive factor. This type of traveling for Su and Madeline wasn't all that long, only limited by Cirvanas' weaker constitution. However, this nearly non-stop moving and fleeing made the young man's abilities increase quickly. In a week of time, he already developed comprehensive third level abilities in the Magic Domain, and a third level special ability thus also emerged: Low Level Anti-Gravity Force-Field. Low Level Anti-Gravity Force Field could offset around 20% of gravity, usable once every six hours, with the time it could be maintained being three minutes. This ability was quite shocking, and its higher level version truly made one's imagination go wild. However, right now, Cirvanas' current combat strength still didn't offer them any assistance. However, he wasn't completely useless. The young man's body was extremely light, but Su and Madeline's bodies were actually extremely heavy. When the apostle's consciousness drew close, the Anti-Gravity Force Field could allow the three individuals' speeds to increase correspondingly; this ability had the power to save their lives.
Even though the apostle's consciousness that existed in the void world covered a range of several hundred square kilometers, it clearly didn't realize that Su could already sense its existence with Cross-Sectional Detection. It searched everywhere bit by bit, but even with its terrifying consciousness, the north's size was clearly too large, large to the extent where it was simply powerless to completely cover it. Apart from this, the apostle's mental search wasn't completely without weaknesses. During this seven day pursuit and counter pursuit, to some extent, Su was already aware of the apostle's weakness. The apostle's dark cloudlike consciousness' scanning, at full speed, would only be around two hundred kilometers per hour. This was much slower than Su and Madeline's burst speed, and this was also what allowed Su to often barely avoid the scan of the apostle's consciousness.
The apostle was intelligent. It already saw the camp traces left behind by Su several times, and through its analysis realized that it had given away some type of pattern. As such, the consciousness' search direction clearly became more irregular and unpredictable. Several times, it was clearly heading towards a certain direction, but then it would suddenly turn back around! The unexpected change almost caught Su.
However, in terms of craftiness, Su and Madeline were clearly more brilliant than the apostle. After realizing the problem, the plan Su adopted was unexpectedly to move close to the apostle's consciousness, always staying roughly ten kilometers or so from its border. The results of these tactics were clear; the apostle clearly never expected that the three ants it was searching for were unexpectedly following right beside its feet.
This game of hide and seek continued just like that.
As time went on, the apostle's anger grew. When his consciousness whistled past, Su could already clearly feel the volcanic fury hidden within. However, it couldn't scare him, nor would it scare Madeline. The young man and little girl back then were now no longer the object of bullying and menace. The apostle could kill them, but it couldn't instill any fear into them.
Meanwhile, Pandora was just like a lost spirit, aimlessly wandering about the snowland.