Chapter Thirty Seven, The Rule of Apotheosis.
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Visions.
Darkness encroaching.
Gluttony.
A titan destroying.
Wrath.
Darkness transforming, acquiring power from another.
Pride.
The titan, slumbering chaotically.
Sloth.
Then, new sights.
The creature stood above a massive cosmic megastructure. A spiral formation of... Universes? Dimensions? It was indescribable. His long white hair sprawled out in the void. His pale skin beaming with energy. His red eyes glaring down upon the worlds beneath.
Then a woman appeared. Like he, she was pale skin. Her hair was long and white, the same as his. She was equipped with clothes. Armor, regal armor, of black and green hue. She adopted a crown, one of green.
It had so much power...
He could feel just a little clearer. The visions became riddled with things he was capable of picking up on, and truly understand.
These characters were far beyond what he had thought.
He originally imagined they were perhaps the peak of the universe, galaxy rending demons. Powerful gods.
But this structure? What could that be described as? It was infinite. Unending. It spiraled from the bottom of the void, to the top. And in the distance beyond, there were countless other megastructures. Countless formations. Clusters of infinite realms, universes, dimensions.
What lay beyond that? It was hard to fathom.
A universe was already infinite. Was it not? From the knowledge granted to him by all he had consumed, most specifically Zenor... He understood a small bit about the world. Not just Yara...
Planets. Stars... Star systems, galaxies! A universe was supposedly made up of billions of galaxies, and a singular galaxy had billions of billions of stars!
This was the information gathered by gods, some of which was inherently known by Yara herself...
He was thankful that he had Ana with him to enlighten on these things as a past time.
He was sure she would have a lot to say after these visions...
The woman before his white haired doppelganger, snarled at him. The man chuckled, his face showing a mischievous smile.
The woman scoffed, flicking her hand forward.
A profound power.
It raged with...
Want?
The scene changed.
Something completely new.
This character was truly, a demon.
Eldrid. He knew that. He understood that, for sure.
It reeked of death, destruction, power.
Chaos.
Apocalypse.
It had a humanoid form. But it did not look human, like those from prior visions. It was an... undead? He wasn't sure how to describe. It was human shaped, with no hair on any part of its body. It was a skeleton, with black rotten skin stuck to its body. He could see power deep within its body. It glowed orange.
Eerily, it had a missing arm, splintered bones sticking out, as if it was blasted apart.
This was a sight he surely wouldn't forget. He couldn't.
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It hovered in the darkness of the void, and beneath it, in space, he could see countless demon beasts. They bowed, praising the creature, yearning for it.
His eyes changed direction, peering into what the creature was looking towards.
And he was greeted by a massive eye.
A massive, red eye.
Billowing with even more power.
But, he could feel the smile rise on the demon creatures face.
An eerie sense of...
Want.
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The next moment, his consciousness appeared elsewhere.
Jora found himself in an infinite darkness, a familiar one.
His soul space...
"...I think I understand... A portion." Ana spoke, making him swing around.
An orb of light floated in the darkness.
He remembered this scene, from when he last evolved and upgraded his Gluttony skills.
He could still vividly feel the deep power of each vision, the feeling they left within his heart.
"I will do it here, we have some time." Ana spoke, Jora didn't reply.
She understood why, she understood him well.
"These visions... They... Those three, the three that you had visions of, real experiences. Upon seeing the last one, the monster, I understood. All three of them gave the same feeling, the same inhumane aura. Those three are Eldrids. I can't pinpoint their rank, but if the grandeur of each sight is anything to go off of..." He could hear her gulp.
"Then they must be the Gods of the Eldrids... The most powerful of the demon species... I can only imagine how powerful they really are... To subdue galaxies, consume them. I thought they were strong, but to be able to barter with an entity that was able to step beyond a... I don't even know what that is. That cosmic structure was so vast, so deep with history. It had countless universes. More universes than their are stars for our own universe I presume. I can't imagine what power is required to step beyond a cluster of unvierses so large... To shed the bearings of such a place, the restrictions that tie one down..." She mumbled.
"But, those three. They carry the same signature of power. The same eerie, dark, strength. Unattainable, and undeniable. As for the other two, that human man, and that strange woman. She didn't feel human, so I can't explain that, but it seems that the darkness, Gluttony, took a part of her power. Something innate. Power of the soul. But when coming from such a powerful figure... I can't imagine the fully imagined strength. The same happened with the human, taking a portion of his strength." She explained.
"Each vision is likely showing where your power comes from, like I assumed. The creation of each portion of your soul, each Talent, that defines you. Those that come from the Eldrids, originate from within them. You must be their descendant, their power naturally existing within you, being hidden behind these barriers of soul strength. Those that come from the others, were integrated. Not innate, but melded into you. Likely by Gluttony, the white haired man. He seems to be the one that sought out these powers, perhaps to make you even stronger than what you would have naturally been..."
Ana breathed, her soul form bobbing.
Jora only absorbed her theories, breaking them down, and understanding them.
"I am thinking, you were manufactured to be even stronger. You were naturally going to be powerful, but the Eldrids, Gluttony, wanted you even stronger... What for? I cannot say, there hasn't been enough information, and I don't think we will get that information from the visions... But I am almost sure that you were engineered to be powerful... You inherit strength from three Eldrid ancients? And then one of those ancients even sought out power from other powerhouses? Friends perhaps? Maybe foes? Equals? Neither of those he borrowed from, seemed willing, or enjoying of the encounter... It was like, they had to. Like they weren't fond of Gluttony, but they were obligated to give him what he wanted..." Ana rambled some more.
Jora understood that.
It did seem that way after all.
"That last one... There were so many demons beneath him... And that eye? What the hell was that?..." Jora spoke aloud. Ana didn't have an answer for him, she was as lost as he.
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"I know not... But, that's all I have for my analysis of the visions... Time to move forward. See what you have gained after this." She replied.
Jora nodded.
"So turn around... We have some hard choices..." Jora raised an ethereal brow, heeding Ana's words.
Spinning around, he saw something else in the darkness.
Orbs of light.
A few dozen, glowing.
"The reason we're here... This soul upgrade, entering SS-rank, as a monster, the quality change, funnels into a Talent. You get to choose which." She explained. His soul form, an orb, like Ana's, floated towards the lights.
Each of them, spherical, but differing in color.
Of the formation, there was a portion that was orange, and instinctively, he could understand each.
That orange portion, were his Fire Talents...
There were an array of colors, white, blue, purple, green. And each orb represented something different.
But there were some that stood out.
One orb was larger than the rest.
More a real sphere, a red sphere of solidified light, differing from the gaseous orbs of the rest.
"Glutton Sin... That's what the next Talent will become, post evolution." Ana narrated from her orb body, just a few inches behind he.
He nodded.
"Interesting..."
He glanced amongst the crowd, his eyes stopping on the most powerful, most outstanding of the talents.
Infinite Evolution.
Perfect Adaptation.
Wrath.
Slothful.
Pride.
And then there were two more. Talents he had not yet utilized.
Freshly obtained.
Envy.
Lust.
Ana hummed behind him, thinking just as hard as he.
A hard decision.
He could feel it, once he searched for it.
He could feel the soul power waiting to jump into one of these Talents.
That was the problem.
One of them.
The quality change, only boosted his soul power enough to evolve one Talent.
He would have to pick...
Wrath had gone severely underused since his birth, but he knew that it had great potential. Just as much potential as Gluttony... Subconsciously, he leaned towards this choice.
But he felt he could evolve this Talent himself.
He had done it with Gluttony.
He could find skills that would be capable of merging with Fury and Punishment... His fire skills, his spatial skills... Temporal... His control over life, death, the soul.
Really, he could felt he could evolve any Talent with given time.
He just had to choose which he would get a freebie on.
So which Talent would be the hardest to evolve?
He glanced towards the largest of the most profound Talents.
The two of them.
These Talents in themselves were denser than his other selections. Nearly solidified, he felt.
Just not yet at that point.
In their base.
They were already so powerful...
Perhaps he shouldn't have thought so deep?
There was really only one choice...
His intent flowed into one of the orbs, and instantly, a pressure filled his soul.
And it condensed, flowing directly into the Talent alongside his intent.
He smiled.
And then, shock filled him.
The power funneled into the Talent that was parallel to it.
And the darkness receded...
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Gasp!
His face was on the ground.
His body spasmed.
Power fluctuated through him.
Mana.
The elements.
And then, he calmed.
His body relaxed, and there was a small groan.
"[This... May go beyond the power of even Anaflandus...]" Ana spoke, and through the small spurt of pain, he grinned.
Without much movement, or even any words, he summoned two more screens.
He breathed.
He examined the screens.
Ana spoke a few words, shock and surprise being tossed around.
But he just remained calm.
He could feel the power.
Not just from his Soul skill, but from the magic coursing through his body.
He had gained access to a more profound type of energy.
Mana, but deeper. Denser. More powerful, with less limits, and more versatility.
He blinked.
He was standing upright.
His body had been displaced, effortlessly.
He didn't even drop one point in his new Magicka pool...
He smiled, his chest still heaving slightly.
A hand raised.
The wavering lights on the sides of the corridor, ceased to move.
Everything was encompassed by a grey hue.
Time was stopped.
He spread out his control.
For miles.
And miles.
And time stopped.
He chuckled.
His hand cranked.
Time reversed.
It cranked.
Time moved forward.
It returned to its original time, in this zone.
Time unfroze, and he upturned a palm.
Strands of magicka weaved outwards. Strands of condensed mana, condensed so deeply that just one point of magicka generated the same power as one hundred mana... And he had one point of magicka for each point into Intelligence and Capacity.
Effectively, his pool was as deep as...
"[414,200 Mana... The equivalent... Finally reached high level Dungeon magic ability...]" Ana half praised. He chuckled.
The strands of magicka in his palm, weaved into elements.
A nexus of elemental magic appeared in his hand.
A bomb.
A bomb of water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, nature, ice, and magma... Every elemental magic there was, the rarer ones granted by Zenor Freid himself, finally being put to use here.
Some of his skills leveled up, even evolving.
He unlocked more.
And he felt he could form a new Skill-Tree.
But he didn't.
He wanted to acclimate to his current powers first.
So the nexus was dismantled, the magicka dispersing, flowing back into his palm.
"[Let's use this to evolve Aeternum? At this rate, you may not have to spend more than a month in this Labyrinth... I'd say use the extra time to control Aeternum with me. Let your body sleep and accumulate some power, passively evolve, while we work. With all of this energy, we can start to move beyond Aeternum... More worlds, more feedback... I can turn the time dilation to entirely new levels now... And we can start stepping onto the path of SSS-rank... I've been able to handle more and more of my memories. With this last rank up, I felt some seriously important stuff coming back to me...]" Ana spoke.
He heard her words, and it made him smile.
She thought he wouldn't have to spend more than a month here.
He guaranteed he could max out his attributes in weeks.
Just weeks.
He would become a walking god.
Weeks, and he would be able to stand against Kismet, if he chose to do so.
He would meet Yara soon. He would understand more soon.
Soon...
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