Transcending Dreams
B2 - Chapter 102

William rocketed toward Corrupted Sophia, ignoring everything else in the courtyard.

The Flesh Puppets were too weak when he had [Force Multiplier] active, and she was the one that brought him out of the estate for a reason—he didn’t want to find out what that reason was.

His Qi-covered fist met Corrupted Sophia’s outstretched fingers with an intent to destroy. Her fingers cracked—sounding like glass shattering—and broke apart into thousands of pieces that disintegrated.

The first strike was far more successful than William could have hoped. He didn’t let up.

With a grunt, he slammed his other fist into Corrupted Sophia’s only corporeal shoulder. It shattered just like her fingers before fading.

He sensed danger from behind and quickly jumped to get clear of any Flesh Puppets around him. He saw several that had been only ten feet away, with far more following behind.

William wished he could have finished the job and reached all of the corporeal parts of Corrupted Sophia’s body, but this was a start. He knew it wasn't enough.

He saw the unaffected expression on Corrupted Sophia—the same expression she had throughout the damage he caused.

He scanned the crowd of Flesh Puppets and confirmed that all the levels were in the hundred and fifty to hundred and sixty range. The strange part was the unwavering focus he saw among the Flesh Puppets—not at him, but at Corrupted Sophia.

William felt a chill run down his spine. Even the feeling of invincibility couldn’t prevent his skin from prickling in fear when he realized that Corrupted Sophia was staring up at him with a smile—one filled with regret.

With all her talk about preferring to keep William alive due to being a pure ‘human,’ he quickly understood what that meant. She saw him as a dead man.

Corrupted Sophia had her right shoulder, arm, and hand missing, with the rest of her completely transparent. Even with that, she thought he had no chance to live.

William finally started to descend from the peak of his jump. He had to stop whatever was going to happen. He immediately disregarded Corrupted Sophia since he could do nothing to her when she was in that state.

However, the Flesh Puppets were another matter. Corrupted Sophia summoned them, but it didn’t seem to be for dealing with him.

He shifted, turning his body to face the Flesh Puppets instead of Corrupted Sophia. He needed to eliminate as many of them as possible within the time limit of [Force Multiplier].

William was ready to crush a few Flesh Puppets beneath his feet when he caught a disturbing sight in the corner of his eye.

The four Flesh Puppets closest to Corrupted Sophia had been absorbed by her. That by itself was enough to shock him, but the parts of the body that he had disintegrated were slowly reappearing.

The alarm that rang through William’s mind couldn’t be any louder. This was probably why she had brought him out here.

Of course, he had no doubt that a small part of the reason was to get him away from Kae’s body, but this was the real reason.

Corrupted Sophia would be restored by combining with these Flesh Puppets. It suddenly made sense why she was furious about him taking all the Flesh Creation Elixirs.

William slammed into the ground with all the force he could muster, crushing two Flesh Puppets on his landing.

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He made sure to pull the crushed Flesh Puppets into the spatial stone. With the way his spirit beast egg was helped by corpses, he didn’t want to risk leaving them out for Corrupted Sophia to possibly use them the same way.

If this was any other situation, he would be celebrating that an avatar of Sophia—corrupted or not—had a similar ability to gather strength as his spirit beast egg. Unfortunately, this was terrible for William.

He dashed forward into the nearest crowd of Flesh Puppets and did his best impression of Berserker Kae. He did his best to ignore the tiny voice in his mind yelling that he was the reason Kae was dead. It wasn’t effective.

Luckily, he was hurtling towards a perfect outlet. This would be a tribute to the boy whose life was taken by this dimension.

William collided with the dense wall made of Flesh Puppets at full speed. The sheer force of the impact shredded multiple puppets, covering him in the dry flesh they possessed.

He noticed multiple system alerts flashing blue after the kills but quickly pushed them away. They could be reviewed when he wasn’t in the middle of a slaughter fest.

William's fist exploded through a Flesh Puppet that attempted to bite him—a seemingly common attack with them—shredding the torso into nonexistence, leaving only its head and legs to fall on the ground. He didn’t let up.

He followed the brutal kill by grabbing two of them by the head and crushing both under his hands effortlessly.

It was a blur of nonstop carnage. One that explained why Corrupted Sophia didn’t bother calling Flesh Puppets into the estate as a backup to control him.

They were in the middle stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm, but they were so handicapped in terms of actual fighting ability that he might as well have been facing mortals when his martial skill was activated.

The problem was that every time he killed one, three replaced them.

There was a circle of death around William, with bodies piling up from his inability to pull them into the spatial stone without being distracted. The Flesh Puppets were doing nothing but trying to rip off a chunk of his flesh with their teeth, but [Force Multiplier] made their attempts laughable.

However, the fraction of a second it would take to pull the bodies into his spatial stone was enough time for them to sink their teeth in.

[Force Multiplier] increased his physical attributes, but he didn’t want to test if it would protect him from tens of bites from the things that seemed to specialize in it.

“That’s enough.”

William grunted in surprise when he felt—and heard—a booming kick to the middle of his back.

He was launched straight into the middle of the garden, his body crashing through the well-manicured hedges, ruining several exotic flowers and shredding a tree in his way.

He finally regained control and landed on his feet, but the momentum caused his feet to leave deep gouges in the soil.

He had been so engrossed in destroying the Flesh Puppets that he had neglected to be aware of the main problem—Corrupted Sophia.

[Force Multiplier] saved him from any real damage.

“You are a marvel,” Corrupted Sophia said appreciatively. “All you need to do to cultivate is to kill. It almost makes me hesitant about what I am about to do.”

The Qi flames lazily flickering around William’s suddenly disappeared.

“I was waiting for that,” she nodded. “I’ve observed that you need time between uses of the skill.”

He had the impulse to use [Force Multiplier] again and surprise Corrupted Sophia by proving her assumption wrong, but simply looking at her let him know that was a terrible idea.

William had killed around twenty Flesh Puppets, which left nearly a hundred still standing woodenly near Corrupted Sophia. This didn’t include whatever had already been absorbed.

Even though he wasn’t sure of the number, William was confident it didn’t exceed what he had killed. And just that was enough to make Corrupted Sophia nearly corporeal.

Using [Force Multiplier] now would mean wasting his last chance on trying—and failing—to kill the rest of the Flesh Puppets.

“Isn’t this going to delay whatever you were doing with Kae’s body?” William asked loudly, keeping a distance.

“Consideration for delays was thrown out when you put a hole in your friend’s body,” Corrupted Sophia absorbed another Flesh Puppet. However, this was far slower than what he glimpsed at the start. “Shitou might sound pessimistic, but I foresee the body recovering to my standards.”

He saw another Flesh Puppet getting absorbed, which was also slower than the previous one. The absorption rate decreased the closer Corrupted Sophia got to being fully corporeal.

“I will let you keep your life until that is confirmed, but still, you must be put to sleep. Your actions are grating.”

William left her to it. Since he couldn’t stop her from using the Flesh Puppets, he needed to better himself before he fought for his life in a minute or so.

Luckily, he had a mass of alerts to go through and additional unused attribute points to assign.

He kept an eye on Corrupted Sophia as he glanced at the system alerts he ignored during his carnage.