"Haha, I can tell by the look on your face," Ray laughed as he finally felt the earth beneath his bones.
"About your condition, big brother..." Greg hesitated, his voice uncertain.
"Don't worry about it," Ray replied, shaking his head and starting to walk away.
"Brother, should I announce your return?" Greg asked cautiously.
"No," Ray said firmly, shaking his head. "Don't announce anything. Understood?"
"Yes, big brother." Greg nodded and left to handle the restless soldiers.
Ray returned to his luxurious residence, where he settled down with his woman's. After spending ti reassuring them, he made his way to his research lab.
The research lab was filled with an array of advanced scientific equipnt, and many individuals in white coats moved purposefully around the space.
These people were humanity's finest—experts in biology, computer science, engineering, and countless other fields. They represented the pinnacle of human knowledge and skill.
As Ray entered, everyone imdiately bowed their heads in a mont of respectful silence.
"Hmm, carry on with your work," Ray commanded, his skeletal head nodding slightly as he walked toward the centre of the room.
Their gazes lingered on Ray's skeletal fra, a mix of curiosity and reverence in their eyes, before they returned to their tasks.
Ray approached the capsule situated in the centre of the room, its tallic surface gleaming under the lab lights.
With a calm resolve, he stepped into the capsule, which automatically sealed around him. Buttons lit up across the interface, and within monts, the capsule began descending underground.
[Scanning the master!]
[1… 5…]
Blue rays swept through the room, casting a vibrant glow as the scanning process continued for nearly an hour. At last, the rays dimd, and a tense silence filled the space as everyone held their breath.
The capsule slowly rose from the ground, the door opening with a hiss as smoke billowed out. From within, Ray's skeletal form erged.
"I couldn't recover," he muttered bitterly. Just then, a disk flew toward him.
Ray touched it with ease, instantly absorbing the information contained within.
He looked down at his skeletal form with his True Eyes. Though invisible to the naked eye, a white fla enveloped him—a powerful, persistent force that stubbornly blocked his healing, showing no sign of fading anyti soon.
"This is the true power of the sun, huh?" Ray muttered. Although the sun appeared as a burning ball, its true strength lay in the chemical reactions within it—fusion and fission. These forces, the sa that powered nuclear bombs, unleashed imnse energy from minimal material. This was the power of science.
"But how do I harness it?" he wondered aloud, drifting away from his research.
He made his way to his cosy bed, sinking into its softness with a sigh of relief. As he relaxed, he muttered:
"Status."
—
[Lifelevel- Celestial]
-Strength: 1,023 ton- Gene Limit broken
-Speed: 100.2k Km/h (50.1k original)
-Stamina: 10,780
-ntal strength: 20,023
-Physique and Vitality: 5,645]
—-
His stats had naturally broken all limits, enabling him to defeat planets and unleash unimaginable destruction.
A thousand tons of strength was just his average—not even close to his peak. Most remarkable was his speed, which was nearing the speed of light itself.
While the speed of light is three hundred thousand kilotres per second, Ray's current average was only around one hundred thousand kilotres per hour, though his peak was already far greater, quickly approaching light speed.
His Stamina and ntal Strength had also increased significantly, not to ntion his Physique and Vitality, which he valued most. These stats alone allowed him to stand here even though he was entirely a skeleton now.
These stats had mostly increased due to the birth of his children. Each child, especially the Awakened ones, granted Ray significantly greater stats. Though he hadn't had any Awakened children recently, the steady increase in stats was still much better than simply spreading his genes.
Ray then focused on the one stat that mattered most to him—the deciding factor in whether he could recover anyti soon.
---
[Shop points: 100,789]
---
He quickly opened the system shop and began scrolling through the items. There were nurous options, mostly skills with sky-high prices. Ray had only managed to amass a hundred thousand shop points in ten years—a respectable amount. He was honestly tempted by many of the skills on display.
"I need a cure."
After a long period of searching, Ray finally found three potential solutions to his problem. While there were likely many more options, the descriptions alone were unclear, and he couldn't fully discern their effectiveness just from reading them.
[Golden Body]
[Cost: 20,000]
[Skill: Transcendent-class]
[Description: The Golden Body allows the Awakener to transcend the limits of materialism, cleansing the body of all impurities. This enables the manifestation of the soul outside the body.]
This was the cheaper version of the skill that Ray could use to potentially remove the effect, at least in terms of skills.
[Devouring Body]
[Cost: 100,000]
[Skill: Primordial-class]
[Description: Allows the Awakener to devour everything and anything, even the laws of the world themselves. The consud matter is converted into pure energy, which can then be transford into the user's choosing.]
This was the more expensive option, one Ray could afford. Honestly, he was quite tempted by this skill. Not only would it solve his problem, but his power would skyrocket. With this ability, he could even devour the Sun itself and absorb its power.
[Healing Principle]
[Cost: 10,000]
[Skill: Divine-class]
[Description: Allows the user to grasp the laws of healing.]
"Hmm, what should I choose?" Ray pondered for a mont. These were the skills that could potentially remove the white fla of the Sun. While there were cheaper items that could do the job, they were one-ti use only, and for Ray, that would be a waste of ti at this point.
"Let's go with Devouring Body."
Ray imdiately chose the most powerful skill. It was undeniably broken, and though it had taken him ten years of effort to earn enough points, he believed he could make the investnt worthwhile.
The mont the shop points vanished from the red panel, Ray began to feel an unusual connection.
This connection was ethereal, almost intangible.
Without flesh, muscles, or organs, Ray couldn't directly sense the changes happening in his body, but he could certainly feel his understanding of consumption expanding rapidly.
Gradually, his perception shifted. He saw a figure—a person who ate and ate, only to pop and start eating again. Their entire life revolved around this cycle of consuming and bursting, until eventually, they withered away and died from eating too much.
"..." Ray stared at the scene in stunned silence, montarily at a loss for words.
Then his vision shifted again, this ti to a small worker bee in a hive. The bee worked tirelessly from the mont it was born until the mont it died, never stopping its labour.
"..."
Next, his perception morphed again, this ti to a lion. The lion hunted and ate, its life consud by the daily grind of survival, needing to work for every al.
Ray tilted his head in confusion, then his eyes suddenly widened in shock.
The surroundings shifted to a pitch-black, null void that completely engulfed him, leaving no trace of anything else.
"Where the fuck is this?"
Then, a bright light suddenly appeared, followed by a booming sound that filled the air. Ray looked on in confusion. The impact of the sound was overwhelming, but being in an ethereal state, he was untouched and unaffected.
Before his eyes, the space around him compressed to an unimaginable degree, and in the darkness, he saw a small black hole forming.
He squinted his eyes:
"This is a fucking black hole."
Instinctively, Ray stepped back, eyeing the black hole cautiously.
The space around him warped, and ti itself seed to collapse. The flow of reality beca distorted.
A rock appeared, floating slowly in the void, its approach toward the black hole almost imperceptible at first. But as it neared, the rock's speed increased rapidly, only to freeze completely, motionless in front of Ray, as if ti itself had stalled.
Then, the stone slowly withered away, fading from existence without even appearing to touch the black hole itself.
Ray shivered, a chill running down his spine as he eyed the black hole warily.
At that mont, a thought pierced his mind, echoing loudly in his ears:
"Devour everything. Ti and space are nothing but food to . I shall devour the universe."
Ray snapped his eyes open, and he was suddenly back in reality. He looked at his skeletal form, then opened his mouth wide. In an instant, all the invisible white flas that had been surrounding him were consud, devoured by him in an almost instantaneous action.
After swallowing it all, Ray's body began to recover. First, the organs inside him regenerated, each one renewing itself—his heart restored, his spleen ford anew, and his brain revitalised. Then, his muscles began to restructure themselves, slowly but steadily rebuilding his physical form.
Ray's skin gradually regenerated, revealing his flawless, muscular body. His tall fra stood strong, and his long white hair returned to its previous length and state.
He stretched his muscles, feeling a sense of relief and satisfaction as his body fully regained its vitality. He muttered with a grin, "This feels good."
Ray spent so ti simply stretching and performing exercises, savouring the sensation of his body healing and growing stronger.
Afterward, he stepped out of his room, only to find all his won standing there, their faces bright with happiness.
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