"But..."
His gaze sharpened.
What if I create millions of souls—each one holding a single trait?
The thought was insane, yet not completely out of reach.
He had already used his Nightmare Elent to create things before.
Creating shadows of his soul was sothing he could do easily.
"If I give each copy a different trait, then link them all back to myself..." Neo’s fingers drumd against his arm. "I could resonate them together. The output would multiply exponentially."
He frowned slightly.
"Well, if I combine them like that, only one of the traits would be strengthened. That’s not what I want."
Neo had a different plan.
He wasn’t going to let one trait be strengthened due to resonance.
His goal wasn’t to generate more energy from resonance or to empower a single trait.
He wanted to resonate the traits with raw force.
"Raw resonance," he murmured. "If the effects of all traits are combined, the result will be sothing else entirely. Sothing unnatural like an abomination."
The word didn’t frighten him.
If anything, it intrigued him.
He thought of a taphor.
It was like cutting sheets of paper into animal shapes.
One sheet was cut into a cat, another into a dog, another into a shark, another into a dinosaur.
Individually, they had form.
They were recognizable.
Each of these ’shaped paper’ was a trait.
But what if he stacked them all together (resonate them) and looked from above?
Nothing.
The overlapping cuts would blur into nonsense.
It wouldn’t look like a cat, or a dog, or anything else. Just a strange ss of shapes that ant nothing.
"That’s what happens when you resonate traits forcefully without trying to generate the resonance energy or strengthen a single trait," Neo said. "It wouldn’t create anything comprehensible."
But what if he took scissors to the stack?
What if he trimd away everything that only appeared once, and left behind the shapes that appeared most often?
"If most of the animals had tails, then the tail stays," he muttered. "If only one or two had it, then I cut it off."
It was simple logic.
By removing the rare and keeping the common, he would end up with sothing new. Sothing consistent.
"And when I look at the stack after that... I’ll see a chira."
A new trait.
One not born from a single Origin Rune, but from the echoes of millions.
It wouldn’t preserve the unique nature of the individual traits, but it would carry the common denominator.
Neo’s eyes glinted.
"I’m giving up the uniqueness of traits for unique abilities... in exchange for a trait that gives enormous raw power."
The new trait wouldn’t be complicated.
It wouldn’t give him so fancy new ability or a delicate trick.
But because it resonated with the shared nature of millions of traits, whatever effect it would give no matter how basic would be overwhelming, and trendous.
"Alright."
Neo closed his eyes.
He spread his Nightmare Elent outward.
Energy bled from his body and stretched across the barren plain where he stood.
The ground cracked under the weight of the elent, then split open as countless nightmares rose.
One by one, copies of his soul flickered into existence.
They weren’t perfect.
They lacked his Existence, and without that, they could never beco true beings.
But that was fine.
They didn’t need to be true.
They just needed to be anchors.
"Half-true is enough," Neo whispered.
The copies lined the barren plain like a vast army, stretching farther than the eye could see.
Each one carried his shape, and his eyes, but they were hollow, and incomplete.
Neo pointed to them, and traits began to flow.
Millions of runes tore themselves from his body and drifted into the copies.
Each hollow soul received one. A single trait, burned into its core.
When the last rune had left his hand, Neo clenched his fist.
"Now... Resonance."
The plain shook.
The copies shivered as power sparked between them.
A web of resonance began to form, millions of threads connecting each soul to the others.
The traits clashed and sang like a discordant roar echoing through the barren land.
Neo shut out the noise and forced control onto the resonance.
"Strip away everything unique," he reminded himself. "Keep only what repeats."
One by one, the effects of the traits fell away.
Rare abilities, strange mutations, unique quirks. They all were sealed off.
The borrowed traits were stripped down to their simplest forms.
Neo gritted his teeth.
His body trembled under the sheer force.
"Keep cutting," he muttered. "Don’t stop until only the common denominator remains."
The resonance shrieked louder.
A storm of conflicting power ripped across the plain.
The barren ground tore apart in vast fissures, stretching toward infinity.
The horizon cracked like glass.
Then, all at once, the storm collapsed.
Every copy of his soul froze.
Millions of traits humd.
Neo staggered back as the point pulsed.
It felt as if he was sharing a common heartbeat with all souls he had created, feeling the traits.
As if a giant burden (new trait) was being carried by all his souls together.
The new trait was near completion.
The light expanded in a violent wave.
The barren land shook like it was alive.
The ground split open, chasms swallowing everything in sight.
The sky tore itself apart. Fragnts of darkness scattered like broken glass.
The endless plain crumbled as though the world itself had reached its limit.
Neo stood in the center, every nerve in his body screaming.
He forced himself to stay upright, to hold the convergence steady.
"Co on," he hissed. "Finish it."
The light pulsed one last ti, then sank into his chest.
...
Bael POV
Bael sat back on his throne, one hand propping up his chin as the hall remained quiet.
The pocket universe—a small swirling vortex suspended in the middle of the chamber—had been stable since Neo entered it.
It pulsed faintly like a star contained in glass, its flow under his control.
That was why the sudden shiver through it made his brows furrow.
The vortex twisted.
Its calm rhythm broke apart.
Bael straightened.
His eyes narrowed as cracks spread across its surface like shattered glass.
A faint hiss of leaking energy filled the hall before the entire thing burst apart with a deafening crack.
The shockwave rolled across the chamber, so potent that the stone beneath the throne groaned.
Bael instantly lifted his hand, weaving a barrier that wrapped around the explosion before it could reach the far edges of the room.
The energy condensed like a raging storm forced into a bottle, straining but never breaking his hold.
Even with his strength, he couldn’t deny the weight behind it.
When the blast subsided, smoke hung heavy in the air.
Slowly, it cleared.
From the collapsing remains of the vortex, a figure walked out.
Bael’s gaze sharpened.
Neo.
But sothing was different.
Bael could feel it the mont Neo stepped forward.
The air trembled faintly, not from energy, not from a new ability, but from sothing heavier.
It was raw, unrefined power, leaking off him like heat waves from a furnace.
Bael raised a brow.
"What did you do?" His voice echoed in the silence.
Neo didn’t answer at first.
He simply flexed his fingers, opening and closing his hand as though testing the weight of his own strength.
The silence was overwhelming.
Bael leaned back slightly, studying him.
"You... feel strong," he admitted. "It’s not like soone who’s learned a dangerous ability or mastered a new elent. No. This is different. It’s like your body itself has changed... or should I say evolved."
Neo exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders.
The aura spilling from him made even Bael frown.
"What did you do? I’ve seen thousands of monsters and gods rise. But this feels like sothing else. Honestly, it feels like you could kill a Grade 5 Stage 6 God with one punch. What the hell did you do, princess?"
Neo raised a brow at the title but didn’t argue it.
He opened his palm once more, then closed it tightly.
Veins ran across his hand as power coursed through.
"I’ll explain later," Neo finally said. "But thanks for the pocket universe."
Bael blinked as Neo stepped forward and vanished in a blur, the oppressive aura fading from the hall as quickly as it ca.
The hall returned to silence, but Bael remained sitting on his throne, hand still propping his chin.
He muttered under his breath, "This brat gets more and more ridiculous every ti I see him."
...
Neo POV
Neo reappeared far from the hall, on a barren stretch of land that extended endlessly.
He lowered himself onto a large rock and sat cross-legged, focusing inward.
His pulse was steady, but the power surging through him felt bottomless.
He drew a slow breath.
"What the hell was that, Heavenly Record?"
A faint hum answered in his mind.
[Analyzing...]
He waited, staring at his palm.
[Analysis complete.]
[Godfather—]
"Neo."
[...]
There was silence as the Heavenly Record 1 paused, then attempted again.
[Godfather—]
"I’m deleting you if you call that again."
Neo frowned, rubbing his temple.
The response ca without hesitation.
[Master—]
"Alright, you seriously want to delete you? Fine. Be my guest."
[Wait!]
The words appeared hastily, almost panicked.
[All Heavenly Records are going to call you Godfather or Master. Even if you erase , this won’t change. Now, go ahead, delete if you like.]
"...Huh?"
Neo froze.
He had expected begging, or an excuse to live from the Heavenly Record.
Instead, the damn thing accepted death while casually reminding him he wouldn’t escape the embarrassing na anyway.
’...damn it.’
He sighed.
"Just tell what happened."
[All traits boost physical strength in so way, even if minor. The resonance you created amplified that effect.]
[Your current physical strength is approximately 9,117,598 tis greater than before your breakthrough.]
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