Leonora followed behind him into the forge.
The walls were dark, rough, lined with the bare skeleton of equipnt scattered across the wide space.
"So... how are you going to start?"
Naless Death didn’t turn around. He walked to the center of the forge, then ca to a stop. "First, I’ll acquire the knowledge of every Path I can currently use."
Leonora tilted her head, confused.
"What do you an by that? Don’t you already know how Paths work?"
"I know how the Path of the Awakener works," he said. "I know how the Path of the Elentals functions. But I still don’t understand the Path of Achievents."
She frowned. "Huh?"
"I’m going to devour it," he said plainly, as if it were obvious. "That’s the only way I can learn how it works."
Leonora blinked once. Then again.
She couldn’t believe her ears.
It had barely been a few minutes since he’d said sothing that already sounded ridiculous, and now he was topping it with sothing even more absurd.
"You’re going to devour the Path? How—how do you even plan to do that?"
"The Universal Codex System is connected to ," he said. "That’s how the Path of Achievents manifests. I’ll devour that connection."
"You know how it’s connected to you?"
"No," he admitted. "But I have an idea."
Naless Death sat down in the far corner of the forge, resting against the wall. "Don’t disturb until I’m done."
Leonora watched him for a mont but said nothing more. She walked to one side of the forge and sat down quietly, her eyes flicking over to him from ti to ti.
Naless Death closed his eyes.
He dove inward.
Through body, through soul. Through Core and even into his Seed of Existence.
Nothing.
There was no sign of the Universal Codex’s connection in any of those places. But that only confird his suspicion.
"It’s connected to the one place I haven’t checked yet."
He looked deeper. Past the layers of Seed of Existence.
Inside it lay the Intent of Existence—the source of his being, his foundation, the concept that defined him at his core.
The one thing he hadn’t devoured.
He hesitated.
"I might die permanently if I try to devour this," he murmured to himself.
Even he had no idea what would happen if his Intent of Existence was destroyed.
This was reckless beyond asure.
But he had always walked on edges where death was a frequent visitor.
He didn’t have the ti to be careful.
"Nothing gained, nothing ventured."
With a breath, he cracked open the Seed of Existence.
Agony blood across his body the mont he started.
His skin tore open. His blood turned hot, seeping out of every pore.
But he remained alive, forcing his own Death elent to stabilize himself, keeping him conscious even as his life was slipping though his fingers.
He reached for his Intent of Existence and began devouring it, a fraction at a ti.
The Intent didn’t stay passive.
It fought.
It trembled, tried to retreat, to flee. That surprised him.
It was as if the Intent of Existence had a mind of its own.
But Naless Death didn’t let go. He gritted his teeth, grabbed hold of it, and tore away one-tenth of it.
Pain shot through him like molten spikes shoved into his bones. His jaw tightened. Nails dug into his palms.
He endured.
When he’d finished devouring the first tenth, he stopped.
He waited for the Intent of Existence to regenerate.
Then he repeated the process.
Again and again.
He had created a thod to devour it without killing himself: devour, wait, recover, repeat.
It was painful, and reckless.
Even for him, who was used to pain, it brought unimaginable agony.
But it worked.
And then—when he’d devoured half of his Intent of Existence—he touched sothing.
Sothing new.
It was unlike anything he had felt before. A distinct, foreign presence buried inside the core of his being.
He reached for it.
And then, suddenly—
"What are you trying to do to that?"
A voice echoed inside his mind.
His consciousness blanked out.
When he ca to, he was standing in a place that was quite different from the forge where he had been ditating.
A modern apartnt.
Clean floors. A wide living room. A large window letting in soft light.
Naless Death blinked.
He looked at his hands.
His powers were gone.
He felt... human.
Frowning, he turned toward the window.
Outside, he saw a neighborhood.
Simple hos. Children playing on the street. The distant sound of cars.
A human world.
He turned toward the door and opened it. Before he could step out, he heard a voice from inside the apartnt.
He froze.
Closing the door, he turned back and walked deeper into the apartnt, following the source of the voice.
It led him to the master bedroom.
Inside, a young man sat on the floor, leaning back against the bed. He was holding a controller and playing what looked like a Mario Kart-style ga on a huge screen.
The youth glanced at Naless Death once, then focused back on the screen.
"Just let finish this race before we talk," the young man said casually. "You can go outside if you want, and look around until then."
Naless Death stared.
"...Cole Calloway?"
He didn’t know why but he could guess who the person before him was.
The young man didn’t even look at him.
"Yeah. I checked your mories, and saw what you were trying to do. We’ll talk in a minute. This is a hard level."
Naless Death narrowed his eyes.
The atmosphere was... off.
Despite how stupidly the boy was acting, Naless Death’s instincts scread only one word.
Dangerous.
He couldn’t sense the bottom of Cole’s strength. It was like looking into a void that had no shape, no form, no end.
Naless Death didn’t go outside.
Instead, he walked to the small balcony and stood there, looking over the street.
Children laughed. Birds chirped. The distant ice cream truck’s jingle echoed faintly through the wind.
It was a peaceful world.
Eventually, the sounds of pixelated victory erupted from the TV inside.
Cole stood up, stretched his arms overhead, and let out a satisfied sigh.
His slippers scraped softly against the polished wooden floor as he walked into the kitchen.
The soft hum of a coffee machine followed, along with the sound of mugs clinking.
A mont later, Cole stepped out onto the balcony holding two steaming cups.
"Here," he said, offering one to Naless Death without looking at him. "This one’s bitter. I didn’t add sugar since you seed like the type who didn’t like sugar."
Naless Death hesitated, then took the cup.
The aroma was unfamiliar but pleasant.
Cole leaned against the balcony railing, sipping casually as he looked out at the street.
"This is my world," he said. "I was born here. It’s not the sa universe as yours."
Naless Death took a sip as well. He didn’t reply.
"It was also called Earth," Cole continued with a quiet chuckle. "Though we had no dragons, no mana. Just humans. We lived, worked, struggled. Then the apocalypse ca."
Naless Death’s gaze shifted to him.
"People started dying. Structures fell. Governnt collapsed. Cities turned to ruins. We were forced to fight."
A long silence followed.
The peaceful street below didn’t match the images forming in Naless Death’s mind.
"You might not rember it but your world was also destroyed by an apocalypse."
"What?"
"It’s not a coincidence," Cole said slowly. "Fate has a strange way of tying things together. When I crossed over to your universe, I didn’t just bring myself. I brought the fate of my world with . It followed . And eventually... it caught up to your Earth too."
Naless Death stayed silent.
There was no point arguing over sothing he couldn’t verify.
"You’re not going to bla ?" Cole asked suddenly, glancing sideways.
"Would that change anything?" Naless Death asked back.
That made Cole laugh.
"Good answer. Actually, it would. My powers are... let’s just say they are beyond anything you can think of. I can stop the apocalypse that destroyed your planet."
"You’re talking about the Path of Achievents?"
"Oh, no," Cole said with a casual wave of his hand. "That’s just sothing I made up once I got to your universe. The Eternals were annoying about using powers from another world.
"So, I used a few tools from ho, dressed them up, and called them the Path of Achievents. The system was just sothing so the Eternals would stop pestering around."
That actually stunned Naless Death.
"You created the Path of Achievents for just this?"
"Yeah."
Naless Death turned fully toward him. He stayed silent for a few seconds before h asked,
"You’ve t the Eternals?"
"Yeah."
"How strong are you?" Naless Death asked finally.
Cole kept staring into the distance.
"?" he chuckled, and looked back at Naless Death. "I’m the strongest there is."
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