Barbatos inwardly acknowledged Naless Death’s superiority in strategic battle.
However....
"If you can’t awaken your Path fully, then we have no need to fear you."
Barbatos understood that if Naless Death had to fake an enlightennt, then it ant he was nowhere near to actual enlightennt.
Without a Path, they had nothing to worry about.
Barbatos dashed towards Naless Death.
He didn’t try to undo the Silence on Zagreus.
There was no point.
Zagreus couldn’t rember the previous tilines.
He wouldn’t know what Naless Death had done or how to counter it.
Turning back ti to remove the magic wouldn’t matter. Naless Death could do silence Zagreus again before Zagreus understood what was happening.
Berserker had been watching this unfold with narrowed eyes.
A grin slowly stretched across his face.
"This is it," he muttered to himself, barely able to keep the excitent out of his voice. "This is what I’ve been waiting for."
It wasn’t just a fight anymore.
It was a battle where every move counted, where strength alone wouldn’t carry you to victory.
All of them were powerful.
All of them had aces they hadn’t fully revealed yet.
And they were all walking on a tightrope, where a single misstep could an instant defeat.
Berserker’s grin widened.
"A proper fight."
With a loud laugh, he lunged toward Zagreus.
Even silenced, the Ancient Dragon blood flowing through Zagreus gave him imnse power.
He blocked the initial strike, his claws tearing into the ground as he braced himself, but Berserker didn’t let up.
At the sa ti, Barbatos attacked Naless Death again.
Shadow tendrils lashed out like whips, sharp and fast, aiming to pin him down or slice through his limbs.
Naless Death fought back.
When he was about to be overwheld, he would use [All-Shadow] to slip back into the past at the exact mont before he would have been struck.
He knew he wouldn’t win by doing this forever.
It was just a stalling tactic.
What mattered was what he was focusing on during those monts in between.
’I need to improve Resonance.’
Ti lost aning inside the battlefield.
From the outside, it might have seed like only seconds were passing.
But within the bubble of looped ti and constant rewinds, the battle had stretched into days.
Over and over again, Naless Death threw himself into combat, only to rewind the mont before defeat.
But each ti, his mind dug deeper into his technique.
’Resonance was created by combining all of my Concepts,’ he thought, ducking under a blade and letting a shadow claw tear through his side before activating [All-Shadow] again.
Blood splattered the air, but he didn’t flinch.
’The resulting fusion of Concepts produces a raw destructive energy.’
He had always used that destructiveness as the main feature of Resonance.
But now, in the middle of this chaos, he saw sothing he hadn’t before.
’It’s not just ant for destruction. That’s not the only way to use it.’
His understanding deepened with every cycle.
Barbatos began to sense sothing was off.
His attacks grew more furious, and desperate.
He conjured legions of shadow beasts, each shaped from the minds of slaughtered gods and monsters.
Zagreus, still unable to speak, created countless weapons and rained down infinite bombardnt from the sky.
The ntal pain wouldn’t kill Naless Death.
But it should freeze his mind, if only for a mont.
’It seems like he is gaining an enlightennt. We need to stop him.’
They had no way of knowing whether Naless Death was truly gaining enlightennt or faking it again, but the risk was too great to wait and see.
This ti, though, Naless Death refused to let them break his concentration.
He fought back, even as his body broke again and again.
Even as his bones cracked and blood sprayed across the broken battlefield, he didn’t let his mind stray.
’The destructive output of Resonance is like burning the fuel.’
’The fuel explodes and does damage.’
’But fuel isn’t ant to explode. Sure, that does damage, but there is a better way to use the fuel.’
’It’s to power sothing.’
He was no longer using Resonance simply as a weapon.
’The fused Concepts—the energy created from them—can be used to empower a Concept.’
He had been wasting the Resonance Energy, using it as a blunt force tool instead of harnessing it to reinforce his Concepts.
His grip on his sword tightened.
He exhaled.
Then, for the first ti, he channeled Resonance into his World Devouring Flas.
The flas twisted around his blade, black and crimson, dense with potential.
He swung.
The blade passed through Barbatos.
At first, Barbatos thought it was a failed attack.
That Naless Death hadn’t gained enlightennt.
But then, the world started to burn.
The flas clung to his World, spreading like a curse.
The fire was consuming the very essence of Barbatos’s World.
His mind recoiled from the backlash.
But he kept his eyes at Naless Death, eyes filled with the dawning realization of what had happened.
Zagreus noticed too. He stopped mid-charge.
His fists were raised, but he didn’t strike.
Because it was already too late.
Naless Death had learned a technique beyond what one should be able to learn at his Stage.
They could see it.
The oppressive pressure rolling off of him wasn’t just power.
It was clarity.
It was transcendence.
He had broken his limits.
And in doing so, he had found it.
His Path...
....that he walked on to grow stronger.
....that he walked on to defeat his enemies.
....that he walked on to overco his limits.
....that he walked on for eons and would continue to walk on until he reached the Zenith.
It was the Path Naless Death would never stop walking upon.
If Naless Death beca the strongest in his universe, then he would go to other universes.
He would continue doing so until he was the strongest in all universes.
When he beca the strongest in all universes, he aid to go beyond, to wherever that was.
Naless Death would keep on walking on his Path until the end of eternity.
That was Naless Death’s Path.
To continuously transcend his limits.
Until the end of Eternity.
It was...
The Path of Eternal Transcendence.
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