— Frey Starlight’s POV —
So ti had passed since I first set foot on imperial soil ..
a few hours, to be exact.
To be honest, ever since I reincarnated into Frey Starlight’s body, I hadn’t explored the Empire much at all.
My mories here were almost nonexistent.
Most of my life had been spent either inside the Temple... or within the Nightmare Lands.
So stepping through these streets now felt like walking into entirely new territory for the first ti.
Everywhere I went, I saw humans desperately trying to survive ..
fragile people with no way to defend themselves.
Their enemies were mindless corpses, puppets controlled by the power of the 13th Upper Demon: Geppetto.
Alongside those corpses were true demons as well ..
gray-skinned creatures with long horns and hollow eyes.
Primitive demons.
They were strong by the standards of ordinary humans, who stood no chance against such monsters.
But in front of ... they were nothing but trivial obstacles.
SLASH!!
From ti to ti, under the wing of darkness,
a violent purple radiance cracked through the night, shaking the entire region.
Monts later, the corpses and demons were reduced to shredded pieces scattered across the ground.
The fleeing humans always stopped, stunned, unable to comprehend what was happening ..
trying to figure out the identity of their savior.
But I was gone before they could gather their thoughts.
I didn’t have the ti to lead them or guide them to safety.
They had to survive on their own.
"You pretend you’re leaving them to fend for themselves...
yet you’re the one who just saved them."
Naless’s voice echoed in my mind, contradicting my thoughts.
"I rely ran into them by chance.
It’s not like I ca here to rescue them."
I answered briefly, but Naless replied again.
"So human lives an little to you?
Or is that just what you keep trying to convince yourself of?"
"...What is that supposed to an?"
Naless took several long seconds before answering..
his deep, cold voice cutting through my skull.
"Killing those corpses will alert the one controlling them that sothing is wrong on this front.
In other words, you’ve raised the chance of the enemy discovering your presence."
Geppetto’s ability granted him full awareness of every corpse he reanimated.
If even one of them fell, he would sense it imdiately.
Naless had told earlier not to fight until we found Ada,
yet I ignored him and slaughtered every demon I encountered.
"Your actions may very well jeopardize your sister’s rescue.
You disobeyed my instructions.
From this point onward, you will fight exactly as I command .. no objections."
His last words carried an authority that irritated instantly.
"And what kind of ’command’ are you talking about?"
I asked, genuinely curious ..
only for Naless to reply with sothing that made my expression twist.
"From now on, you are forbidden from using your regular aura.
You may only fight using Black Hole Aura."
I heard him clearly, and I froze in place the mont he finished.
"Are you serious?
I can’t use Black Hole Aura indefinitely.
It burns too fast."
"Then you will adapt.
It is the only weapon you have against stronger demons, since the advanced phases of Shadow Adaptation remain locked."
"Starting now, you are forbidden from using Dark Aura or Shadow Aura.
Only the Black Hole."
He reaffird his order, and I fell silent.
Black Hole Aura burned through my energy far faster than any normal aura ..
fifty tis faster, at least.
If I relied on it alone, I wouldn’t even last a single hour,
even with my SSS-rank aura reserves.
What the hell was Naless thinking?
No matter how I looked at it, it made no sense...
but I had no choice.
If I wanted his help later on, I had to follow his orders now.
Slowly, the purple aura around faded—
replaced by a star-dark radiance:
the aura of the Black Hole.
Imdiately, my strength multiplied several tis over, but the pressure on my body intensified just as much.
Without being in Dark Ascension, which granted my body the output of SSS rank,
enduring the Black Hole’s power was taxing.
My normal state was only SS, after all.
"Forget saving Ada ..
I won’t even be able to find her while moving under this strain..."
Black Hole Aura was supposed to be my trump card..
sothing I used only for my strongest enemies, not for constant movent.
"That mindset is exactly why you cannot grow beyond your limits.
The mindset of the defeated."
Naless’s voice echoed coldly within ,
and in the blink of an eye, I was dragged back into the dark void inside my consciousness.
There, in the deepest part of my inner world,
Naless stood with his hands clasped behind his back ..
his glowing violet eyes burning behind the mask.
"At my peak, I could use Black Hole Aura endlessly.
Forever, if necessary.
Do you know why?"
It was a question worth thinking about.
"Because your damn aura reserves were infinite?"
That was the only answer that ca to mind ...
and clearly not one Naless appreciated.
"There is no such thing as an infinite aura reserve...
unless soone possessed a world-breaking ability capable of granting one.
Though I’ve never seen such a case before."
"My aura reserves were never the highest.
In fact... I wasn’t even in the top ten when it ca to capacity."
Naless spoke while manipulating a small fla of aura above his fist.
"The Demon King Agaroth, for example, possessed an aura pool many tis larger than mine...
yet he was the one being drained faster during our fight."
Despite Naless having far less aura than Agaroth, the Demon King burned through his power much more quickly.
"The key... is control."
Around Naless, a circle began to form—its circular border glowing as waves of aura rippled outward.
They resembled the surface of a raging ocean, churning endlessly, reshaping themselves again and again.
The waves never cald, no matter how long they rotated.
If anything, they grew more violent.
"Agaroth surpassed in raw aura capacity...
but I surpassed him by far in manipulation and control.
By fully understanding the value of your aura .. and controlling it perfectly ..
you can reduce your aura consumption to almost nothing."
Before my eyes, a breathtaking scene unfolded.
Naless was burning aura at a terrifying rate, rapidly draining his reserves...
Yet those reserves refilled almost instantly, as if he had never used any aura at all.
That was the purpose of the strange circle around him.
The aura leaving Naless’s body was imdiately reabsorbed from the air and the void around him,
allowing him to reuse it indefinitely.
In other words ..
every ti Naless launched an attack, he secretly reabsorbed its power, pulling it back into himself.
At first glance it seed simple,
but it was anything but simple ..
it was sothing utterly impossible for anyone else.
It felt as if Naless had absolute dominion over all the aura around him.
He forced it to circulate in a perfect loop ..
aning it would always exist and never disperse.
And that was how he fought endlessly.
If Naless’s aura pool was "1000"
and his enemy’s was "10000"...
after a long battle the enemy would eventually fall to zero,
while Naless would still have his full "1000".
"Incredible..."
The word slipped from my mouth without thought.
What I had witnessed was beyond extraordinary.
How did he even create sothing like this?
And more importantly ..
how was I supposed to learn it?
"You can use it too, Frey Starlight.
Aura naturally gravitates toward you—exactly as it does toward ."
Reading my thoughts, Naless dismissed my worries.
"Learning it won’t be impossible for you...
as long as you try with everything you have."
Hearing that, I stayed quiet for a mont before nodding firmly.
What Naless had shown wasn’t just a technique.
It was a reminder ..
that even in his incomplete, fragnted state...
the being standing before was still the warrior who once shook the heavens themselves.
With a monster like this beside ...
I finally felt capable of altering my fate against my enemies.
Following his instructions, I continued traveling through the Empire using nothing but Black Hole Aura ..
pushing myself to learn his strange thod of manipulation,
engraving it into my mind.
My journey across the Empire pushed on, seeking Ada.
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