Chapter 391: Aspect Adaptation (II)
And that was exactly what she did.
A deep, resonant groan tore through the atmosphere as the space around her began to fold inward, warping slightly as if her existence had suddenly bee a physical singularity.
The sudden move from Althea pletely altered the dynamics of her soul, causing a ripple effect that visibly warped reality around her body.
She bore no natural ownership over the divine power, but Finn did, and by tapping directly into his continuous flow, she used the divine energy to fuel her own concept of Order.
Instantly, it brought more than just a balance between the two opposing forces… It enforced absolute structure.
Before everyone’s eyes, Althea’s body began to emanate a profound, terrifying feeling of perfect alignment. The adaptation of karma and inevitability bined seamlessly with her own concept of Order, causing the three distinct authorities to fall into a plementary, devastating dance.
It made her current existence vastly more terrifying than what it should have been with the adaptation alone.
As the might of her soul reached such terrifying heights, the cries of the billion vengeful souls began to echo in her ears.
She felt their agonizing pain. She felt their torment. She felt their multi-generational aggrievement and their desperate call for justice.
The power surging through her being continued to build as she felt all of their grievances. And when it finally reached its peak, she parted her eyes open, trembling slightly from the sheer weight of the power about to burst out of her.
Her eyes were deep, flat, and steady. The blinding glow had pletely receded, replaced by a cold, otherworldly authority that locked directly onto Sage Limitless’s frozen figure.
A look of utter dread, mixed with a bitter, spiteful unwillingness, colored the Sage’s face as he hung helpless in the air.
In this state of near-omnipotence, Althea stared across distance at the Limitless… and all she felt was pity.
Through the lens of absolute karma, she saw him for who he truly was. She didn’t see the old monster who had plagued their world for millennia. She didn’t see the power-crazed Transcendent whose existence was actively draining the life force of his own plane to fuel his life. She didn’t see the tyrant who had robbed their world of its ability to hold a greater power, or the architect behind a billion tormented souls.
Rather, she saw an innocent young boy.
The Sage’s eyes, stripped of their haughtiness, betrayed his fundamental nature:
He was just the same fearful young kid who had believed the entire world was against him. A child who had spent his early years questioning why he had been born, and why an existence as fundamentally wrong as his had been allowed to step into reality in the first place.
She watched that ancient fear morph into a bitter, defiant rage within his eyes, before it finally settled into a resentful acceptance.
He knew he was about to die. He knew she was about to act as his executioner, and he had accepted it anyway.
It was just the way.
Some people were simply born to be villains under the laws of reality. They could fight against it, they could stifle it, and they could try to prevent it.
But when the world itself had decided from the very moment of your birth that your existence was a cancer, what options were left to you?
To die quietly?
To offer yourself up to be slaughtered by those you inconvenienced?
To accept that you were never meant to exist, without ever trying to fight against the terrible, cursed fate you had been dealt?
What a joke.
The heavy acceptance on Limitless’s face suddenly morphed into a full-blown, mocking grin.
He stared directly at Althea, the newly forged vessel for a billion vengeful souls. He stared at their collective cry for retribution. He stared at their demand for justice… and he laughed.
“I do not regret it!” he yelled to the loud skies, forcing his neck backward to stare straight into the crushing gaze of the Great Dao.
“I do not regret it at all! It was either me or them! I am no saint! I am no martyr! If I were to do it all over again, I would do the same unhesitatingly!”
He lowered his chin, meeting Althea’s flat, unmoving gaze. His eyes then shifted from her to the Errant Heretic, who was continuously fueling the divine adaptation from behind her.
“I envy you, Errant!” he yelled, his voice carrying over the wind. “You possess the power to actually defy the rules of your existence! I never saw it before, but now… now I understand why Arros had chosen you…”
An unreadable, cryptic glint flashed deep within his eyes as he left his final words hanging in the air. His gaze seemed to be trying to convey a specific truth to Finn, but Finn, standing firm behind his mask, only frowned slightly.
He pondered the Sage’s words over in his mind for a brief second, trying to decipher the underlying meaning while keeping his main focus on fueling Althea with the adaptation.
But in the end, he had no choice but to wave the thought away a moment later, focusing his entire task on the execution.
Limitless was just a dying man. There was no telling what a creature of his scale would say at the gates of death simply to sow discord or delay his own demise.
However, as Finn watched Althea raise her hand to initiate the final strike, he couldn’t pletely shake the lingering, heavy feeling that settled at the back of his mind.
Althea raised her palms toward the dark sky, her voice echoing with the unified weight of a billion unappeased souls. The adaptation of karma and inevitability became almost pletely corporeal around her arm, looking like a massive, descending sword of pure judgment poised directly over Limitless’s head.
“Voice of a Billion Vengeful… I hear your cry for retribution…
I hear your cry for vengeance… I hear your cry for judgment…
Allow me to be the sword that delivers justice unto the head of your assailant.”
She began to lower her hand, the space splitting open beneath her palm as she spoke the final words:
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