Chapter 951: The Broader Meaning of ’World’ [Bonus 16]
Arthur’s Extreme Nothingness Authority began as a technique he created in his younger years, born from his desire to erase his target as quickly as possible by reducing it to nothing at extreme speed so that the destruction occurred almost instantly.
That intent was the core of Extreme Nothingness.
As he grew stronger and ascended to the Deity Realm, fragments of his Destruction and Temporal Origin Cores shattered and fused into a new Unique Origin Core that embodied that singular intention.
Under that Unique Authority, he possessed a few techniques, each individually powerful.
There was the default thrusting attack that released a beam from his weapon, Seismic Surge was the wide area version, Chaos was the slash of nothingness that erased its target on a subatomic level, and the most recent addition to his arsenal was World Collapse, a technique Arthur had created purely from his desire to burst planets.
It was that simple desire that gave birth to World Collapse.
When he was younger and had first witnessed a planet burn before his eyes, he had longed to obtain the power to destroy planets himself.
After becoming a Deity, he didn’t hesitate to take that desire and make it real. He devised a technique that enveloped an entire planet with his energy, creating a sphere of crimson silver light around it before contracting that sphere to crush the planet within and erase whatever target was caught inside.
With his current level of power, he could expand World Collapse to encompass everything within an average star system, roughly 1 to 2 light-years, although increasing the range significantly reduced the destructive output.
"How is World Collapse supposed to defeat whatever the hell Pure Fiction really is?" Arthur asked.
Rishia responded with a question of her own. "Arthur, what exactly would you define as a ’World’?"
"What else? A planet," Arthur replied immediately, which prompted Rishia to press her fingers against her temple.
"You really didn’t think that name through, did you?" she said with a sigh.
Arthur looked at her in confusion, and she continued. "The term World is commonly used to describe planets, but it’s far broader than that, especially in our Cosmos where abilities exist that create pocket dimensions, dimensional realms, and miniature realities."
Arthur raised a finger to stop her. "Get to the point. What are you trying to say exactly?"
Rishia immediately complied.
"I’m saying that the term ’World’ is much broader than you think.
Words hold power on their own. When combined, they create statements with even greater power, and those statements can serve as clues to the nature of the power behind them.
If there is something that I’ve noticed all the Ultimate Realm Existences I’ve encountered have in common, it’s that when it comes to techniques and abilities, they’re very particular about their choice of words and what those words mean.
When Harlamagne used Pure Fiction against us, he said, ’Be trapped in a world of doomed creation.’"
Arthur replied, "Yeah, I heard that too."
"Did you pay attention to his introduction before that?" Rishia continued. "He said he was the one who ’blurs the creative line between reality and illusion’, then he trapped us in what seemed to be an illusory world where we relived distorted versions of our memories."
"And when we broke out, the damage we suffered there manifested in reality," Arthur interjected.
"That’s what I initially thought as well," Rishia replied with a nod, before posing a question. "But what if it wasn’t merely an illusion?"
Her question elicited a light frown from Arthur, but he didn’t say anything and let her continue speaking.
"Harlamagne wouldn’t use the word reality carelessly. Considering he’s a Dragon of Creation, the only conclusion I can reach is that Pure Fiction extracts the memories of its targets and constructs a pocket reality to imprison them in, one where every possible path leads to inevitable doom."
"Now, back to the word World," she went on. "It’s often used as a synonym for the universe, and sometimes even for the Cosmos."
Arthur cut in. "Isn’t that done by people who don’t understand the full scope of the greater cosmos, which is basically everything that exists?"
Rishia shook her head. "Yes, but no. At its lowest level, the word ’World’ refers to planets. At its highest level, it refers to the totality of entities, reality, and everything that exists.
That’s why I said the term is broader than you currently think.
My idea, and the only path I can see toward defeating Pure Fiction, is for you to use World Collapse to destroy his World of Doomed Creation."
Arthur immediately shook his head upon hearing her words.
"World Collapse was created with the intent of destroying planets. The only reason I can expand its range across light-years now is that my abilities scale up as my power increases.
Fundamentally, World Collapse is a planetary destruction technique, not something meant for pocket realities.
If I wanted it to destroy that pocket reality, I’d have to deconstruct the technique down to its fundamentals. I’d lose access to World Collapse as it currently exists and would need to recreate it from scratch with this new understanding of..."
He paused mid-sentence, lifted his head toward Rishia, and narrowed his eyes slightly. "That’s exactly what you want me to do, isn’t it?"
Arthur instantly understood why Rishia had taken the time to explain the broadness of the word ’World’ to him. She wanted him to recreate World Collapse so it could destroy Harlamagne’s Pure Fiction.
"Do you not understand how difficult it is to create an Authority Technique, let alone one born from a Unique Authority?"
Rishia responded immediately. "I possess Unique Authorities of my own, along with original techniques I created from them. I know the difficulty of doing that."
"And you still want me to deconstruct my own technique and rebuild it from nothing?" Arthur asked. "Who knows how long that’s gonna take?!"
"I don’t know how long it’ll take," Rishia replied, "but I do know it’ll be shorter than the amount of time we’ll spend trapped in this Tower if we can’t overcome Pure Fiction."
Arthur fell silent as he knew she was right.
If they kept failing against Pure Fiction, they’d continue being thrown back to the bottom of the Tower, forced to climb it all over again, and the mere thought of repeating that process over and over again made his head ache.
There was also the possibility that even if they somehow managed to overcome Pure Fiction, it still wouldn’t guarantee they’d clear Floor 6.
Harlamagne’s final words before sending them back to Floor 1 were still fresh in Arthur’s mind.
"Burn that root to ashes with your destruction. Rid yourself of your self-imposed limits and vulnerabilities.
Fail to do so, and you will never leave this tower."
In other words, Harlamagne wanted Arthur to stop viewing Creation as his weakness and something he was inherently vulnerable to, and instead see it as something his Destruction could overcome.
But that was easier said than done.
As Harlamagne had pointed out, Arthur’s knowledge of his own great affinity for Destruction had worked against him, because he knew that the purer the Destruction, the greater the corresponding effect of Creation against it.
A part of him also understood that the reverse was true, but Arthur had always been more focused on his vulnerability than on his capacity to inflict damage upon what threatened him.
His priority had been preserving his life rather than retaliating, and that mindset had allowed the mental limiter Harlamagne described to take root within him, causing him to subconsciously restrain his own destructive power.
Pure Fiction, if Rishia’s deduction was accurate, was the creation and manipulation of a pocket reality.
Creation, the antithesis of Destruction, the power Arthur was most vulnerable to, and the same force Harlamagne wanted him to overcome with his Destruction.
Clearly, Pure Fiction hadn’t been used merely as a method of defeating them, but as part of a larger intention behind Harlamagne’s actions.
"Alright," Arthur said. "Let’s assume I can recreate World Collapse with that understanding. How am I supposed to define its dimensions?"
"Define the dimensions of what?" Rishia asked.
"Of World Collapse when using it against Pure Fiction," Arthur replied. "I don’t just generate a sphere randomly and expand it until it’s large enough to cover my target.
That would take too long, and the target could escape before it finishes expanding. I define the three-dimensional coordinates in spacetime that I want the sphere to encompass, so it manifests almost instantly and traps the target before they can leave its range.
I have no idea what dimensional coordinates Pure Fiction operates on. So how am I supposed to determine the range of World Collapse faster than Harlamagne can interfere once he senses it activating?"
"Can’t you invert it?" Rishia asked. "Make World Collapse destroy from the inside?"
That question earned Rishia a deadpan look from Arthur.
"You’re talking about internal destruction of a pocket reality. Do I look like a Monarch Realm existence to you, Rishia?"
Rishia fell quiet at that, reconsidering his words.
Silence filled the space between them for several minutes before she spoke again.
"You said World Collapse is vulnerable during its activation, which is why you define the coordinates beforehand so it appears almost instantly and prevents escape. What if you apply that same principle to Pure Fiction? Use World Collapse on it before you’re fully trapped inside."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "I don’t follow."
"The light," Rishia continued. "When he used Pure Fiction, there was light emanating from his body. That light disrupted my Authority over the surrounding laws of darkness."
Barely a second after she spoke, Rishia shook her head and corrected herself.
"No. It didn’t disrupt my Authority, it ’adjusted’ the universal laws my Authority was commanding."
Arthur’s eyes narrowed as he instantly picked up what she was implying.
"You’re saying that light is Pure Fiction’s nascent stage? The spreading light that engulfs us is Pure Fiction in the process of expanding.
So if I deploy World Collapse over the area that light is covering, faster than it can fully envelop us, I could theoretically destroy Pure Fiction before it finishes activating."
Rishia blinked at Arthur’s words, an expression of genuine surprise appearing on her face as she muttered, "Oh. I guess you can do that instead."
Clearly, Arthur had followed a different line of thought than she intended, and his conclusion offered a quicker solution.
"Well, that presents another problem," Arthur said. "I can’t work on any of this until I recover my Spatial, Temporal, Destruction, and Extreme Nothingness Authorities. My Aspects too.
Without them, there’s nothing I can do.
Once I regain them, then I can consider dismantling World Collapse and reconstructing it. And even then, there’s still the possibility that I may lack the necessary law comprehension levels required to accomplish something as complex as this."
Hearing Arthur point out the greatest potential problem, Rishia leaned back against the wall behind her and exhaled slowly.
"In the end, we have no choice but to climb the tower and unlock as many abilities as possible before reaching Floor 6."
"And even then," Arthur added, "I have no idea how long it’ll take me to fully reconstruct World Collapse."
"We’ll also need a backup plan in case it fails," Rishia said.
Both of them heaved tired sighs, exhausted from just the knowledge of the long path ahead.
Still, they didn’t have the luxury of alternatives.
Neither of them intended to remain trapped inside this Tower forever, so the only option before them was to climb, reclaim their powers, and attempt to put their plan into motion.
