Chapter 682: Compression

The first stone pillar was smashed.

He kept his momentum, his body rotating half a turn in midair, the great sword arcing in a horizontal sweep; the three stone pillars simultaneously cracked in the middle, violet Flame spouting from the sword's fissures, burning along the broken pillars' surfaces in all directions.

The Flame burned extremely fast; in the blink of an eye the whole forest of stone pillars was engulfed in violet flame, and the rocks emitted a creaking cracking sound under the high temperature.

Heimu watched the shredded stone pillar fragments fluttering across the sky, his gaze Calm as if watching fireworks unrelated to himself.

Her hands came together in front of her.

Snap.

A crisp sound.

The stone pillar fragments scattering in midair suddenly halted.

The sharply edged fragments quickly softened and reformed, each becoming a perfect indigo‑purple square.

The square's edges glowed with a violet‑black light, its interior was purely transparent, allowing one to see the Shen E in the sky behind through the square, and the squares were assembling.

Thousands upon thousands of squares converged from all directions toward the Shen E, each spinning at high speed, their rotational paths interweaving but never colliding.

Centered on the Shen E they formed a continuously contracting spherical shell, the gaps between squares shrinking rapidly—from several meters to several tens of centimeters, from several tens of centimeters to a few centimeters, and finally closing completely.

The Shen E was completely encased within a hollow sphere composed of indigo‑purple squares.

The sphere's radius was about a dozen meters, floating in midair; the squares on its surface still rotated slightly, emitting a fine gear‑grinding sound.

Heimu lifted his right hand, gently pushing the sphere forward.

The massive sphere, whose diameter spanned over a dozen meters, was flattened by her fingertip's push.

The sphere became like a sheet of paper pressed against a glass pane, all its height drawn away in an instant.

The Three-Dimensional sphere turned into a Two-Dimensional circle, its surface still rippling slightly, showing that the entity inside had not ceased resisting.

The violet squares rearranged on the Two-Dimensional plane into a dense geometric pattern; from afar it resembled a flattened kaleidoscope, all the light was Lock in that thin plane.

Finally, the sphere became a Two-Dimensional image, floating in midair.

The image showed the moment the Shen E was encircled by squares, the great sword held horizontally before the body, violet patterns glowing on the upper torso, and Light Wings unfurled behind.

All details were retained, yet everything was compressed into a plane with no thickness, only width and height, like an animation paused and cut out, then pasted into the air.

Heimu tilted his head, looking at his work, and couldn't help letting out a sigh.

She had only previously simulated this technique in theoretical calculations, reducing from Three-Dimensional to Two-Dimensional, using computational power to forcibly suppress dimensional drift.

Fortunately, her computational power had increased dramatically, allowing her to tinker as she pleased.

Then, before her smile could fade, she felt a thrust.

The Two-Dimensional image was bulging upward.

At the center of the image, the Shen E's chest area was pushing back from the plane toward the three‑dimensional direction.

The paper surface swelled into a small pouch, which then began to expand, violet Flame spilling from the raised edge, like magma erupting from a crustal fissure.

The Flame burned at the interface between the Two-Dimensional surface and Three-Dimensional space, emitting a strange hissing sound.

Heimu watched the increasingly bulging protrusion, shaking his head.

It really is Bai E.

An ordinary person would have died long ago.

She extended her palm, gently shaking it in the air.

The Two-Dimensional image being pierced from within suddenly began to rotate.

The entire image was churned into a mass, like a sheet of crumpled paper repeatedly torn, undergoing a frantic centrifugal motion.

Violet Flame erupted wildly from the rotating paper mass, one stream after another, dense as the solar corona flaring from the sun's surface.

But the flames, before reaching the ground, automatically changed direction, drawn by an unseen force field, beginning to circle around the paper mass.

The flames gathered increasingly, forming one purple halo after another around the paper mass, the gaps between halos perfectly equal, each halo's diameter several times that of the previous.

Heimu watched the flame halos, stroking his chin.

The rotation speed accelerated.

At the rotation's center, the Two-Dimensional image compressed into a paper mass was expanding back at a visibly rapid rate.

Each increment of expansion doubled the rotation speed.

This is not the Shen E brute‑forcing its way up; its very existence resists dimensional reduction.

Dimension Compression against ordinary targets can directly Lock, but the Shen E's existential intensity is so high that compressing it requires computational power far beyond that needed to compress a normal person.

Heimu sighed.

Indeed, even a strong dragon can't hold it down.

She raised both hands, bringing them together in front of her.

Snap!

Like closing the cover of a book.

The rotation stopped.

It jumped from high‑speed rotation directly to complete stillness.

There was no inertial transition, as if time itself had its middle frame removed.

The wildly rotating paper mass solidified in midair, pressed back from Three-Dimensional to Two-Dimensional by an irresistible force.

The paper mass became a single‑sided violet‑black sheet, heavily compressed.

Completely flat.

No folds, no bulges, no trace of three dimensions.

The sheet's surface retained all the battle's marks, the Shen E's silhouette fully imprinted at the center, the great sword held horizontally across the chest, violet patterns shining dazzlingly.

But everything was Lock in Two-Dimensional, like a printed photograph.

Heimu's finger brushed through the air.

The sheet of paper began to fold.

From left to right, then right to left, folding along the diagonal, then folding along the diagonal again.

Each fold halves the paper's area.

The folding speed increased, the paper shrank, from a few meters to tens of centimeters, then to a size barely visible to the naked eye.

Finally, the paper was folded into a point.

A violet‑black point, almost impossible to stare at with the naked eye, smaller than a needle tip. It hovered in front of Heimu's fingertip, quiet as if it had never moved.

Three-Dimensional became Two-Dimensional, and Two-Dimensional folded into a point.

The entire Dimension Compression process.

In theory, a target compressed to this degree no longer exists in any observable dimension; it is there, yet it is not in any "there".

The computational cost of this operation is proportional to the target's existence intensity; the stronger the opponent, the more computing power required.

And for an opponent of Bai E's level, merely maintaining the point's stability consumes almost all computational resources.

Even so, the point still vibrated at an extremely high frequency.

Its surface repeatedly bulged and retracted, bulged and retracted, as if some force inside continuously struck outward.

Violet‑black light spilled from the point's edge, spreading outward in concentric circles.

Heimu stared at the vibrating point, a flash of light flickered in his eyes.