Far in the distance, beyond the split canyon, the sun rose.
The ash that had covered the sky due to the aftereffects of using my ability had finally settled, and the view cleared completely.
As the crimson clouds dispersed, a clear sky was revealed, with a neat straight crack stretching to the horizon.
I stood quietly, gazing at Kalakh’s corpse.
The massive hole created by the complete penetration of his abdomen still glowed red and emitted white steam.
…I had only intended to dislocate his limbs, but ended up pulverizing everything except his limbs instead.
To be honest, I never imagined the power would be this intense.
I knew that the Power of the Rune allowed one to manipulate elements, but I never expected compressing hundreds of tons of magma into a single point and releasing it would create such a scene.
The authorities over space and time I had dealt with so far caused minimal effects when their powers were used. But the manipulation of the elemental essence pervading the four directions exceeded all expectations in terms of destructive power.
“…Was it excessive?”
I stood quietly, clenching and unclenching my hand as I checked my condition.
The Rune of Elements had been successfully absorbed, but as usual, when absorbing a Rune to gain power, an appropriate sacrifice… that is, an offering, was necessary.
The least side-effect offering detailed in the original story was magic power.
But as I had already expended my magic power absorbing the Rune of Time, I was in need of a new offering.
Damn, I even considered offering my sense of touch.
Since I was effectively in a constant state of invincibility, I thought touch might not be necessary. However, considering I hadn’t yet fully enjoyed what a healthy adult male should, the thought of losing touch was more terrible than anything else, so I gave up on that.
Most importantly, losing all sensation would mean transforming into something that was no longer human.
The value of an offering is calculated based on how much worth it has to me at this moment.
The problem is that this value is based on the world’s standards, not mine.
What I might think as unnecessary could, in reality, hold immense value as an offering.
This meant I had to consider the value of various offerings from multiple aspects, and the one I ultimately selected was…
‘Part of physiological functions.’
I sacrificed a portion of the fundamental physiological functions that a human should have.
As such, I no longer needed to eat and no longer required sleep or felt fatigue.
Of course, this didn’t mean I couldn’t eat completely.
Since my sense of touch still works, enjoying gourmet food was still possible, though eating became more of a hobby rather than a necessity to live.
…It seemed I was moving further away from being human, but what could I do?
It was a foregone conclusion ever since I absorbed the Rune.
Honestly, it wasn’t entirely devoid of advantages, so I found myself thinking that this tradeoff was rather decent.
At that moment,
Koo-ong!!
From Kalakh’s collapsing flesh, jet-black wisps began to slowly rise.
It was the fragment of chaos that had been latent inside, released after the completion of Destroying the Seeds of Doom.
After floating in the air for some time, it flew towards me and merged into the new Rune tattoo on the back of my hand.
At that moment, a tingling sensation spread throughout my body from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
It felt as though all my nerves were waking up simultaneously, and my consciousness expanded outward like ripples on the water’s surface.
“Kweurk…!”
The center of my hand grew hot as the tattoo glowed golden and its light began to radiate outward, consuming everything around it.
In an instant, it devoured the ground and sky alike, dyeing all four directions with golden light.
The world bathed in a golden hue.
It felt like floating in the universe, with no ground beneath my feet. An alien sensation of weightlessness.
With each exhalation, images of internal turmoil surged within me.
They seemed ready to erupt in a boiling explosion before suddenly freezing into solid form in the next instant.
This was the stage transitioning from the realm of Enlightenment of Reason to Sublimation.
The obstacle blocking me had been shattered after absorbing the Rune of Elements and the fragment of chaos.
At that moment, a vibration rang out from behind me.
Thousands, no, tens of thousands of beams of light cascaded like a waterfall and formed a massive ring.
It was a circular symbol resembling the primal time, revolving endlessly. It became a tremendous Ring, condensing the universe’s principles, shaking dimensions with its vibrations.
At that moment, the golden realm surrounding me met the world’s laws.
At first, it seemed like they were negating and colliding with each other, but they soon began to naturally intertwine.
Like melted ice mixing into water, the golden realm mixed with the world’s causality, reconstructing it from within.
This was not a simple assimilation but a transcendence.
Every time the world’s laws attempted to bind me, the golden realm would negate and redefine them.
The chains of causality broke.
Through the images encompassing the realm, it discovered the highest probabilities at countless branch points.
Kooong! Kooong! Kooong!
The light ring behind me grew even brighter, its rhythmic pulsations proving all these changes.
The golden shockwaves resounded through space, and massive causality ripples engulfed the entire region.
And at that moment,
Kwajik—
Cracks spread through space like a spider’s web.
The empty space fractured as if it were a windowpane, with countless cracks appearing instantly, shattering completely with a massive crash.
Yet,
“!!!”
It was as if time had stopped, and everything flowed excruciatingly slowly.
More accurately, my perception had momentarily caught up to time.
A fleeting moment felt like eternity.
The spectacle of space breaking into splinters like crystal shards came into view one by one.
Endless fragments filled the air, as if countless mirrors were being smashed simultaneously.
Among the trajectories of these scattered fragments, I clearly saw
The tiny ripples created by the breaking void.
The gaps in causality formed by the convergence of these ripples.
And the distortions in the laws beyond those gaps.
At that moment, a thunderous revelation surged through my mind.
The state of Sublimation.
It was a new level of enlightenment beyond the Enlightenment of Reason, never described in the original story.
With a creakling sound, the space shattered completely.
The fragments of causality painted across the void disintegrated, and as the golden realm dissipated, the volcanic terrain that was previously there reappeared.
“…Damn.”
…It felt out of control in many aspects, and honestly, I was a little shaken.
At this point, it felt like I was transforming into something beyond human, but as the description of the state of Sublimation hadn’t even appeared in the original story, everything felt strange and unfamiliar.
I blinked my eyes and cautiously opened my mouth.
“Acceleration.”
A golden mist shot out at an incredible speed.
It was so fast, almost near the speed of sound, making it hard to react. But it extended endlessly and soon disappeared beyond my cognitive range.
Images from the areas the mental projection covered filled my mind. As the range expanded, information overload approached.
Just as I felt I was reaching the limit, I spoke again.
“Transition.”
The space bent and distorted instantly.
As if folding a piece of paper, the distance between the space where I stood and the target point shrank instantly, until they finally met.
Shhiiit!
I teleported approximately 8 kilometers away instantaneously.
It was the edge of my cognitive range, close to the limit of my mental projection.
Long-distance teleportation.
I had finally obtained what was practically the strongest ability in the context of the world.
I could theoretically move to a much farther distance by planting mental markers at specific locations, but for now, it was limited to the range I had reached so far.
My impression of this ability?
“…Wow.”
Grinning,
It was a god-tier ability that couldn’t help but raise a smirk on my face.
Time passed, and it was finally the day of the Ragnarashut.
The giant circular arena with a diameter of 500 meters.
A solid cliff piercing through the clouds enclosed the arena, and inside, the flat land spread out.
The Ragnarashut was fundamentally held in private.
The leaders of each race serve as impartial witnesses to select the duel’s fairness, which was why the Chief of the Giant race, Atlash, and the Chief of the Narin tribe were present as witnesses, alongside Arkhan, the Grand Lord of the Lords’ Council.
Of course, I was also present in the arena with Arkhan.
Naturally, they had no way of knowing about Kalakh’s demise.
Thus, I calmly waited for the duel, pretending to know nothing.
With his already defeated state, there was no possibility of him showing up here, naturally making it the Third Lord’s victory.
And on the other hand,
Silvia, who just faced me…
[Re-analyzing the threat level of the target…]
[Error! Impossible to classify with the existing threat level system!]
[Re-analyzing survival rate…]
[※Warning: Survival rate 0% when hostile!]
[※Caution: Immediate evacuation recommended – Intrusion into the target’s area of influence confirmed!]
“…”
Seeing my survival rate drop from 0.001% to 0%, she swallowed hard.
