CHAPTER 120: INVARIANT MATRIX PRISON

"Interesting. How long did it take you to create this?" Sage Maximus looked at the intricate, constantly shifting spell models that prevented him from moving from the spot where he stood.

He was inside a cube-like structure that on the inside, was large enough to contain him, but on the outside, was small and portable enough that it could be held on one hand.

There were seven people on the outside, five were dead, and the other two were nursing their wounds while staring at the small box on the floor with wariness and fear like it housed a terrible demon.

"Your voice can still even carry across," one of the two on the outside—the man, spoke. "You’re truly an enigma, Maximus."

"I don’t need you to tell me that. I know it already." Sage Maximus answered like he wasn’t fazed by his present situation at all.

"You are going to die Maximus!!" the other survivor on the outside cried out hysterically with venom and pure hatred lacing her voice. "You are going to die!!" She hugged one of the barely recognizable dead bodies, bawling her eyes out. He was probably her lover who was now dead.

"Ahh, the pain of losing a loved one... You were the cause of his death though... if you weren’t so pathetically weak, he wouldn’t have had to give his life for yours," Sage Maximus guffawed. "Amateurs. Bringing emotions into a life or death situation... and what a useless death too, since you are also going to die anyway," he said casually.

"Don’t! He’s goading you!" The other survivor immediately snapped at the woman when he saw her make a slight move towards Maximus’ cube prison.

"Why’d you stop her?" Sage Maximus directed his question at the man before refocusing his attention back on the woman, "It looks like you’ll live a little bit longer..." He chuckled.

"Make him suffer!" The woman cried out with venom, gritting her teeth visibly. "Can we not make him suffer for this!?"

The man shook his head and stood up slowly from the ground, "The Invariant Matrix’s only role is to trap anything within its confines to a state of absolute standstill. It isn’t a tool for torture..." the man held his side with a strain on his face. He had also been injured, barely escaping with his life even though he had planned this out so meticulously.

He walked forward and picked up the cube from the ground, squinting at Sage Maximus’ tiny figure at the center of the cube. "How the hell are you still able to speak?" He asked in genuine puzzlement and with a slight bit of respect in his tone. "There should be a perfect invariant state in there... every single movement should be nullified absolutely by the transfinite number of calculations—"

"Heh!" Sage Maximus cut him off with a scoff, but didn’t say anything else, only staring forward in his locked state. The man went silent, wary at the unpredictable nature of the sage.

"We need to move," he ordered the woman, putting away the small cube in a pre-prepared casing that also had advanced spell models for an event more secure hold. "Leave the dead. We have work to do."

Things were now going to be way harder. He had expected some grave injuries, and even a death or two... but not this.

It was almost like his carefully laid out plan was all for naught. Within the split second Maximus had realized something was off, he had instant-flashed the surroundings with intense chaotic spatial energies and radiation that sterilized everything nearest to him instantly before the Invariant Matrix took full effect.

Less than half a second. It was less than half a second and one Half-Exalted and four elders were dead.

"The old bastard had been holding out his power on us..." He muttered in anger.

If not for the fact that he was very well trusted by Sage Maximus in the first place, his plan might never even have succeeded. He was the man who had always been at the sage’s side in the council meetings, and the one that had watched Zephyr with the sage a few weeks before, right outside the Grand library... and yet all those years of trust was not able to buy him up to half a second of hesitation...

He turned back in anger, thinking the other woman was still at her lover’s side, but thankfully she was right behind him, all her tears were gone, and in its place was a fury that burned so visibly, it made the man’s sour mood lift slightly.

"Good..." he whispered loud enough for her to hear. "Do not let their deaths be in vain... channel that pain into anger and let us finish this... we’re in the endgame now."

He waved a hand, tearing them out of the barrier that separated the pocket space they were just inside from the normal space on the outside. Pocket spaces were a right reserved for elders only. Mainly because of their power. They were the only ones who could comfortably power the advanced spell models that ensured the structural stability of the space. Any other native, even a Tier 5, could never even begin to try.

The outside was peaceful and normal like it usually was. In fact there was no sign of any battle or anything wrong at all. People went about their business normally, shops sold normally, people trained normally. Not knowing how rapidly everything was about to change for them.

The two figures walked across the whole town fully concealed without anyone noticing their presence at all. They reached a secluded section of one of the floating residential platforms closer to the top and the man brought out a specialized spell model, also very intricate and advanced. He let it float into the air, channeling mana as it stuck itself to a thin, incorporeal, membrane-like film that blended into the surroundings perfectly.

The spell model was violently destroyed immediately, making the man step back in shock.

He turned to face the woman behind him with a scowl on his face. "That was not supposed to happen! Where is his daughter?! Don’t tell me she survived!"

The woman’s eyes widened in shock and she immediately weaved a spell model in the air before holding two fingers up with her eyes closed like she was deducing something, or separating some kind of signal.

She abruptly opened her eyes and stared at the man with an astonished expression before shaking her head slowly. "Nothing... Nothing at all..." She was no longer receiving any feedback from the other operatives that had been assigned to handle Komi.

"Like father like daughter..." The man nodded with a low chuckle under his breath at their current situation before slowly, he started to cackle with a manical laughter that sent a shiver down the woman’s spine.

He was extremely livid.

BOOM

He punched the invisible barrier that prevented them from entering Sage Maximus’ estate in anger before calming himself and turning away abruptly, leaving behind the other woman who hastily ran after him. "We need a better deciphering spell model," his mind immediately moved on to other options.

They had limited time now, and he was not going to let his decades upon decades of preparation go to waste!

.

.

Right outside the Freehold Sanctuary, a company of devoted Sanctuary members coming back from a routine espionage mission, all stood rooted in shock as they watched the fog that covered the Freehold Sanctuary slowly unravel before their eyes.

They had traveled in the direction the standard-issue medallion key they held pointed to, and finally located the constantly shifting and changing position of the Sanctuary.

But imagine their surprise when they found that the one thing that enabled the Freehold Sanctuary to be untraceable... that even scrambled its coordinates to prevent any spatial locks, was disappearing right in front of them.

A terrible fear filled their bodies as they questioned the reality they were witnessing. The epitome of their world’s greatness. Built by the blood and sweat of the brightest minds that had ever been born of their world. The cradle of their hope for a better future... an independent future... was crumbling before their very eyes.

For the first time in their history, the Freehold Sanctuary was unmoving... Bare and fully open for all to see.