Now, Ash didn't know everything.
He didn't know whether these echoes of his past lives were truly dead or merely dormant. He didn't know whether they lived through him or beside him. He didn't know what the First truly was — alive, dead, or something beyond both.
But he knew one thing with absolute certainty.
He would never allow any of them to influence him no more than they already did. Not only that there were no more lives of importance after this one.... So, in his eyes they had played their roles well enough.
His power stirred — a quiet, inevitable hum beneath his skin.
A single thought. A single glance.
And the void obeyed.
It was a reminder of how broken Codex‑derived powers truly were. Even as a Cosmic Overlord, Ash could already compete with a peak Dimensional Overlord at his strongest.
And that was without using the abilities tied to the Codex.
With them?
