Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

"It can, but by a very small margin," Rain said. "It should be 0.1% multiplied by the level of the path, so ten times weaker than this skill," Rain said and then activated Time Dilation and then he saw his mana dropping insanely fast. "What the fuck…"

The skill Time Dilation leveled up.

The skill Time Dilation leveled up.

The skill Time Dilation leveled up.

…

The area of the pocket dimension was massive since it could house one hundred thousand people with ease… everyone had their own tents there, after all. Still, Rain was caught off guard… considering the effects of the skill, he didn't imagine that he would lose hundreds of thousands of points of mana in a couple of seconds. Still, maybe he didn't truly know how powerful that kind of effect was.

"Hmm… I probably shouldn't use this skill in large-scale areas," Rain thought. "While small, the benefits of the effects of the path are enough."

The easiest solution to that issue would be to increase his intelligence to make things more efficient, but how much would be enough?

"Sakaki is asking why you are taking your time moving on," Elisabetha said.

"He sure is a slave driver…" Rain said and then used Teleport.

Just as Rain had expected, the more he entered the enemy's territory, the more he found desolated planets. There were no signs of life in them… some of them were giant scorching deserts, others were giant ice spheres… There were no signs of mana, and Rain was unable to contact the spirits of those worlds since they were probably taken over a long time ago.

"Even if I can't talk with the spirits of the lands, I should be able to gather some information by finding some bones, but after thousands of years, most of them would have turned into dust," Rain thought while looking around.

Those worlds had been conquered such a long time ago that Rain couldn't even find any signs of their civilization. Even though he used Remote Viewing and even tried to check the interior… they didn't have two layers like Earth since they didn't have an entity like the overseer to do that.

"Although they keep expanding and the Earth was conquered one hundred thousand years ago, it doesn't feel like the planet is deeper in their territory," Rain thought. "I wonder why…"

The most logical reason would be that the machine gods found some sort of obstacle… it shouldn't be the dragon god since he has only been around for three thousand years… perhaps it was another advanced civilization; that would be quite interesting, and it would explain a lot.

In any case, a bit later than expected since he used a lot of his mana earlier, Rain eventually approached the destination. He stopped behind a certain planet that looked like Saturn with numerous rings, and he decided to hide in the shadow of those while using Remote Viewing.

As Rain's Vision approached, he soon saw in the distance the planet that had those massive amounts of moons.

On the left side, his field of vision approached the destination… while the four bases looked exactly as Rain had imagined and read, the destination was a bit weird… It was like a small planet, but it was surrounded by giant mirrors that reflected the surroundings… they should be pretty thick and hard, too… so it seemed that the machine gods had something pretty valuable there.

"I can feel the presence of one relic… but it looks like they are using it," Elisabetha said.

"Remote Viewing can't check inside that since it is a physical barrier…" Rain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I guess we will have to destroy the barrier, but somehow, the idea makes me feel anxious… my Spidey senses are tingling."

"Just attack from a distance… but considering that the enemies have the bow of Artemis… this might not work either," Elisabetha said.

Anyway, Elisabetha wasn't acting up, so she couldn't feel the presence of dragons until now.

They could avoid a counterattack by using long-range attacks, but it was hard to imagine that the enemies wouldn't have a countermeasure against that, too… It seemed that Rain would have to use his new secret weapon, but he didn't want to use that kind of information when the enemy was specialized in studying things and their enemies in a matter of seconds.

"Sakaki is saying that he can do something about that," Elisabetha said. "Combine his powers with Victor and Loar, and that will be enough to surprise the enemies before they have time to react; even if they do, we will be able to buy some time."

Combining the power of two relics… that was possible, but Rain didn't want to risk one of the relics that they had. Besides, Rain also wanted to trust the defenses that they had… the enemies' defenses… they couldn't just risk the relics like that.

"I guess I don't have any other choice… I will use the rain technique instead. If all else fails, then I will use the new one," Rain thought. "Combining that with the Light magic path. I should be able to surprise the enemies a fair bit and without giving them the time to fight back."

"Hardt wants to talk to you… I am starting to hate this job where I am the middle woman between you and the others inside the pocket dimension." Elisabetha said.

"What is it?" Rain asked via Telepathy.

"It is about this structure that you can see… it is an omnidirectional weapon," Hardt said. "My people developed in theory such a weapon that could fire blasts of light in all directions and couldn't be avoided."

"The machine gods ripped you guys off?" Rain asked.

"We didn't reach a stage of our technology where we could develop such a weapon, but we know that it has many limitations," Hardt said. "My guess is that this weapon can only exist in this part of the universe and should have been completed recently."