Chapter 284: Jyorta vs Steel Porcupine

Aura Personification—Predator!

It was an aura personification that amplified the user's presence while diminishing the target's. it also imbued in them fear, making them subconsciously tend to run upon every situation. This made them showcase their unguarded backs to the user and were dealt vicious blows.

The Steel Porcupine slithered away, creating some distance. After a look, Jyorta frowned, expressing mild worry. The Steel Porcupine was more than 4 metres away, the maximum reach of his Soul Corneas. This prevented him from using the Hoberman sphere.

'I have to close the distance somehow.' The moment Jyorta thought and was about to move, the Steel Porcupine curled, brushing its tail through the sand. It created a large dust cloud, the force sending it his way, blocking his vision and everything in his surroundings.

Its aura personification slammed onto his barrier like a wave, trying to seep in. Jyorta's aura within the barrier fought against it, negating it while also shielding his position. Jyorta rolled on the ground, watching three spikes fly past his earlier position.

The danger instinct originating from his Wisdom Parasite sent alarms like crazy. Thanks to his gains from the Mental Realm, Jyorta could faintly make sense of the alarms, moving his body in reflex. He unsheathed his sword, ready to defend against the attacks with it.

He used his stronger psychic arm to pick up the chakram, intending to use it as both offense and defence. The spikes launched by even Observer Steel Porcupines were capable of penetrating his dual barriers, his armour, and his muscles to appear on the other side and even lodge halfway into the sand.

He didn't even have a bit of confidence in blocking a single hit from it. It was an Amplifier, a genius among the Steel Porcupines. He was disadvantaged in terms of power, drastically so.

'It already knows my position. So, I only need to guard myself against the influence of its aura personification and the surrounding aura.' Jyorta decided, unleashing the brunt of his aura. The dust cloud instantly flew back a metre around him, flying further away in response to his aura.

Aura personification—Hallucination!

Aura personification—Insignificance!

The blue soul worked in frenzy, connecting more than 40 soul tendrils to his brain. It sent memory fragments to it in a stream, trying to keep up with the expenditure to maintain two aura personas. Normally, whether a Warrior or an Esper, anyone was only capable of maintaining a single aura personification.

After all, to maintain it required the user to fix his mentality accordingly, feeding it the emotions, experience, etc. to induce all the cells in his/her body to feel it, thereby emitting the effect through their presence. Activating a second aura personification was impossible.

Any person only trained and developed two aura personifications that countered each other. It was to keep the effect and influence of each other on their selves in check. Jyorta wasn't constrained in this regard, thanks to his abilities. That was why he started to develop three aura personifications.

Now, using the blue soul, part of his body felt and emitted the aura personification of hallucination while the remaining emitted the aura personification of insignificance. Insignificance was a self-inducing effect. Its effect unearthed memories from the target based on the impact it would have on them, affecting them accordingly. So, it didn't require too much mental energy.

But for hallucination, Jyorta had to actively manipulate an illusion reality to confuse his opponent. It consumed tremendous mental energy. Jyorta simultaneously activated the two aura personifications while dodging two more spikes.

They were alarmingly getting close each time. The Amplifier Steel Porcupine wasn't able to clearly sense his location, hence missing each time. But as it attacked him, it was getting a better grasp of his location. Soon, it would be able to destroy him.

Moreover, the Steel Porcupine never closed in to attack him, always maintaining its distance. Just like how Jyorta was wary of its attacks, it was also wary of his abilities. That was why it only emitted its aura personification, retaining all its aura in its body to defend against his aura and aura personifications.

'It is cunning, but not cunning enough.' Jyorta retracted the aura personification of insignificance after seeing that its effect wasn't satisfactory. It seemed his opponent led a fairly dominant life. After retracting the aura personification of insignificance, he diverted all focus on his hallucination, causing its effect to amplify on a qualitative level.

In the hallucination, he didn't change much, only trying to make the Steel Porcupine hallucinate his position a metre behind the real one. This way, he would be able to avoid its attacks with the least mental energy expenditure.

Spikes flew his way, lodging into the ground a step behind him. He couldn't determine if his aura personification managed to affect it. Moreover, his aura too wasn't affecting it. It was fully focused on defending itself from his aura while launching projectiles at him.

Jyorta unleashed both his domains, wary against any sneak attacks from third parties. As the dust cloud was beginning to settle, his psychic arm carried the chakram and lodged halfway into the sand. It began to spin at increasing speeds, throwing out the sand into the air.

Moreover, he controlled its actions, taking curving patterns to throw off the Steel Porcupine's sensory Skill. Based on their short interaction, he judged its Tier 1 Skill to be similar to a Ring Worm, a sensory-based Skill that was able to sense the change in stress in its surroundings.

That was how it was able to sense his position—through the depression he made on the sand and the stress patterns in the dust cloud as he moved through. After the surroundings were covered by the dust cloud, its Skill wasn't affected but was further amplified. Moreover, Jyorta's sight was rendered useless.

But to counter its senses, Jyorta made the chakram cut through the sand, producing a lot of noise and vibration. The chakram also threw sand into the air, creating a lot of stress in various locations. This way, he prevented the Amplifier Steel Porcupine from locking onto his position through its Tier 1 Skill.

Even while fighting against it, Jyorta didn't counterattack even once. His focus was somewhere else.

He spread his aura personification like a tide, covering almost a hundred metres. The expenditure was severe, draining his aura reserves. He would at most be able to maintain it for another twenty seconds. Thankfully, Steel Porcupines soon burrowed out one after another as a result.

Upon seeing them, Jyorta further raised the intensity of his aura personification while focusing most of his aura on the Amplifier Steel Porcupine, suppressing its aura personification.

The Steel Porcupines that had burrowed out were only Tier 1, instantly falling under the effect of his hallucination. There was no change in the scenery, it was the same sandy dunes and scorching heat.

But, they noticed an Amplifier Steel Porcupine, possessing six body-length spikes on its back fighting against a One-Horned Rhino. Unlike all the other Amplifier One-Horned Rhinos, this was twice huge. Moreover, its body was an abomination, a culmination of Steel Porcupine, Crust-Mantle, and a One-Horned Rhino.

Such a strange creature shocked them, causing fear in their minds. But the moment they saw their brethren getting overwhelmed, they immediately began to shoot out their spikes, even unconditionally using their body-length spikes, trump cards they had saved up for emergencies.

Their foe had a back filled with spikes, a massive horn on its upper jaw, an extra pair of claws on its midsection, and a serpentine form for a lower back. It was fast, strong, and suffused with a terrifying presence.

As the spikes fell on their foe, it was startled at first, becoming shocked upon getting injured. The normal spikes failed to penetrate its body. Only the body-length spikes dealt any damage. It expressed its shock at the getting attacked by spikes.

For a moment, it was confused. As they were in a contest of an aura battle, Jyorta noticed a faint fluctuation in his opponent's aura. The blue soul worked in overdrive, activating two more aura personifications. For a moment, his mental capacity was stretched thin, tiring him out quickly.

Aura Personification—insignificance!

Aura Personification—Betrayal!

The Amplifier Steel Porcupine gazed at its brethren attacking it, all the while spewing out tremendous hatred. Moreover, they expressed worry against its foe, the detestable human it had planned to hunt.

Its brethren that it led had turned against it, attacking it and even managing to injure it. They even supported its foe, a being from an enemy race. Just this fact alone made it rage; it counterattacked to express its wrath.

Its spikes shot forth, impaling the Steel Porcupines one after another. When its mental state worsened, Jyorta's aura personification started to affect it. Whenever it aimed at Jyorta's figure that it could now sense, its attacks seemed to pass right through, hitting the Steel Porcupines behind.

It began to feel a sense of helplessness, having to kill its brethren one after another. It failed to understand why they revolted against it, unable to comprehend the reason in such a short duration. All it knew was to kill its foes before it was severely wounded or even killed.

Its foe stopped moving and stood in a place, gloating as its attacks passed right through the humanoid enemy. In reality, Jyorta continued to run, already exhausted to his limit. He made the Amplifier Steel Porcupine hallucinate his position as stationary while making the Tier 1 Steel Porcupines hallucinate his actual position as that Amplifier Steel Porcupine that was getting cornered and the genius Steel Porcupine as that Frenzy Beast that was a culmination of three races.

He was already at his limit, but despite possessing an advantage, he couldn't go in for the kill. The attacks of the Steel Porcupines didn't severely wound the Amplifier Steel Porcupine as it used its superior agility to dodge and retaliate, minimising its injuries.

Suddenly, another Frenzy Beast burrowed out from under him, opening its mouth wide to clamp at his legs.