When planetary force erupted within his own body, the Seventh Overlord nearly crashed on the spot.
He had expected that Roya might endure his strike just now—after all, even if Roya's psionic reserves were insufficient in sheer volume, their refinement and purity were enough to make him envious.
And since Roya had already displayed the obvious traits of a god's chosen, surviving such a subspace energy impact was not outside the realm of possibility.
The true question was only how many times Roya could endure it—whether he could outlast the limited number of times the Overlord himself could unleash this technique.
Any civilization that had developed subspace manipulation to a certain level understood: subspace was the lair of the Four Chaos Gods. Any ripple or disturbance within it might draw their attention.
And no sane being wished for the gaze of the Chaos Four.
Thus, the technique of leveraging psionics to pry subspace energy into the material world was usable, but it was not to be abused. It was a final trump card, to be employed sparingly and with the utmost caution.
Otherwise, once noticed by the Chaos Gods, the consequences would be far worse than death.
Under this common rule, there was simply no way that someone at Roya's psionic tier could draw subspace energy into the material realm.
Not even if he were the chosen of a deity at the level of the Chaos Four themselves—because this was an issue of scale, like the proportion between a balance beam and a counterweight.
No matter how long the beam, without a heavy enough weight, it could not measure anything accurately.
And yet Roya had retaliated in kind—strike for strike! He had not only withstood the Overlord's finger, but delivered back an even harsher blow!
What's more, the level of subspace energy infused in that counterattack was nearly at the peak of planetary force.
The Overlord's strike had been only at the scale of an ordinary planet—like Pirate Star itself.
But Roya's counter was already at the scale of a giant gas planet!
And such worlds were not mere vapor. Their cores were dense, complete, and compressed, with far more violent fission and gravitational force.
The immense gaseous layers that surrounded them were nothing more than cosmic debris captured by their overwhelming gravity.
Such a planet stood only one step away from transformation into a star, becoming the center of a system, with all other planets forced to revolve around it!
Just one step shy of prying at star-level subspace energy!
He was supposed to be only a bonfire—yet his heat nearly rivaled the sun. How was that anything but unfair?
Facing such a Roya, how could the Seventh Overlord not panic?!
His form halted instantly, snapping out of his high-speed dive into stillness. The green flames within his eye sockets flared to their utmost intensity. The cloak at his back no longer drifted lazily; instead, it billowed furiously, snapping in phantom winds.
A subspace energy impact at the scale of an ordinary planet—he could withstand no more than seven of those.
But a planetary-peak strike like Roya's? He had no idea how many of those he could endure.
He reversed the flow of his psionics, channeling them inward to his body, to suppress the raging subspace energy within.
The method was straightforward: use psionics to guide the violent energy out of the body, allowing it to naturally dissipate into the material world.
But the speed had to be sufficient—to expel it before the energy detonated.
Otherwise, his body would disintegrate instantly under subspace fission and annihilation. Even if his consciousness survived briefly under psionic protection, it would fade quickly, stripped of vessel and source.
When his psionics probed into each atom of his being, the Seventh Overlord went rigid with shock.
For he discovered, to his dismay, that the subspace energy raging through him bore psionic imprints!
Which meant—it had been pulled directly from a spiritual projection within subspace!
A subspace spiritual projection was, simply put, a collective of subspace energy bound and gathered by psionics from the material world.
It was the result of a being, whether knowingly or not, using their own soul as an anchor to stake territory within subspace, siphoning its energy.
Such subspace energy, branded with psionic marks, was far easier to command, and when unleashed into the material world, its impact was vastly stronger.
Compared to hastily conscripting stray, masterless subspace energy, it was at least twice as powerful!
Everyone dreamed of having their subspace projection grow as vast as possible—but no one had the means. It was entirely up to fate.
The ability to perceive subspace, and from there pry subspace energy into the material world, marked the watershed in psionic development.
Before stepping across that boundary, psionics was limited to trifling means: telekinesis, mental assaults, psionic shields, and the like.
But once one crossed into subspace manipulation, psionics became something altogether different—the difference between mortal and divine.
Two individuals might wield the same degree of psionic strength—but if one could manipulate subspace energy while the other could not, the gap was not merely "overwhelming" or "crushing." It was the difference between finger-snapping and grinding an entire planet to dust.
Subspace energy was inexhaustible, yes—but its threshold and risks were both absurdly high.
First was the threshold. To the Overlord's knowledge, in the Fearless Dynasty's tens of thousands of years of galactic conquest, and its millennia as galactic hegemon, there had never been discovered any concrete or reliable path of advancement.
Even with the Dynasty's vast history and foundations, there had been, to this day, only nine who stepped through the gates of subspace mastery.
One was the Silent King. The other eight were the Overlords who shepherded galactic spiral arms.
And those eight had not been born with such ability—they had awakened it amidst endless wars, tearing themselves free from their former overlords' ranks, only to be elevated by the Silent King himself.
Tens of thousands of years of conquest had birthed merely eight such figures!
Beyond the impossibly high entry threshold, further development once inside subspace was harder still.
The Seventh Overlord had pushed open that door ten thousand years ago, but he still lingered at its threshold, able only to peer inside.
How to accelerate the growth of one's spiritual projection? He had not the slightest clue. All he could do was stare helplessly, waiting for it to grow naturally.
It was like a doorway with a pane of transparent glass still set within the frame.
Though the door had been pushed open, allowing a glimpse within, one could not enter and grasp anything inside until that glass was shattered.
Breaking that barrier was the very challenge the Silent King had thrown himself into upon unifying the galaxy, entering his slumber to focus entirely on overcoming it.
The Seventh Overlord had hammered at that glass for ten thousand years—until at last, he had given up.
After all, everyone's situation was the same. No one could shatter that pane. All had to sit obediently, waiting for their projections to grow naturally. And as for interfering with the projections of others—well, that was a different story entirely.
Please drop some power stones support me at my
PS: Access the complete/finished chapters/series at Patreon: NanamiTL