The Mech Touch

Several minutes passed as the Scarlet Rose fell under the grip of a strange condition.

In fact, no time had passed at all. When Ves glanced at the clock displayed by the desk projector, not a single millisecond had passed.

"This is getting rather weird."

Ves felt as if he was perceiving two realities at once. One of them was completely frozen in time, while the other seemed to pass normally.

The only problem was that the latter reality was also filled with strange phenomena, ranging from the random buildup of frost to the appearance of vague grey shadows that actually corresponded to captured spirits in the imaginary realm!

It didn't take much time for Ves to ascertain what had happened.

"We have become engulfed by an anomaly!"

He instantly recalled that the inner periphery of the Nyxian Gap occasionally produced anomalous hazards in random pockets of space. Their effects and appearances were random and unpredictable.

The closer to the center of the Nyxian Gap, the greater the chance of stumbling upon anomalous hazards. This was what made the core regions very dangerous!

The moment Ves figured out that an anomalous hazard had engulfed his ship and possibly the rest of his fleet, his blood froze even further.

Many times, those who entered anomalous pockets of space never appeared again! Such hazards were so dangerous and mysterious that the Big Two even ended up losing entire fleets in some cases!

Reminded of these deadly risks, Ves immediately tried to figure out whether he was in a deadly hazard. He observed his surroundings, took note of the strange phenomena and even peeked into the imaginary realm yet again.

He did not dare to stay too long. He only spent enough time to ascertain the scope of the turbulence.

Ves and his fleet only occupied a tiny position in the huge vortex that spun throughout the imaginary realm like a miniature galaxy. He didn't believe that the disturbances in the imaginary realm affected the entire Nyxian Gap.

As Ves looked into the imaginary realm several times, he calmed his heart a bit when he noticed that the corrosive winds calmed down a bit further away.

This meant that this strange anomaly would likely pass after half an hour or so. As for whether those trapped inside would sustain any damage, Ves felt that this outcome was unlikely.

Despite sensing danger through his intuition, Ves guessed that most of it came from the strange grey phantoms. Their hazy shapes constantly reached out to him whenever they came close to his spiritual projection in the imaginary realm.

However, in the material realm, Ves noticed that nothing happened even if those phantoms passed through his body. They seemingly existed out of phase, which meant that Ves shouldn't have to worry too much about their threat.

He slowly calmed himself down and adopted an inquisitive, scientific mindset.

He hadn't let down his guard, nor did he assume that the strange phenomena were completely harmless. He just felt that this anomaly was impossible to get rid of. It encompassed a huge amount of space. If it was a product of nature, Ves doubted that he could match up against the huge forces that produced this anomaly.

Ves attempted to cross to the other side of the office.

On the one hand, he felt as if he was stepping away from his original position.

On the other hand, his body remained completely stationary.

"Damnit. How am I supposed to get anywhere with this weird perception thing?

Even though a portion of his senses told him that he had moved away, he actually didn't move at all! The logic behind this was strange and twisted.

He could still breathe air, yet it seemed to be completely stationary.

When Ves walked over to the exit and attempted to leave, the hatch failed to respond to his instructions.

The environment was frozen in time, but not really.

"I'm trapped." Ves glowered.

He turned back and observed the other occupants of the office. Lucky kept attempting to fly to him, but his body never moved from the desk.

Calabast pushed herself off the desk and attempted to pull out a weapon, but remained in place.

Nitaa wanted to step forward in order to cover him, but her combat suit stood completely still.

"What is this nonsense?!"

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to go out anytime soon, Ves began to perform some tests.

He grabbed the data pad that Calabast had put away and let go of it. The pad seemingly floated motionlessly in the air, but at the same time it was still in its original place.

He then approached Calabast and poked her in the stomach with his finger.

The woman grew angry and yelled at him, but she had actually noticed nothing amiss in her frozen state.

He grabbed Lucky and tossed the gem cat into the air. The same story happened.

"Is there a way to negate this weird effect?" He asked himself.

This anomalous hazard appeared to be a temporal phenomena on the surface, but Ves vaguely suspected that it was actually spiritual in nature.

This would have been a great time to have a B-stone in his hands!

Sadly, they were all stored in the Scarlet Rose's vault, which also held Lucky's Misfortune Harness.

"I need to build a suit of armor integrated with B-stone as soon as possible!"

This incident taught him that there were much more potent spiritual threats in the Nyxian Gap than he expected. Forget about strange sorcerers and cultists. The huge disturbance in the imaginary realm was the biggest threat of this nature in this region!

Ves decided that it was better for him to spend his time on developing a solution.

He began to concentrate his mind and tinker with spiritual energy in order to escape this time-freezing effect. Even if he couldn't pull others out, at least he might be able to pull himself out of this unknown anomalous field.

He began to express his Spirituality in several ways, only to fail. No matter what kind of spiritual projection he formed, they weren't very different. None of them escaped the ubiquitous time-freezing effect.

He attempted to reach out to other spiritual entities such as Qilanxo or Ylvaine, only to bump into the spiritual equivalent of signal noise.

Since that didn't work, Ves proceeded to do something he had sworn off since he accidentally warped his mind.

He began to create spiritual constructs in his own mind. Knowing that he was altering his personality as he was doing so, he did not dare to create anything big.

He formed various spiritual constructs.

One of them was supposed to form a spiritual shield around his body. When he activated it, the shield was incredibly weak and didn't do a thing to stop his weird state.

Another spiritual construct was meant to track the passage of time. The spiritual clock failed to register the passing of a single second.

Since his modest creations failed to accomplish anything, Ves cautiously took more risks. His subsequent spiritual constructs became larger as he attempted to find anything that could change his abnormal state.

He continued to create various spiritual constructs and empowered them with specific spiritual attributes. In the span of fifteen minutes, he created what he thought to be a rudimentary spiritual jammer, a different spiritual shield and a spiritual helmet.

Nothing worked. None of his constructs helped him defend against this unknown field.

As he became increasingly more hopeless, his mind wandered off a bit. He felt increasingly annoyed at the grey shadows that passed through the bulkheads. The way they obscured his vision and caused him to feel disturbed throughout the duration of this anomalous hazard caused him to develop a strange impulse.

He began to build a spiritual net of some sorts. He invested a bit more of his spiritual energy into its formation because he wanted to make sure it wouldn't break apart.

Once he formed the net, he concentrated his mind to the utmost and cast his senses back to the turbulent imaginary realm.

Ves did his best to ignore the fluctuating corrosive winds while at the same time preventing any of the desperate phantoms to collide against his presence.

"I have to be quick!"

Knowing that it was difficult to avoid every grey phantom, Ves hastily targeted one of the passing grey shadows that was locked in a clump of spiritual energy and cast his net!

His throw hit the mark!

Once the net fell upon the grey ghost in question, the being convulsed and released a tortured pulse!

Ves immediately felt a pressure on his mind as his spiritual net seemed to sustain some damage. He tried his best to ignore the pain and attempted to close the net and secure his target.

"Come on! You're mine now!"

Even though the pressure on his mind increased, Ves did not give up on tightening the bonds around the phantom!

Since the grey ghost was partially fused with a clump of strange spiritual energy that was different from the corrosive winds, the net also encompassed it as well.

Though the phantom constantly tried to break the net, Ves was glad that it didn't possess the strength to do so. If the grey ghosts were any stronger, he wouldn't have dared to cast his senses back into the imaginary realm for the duration of this anomalous hazard!

"Now, let's see if I can get you back."

After taking a deep mental breather, Ves attempted to drag his presence and his mysterious catch back into the material realm!

The process was a lot more difficult than before! Ves felt as if he was squeezing his body and his captive through an opening that was too small to accommodate his entire body.

He had to push himself back by expending more of this spiritual energy!

Fortunately, his strength was barely sufficient for him and his catch to return.

The moment Ves successfully brought the grey ghost back, one of the vague grey smudges had grown clearer. It no longer looked vague and out of phase, but appeared close to what his spiritual senses had observed from the phantom!

The ghostly entity, upon reaching the material realm, began to convulse and panic. It was as if it had entered a completely unknown environment and didn't know what kind of threats it faced!

Ves found to his dismay that he needed to expend even more effort to keep his captive under control.

"You're in my grasp, now! Don't think of getting away!"

He continued to wrangle his ghostly captive, ignoring the reactions or non-reactions of the others in the room. Ves didn't really care whether Calabast saw him struggling to keep some kind of weird opaque ghost under control.

As time began to pass yet continue to freeze, Ves kept a constant eye towards what was taking place in the imaginary realm.

Roughly half a minute after it started, the turbulence finally faded! The imaginary realm returned to calm and the material realm in this specific area no longer came under the influence of any weird phenomena.

The grey smudges disappeared. The occasional frost went away as if they never froze anything.

Unfortunately, even though nothing seemed to have happened, everyone who was locked in the same strange state for roughly half an hour were still somewhat aware of the horror that they had just experienced.

"MEOW!"

Lucky finally succeeded in jumping to the air! He immediately flew to Ves and readied his claws for anything that needed to be mauled!

Nitaa thundered forward in her heavy combat armor and armed her rifle, causing it to whine dangerously as it began to accumulate a large amount of energy.

Once she reached Ves, she bodily pushed him back into the corner, ignoring the fact that he was still busy with trying to keep his captive in check!

"Hey, stop! Ahh! Damnit!"

Calabast immediately pushed herself off the desk and sprinted behind the desk while pulling out a slim but sophisticated pistol.

Both Lucky, Nitaa and Calabast each bore their respective weapons towards the strange grey phantom that hovered in the middle of the office. Even though it was caught in a net, the strange spiritual pulses caused all three of them to feel incredibly threatened by the mysterious entity!

"Don't shoot!"