Streams of knowledge flowed into Naless Death.
Techniques, truths, foundational structures of the Sacred Treasure.
It all poured in, shaping his understanding with such clarity that it almost hurt.
When the last fragnt of the Abyss Mirror dissolved into knowledge, the core of it vanished.
The Sacred Treasure itself returned to Zarek’s possession.
Naless Death exhaled slowly.
His body hadn’t moved, but his mind felt like it had run a thousand battles.
Cole clapped him lightly on the back.
"Alright, that’s one favor done. Freebie officially used up."
"So that was the freebie you ntioned?"
"Yep." Cole grinned. "I never expected you to burn it this fast, though. Then again, you used it for a perfect opportunity. It’s almost as if you aid for all of this."
"...?"
"There is no point in acting clueless, you know," Cole chuckled. "I can see that you were trusting in saving you from Zarek in case things went south."
Naless Death’s gaze changed, no longer looking clueless.
There wasn’t any point in lying anymore.
"I didn’t know what the freebie was," he admitted. "But even if it had turned out to be sothing else... knowing you, you would’ve saved anyway. And then said the freebie was used."
Cole looked at him for a second. Then he laughed.
"Smart guy," he said. "No wonder you keep annoying people way out of your pay grade."
Naless Death let out a tired breath.
"It’s not like I go out of my way to do that."
"Sure, sure," Cole said, clearly not believing a word. "Well, you survived your first real brush with a Supre’s anger. That’s sothing."
Naless Death wasn’t happy about that.
The way the Supre of Shadows easily accepted Cole’s deal after threatening to kill Naless Death at all cost felt.... wrong.
It was almost as if this was what Supre of Shadows wanted.
As if Shadow Supre had been planning for this mont all along.
’I am overthinking it.’
Naless Death must’ve gotten Abyss Mirror from a Shadow Trial.
Then, right now, he t Zagreus in his Shadow Trial.
The situation with Zagreus’ Shadow Trial was forcing him to create his own Path as fast as possible.
And due to that, he devoured Path of Achievent.
That led him to et Cole, and gaining his favor.
And now, that favor that transferred from Naless Death to Shadow Supre.
Why did this happen?
Because Naless Death was devouring the treasure given to him by the Shadow Supre.
’Supre of Shadows was involved in all situations.’
’Did he do manipulate everything so that he could get a favor from Cole?’
Naless Death recalled what Cole had said when he t Shadow Supre right now.
"You shouldn’t do things so brazenly reckless."
Did it an that Cole already knew all of this was happening due to Shadow Supre’s planning, and that angered Cole?
’No, there is no way Shadow Supre can plan that far ahead.’
’I’m just overthinking things.’
After all, why would Shadow Supre need the favor of Cole?
Was there sothing that even Shadow Supre could not do by himself?
...
Naless Death returned to the forge.
The world outside the Shadow Realm felt distant, like a dream he was slowly waking from.
The air here was heavier, warr, and the ever-burning embers of the forge buzzed gently in the background.
It wasn’t silence, but it was the closest thing to peace he could find right now.
He took a slow breath.
His mind was still in chaos.
No matter how much he tried to ignore it, the fact that Shadow Supre might be planning sothing big left him with many questions.
But none of that mattered right now.
He looked around at the tools, the stone platforms, the shelves packed with ores and refined parts he’d made before.
Slowly, his focus returned to the present.
He needed to deal with one thing at a ti.
"The ability of Abyss Mirror..." he muttered. "To think it was just an application of Resonance."
He sat down on one of the reinforced steel benches near the center and called up the stored knowledge Zarek had granted him.
A string of thought fragnts floated to the surface of his mind—techniques, formulas, structure matrices.
None of them were complicated on their own.
But when combined, they ford sothing terrifyingly efficient.
Abyss Mirror functioned by resonating with external phenona (techniques).
Upon contact, whatever technique it was, the mirror aligned its internal structure to match with the external source.
’Resonance was the key all along.’
As the contact was made with techniques, Abyss Mirror absorbed information.
This was shown through the percentage increase: 0% to 100%
Once the copy percentage reached 100%, the Mirror had copied the technique completely.
The user could now use the re-constructed technique.
That was its true function.
"This ability is already good. But even more surprising was how it strengthened techniques."
That part had puzzled him the most.
During his earlier battles, he had always treated Abyss Mirror’s ranking-up effect as a mysterious built-in function.
It would upgrade a technique once it hit 200% mastery, but no one—not even himself—had understood how.
Now he did.
"It’s actually similar to how I use multi-fold enchantnts during Core Creation," he muttered.
After Abyss Mirror completed a 100% replica of a technique, it marked it internally as Technique No. 1.
Once the resonance with the sa phenonon continued beyond that point, it didn’t simply refine the first technique.
Instead, it started building a second copy in parallel—Technique No. 2—in a separate space.
Once the second reached full maturity, Abyss Mirror used resonance again.
This ti, between the two techniques (Technique No. 1 and Technique No. 2).
The techniques would be fused.
The result was exponential amplification.
Not an evolution, not a variation, but a direct rank-up of the original technique.
Naless Death leaned back slightly, processing it all.
"This is the sa as using multiple cores with the sa technique and activating them at once," he said. "Except I don’t use resonance. I was just brute forcing it."
Resonance was useful.
With just fusion of two techniques, it would lead to rank up.
Naless Death’s fusion needed several techniques of sa kind to have a similar rank-up effect.
"If I use Resonance with my Core Creation...."
The result would be terrifying.
But even more terrifying was Shadow Supre.
"Seems a lot of Shadow Supre’s abilities revolve around resonance," he thought. "It ans he can throw punches above his weight limit."
That was going to be a problem.
Naless Death stood and walked over to the side platform.
The material shelf auto-sorted itself as he approached, revealing tals of various ranks, essences he’d forged over the past decades he had spent in the Site, while being trained by the demon in the art of forging
He paused, hand resting on the edge of the shelf.
’Shadow Supre isn’t trustable.’
’There is chance I might have to face him in the future.’
That was simply overreaching.
He wasn’t even invincible among Stage 5, yet he was talking about facing a Supre.
Yet, that was the truth.
He needed to prepare for the future.
"I need a counterasure. Sothing that can interfere with or deconstruct resonance-based techniques."
He didn’t know if such a thing existed yet. But he would have to find or create it.
Later.
For now, he had another task.
He turned back to the main forge and exhaled.
"I should start building my Path."
He had everything he needed.
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