2203. Knowledge
"Stop!" Albatia shouted, but she felt powerless. She summoned the entirety of her power in a desperate attempt to retreat, but she remained stuck in her opponent's grasp.
"Why can't I leave?!" Albatia cursed. "Your pulling force is almost null, and my raw power is leagues above yours. You should have no grip on me!"
"Where can you escape if the problem is inside you?" Supreme Thief mocked. "I have already entered your world. No evasive maneuver can save you.
Albatia understood the nature of the issue and closed her eyes. All her focus went on the insides of her world to find the intruder, but she couldn't find anything even after performing multiple thorough inspections.
"Did you think that finding me would have been easy?" Supreme Thief laughed. "I'm the best thief in the world. You'll notice my presence only once you find out that something is missing."
Albatia couldn't give up so easily. The final workshop in her grasp expanded and transformed into a rectangular slab that gave birth to ethereal beings.
Those multicolored creatures left the slab to jump inside Albatia. They fused with her figure and entered her world to help the search for Supreme Thief's presence, but they also failed to produce any result.
"Fine!" Albatia exclaimed as her eyes opened. "I can just destroy you before it's too late."
The final workshop laying on Albatia's hand expanded even more as various strands of light came out of it. Multiple beings were about to take form and stabilize on the slab, but the glow suddenly dispersed.
"What?" Albatia exclaimed in surprise before trying again.
The final workshop released more strands of light, but they dispersed even sooner than before. Albatia didn't give up, but her third attempt failed before the glow tried to leave the slab.
"What is happening?" Albatia questioned before focusing on the faint smirk that had appeared on Supreme Thief's face. "What have you done?"
"Just a moment," Supreme Thief whispered as he closed his eyes. "I'm almost there."
"What there?!" Albatia cursed before a spasm ran through her body and made her spit a mouthful of blood on the slab.
Cracks appeared on the spots where the blood had fallen, and they expanded until the whole slab shattered into multiple pieces. Albatia tried to close her hand to save something about the final workshop, but the few chunks in her palm crumbled and turned into dust.
"What is happening?" Albatia asked before realizing that she could move.
The privileged cultivator immediately retreated to put some distance between Supreme Thief and her. She inspected her figure and checked her world briefly, but she didn't find anything wrong with it. Yet,
"I don't care if you have destroyed my final workshop," Albatia snorted when she saw that Supreme Thief didn't say anything. "I don't have to study much now. I can create a new workshop specifically meant for you."
"Do it then," Supreme Thief dared.
Albatia could understand that something was off from Supreme Thief's mocking tone, but she disregarded that feeling for now. She spread her arms and summoned her power before snapping her fingers.
Currents of multicolored light left Albatia's figure, but they shattered before going too far. The energy she had released dispersed among the void, and a terrible realization finally dawned upon her.
"See, now you have found my presence," Supreme Thief exclaimed. "Maybe I should say that you have found the absence I left inside you."
"You," Albatia gasped, "You have taken away my ability to create workshops."
"That's correct," Supreme Thief stated while raising a hand and summoning a lump of multicolored light inside his grasp. "You are nothing more than a powerless mass of knowledge and experience without this."
"I'll take it ba-!" Albatia began to announce, but a surprising event made her interrupt her line.
Azure light seeped out of Supreme Thief's palm and invaded the multicolored sphere. His shade tainted the stolen aspect of Albatia's world until all the different colors vanished.
The process was so quick that Albatia barely had the chance to come up with plans. The multicolored sphere transformed into a lump of azure light that featured different intensities of that shade. They went from dark to bright, but they remained in the range of Supreme Thief's power.
"What should I give back?" Supreme Thief wondered in a playful tone. "I only see my ability to create workshops here. I don't see anything belonging to you."
"You bastard," Albatia cursed. "Do you think this is enough to stop me? I'll rip your world apart, seize that ability, and turn it back into its original form. It might take millennia to reclaim my power, but I will succeed."
"Yes, you have the knowledge, experience, time, and resources to succeed," Supreme Thief uttered. "That's why you have to die now."
"And how would you even kill me?" Albatia laughed while spreading her arms. "The final workshop was my best ability, but I have accumulated countless methods throughout the eras. Instead, you have already used your strongest attack against me. You only have a bunch of stolen techniques now."
"Are you dumb?" Supreme Thief asked. "I have a strong technique right here in my palm."
The sphere in Supreme Thief's hand shone and expanded until a giant azure domain took form around him. Strands of light quickly came out of the workshop and gave birth to a series of ethereal creatures with unclear shapes.
"You don't know what I have accumulated during my life," Albatia confidently expressed. "Your workshop is flawed. It can't counter my existence."
"Did you forget that I took a tour inside your world?" Supreme Thief asked. "I tried to study most of it, but I got bored halfway through it. There is a better way to defeat you anyway."
Supreme Thief snapped his fingers, and the ethereal beings shot forward. Albatia snorted as multicolored light came out of her figure and teleported her in the distance.
The ethereal beings converged in Albatia's previous position before undergoing an abrupt expansion. Their flexible shape allowed them to transform into cloud-like structures that reached Albatia before she could perform another evasive maneuver.
Albatia quickly left the clouds' range to retreat even further, but her movements only covered a short distance. The event obviously surprised her, and terror appeared in her eyes when she understood the purpose of Supreme Thief's creations.
"So, that's how you have decided to defeat me," Albatia whispered as she stopped retreating and remained still among the void. "I must admit that it's a smart approach."
"You can't use your many abilities with cracks in your knowledge," Supreme Thief declared. "These creatures are quite simple, but they do their job pretty well. They will devour part of your knowledge as soon as they touch you."
"I see," Albatia said before a helpless sigh left her mouth. "I guess this is it. End me."
"I thought you would struggle a bit more in front of death," Supreme Thief admitted.
"That's the behavior of brutes," Albatia explained. "I'll use your words. It's not my style. I've run many simulations in my mind already. I can't win, so make it quick."
"I guess the sky has some praiseworthy warriors in the end," Supreme Thief commented before sending his cloud-like creatures toward Albatia.
The azure beings surrounded Albatia and began to devour her knowledge. She felt her entire life vanishing from her very existence, but the process suddenly stopped.. When she opened her eyes, she noticed that white light had surrounded her figure and had fended off Supreme Thief's creatures.