Damon's Ascension-Chapter 153: Sector Boundaries

Sector 5 was estimated to be around 3,200 kilometers from west to east, about equivalent to the distance between London to Moscow in terms of raw distance. Since the safe zone base was located smack dab in the center of each interconnected sector, they only had to travel half the distance to get out of Sector 5 and enter Sector 13 to the east.

Even a normal passenger plane like a Boeing would take 3 and a half hours to travel 3200 kilometers at cruise speed, much less half of that. For the Normandy was was superior to even the fastest plane, it naturally took a short time to get to the border between zones.

At the edge of the border between zones was a white curtain that rose all the way into the sky. Because of it, you couldn’t see what was on the other side, so entering new zones was always a risk since you would usually be susceptible to the new rule the moment you crossed over without even knowing what it was.

Well, that was a thing if the past anyway.

To buttress this, when the crew came near the white curtain, they received a prompt from their character panel to display the Macro Rule of the nearest Sector before entering.

[Bright Realm Sector 13 Macro Rule: Velocity is capped at 10m/s.]

The ship immediately stalled in the air, hovering just meters from the threshold.

"...Ten meters per second. That’s barely faster than a bicycle." Nicholas said flatly, adjusting his cufflinks.

Henry groaned and faceplamed. "Are you kidding me? We just flew over 1,500 kilometers in what, fifteen minutes? And now you’re telling me we’re about to cross into a goddamn quicksand pit?"

"No, we’re about to cross into a quicksand pit with spikes at the bottom called Areas and fellow Chaos Realm explorers." Marshal corrected grimly.

Felicia didn’t say anything at first. Her eyes were locked on the rule prompt, and she was already parsing deeper implications. "It’s not just movement speed."

Damon nodded. "Everything tied to velocity gets capped. That includes projectiles, shockwaves, thrown items, and even certain techniques that scale off motion."

Protizen brought up a hologram of Levi’s past combat footage in VR. "For example: Levi’s Liquid Spear Form relies on supersonic acceleration of high-pressure water. That’ll now move... ten meters per second."

Levi’s face was unreadable. "So I’m basically a child’s squirt gun in Sector 13."

"Until we leave it, yes." Felicia confirmed bluntly.

She then rubbed her eyebrows tiredly. "Also... flight. The ship’s cruise control will auto-throttle. We can’t go faster than a jog inside that Sector."

"It’s not just mobility, this affects reaction time." Xela added suddenly.

The crew turned to her.

"How?" Kyle asked.

Xela pointed to the tooltip. "It says ’velocity,’ not ’speed.’ That includes not just movement but acceleration curves. So if you start moving from a standstill, there’ll be an invisible cap on how quickly your body can gain speed."

Felicia’s eyes narrowed slightly. "You’re right. That means—"

"Dodging becomes linear." Damon finished grimly.

He sighed deeply. "No sudden bursts anymore. You wont be allowed to dodge something faster than you can accelerate to move away from it."

Nicholas raised a finger. "It also changes how we fight. Techniques that involve flicking, whipping, snapping, or throwing will get nerfed into the dirt. Everything becomes... slow martial arts."

"I can’t even blink fast anymore, can I?" Henry asked sullenly.

"I wouldn’t try, your eyelids might desync." Protizen warned.

"Projectile users are going to suffer worst as every bullet, every arrow, every sonic wave becomes laughably slow." Bane muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Worse, it means we become easier to hit too. The enemy can dodge everything we throw at them just as easily as we can dodge theirs. All movement-based advantage is neutralized." Felicia said sharply.

Connor clicked his tongue. "So we’re entering a Sector where everyone is basically on foot and sword mode. Or worse, turn-based RPG mode."

"Don’t forget stealth and assassination! Most of such systems rely on burst movement like flash steps or dimension flickers. Unfortunately, all of that gets capped. Even shadows, if they’re velocity-based, won’t move faster than ten meters a second." Xela added with a glance askance at Connor.

Connor cursed under his breath.

Felicia folded her arms. "It also nerfs indirect attacks like shockwaves and vibration blasts. Kyle’s vibration frequency...?"

Kyle sighed. "Yeah. The impact won’t change, but the delivery speed will. My attacks are going to hit like a turtle doing taekwondo."

"You still have massive destructive force. It’ll just arrive next Tuesday" Henry said kindly.

Marshal was less amused. "And what happens if an enemy gets in your face before your turtle fists land?"

Damon held up a hand to stop everyone.

"Let’s take a step back and say that this rule isn’t an obstacle, but rather an equalizer. The Sector itself forces a kind of equilibrium among explorers." He said calmly.

"How do you mean?" Levi asked.

"It levels the field, for enemies and allies since it slows everything down. That means... reactions matter more and thought matters more. Strategy, not stats." Damon replied.

Nicholas whistled. "Makes sense. If you’re stuck moving slowly, then how you move becomes more important than how fast you can."

"And you can exploit that since abilities and skills that aren’t tied to movement still function normally. Nicholas’ Mind-based powers. Damon’s Internal Force. Marshal’s Words of Power. My Energy Manipulation skills... these don’t need speed." Felicia said, her voice sharp again.

The entire group turned to look at Nicholas, Marshal, Protizen, and Damon himself.

"...I guess Mental Manipulation isn’t velocity-based and neither is Marshal’s Word invocation." Nicholas said slowly, agreeing to the notion.

"Armor-based defenses too since Ultra Armor activates passively. My performance won’t drop unless there’s a structural decay rule." Protizen added with a nod.

"And Probability Manipulation?" Levi asked, glancing at Damon.

Damon smiled faintly. "Doesn’t slow down. In fact, this Sector is perfect for me."

Bane cracked his knuckles. "You mean because the enemies move in slow motion now."

"I mean because they won’t realize what I’ve altered until it’s too late." Damon replied, eyes glinting.

Felicia stepped forward and brought up the full rule overlay again.

"Sector 13 is going to feel like walking through glue at our current Mobility stats and it we have F rank mobility. Species with B rank and above Mobility will face hell here."

She raised a finger. "But it gives us two major benefits. Firstly, we have high Mentality so our reaction speed and calculation speed remains the same. Even if we cannot move as fast as we could otherwise, we can perceive better and faster than others."

She raised her second finger. "Secondly, it limits one hit kill scenarios so even if we are caught offguard and assassinated by an enemy, we will still have some time to react and deploy our abilities or skills to defend."

"And the Areas?" Henry asked.

"There are 4 known Areas in Sector 13’s western quadrant, but none we have to concern ourselves with. There are quite a few explorers here though, who take advantage of the lowered speed to hijack passing ships according to the Fae race’s 9th Relay’s logs." Protizen said as he checked the map.

"They rely on the equalized velocity to hunt down explorers passing through for their mined Chaos Essence. With the new ’drop upon death’ rule, they must be going crazy with murderous intent by now." Marshal noted with narrowed eyes.

"So any prospective battle becomes a pattern-fight, then. Make one wrong step, and you get squashed by something with the agility of a cow but the mass of a planet." Kyle muttered.

Felicia smiled slightly. "Which is why we’re going in prepared."

Damon tapped the command console. "Reconfigure flight path. Keep the ship’s velocity at the limit cap the moment we pass through, and rotate in pairs for overwatch."

"Acknowledged, throttle set to 10 meters per second. Atmospheric transition in thirty seconds." The ship AI responded.

Everyone buckled in as The Normandy eased forward towards the white curtain that rose ahead like the edge of a maiden’s veil, hiding the beauty - or in this case, the monstrosity - inside.

Before going in, Damon made some preparations.

’What are the chances that we are ambushed the moment we cross the border?’

[Objective chances are currently 0%.]

Damon raised an eyebrow, feeling slight relief internally. His biggest fear was that the ambushers would be smart enough to camp near the entrance and exists of the sector, but then again the sector was too large for them to hold down every corner.

Not to mention, how could they possibly know that someone would pass here, at this time, at this place? That would require future sight or divination abilities and if one had such an ability, there was no need to rob or fear being robbed, you would be able to walk sideways in most areas of the Chaos Realm.

Still, Damon had to be more sure.

’What are the chances that we are ambushed within 30 minutes of crossing the border?’

[Objective chances are currently 78%.]