Naless Death looked at him carefully.
"...You’re insane. If you wanted to teach that technique, you could’ve taught it to with a more normal thod."
"Probably."
Cole laughed.
He had no intention of ever harming Naless Death.
Why would he do that to a person who liked gas enough to combine them into his Path?
All he wanted was to help Naless Death learn Resonance properly.
The Resonance he had used against Barbatos was half-baked.
However, the one he used right now was good enough.
Cole sipped his coffee again and leaned against the balcony railing like nothing had happened.
"I’ll give you the freebie when I feel like it, and now you can go."
He snapped his fingers.
Naless Death’s consciousness blanked out instantly.
When he opened his eyes again, he was back in his forge.
He slowly looked down at his hands.
Power pulsed through them.
He felt far stronger than before.
Resonance had taken root within him.
His grip tightened.
He could feel it clearly now.
’My strength... it’s several folds higher than before.’
And the most shocking part?
’I should be able to fight a Stage-5 now.’
The idea alone was absurd.
The leap from peak Stage-4 to Stage-5 was an infinitely wide chasm.
Naless Death doubted anyone in the history had ever been able to cross that chasm.
But now, he could do it.
He was still processing the weight of that realization when he heard Leonora’s voice behind him.
"Naless Death?" she called out. "Did sothing... happen?"
"...?"
"You feel different," she said, stepping closer. "Your presence... it’s changed."
She narrowed her eyes, scanning him.
As soone who had housed a Supre in her body multiple tis, Leonora had a sensitivity to strength that few others could match.
Even subtle changes didn’t escape her notice.
"It’s nothing much," Naless Death replied. "How much ti has passed since I started ditating?"
"An hour," she said after a short pause.
That lined up with how long he had spent speaking with Cole. He nodded.
Without explaining further, he sat back down and resud his ditation.
There were no more distractions now.
It was ti.
’It’s ti I devour the Path of Achievent.’
He cracked open his Seed of Existence again and reached inward, targeting a very specific part of himself—his Intent of Existence.
Within that Intent, the connection to the Universal Codex System resided.
He aid for it and began devouring the thread connecting to his Intent of Existence.
The mont he touched it, sothing hit him.
An overwhelming flood of information slamd into his mind like a tidal wave.
The thread contained knowledge about himself.
This was the information being sent by Universal Codex System to update his status in real-ti.
Each mont of his existence, each shift in power, each passing second was being recorded.
He clenched his jaw.
The flood of information was too overwhelming. Even for soone like him, the intensity was staggering.
But he didn’t stop.
He forced himself to endure it and kept devouring the connection.
His Darkness wrapped around the thread of information like a hand gripping a rope.
With his Consciousness, he followed the path of the thread to its source.
It led him into a strange series of subdinsions.
Shadowy spaces filled with distorted ti and fragnted matter.
He moved through them blindly, like a man in a dark tunnel holding onto a single rope, hoping it would lead sowhere.
Soon, he noticed sothing.
The thread he was following wasn’t alone.
Dozens of others floated nearby. Then hundreds. Thousands. Millions. They kept increasing until their numbers beca uncountable.
He didn’t touch them.
Not yet.
He wanted to see where they were all heading before doing anything that might affect others.
Devouring one was one thing.
Accidentally severing another being’s connection to their System? That was sothing else.
That’s when he noticed it.
Pop.
Naless Death crossed so sort of boundary.
He looked up... and froze.
A chill ran through his entire body.
In front of him floated a single, thin line.
It seed almost aningless at first, barely even visible.
But then it expanded. Suddenly and violently.
It grew thicker—infinitely thick—before collapsing back to its original form.
Then it expanded again.
And again.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
Nine tis it expanded and shrank.
Each of those nine expansions looked lifeless. Burnt down.
The tenth expansion was unlike them.
It was different.
It was brimming with energy. With life.
"Are those two expansions fused?"
The ninth and tenth expansions were fused together.
It wasn’t a clean fusion, either.
It looked forced, ugly, almost broken.
The pulse of energy between the two didn’t blend naturally.
It was like watching a scar form between two worlds that weren’t ant to touch.
And then the horror revealed itself.
After the tenth expansion, the line began branching.
Infinitely.
Every heartbeat birthed new paths.
So glowed bright for a mont, then dimd and faded like burnt-out stars.
Others remained vibrant like the tenth expansion and stretched outward endlessly.
"What are these branches?"
Naless Death stared, overwheld by the sheer magnitude of it.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
Above all of it—hovering over the tenth expansion and its infinite branches—was a figure.
A massive silhouette.
Chains bound his limbs.
Swords were stabbed into his torso and arms.
A dragon devouring its own tail was tattooed on his back.
Blood dripped from his wounds and fell into the tenth expansion, feeding the ever-growing branches.
Naless Death couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
He didn’t know who that was.
But deep down, his subconsciousness recognized the weight of the truth before his eyes.
His Existence shuddered.
The thread he’d been following continued forward, flowing into a cube floating just below the figure’s heart.
Countless other threads from the tenth expansion and its infinite branches flowed into that sa cube.
That cube...
"The Universal Codex System."
Naless Death’s head throbbed.
He wasn’t supposed to see this. His subconsciousness was trying to make him leave this place.
And even without it, sothing—or soone—was trying to push him back.
A foreign force was closing in, trying to eject him from this space.
Whatever this realm was, he wasn’t supposed to be here. Not yet.
But he didn’t back away.
Not yet.
He grit his teeth and pushed forward, dragging himself through the pressure like he was wading through thick mud.
Each movent took effort.
His body didn’t move the way it should.
Space around him didn’t follow normal laws.
But he kept going.
’I need to reach that cube.’
He needed to devour the cube, or at least a part of it.
It would grant him the understanding of Path of Achievent.
"I can recreate the Universal Codex System with Shadow Core Concept. All I know need to do is devour it and understand how it works."
He got closer. Inch by inch.
The cube glowed brighter.
The threads attached to it pulsed, like veins in a heart.
Every mont he stayed, the pressure increased.
He was starting to lose sensation in his limbs.
His thoughts were slowing. Even his Darkness was starting to retreat.
But he forced it back into motion.
He’d co this far. He wasn’t going to stop.
Not now.
Not after seeing that.
The ten expansions. The branching lines. The figure in chains.
And this cube... this System... the anchor that was holding everything from descending into chaos.
Naless Death reached out.
His fingers stretched forward, trembling.
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