‘It tends to cause a huge disparity in power,’ said Garovel. ‘It makes it so that certain servants can’t even be wounded by anyone who isn’t close enough to their level in strength. They can just mow down hordes of lesser servants without a care in the world, pretty much.’
“Fuck...”
‘Yeah. Few things are as terrifying to see bearing down upon you on a battlefield.’
Hector returned to his crude tunneling. Its downward slope was perhaps a bit too steep, he thought, and he started trying to curve it more.
‘Anyway, soul resilience is only the first means of passive defense. The second is “field density,” which is similar but a little less intuitive.’
“Field density...? I can’t even imagine what that would refer to.”
‘Mm. It’s also called soul pressure, which might be easier to conceptualize. It’s a defense against abilities being used within your own personal space. For instance, a materialization user might try to use the orifices of the human head to create the base of a spike that then shoots straight into the brain and kills their opponent instantly. But with strong field dens--’
“Oh!” Hector stopped picking again and blinked. “I didn’t even think of trying something like that...”
‘It’s a very advanced technique, not easy at all, especially on a moving target--but that’s neither here nor there. I’m saying that one’s field density offers a kind of constant defense against that sort of thing. It’s a lot like how you couldn’t coat Karkash in metal due to his magnetism. Same concept, only applied more broadly.’
“Hmm. How does that work?”
‘By preventing the USE of the abilities in the first place. Materialization won’t accumulate properly. Destruction won’t tunnel properly. Integration won’t fuse. And alteration users, they’re fucked, too. Only transfiguration and mutation are immune, because those powers are strictly limited to the user’s body, where one’s own field density is strongest, so it doesn’t matter how oppressive their opponent’s soul pressure is.’
Hector scratched his head. “You weren’t kidding about it being less intuitive than the other thing...”
‘Soul resilience.’
“Yeah, the other thing.”
Garovel exhaled a nonexistent breath.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
close enough to their level in strenght
ReplyDeletenot east at all > easy
ReplyDeletewhere the one’s own field > remove the
Fixed, thanks.
ReplyDeleteGot 'em both, thank you.
ReplyDeleteSo strong servants are other servants kryptonite.
ReplyDeleteIs this a new concept that you came up with? Because I notice that this has not come up with any of the previous servant fights.
ReplyDeleteI think it's because no one apart from Harper is at a high enough level to have developed the technique.
ReplyDeleteGarovel is talking about quite advanced stuff here, so no, it hasn't come up in any of Hector's fights yet. However, you might recall that this stuff did play a part when a certain Rainlord was trying to make his escape. It was only mentioned briefly, though.
ReplyDeleteYup, I remember it. Zeff said it was the reason he couldn't just ice spike kill all the servants.
ReplyDeleteThey can just mow down hordes of lesser servants without a care in the world, pretty much.
ReplyDeleteGenerals at TZK are just as OP as generals of the kingdom manga then ^^, Cmon Hector eveyone is rooting for you to become the greatest general
Does the field density thing work with non servant abilities too. Like can it stop bullets 5 inches from your face. please say yes. that would be so cool. i know soul resilience covers that but it would be so much cooler and could do things soul resilience can't.
ReplyDeleteNo. Soul pressure is entirely imaginary, so like reapers it doesn't interact with anything that has a physical component. It stops servant abilities because before they arrive at a given point (the leading edge of a beam, or the spot where they intend stuff to materialize), those are purely imaginary too.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it stops aberration abilities?
ReplyDeletespecifically the shadow
ReplyDeleteOh...OHHH!
ReplyDeleteThat's why Salazar fled when she heard Gohvis was coming (I still don't agree, but I sympathize now)! And that's why Garovel (or was it Reese?) said the Emperors are like walking safe zones. Ohhh!!!!
Isn't materialization physical. Iron is physical even as atoms so if the field prevents it from accumulating then it should stop physical things. Plus soul resilience makes one one bullet proof so it has to be physical. I also wonder how far the soul field extends
ReplyDeleteGarovel says alteration users are fucked but the soul field would have to extend outwards since alteration happens outside the body unless they 're talking about some one like harper creating a laser from inside the body. I'm kind of confused.
Oh and garovel says that older servants in the undercrust are walking safezones. That can only be possible if their field extends outward and if it protects against heat that means it can protect against non-imaginary things.
ReplyDeleteMaterialization and alteration are both physical and imaginary when they've arrived, as is resilience. When they're trying to form, like the iron atoms appearing or a beam gathering energy, at that point they're still entirely imaginary and can be shut down if someone else's soul dominates in that spot. And that's what soul pressure is: having so much soul power that yours can beat another servant's even outside your body.
ReplyDeleteAs for the walking safezones comment, I think that's due to powerful abilities rather than soul pressure, for instance using temperature states to continuously materialize and dematerialize freezing dust.