Chapter 706: Sacrifices and Desperate Measures
"What the hell is happening now?!"
Evan’s shout reached his ears, snapping Arthur’s attention upward just as the sky began to split—literally.
The sky cracked and shattered like glass, the atmosphere peeling away to reveal the vast, star-speckled vacuum of space beyond the jagged tear.
From that rip, a streak of azure light descended, crashing into the ground behind the group of teenagers.
A massive dust cloud billowed upward toward the fractured sky, but it dispersed almost instantly, revealing a familiar silver-haired suit-wearing figure.
He looked slightly worse for wear, and there were glistening beads of sweat on his forehead—clear evidence that he had exerted effort to get here.
Extending his arms to either side, the space around him distorted at two points, bending unnaturally.
From these distortions, two identical bodies—bearing the same appearance and energy signature as the one within the cosmic energy vortex before them—were yanked into view by an invisible force.
Gravity pulled them straight into the man’s waiting hands, where he seized them by their necks with ease.
Arthur’s eyes widened in shock.
His earlier assumption—that Bewússtsein could only use one body at a time—had been dead wrong.
While their focus had been locked on the vortex, two more bodies had been silently deployed, ready to ambush them from behind.
If not for Jamie’s timely arrival, Bewússtsein’s fourth and fifth bodies might have succeeded in landing fatal or crippling blows.
But those bodies hadn’t escaped Jamie’s notice. Right after catching them, he unhesitatingly smashed their skulls together with brutal force.
The collision sent out a shockwave that cratered the ground beneath him, and the air filled with a sickening burst of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter.
Despite the gruesome display, what caught Arthur and Evan’s attention wasn’t the sheer brutality of the act—it was the fact that, somehow, Jamie had managed to pull it off without a single drop of blood marring his suit.
Not batting an eye at the gory scene he created, Jamie pulled the two bodies apart and azure flames ignited on his palm, instantly reducing them to ashes that scattered in the air.
Within the vortex of cosmic energy, Bewússtsein’s third body convulsed in visible agony, clutching his chest as he staggered mid-air.
Spotting him, Jamie stepped forward, raising his hand and forming a finger gun aimed at Bewússtsein.
"Triad Gun: Spatial Destruction Shot."
From his fingertip, a condensed bullet of power ripped through the air at light speed, tearing through the vortex’s swirling energy and punching a fist-sized hole in Bewússtsein’s chest.
Blood sprayed through the air as the cosmic vortex was forcefully dispersed and Bewússtsein’s body fell from the air.
Ignoring the collapsed Bewússtsein, Jamie shifted his attention to the teenagers he came to save.
Just as Jamie turned, Lostvayne disengaged its ’Release’ state on its own, and a crushing wave of exhaustion slammed into Arthur.
He stumbled, his knees nearly buckling, but before he could fall, a hand caught him from behind.
’...huh? Alvey?’
Arthur blinked in surprise, looking up to see Alvey standing behind him. Nearby, McEnda was carrying the weakened Artemisia and Beatrix.
Jamie silently clicked his tongue as he saw the two girl’s states, before waving his hands and activating an Authority.
|Authority of Life: Instant Restoration.|
Life law energy burst from his body, sweeping over the group and restoring them to top condition in a split second.
All damage—internal, external, physical or spiritual—instantly vanished.
Their depleted energy reserves were fully restored, and even burnt-out energy circuits were repaired to pristine condition.
"...wow. It’s so ridiculous I can’t even laugh about it."
Evan muttered, flexing his fingers as his body was restored to perfect condition. He shook his head silently, marvelling at Jamie’s overwhelming ability to heal.
Beside him, Arthur rose to his feet, casting a glance at Jamie.
"Good thing you showed up. Really didn’t want to have my soul devoured..."
Jamie opened his mouth to reply, likely to mention the signal Arthur had left behind that allowed him to find them.
But before he could speak, Arthur’s voice and expression suddenly changed.
"Jamie. You know about the Eternal Candidate Selection, right? Has Phase Two started? If it hasn’t, then how can there be a Dual Candidate?"
"Dual Candidate?! Wasn’t it a Candidate of Tim-?!"
Jamie’s words froze mid-sentence. His eyes widened as he picked up on the residual destruction energy lingering in the air around them.
’Aspect of Destruction?!’
His expression darkened, and his eyes lit up with a dull glow. In his True Voice, Jamie bellowed out a name, the overwhelming energy within it making everyone wince in pain.
|Ranus! What the hell is the meaning of this?!|
Jamie didn’t bother moderating his voice as he normally would as he directly called out the Eternal of Space and Reality (EOSR).
Yet, the response he expected never came.
That silence only stoked Jamie’s annoyance further.
He knew Ranus was currently within the Valmone Universe. Although it was just an Avatar and not his true body, it was loaded with his real consciousness.
Jamie also knew the EOSR was an existence with an Unspeakable Name.
To speak his name aloud while he was "in the area" would immediately alert him to who called and where.
And for an existence like Ranus, one of the strongest beings in the Cosmos, the entirety of the Valmone Universe was within his "area."
There was no way Ranus hadn’t heard Jamie’s call.
|Answer me, Ranus! Are you trying to start another Cosmic War?! Don’t you understand the consequences if the Aggressors and Progenitors find out about this?!|
Jamie’s tone grew sharper as he namedropped two of the Three Major Cosmic Powers, hinting at the catastrophic repercussions of their involvement.
The Eternals governed the Concepts of the Cosmos, so it was inevitable that the other Major Powers of the Cosmos—who existed within it—would intervene in the Selection process to choose the next Eternal to oversee pivotal Concepts like Time and Destruction.
The rules of the Candidate Selection had been established by all three factions, and violating them was a direct affront to the other two.
◇ ◇ ◇
Rewinding a minute, back to the moment after Jamie’s Spatial-Destruction Shot had punched a hole through the chest of Bewússtsein’s third body.
Bewússtsein lay sprawled on the ground, his wide eyes fixed on the ruptured sky above.
He wasn’t dead.
At least, this body wasn’t.
Its heart had been destroyed, but Bewússtsein’s bodies weren’t normal in the first place, so it wasn’t strange they could still function without a vital organ like a heart.
’...what the hell just happened?’
His mind raced as he struggled to comprehend the turn of events.
The third body was supposed to act as bait, a diversion to keep the teenagers occupied while his fourth and fifth bodies launched sneak attacks to finish them off.
Instead, a Demon King had suddenly appeared and destroyed both in an instant.
’How the hell did he even get here? How did he find here?’
Bewússtsein’s thoughts churned with disbelief.
He had verified everything—again and again.
He had checked the planet, scanned the surrounding planets, and even colluded with ’Aramis’. All his efforts confirmed that there were no Race Kings on or near Aramis.
Alas, Jamie was a blank spot invisible to ’Aramis’. What’s more, Jamie had been actively concealing his presence.
’Of all the Race Kings... it had to be him!’
Bewússtsein felt dread crawl through him. At his current level, he stood no chance against even a single Race King. That was why he’d stayed hidden, meticulously avoiding them.
Race Emperors were, of course, the top entities on his list to avoid. But among the Race Kings, there was one he feared just as much as those Emperors—Jamie.
Why? Jamie wasn’t just any Race King. He was a Complete Cosmic Being wielding the power of Void, capable of erasing existences.
’It doesn’t matter how or why he’s here now. What matters is that he’s here—and he’s destroyed the barrier I placed!’
As Arthur had suspected earlier, Bewússtsein had taken extensive measures to remain undetected.
He had placed a barrier around Cruotis Prime, designed to prevent anyone from realizing that something was wrong with the planet—that its billions of inhabitants were all dead.
The barrier also intercepted the SOS signals that Artemisia and Beatrix had sent, trapping them within the planet’s gravitational field.
He knew he was targeting the daughters of god Rulers, expected them to have something like that and had prepared accordingly. But now, Jamie had shattered that barrier, allowing those signals to escape.
And that meant trouble.
In addition to dealing with Jamie, Bewússtsein would soon have to face two enraged ’Supreme’ god Rulers tearing through space and time to reach their daughters.
Aidos might be on the other side of the galaxy, but that was irrelevant to a furious Deity Realm parent who could move faster than light and fold space itself to shorten distances.
Even the weakest High-Tier Deity in the Cosmos could easily trash the current Bewússtsein.
Despite having energy comparable to a Deity, the bodies he had created using the power of Life Akasha granted him were severely limited.
So limited, in fact, that he couldn’t even overpower the four teenagers he had abducted.
These were only experimental bodies—test models he had crafted to push the boundaries of a Planetary Consciousness.
The primary limitation he’d faced was his inability to leave the planet’s gravitational field, and Bewússtsein had used these bodies to bypass that restriction temporarily.
He used them to monitor multiple locations and search for suitable existences whose powers he could steal and absorb, as he intended to do with the quartet he had captured.
Once he had severed the final thread binding him to Cruotis Prime, he planned to use these test bodies to trial his permanent incarnation.
He intended to transfer himself into them, testing their capabilities and identifying flaws that needed correcting.
The ultimate goal was perfection. With the planet’s cosmic energy as his foundation, he would craft his final body—a flawless vessel free of all the limitations of his current forms.
His plan had been progressing smoothly, but now, at the final stages, he was running into obstacles.
’I can’t beat him.’
The obstacle that was ’Jamie’ was insurmountable for ’Bewússtsein’.
’But if I can bring him down to my level...!’
A glimmer of hope ignited within Bewússtsein’s mind.
’Right now, he’s within my gravitational field. I haven’t fully severed my connection to this planet, so I still retain some control.
If I impose an Existence Realm restriction...’
The idea was feasible, but the energy required was far beyond his current means.
Normally, such a restriction would already demand immense energy and that was when there were no targets on the Planet.
Imposing one when a target was already on the planet would take hundreds of times more energy than usual.
Energy that Cruotis Prime—and by extension, Bewússtsein—did not possess.
’But I have something with that amount of energy. It will leave me weaker, but if it eliminates this obstacle, then it’s a sacrifice worth making.’
His right arm slowly moved, clawing into the earth as he strengthened his loose connection to Cruotis Prime.
’Accessing Planetary Administrator Authority’
’Activate Planetary Defence Mechanism: Existence Realm Restriction.’
|Error#93 Administrator lacks sufficient ’Justification.’|
’Category: Class 1 Existential Threat—should be sufficient Justification.’
|Error#94! Insufficient Energy! |
The system message flashed before his eyes. Bewússtsein exhaled deeply, his resolve hardening, and then he spoke aloud.
"Sacrifice...Candidate Sigil."
