My attributes are increasing infinitely Chapter 427: Preparation for the great battle
Previously on My attributes are increasing infinitely...
Ethan fixed his gaze on Zara.
Her form had transcended simple flesh and bones. It resembled a container crafted from swirling, unadulterated dark power. From her core, a weighty, ruinous force throbbed every few moments. This resembled the ominous rhythm signaling the world's doom.
This stemmed from the innate aura of her lineage. Though she remained unconscious, the intensity of her might warped the atmosphere encircling her.
Zara had evolved beyond a mere girl; she now embodied a fledgling of the Apocalypse Race.
"Mr. Ethan, how is she?" Rose inquired. Her tone quivered. She stood several paces distant, fingers tightly balled.
"No need to fret, she's stable," Ethan replied. His words stayed steady, though his gaze sharpened. "Her physique is merely reshaping itself. Stabilizing such vast power demands time."
Ethan recognized the urgency to concentrate. He lowered himself to the ground, legs folded.
He had to peer into what lay ahead. He needed clarity on the meaning behind that dark silhouette in his sight.
Yet prior to that, his attention shifted to Melida and Mr. Harrow.
"Lady Zara and Lady Rose remain with me here," Ethan commanded. His voice brooked no debate. "Everyone else, depart immediately."
Melida and Harrow exchanged glances. Reluctance to abandon the tower's security gripped them, but Ethan's stern expression made obedience clear.
They offered profound bows.
"As you command, sir," Harrow responded.
"And one additional instruction," Ethan continued, lids still shut. "Gather all of Rose’s kin and bring them here. Their protection falls solely to me. They’ll find safety beneath my watch."
A surge of ease washed over Rose. She refrained from questioning the reason. She perceived Ethan's readiness for impending catastrophe.
Melida and Harrow hastened from the tower to execute his directives.
With silence settling in the chamber, Ethan immersed himself within the Laws of Fate and Karma.
Within his thoughts, reality unraveled into countless luminous strands. These traced potential futures. Typically, such strands gleamed gold or silver, denoting varied outcomes.
Yet presently, nearly all strands suffocated beneath a viscous, pitch-black haze.
The darkness advanced gradually, yet inexorably toward him.
Ethan frantically sought a route where the obscurity faded.
At last, he spotted one slender, isolated filament.
In that prospective timeline, he envisioned lifting Zara and hurling her from the tower, flinging her deep into the wilds.
Ethan's eyes snapped open. Perspiration beaded across his brow.
"It concerns her lineage," he murmured softly. "The foresight warns of a 99% risk of my demise should she stay. That implies a far superior force draws near. An Absolute Continuum entity."
His hands balled into fists.
He presumed it to be "The Presence" or the "One Above All." Only those entities possessed such overwhelming might, as far as he knew.
"That fool loves to flaunt his strength," Ethan grumbled, his stare icing over. "If the One Above All believes he can barge in and claim what's mine, he's mistaken. I'll eliminate that wretch if he threatens my loved ones."
He started amassing his essence, steeling his spirit for a confrontation that might claim his existence.
However, Ethan erred in his assumption.
The foe approaching him was not the One Above All.
It was a figure whose prowess rendered the "One Above All" akin to an infant.
A flawless apex existence from the neutral zone headed his way.
Ethan directed his focus back toward Zara once more.
He detected an odd shift within her core framework.
Employing his divine sight to peer into her essence, the revelation caused his pulse to falter.
Buried deep in Zara’s spirit, a duplicate sea of power began to coalesce.
This was the Ocean of Entropy.
Her individual cells absorbed this ashen force, transforming into entities alien to this realm.
"What's happening here?" Ethan pondered. "Does the Apocalypse Race consist of flawless entities? Ones who inherently balance both affirmative and adverse energies?"
A chilling insight struck him.
Should Zara qualify as a "perfect being," then the pursuer after her must share that status.
"If their ranks include Absolute Continuum perfect beings... how could I possibly oppose that?"
His mind wandered to the remaining 99 enigmatic lineages.
Should they mirror this pattern, the realm's power equilibrium proved illusory.
He glanced at his Sword of Infinity.
Armed with it, he could rival an Absolute entity.
But a "perfect" Absolute entity? That altered the equation entirely.
Little surprise that Fate pegged his mortality odds at 99%.
Ethan exhaled a prolonged, burdensome breath.
An unprecedented burden pressed upon him.
For the first time, genuine exhaustion etched his features.
Rose spotted it right away.
She approached, concern brimming in her eyes.
"Mr. Ethan, are you okay? You appear... ashen."
Ethan mustered a faint, weary grin.
"Rest easy, Lady Rose. The forging and metamorphosis have simply sapped my strength a bit. Why not retire to a guest chamber? My attendants will attend to you shortly."
With a sorrowful nod, she proceeded to the residential area.
....
At the outermost fringe of the Positive Plane, where cosmic void brushes against reality's edge, a fissure materialized.
It resembled not a mere rift, but a gash across the heavens.
From within that fissure, one leg extended forth.
It consisted of unalloyed shadow and mutable devastation.
The instant its sole contacted the Positive Plane's weave, the whole plane quivered.
Every formidable existence across creation experienced a abrupt, piercing ache in their cores.
Gradually, the full form of the being revealed itself.
It towered as a murky silhouette that devoured surrounding illumination.
"Why has a paramount figure from the Apocalypse Race arrived?" a thunderous voice echoed across the emptiness.
The shadowy presence showed no reaction.
He tilted his head faintly toward a ripple in the void.
His gaze, twin abyssal chasms, fixed unerringly on the One Above All, observing from afar.
"Stay out of it," the being declared.
His words bypassed audible waves, instead harnessing atomic tremors.
"Interfere in my race's affairs, and I'll obliterate you along with your entire plane."
The One Above All, hailed as the cosmos's sentinel, fell mute.
Terror, utterly foreign to him, caused him to tremble.
He understood his inferiority to this monstrosity.
He paled even against that race's elders, much less this Absolute emissary.
The being sealed his eyes, as though probing for a trace.
Soon after, a sinister smirk curved his lips.
"Ah. Located."
The being underwent a transformation.
His colossal, fearsome shape contracted.
The shadowy essence retracted inward.
In mere heartbeats, he assumed the guise of an alluring human man.
The aura of ruin concealed itself utterly, buried beneath his flesh.
"It's been ages since I visited this dull, ordinary plane," the man remarked, adjusting his ebony garment. "I'll sample some earthly cuisine first. Afterward, I'll claim the bloodline bearer and return home."
In one stride, he dissolved from sight.
He traversed not by flight; he merely absented one spot and manifested in another, en route to the Dragon World.
Within the tower, Ethan continued his meditation.
Abruptly, he observed the dark haze in his foresight halting its advance.
It persisted without vanishing, yet ceased its headlong pursuit.
It hovered close, akin to a hunter toying with prey.
Ethan's thoughts accelerated.
He was the sort who sought edges amid peril, even mortality's shadow.
"Should I endure this..." Ethan mused, a shadowy spark igniting in his eyes. "If I seize the bloodline from that entity, it could propel my evolution. No further need for the Negative Plane. I could ascend to perfection on the spot."
Despite the stakes to his very being, Ethan already schemed to plunder an Absolute's essence.
He acknowledged the madness.
He recognized the soul's perilous wager.
Yet beholding the slumbering Zara and the encircling dark power, he knew their destinies entwined.
He rose and strode to the pane, staring into the night sky ablaze with stars.
The atmosphere hung motionless, oppressively so.
This was the hush preceding a tempest that might elevate him to divinity or reduce him to ashes.
"Approach, then," Ethan breathed into the void. "Let's discover if this 'perfect being' withstands the Infinity."
He clasped his sword's pommel, bracing for the fateful summons at the threshold.