Beyond the Bloodline

Chapter 455: A Stepping Stone to Greater Heights

Jamie and Kael burst out of the universe and into the multiversal expanse between universes, exchanging hundreds, thousands, millions of strikes in seconds, each impact fracturing space like glass and leaving behind residues of void power that slowly ate into the fabric of reality where they passed.

Eventually, they separated, creating a small distance between each other and staring at one another in silence.

Jamie exhaled softly, then wrapped his body with cosmic energy, muttering lightly.

|Third Concretization: Aspect Armament.|

The Galaxy Sword transformed in his hands, and a three-ringed cosmic crest appeared behind his head. Seeing this, Kael clenched their fist, their arms coated with dark metallic scales as they declared,

|Substantiation of Annihilation.|

The nature of the cosmic energy radiating from their body changed subtly, its signature turning into something eerily familiar to Jamie, a signature that made Jamie frown for a moment.

He shook his head lightly, and in that instant, Kael closed the distance, claws slashing toward Jamie’s neck and meeting the Galaxy Sword midway in a collision that shook the Cosmic Web of the multiverse.

|Do not think me the same as my predecessor, Jamie Westley.|

Blade and claws separated and met again in the same instant, each exchange lasting no more than a picosecond, Jamie’s slashes targeting Kael’s head and midsection while Kael answered with strikes aimed at Jamie’s throat, ribs, and joints.

They moved through the vast space without pause, fracturing space everywhere their attacks met one another as the Zanerth universe soon disappeared into the distance.

|Cleaning the universe of sentients without considering the consequences of removing all life and leaving the universe an empty husk was a flawed plan.|

Kael aimed a sweeping strike at Jamie’s upper body, forcing Jamie to angle the Galaxy Sword to intercept before countering with a return slash aimed at Kael’s side. The clash sent Kael through an empty space in the Cosmic Web where dead universes that had now dissolved into cosmic dust and energy once occupied, but they instantly closed the distance and aimed a claw strike at Jamie’s neck, which Jamie redirected with ease and answered with a counter aimed at Kael’s shoulder.

|I do not intend to leave emptiness.|

They collided again and warped space, Kael’s claws raking across Jamie’s body and tearing the multi-layered barriers over him as easily as a hot knife through butter, while Jamie punched with his left hand, the direct hit blowing Kael back with immense force.

He didn’t let up and followed Kael without pause, but Kael rotated their body and delivered a strike to Jamie’s chest, forcing Jamie to block with the Galaxy Sword before redirecting a counter at Kael’s torso.

|I intend to impose ORDER alongside CHAOS and BALANCE the universe.|

The speed of their clash increased as both of them pushed through the multiverse, exchanging blows that broke the surrounding space.

Kael launched a rapid sequence of strikes aiming at Jamie’s head, chest and limbs, and Jamie met each one with blocks and immediate counterstrikes that Kael easily deflected.

|ANNIHILATION with PRESERVATION!|

Kael’s voice rose as they clashed once more, their claws slipping past Jamie’s guard and tearing through Jamie’s spatial expansion, colliding with his body and knocking him onto the barrier of a nearby universe.

They immediately followed up and stomped on Jamie’s body, smashing him into the universe with immense force, before backing away to avoid Jamie’s dimensional splitting counter that widened the tear in this unfortunate universe’s barrier.

|To maintain a perfect equilibrium that would endure for as long as the Cosmos permitted the universe.|

The two collided within the universe, the impact of their clash scattering galaxies as both of them continued their close-range exchange without breaking rhythm.

|OUR universe!|

Kael raised their speed immensely, attempting to overwhelm Jamie with rapid, continuous strikes, forcing Jamie to redirect them all defensively before he broke through the barrage and countered, his void-coated sword smashing Kael out of that universe and into another.

Jamie closed the distance and swung his blade down, unleashing a dimensional slash that Kael dodged physically, however, their body was still slashed at the neck, grey blood spurting out into space, the first blood drawn since their battle started, less than five minutes ago.

Kael clutched their neck and wiped off the blood, their actions seemingly erasing the wound as well, as when they removed their hand, the slash Jamie inflicted had vanished.

Looking at the grey blood left on their palm, Kael spoke.

|With all your power and Authority...|

Jamie didn’t wait for them to finish and attacked again, and Kael responded by aiming straight for Jamie’s throat, forcing Jamie to turn his attack into a deflection and counter, collision unleashing shockwaves that knocked them away.

Kael spun through space and shot towards Jamie, charging into him and colliding with his body before spearing him through the universe’s barrier, smashing out of it and into the nearest universe, only to smash right through the other end in seconds.

|Even as an Envoy of the Cosmic Force of Balance...!|

Jamie raised his arm and struck the back of Kael’s head with his elbow, knocking them down before following up with a dimensional slash, but Kael swung their claws and met the slash, their metallic scales tearing from the impact, before they created distance from Jamie and spoke loudly.

|How can you not see this as the true path to BALANCE?!|

Jamie drifted back lightly when he saw that Kael was genuinely waiting for him to respond, and he exhaled softly, winding up his arm before speaking.

|You seem to be under some kind of serious misunderstanding.|

Meeting Kael’s eyes, Jamie declared.

|I’ve got no words for you, Annihilation Catalyst. I only intend to use you as a stepping stone to reach greater heights of power.|

Then he scoffed, a wry smile forming on his face as he added, |How fitting. Once a tool, always a tool.|

Hearing this, Kael’s eyes widened for a moment, and then their expression turned calm in the next as they nodded to themselves.

|I see. I now understand that you can’t be reasoned with.|

Kael then raised their gaze, and the spirals within their eyes began to spin, grey cosmic energy swirling around them as they declared.

|Dictum of the Annihilation Catalyst.|

Jamie didn’t just float there and watch without acting. He roused his cosmic energy, power bursting from him as he activated his own Dictum.

|Dictum of the Azure Paragon.|

This Dictum, made up of all his ’Azure’ Unique Authorities and the Aspects he’d coined from them, activated, and in the next instant, both Kael and Jamie spoke at the same time.

|Deny all Existences.| |Void all Creation.|

A wave of grey energy rapidly expanded from Kael’s body in all directions, and everything in the space it passed through was instantly overwritten.

Similarly, a sphere of dark blue void expanded from Jamie’s body, consuming the surrounding space-time continuum and all the laws that wove together to form the fabric of reality around him.

The two continued expanding outwards until they met at a point in what was left of the space between them, a boundary point where neither could overwrite the other.

Grey existence denial pressed inward while blue void consumption pushed outward, and instead of one prevailing, both powers began erasing each other in overlapping layers, stripping away sections of reality they were meant to consume until nothing coherent was left at the point of contact.