Ch 56 – Kingdom of Bourn

Watching her Ancient Ice Dragon shatter into countless shards of iridescent light, her heart skipped a beat upon her defeat while Braun simply grins at her, his face seemed full of mystery that she wanted to solve.

Like, who is he? How did he defeat her? What is his ability? And so much more that made her do an irrational act.

So, without thinking straight, her eyes glow light blue and she jumps off her platform while cold mist gathers at the soles of her white, leather shoes.

Sliding down the ice path that manifests below her, she slides down to the stage where the blizzard is now receding to manageable levels, glancing at Braun who looks at her with an intrigued smile, she starts to run towards him.

But as if she understood what Braun was going to do, she shouts "Wait!" but to no avail, as his and Vivy's eyes glow violet and their bodies started to disappear right before her very eyes, from the ground up, his body turned translucent and by the time she arrived in front of him, he was already fully gone.

"Tsk," clicking her tongue, Elizabeth turns her body around and walks in the opposite direction to the hallway in the distance, ready to go back home to the Kingdom of Bourn, where the bastard Jack Bourn resides.

Back to Braun, both entities appear floating in the sky above the kingdom of Laeborg, the sight of a starless sky above them just made it an odd appearance for a native to multiple universes where there was always a sky dotted with stars to greet him whenever he looks up at the night sky.

'Planetary level, how weak for a multi-thousand-year-old entity.' Braun thought, swishing around, Vivy's body transforms into a miniature ice dragon below him, and as Vivy's draconic body starts to morph into something more technological in appearance like jet thrusters on its back, Braun sits atop of Vivy while the map of the eastern continent appears in front of them using their new ability.

"Up north in a straight line is where Bourn resides, if we were to be pessimistic and say we can only move at Mach 10, we'll reach it in mere moments, and considering bending reality at this level is easy for us, we should arrive there in just a few minutes max," Braun mutters while his fair fluttered with the cold wind of the night sky above Laeborg, glancing at the sky riddled with white, fluffy clouds like cotton candy, he pats Vivy's back and felt the thruster roaring to life and reality around them bending to their control.

Feeling the world around them slow down and the magnitude that was assigned to the jet thrusters increasing to levels beyond what it could do by bending the rules of reality, a boom explodes behind them as the whole continent flash by their perception.

As a trail of violet light was left behind them, many people inside countless kingdoms look up to the night sky and saw the trail of violet light like a shooting star.

'My "esper" muscles are still too weak to completely break the laws of reality like the King of Reality, but defeating Jack would be achievable in a few days of training, considering this ability is completely independent of the Leveling System, I could just train it in peace without fighting anyone else.' Braun thought, but considering the data he already gathered about cheats, peace isn't really much of a thing with cheat wielders such as him, for example, he was completely annoyed by the Nomus in Quirkverse where Seth kept sending him hordes and hordes of Nomus to deal with.

Waving his right arm that didn't get affected by the wind pressure, a screen manifests in his vision as the easiest way for him to manipulate reality is by transforming it into a series of data he could control, a way of hacking reality like a game.

'Immortality, Death Negation, Anti-Divination, what else, Intangibility. Those 4 are more than enough in this world and keeping them up with the connection I have with this mind is a bit taxing, maybe I should make a drug later once I return back to my real body for future avatars.' Braun thought in his mind, the strain that was taxing his biological brain was completely ignored while he made more automatic "mods" he could activate at a moment's notice to reduce the stress in his mind.

Flying through the air while the wind pressure automatically passes straight through him, his vision rapidly changes from seeing reality as… well reality, to instead a series of data he can control, change, and bend.

By the time both of them silently arrived on the open field outside of Bourn, Braun's whole vision has already transitioned into a new one and he quickly got accustomed to it considering his experience with reality manipulation.

'Considering I already achieved Reality Manipulation by the time I had near-absolute control over the Fundamental Forces, I was cutting a lot of corners in manipulating reality, but now I could refine my technique so I'll go slow for now.' Braun thought while Vivy's body reabsorbed into his, his crimson eyes losing their crimson glow while he rapidly falls down to the ground at a speed faster than it should have been.

Manipulating his velocity, his body halts in place and he lands down on the ground on both feet with a silent thud, glancing around the place with intrigued eyes, his eyes locked on the kingdom in the distance with its appearance grander than any passing kingdom from before.

More than a thousand kilometers long from its center, no walls went to block the visitor's view and the kingdom fully showed its grand beauty. Architecture belonging to the finest of the craft, each house could be seen as prosperous and could even rival noble households in other kingdoms, the castle in the far distance piercing through the clouds high above the sky, and right inside that castle is where Jack Bourn resides, the Undefeated King of the Eastern Continent.

'Jack Bourn, his legend famous and well told. The ability to never face defeat, an ability very well similar to Deus Ex Machina but less… anime. One could even say it is above Deus Ex Machina, but luck is simply a variable that could defeat an undefeated man, a feat shown clearly before Jack Bourn became a King when he fought against the Lucky King of the South.' Braun thought, his breath calm and steady while his eyes analyze the surrounding area around him.

'He is guaranteed to be Level 10, but there is still the chance he has reached Level 11 so I still have to keep that in mind, but his pitiful control over reality would be his downfall when we faced one another later.' Braun thought, walking towards the asphalt path leading to the kingdom while white marbles were lined alongside the edge of the pathway, lamp poles also stood erect on the edges of the path shining a light blue, bringing a glow to the dark surrounding area of the night where no stars could shine, where no moon could bring light.

Walking forwards with an absentminded stare, his breath was calm and collected and his chest continues to heave up and down at a constant pace, the darkness around him not bothering his constantly tranquil mind that would not falter even when facing death or meeting a nigh-omnipotent god, and that's a fact.

Out of nowhere, a gun suddenly manifests in his right arm and he shoots forwards to the empty path in front of him, a metallic bullet shooting out of the nozzle that suddenly changes paths, instead of moving forward, it whizzes through the air in arcs and twist to behind him and watches the Level 6 Wraith behind him explode and transform back into a white card.

"You know, that was pretty dangerous, little girl," Braun mutters, turning his body around, he watches a young girl walk out of the shadows to the light in front of him.

"Oh come on, I just wanted to have some fun, mister," the girl chuckles, her appearance coming in full view for Braun.

A young girl, 5'4 in height having a petite body, pale white skin it could rival even that of ghosts, her hair jet-black and reaching her neck in a bob cut, wearing a school uniform for what appears to be a Japanese school uniform, and estimating its appearance, she seems to be from somewhere down south in Japan.

"Well threatening my life isn't really fun now is it?" Braun said, his grin widening while he walks up to the girl with his leather shoes creating reverberating sounds, the echoes of his footsteps rebounding back from the hills around them back to the street creating a rattling sound for the girl.

As the sound continues to get louder and louder, faster and faster, the girl and her void-black eyes rapidly dilate while Braun arrives right in front of her.

"What is it, little girl? You scared?" Braun said, his legs coming to a halt but the sound of footsteps continued to echo around them like a maddening spiral of sound.

It was as if his footsteps were directly entering the deepest recesses of her mind, and just like that, he felt her legs tremble in fear while choked sounds came out of her mouth.

"M-mommy!" the girl shouts, falling to her knees, tears erupt from her eyes while Braun just stood in front of her, watching her every move with a harmless smile on his face as if nothing was wrong.

'That's the first conflict of the day, I wonder how many else would come once morning hits? From the crude formula I made, I expect around 5 bozos to come and fight me without proper reasoning, so which 4 lucky bastards do I have to traumatize now?' Braun jokingly thought, the sound of his footsteps finally disappearing as the girl suddenly finds herself back to her previous standing position and Braun was far away from her in the distance, his legs not even taking a single step forward or backward.

"Go on now, little girl. We don't want to accidentally die now do we?" Braun mysteriously said, his body turning around while the gun in his right arm dissipates into motes of light and gets reabsorbed back into his body.

Watching Braun's silhouette disappear into the darkness, the girl felt a chill run up her spine and she decides to wait for an hour before entering Bourn, better to be safe than whatever fate had in store for her if she were to fully offend that man.

'Why did I even decide to attack him all of a sudden?' the girl asked herself, but she then remembered the reason why.

"Oh yeah, I forgot I was mentally insane, hahaha!" the girl cackles as she turns around and decides to go to the nearby lake a kilometer away to take a quick evening bath.

Feeling the girl disappear into a wisp of shadow far away from him, Braun continues to walk forward through the lit-up, empty street that leads to Bourn with closed eyes, his body moving as if he was seeing the surrounding area but his closed eyes reject that idea instantly.

Feeling the presence of the guards protecting the entrance in the distance, his body directly appears in front of them with a simple teleport shocking the both of them awake.

"W-who goes there!" the tired guards said, their voices groggy as their shift still hasn't finished.

"Relax, I just want to enter the kingdom, so how much is the fee?" Braun said while patting the both of them on the shoulder as they relaxed their bodies upon seeing that he was friendly.

"That would be 1 gold," the guard on the right said as Braun nods his head, putting his right arm inside his pants' pocket, a gold coin manifested within his closed palm and he takes it out.

Opening it, a golden shine appears on the middle of his open palm and he gives it to the guards.

"It's authentic alright, well, have fun staying in Bourn!" the guard said, patting Braun on the back as Braun walks through the open entrance with a small grin, for his time in Bourn would probably be an unpleasant one.

AN: This is 2082 words, you're welcome.

Do you know the saying "enjoy the simple things in life"? Well, I'm more than enjoying this new discovery, I have a fucking boner right now! Do you know what the fuck I discovered?! There's a function in MS Word where it can read the text for me! So I don't have to read the chapter out loud and just let it read itself! Fucking hell! I'm going to bust a nut at this rate!

But other than that, making the name Jack Bourn literally took me a minute to decide so I'm pretty proud of that achievement, it's not like you guys would remember those names anyway except for some reoccurring characters.

Writing is hard, so send me some powerstones.

(June 16, 2022 – 194th day of writing)