The Crucible burned hot, a million simultaneous battles raging across the colossal, multi-world arena.
Uranus, the Demigod of Life and Combat, found himself locked in a frustrating stalemate. His opponent, Immuno, the horned horse-like demigod, was an enigma wrapped in an unbreakable shield.
Every blow Uranus landed, each punch carrying the force to shatter moons, simply... vanished, absorbed by Immuno’s strange ability.
"Be careful, Uranus!" Gaia’s voice echoed in his mind, her tone laced with worry.
She floated serenely a safe distance away, her Aura of Life a gentle, protective balm against the chaotic shockwave from the attacks. "I sense his power growing with every hit you deliver! It’s like he’s feeding on your attacks!"
"Yeah, I can feel that," Uranus replied through gritted teeth. His hands stopped, not from the impact, but from the sheer frustration.
He felt the stored energy radiating from Immuno, a potential counter-attack building like a gathering storm.
He recognized the terrifying synergy: one talent negated all incoming damage, while the other weaponized that very negation.
It was a perfect, infuriating loop. He could puml Immuno for a thousand years and achieve nothing but charging his opponent’s ultimate weapon.
He looked at Immuno’s serene, almost mocking smile, and then a different kind of smile touched his own lips; a warrior’s grin, not of aggression, but of cunning.
"You truly are powerful," Uranus conceded, his voice suddenly calm, almost conversational. "A truly formidable opponent." He paused, letting the complint hang in the air.
"But you seem to be forgetting sothing important. This is the second round of the tournant. We don’t need to fight to a dead end here."
Before Immuno could process the sudden shift in tone, Uranus moved. He wasn’t aiming for a knockout blow.
He wasn’t aiming for the demigod at all. He burst forward with the speed of a striking cot, his hand darting out not towards Immuno’s face, but towards the shimring token bound securely at his waist.
Immuno, still basking in the glow of Uranus’s complint and anticipating another futile punch, reacted a fraction of a second too late.
Uranus’s fingers closed around the token. He didn’t snatch it. He didn’t pull it. He simply held it, a gesture that froze the battle in an instant.
"Checkmate," Uranus said, his grin widening. "I seem to have won this little exchange. But," he added, his grip remaining firm but not forceful, "I know you don’t want to be eliminated just like this, not with a power like yours. And frankly, I enjoyed our... spar."
He offered Immuno a deal, a warrior’s pact. "How about this? We go our separate ways for now. And we et again in the final round, where we can truly settle this without these pesky rules getting in the way?"
Immuno stared at Uranus, then at the hand holding his token, his life in this tournant. He recognized this tactical retreat.
Uranus couldn’t beat him, not yet, but he had found a way to win the round. And more than that, he had offered him a chance, a show of respect between warriors. Immuno nodded slowly. "Okay," he replied, the single word sealing their truce.
Uranus released the token, gave a respectful nod, and shot off into the sky, leaving Immuno to contemplate the strange, honorable warrior he had just encountered.
High above, in his Emperor’s throne, Sunny watched the scene unfold and let out a long, weary sigh, facepalming himself. ’Rules lawyering his way out of a fight he couldn’t win. Is that really the kind of champion I’m raising?’ he thought, a mix of amusent and exasperation swirling within him.
"Well," he finally conceded with a chuckle, "a win is a win, I suppose, and he wasn’t supposed to fight as anyways" He had to appreciate the cunning. Uranus wasn’t just a brute; he was learning to think like a commander.
His gaze then shifted from the arena to a different kind of prize.
Adam, before returning to start the second round of the tournant had gifted Sunny sothing invaluable: a complete record, a divine mory crystal containing the descriptions of all his talents, both the mundane and the legendary.
It was an inheritance, the accumulated power of the firstborn God passed down to his successor.
Sunny focused his God’s Eye on the mory crystal. The list was staggering. Hundreds of SS-Grade talents, each a masterpiece of divine power.
But his attention was imdiately drawn to the pinnacle, the six SSS-Grade talents that had defined Adam’s reign. He already possessed Divine Growth (forrly Overgrowth) and God’s Eye. Now, he examined the other four talents, his mind racing with the possibilities.
First, Soul Splitting.
[Talent Na: Soul Splitting]
[Grade: SSS]
[Description: Allows the user to split their soul into four distinct parts. The main soul retains absolute control over the others. When not under direct control, the sub-souls can operate independently, each possessing the full strength and talents of the original.]
Sunny’s mind imdiately latched onto the strategic implications. "Doesn’t this basically an... immortality, perfected?" he whispered.
He pictured it: one fragnt of his soul hidden safely away, perhaps in the arena of emphiany of the Realm of Advancent where even Demon Lords could not reach.
Even if his main body and the other three fragnts were utterly destroyed, annihilated beyond even the power of Divine Immortality to restore, that final, hidden piece would remain.
From that anchor, he could rebuild, regenerate, return. It was the ultimate failsafe, a contingency against cosmic-level threats. He imdiately added it to his ntal list of future acquisitions.
Next, Resilience. It sounded almost mundane compared to the others, but as Sunny read the description, he felt a cold, profound awe settle over him.
[Talent Na: Resilience]
[Grade: SSS]
[Description: Your very existence resists alteration. Upon suffering damage from any SSS-Grade source (powers, laws, entities), your being instantly analyzes the nature of the attack and adapts, gaining a significant, permanent resistance to that specific effect.
This adaptation can occur multiple tis, allowing you to gradually beco conceptually resistant even to the most powerful forces in the multiverse.]
Sunny finally understood. This was how Adam had survived. Not just the final battle, but the million years that followed, adrift in the Heaven realm, his soul constantly gnawed at by Maledictus’s SSS-Grade curse.
Even broken, even powerless, this talent had stubbornly refused to let him be erased. It was the ultimate shield, an ability to endure the unendurable.
He thought of Deimos, the Demon Lord of Discord, a being whose power, Adam wasn’t able to adapt to, even with this talent, his form shivered by the re thought of him. He quickly changed his thoughts by focusing on the next talent.
Blessings, He already possessed an SS-Grade version, copied from Cerberus. But Adam’s original... it was on another level entirely.
[Talent Na: Blessing]
[Grade: SSS]
[Description: Allows the user to bestow any known talent, spell, or mory upon a being lower in the cosmic hierarchy. Each blessing has a fixed cost of ten thousand faith points, regardless of the power or grade being transferred.]
Sunny stared at the last line, his mind going completely blank for a second before erupting in a silent scream of pure, agonizing regret. "A fixed price? Ten thousand faith?!"
He rembered the hundreds of millions he had spent blessing Ragnok with Reality Talk, the billions poured into gifting talents to his demigods. All that faith... wasted.
"I should have copied this talent from the start!" he groaned. "I could have earned quadrillions by blessings the gods" With a heavy heart, he added this tragically overlooked power to his acquisition list, the missed opportunity a bitter pill to swallow.
Finally, he ca to the last SSS-Grade talent, the one whose na held the most mystery, the most weight: First-Born.
Adam was the first God born from the Void. What power did that title truly grant? Every piece of cosmic lore, every secret Adam had shared, clicked into place as he read the description.
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