Bright white lines of energy flow down into the center of this purple sea. It consists of flawless grade ether, fully functional soul tie arrays, and even broken glyphs that are still half-working.
Every bit of it contains pieces of this Demon's will, tethering to its remaining energy-condensed gel to create a truly powerful essence in the void.
The theoretical Emperor's Essence that I hypothesized in my mind while absorbing his memories is starting to take shape before my eyes.
All of this incredibly potent gel, that has little to no intelligent force behind it, now starts to imprint on the void behind it with far more pressure.
"Do you think it would be that easy to defeat me? This is the true power of the Demonic Legacy, a path even with your skill replication trick, you could never achieve!"
I watch as waves of constant arrays configured with Realm Wave-like skill activations begin to constantly trigger. They all pulse inward now, filling the dead purple sea with more and more traces of this white light.
It is an intimidating sight, but my comprehension of glyph tethering increases to an exponential degree with every passing moment I watch.
The sphere-like Creator's Legacy that presents itself in the depths of my soul has begun to rotate and show all of its sides. It's like the dark side of the moon revealing intricate details I never could have predicted were there.
Every new strand of ether I watch click into place in the void before me, hundreds of times more click into place within my own energy forms.
They're all being pulled together in such a uniform manner that it becomes impossible to see any more barriers between them. Each one is filled with so many silver threads, glyphs, and gel made of the energy forms contained in all of my forms.
This pressure only forces more silver threads to fold out from the void. It creates an unstoppable chain reaction, as the more threads there are, the more energy can tether to them to create smaller and smaller cylindrical tendons of glyphs.
My perception begins to strengthen, so much that even the folds in space where these threads are summoned from begin to make sense.
It is not that they are false projections or illusions created under this pressure, they only seem this way when they flicker in and out of existence. It is because they can only exist within this space when tethered to a strong enough center of consciousness.
The appearance of threads from thin air is merely the threads being pulled through a portion of space outside this membrane when enough unique pressure in a single focused point is created.
The presence of consciousness in the oscillating sea of ether and gel before us has even stronger raw mental pressure. Yet, not a single fold in space lets out a single silver thread into its presence.
In fact, I can feel strange concepts and pressures being altered in the surrounding space. It is like an extremely broad, yet infinitely complex, consciousness has changed its mind, affecting the laws around us. It is like the very thought of immortal threads has abandoned the creature in the void.
This is a shift I cannot fully comprehend. However, for some reason, once the shift is made, the fluidity of my thoughts becomes far more efficient.
Shadow-like imprints and unfinished glyphs coursing through my body are soaked with a surge of warm understanding, and fill in at an extremely rapid rate.
The bright red metallic gel that makes up my entire being seeps outward, creating a living fire that seeps through the void, even touching the fractured portions of the soul array behind me.
Maria's pressure acts in its own way, freezing the membrane around it like it is a flat surface, spreading equally fast.
We begin absorbing the raw flawless grade ether that gets in our path as we slowly float backward, breaking out from the array made of shattered satellites.
All of the scattered fragments are extremely easy to siphon into our energy pathways, but there are some invisible tendrils latching through the void that cannot be fully consumed.
They are dents in space that are pushing far too deep, and are latched to pressures beyond my control.
Yet, when I absorb their outer layers, I feel the sharp connection to the center of the demonic sea, and the many fraying connections that pierce down into the Lower and Upper Realms below.
The passage of time becomes extremely potent in my mind once again as I latch onto the life force triggering this phenomenon. I feel it tugging on every single one of my links of loyalty, as they are soul ties being overpowered by this ancient being.
The years turn into decades passing, but all I can do is attempt to corrode the soul ties slowly and watch.
Even positioning myself right between the origin plane and this demonic presence, it's able to move through an underlying fabric of space too deep in the membrane for me to fully block.
Noctus' laughter echoes through the void again, and all of the remaining shattered arrays that float around him fall inward.
The sea expands and moves like it is being filled with intelligence.
I see the imprints of claw marks at its outer bulging edges, like something is trying to break out from inside.
Then, I even watch a demonic face emerge.
The visuals of eyes peering out from its center flash in my vision, then all of a sudden legs and arms sprout out from its sides.
Areas of the sea densely compacted with ether and glyphs begin forming the semblance of armor, organs, horns, and complex body parts.
The entire purple sea morphs into an enormous purple towering demon within the void. The shattered arrays in space begin to float around its being like a pristine, uniform soul array that was never shattered in the first place.
This form has no cores, no true vital points, nothing. It is a pure manifestation of Noctus' will, held together by his soul ties frozen in time, tethered to reality with his Demonic Legacy meant to withstand the relentless passage of time itself. Yet, now it is being used in a desperate battle form that even the void around us does not approve of.
With a single move of his hand, I feel the tension on the invisible soul ties in space flowing right through us grow tighter. Time in the Origin Plane starts to move faster once again, and the sudden lurching sensation from every soul tie down below violently shifts a final variable perfectly into place.
—
Ember watches from afar, with nothing but a serious and calculative expression during this exchange.
That is, until he too witnesses the final shift.
Two invisible ripples make the membrane vibrate in a frequency extremely hard to perceive.
Yet, paired with the visual of all of the energy cores in both the mana-based lifeforms' chests merging together to become one, it is clear what has happened.
"I knew it wouldn't be easy to trigger the addition of another, but... did it really have to be that hard...? Older systems like this one are never simple." Ember voices through a broad telepathy channel to seemingly nowhere, flowing out through the membrane.
Two newly birthed silver immortal cores far off in the void reflect their bright glows back toward his crimson eyes.
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Author's Note:
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