Beyond the Bloodline

Chapter 456: The Only Path is Escalation

What remained was a ruined section of reality in the space between universes, and the void from the layer beneath began to seep in and spread through the gap, forming a new Dead Zone in the aftermath of the neutralisation.

Even as the true void seeped into reality and gradually consumed the space around them, Jamie and Kael continued staring at each other in silence, both of them coming to similar realisations.

’The gap between us is almost non-existent.’ ’We’re evenly matched.’

Both of them vanished instantly, reappearing right in front of one another, with Kael’s claws piercing toward Jamie’s neck, only to pass right through Jamie’s body as Jamie slashed his sword into Kael’s side, knocking them toward a distant universe.

Jamie raised his free hand to halt the expansion of the void into reality, reversing its formation, before activating his Imperial Privilege: Reality to heal the torn reality before dashing after Kael.

Azure waves of power expanded from him, and the Aspect Armament around his body grew denser, and as he swung his sword and unleashed a Void Slash to meet Kael’s Annihilation Claws, Jamie declared.

|Fourth Concretization.|

|!|

Kael instantly realised Jamie’s intention as they sensed the azure hue the ambient cosmic energy was being infused with, and unwilling to be outdone, they also unleashed their power, both of them declaring simultaneously.

||Aspect Dominion!||

The transformation and imposition of one’s Aspect over the surrounding reality.

Jamie’s Dominion spread outward, the reality around him becoming saturated with dense azure-hued energy, and in response, Kael’s Dominion expanded in a wave of grey fog that resembled the Dead Zone in Zanerth, with dead planets and galaxies that looked like grey styrofoam appearing within it as it overwrote more of reality.

The grey expansion pressed forward until it met Jamie’s Dominion, and the moment they touched, Kael’s spread halted abruptly, both forces pressing against each other without either fully taking over the other.

Kael frowned in confusion as they immediately noticed the difference between the two Dominions.

While theirs clearly overwrote reality where it spread with grey fog, the reality around Jamie appeared completely unchanged.

’Didn’t he overwrite reality? What’s the difference?!’

Kael had this thought as they charged forward, clashing with Jamie at the boundary where the two Dominions collided and tried to overwhelm one another.

Their claws cut right into Jamie’s side in that same instant, tearing apart Jamie’s Aspect Armament like it wasn’t there, the clear difference in power between a Third and Fourth Concretization instantly shown.

Blood spurted from Jamie’s torso as the claws annihilated a section of his body, erasing all traces of his flesh and bone.

Kael’s Dominion pushed Jamie backwards in that same instant, forcing a section of grey fog into the space around Jamie.

However, Jamie regenerated the damage in less than a second, his flesh reforming and his Aspect Armament reformed his clothes and the multi-layered spatial distortion barriers that surrounded him on default.

All of which Kael had just broken through was restored the instant Jamie retaliated, the Galaxy Sword’s blade cutting through Kael’s midsection in an arc that voided a section of Kael’s torso, stripping it into absence without resistance.

Jamie’s Dominion pushed back immediately, reasserting itself and forcing the grey expansion to retract at the point of impact.

Despite having a portion of their torso erased and their body split in two, Kael didn’t hesitate to continue attacking Jamie, the grey fog surrounding them pouring directly into the erased sections and condensing to rebuild the voided part of Kael’s body, reconstructing it and stabilising it back into form.

Their claws raked across Jamie’s chest the moment their body was fully reconstructed, then across his neck in the same instant Jamie’s blade severed Kael’s arm and another portion of his torso in one slash, reducing both to nothing.

Their Dominions pressed against one another as they both restored damage and attacked without pause, Kael’s strikes erasing sections of Jamie’s body that regenerated instantly while Jamie’s attacks repeatedly voided sections of Kael’s existence, only for the surrounding grey fog to be absorbed and replace the absence, reconstructing Kael’s physical form without delay.

Neither side managed to maintain lasting damage as Jamie’s regeneration counteracted every one of Kael’s successful strikes, and Kael’s Aspect Dominion restored their body using the grey fog that filled the reality around and behind them.

The more they clashed, and the more their Dominions pressed against one another, the more understanding of Jamie’s Dominion Kael gained.

’I see... his Aspect Dominion didn’t overwrite reality. It is the current state of the ’Space’ across the multiverse. That’s why there’s no apparent change!’

At the same time, Jamie frowned as he, too, sensed the truth about Kael’s Dominion and understood why they could seemingly absorb the grey fog and regenerate endlessly.

’That grey fog is an expansion of its own existence. It’s continuously generating more of its own ’existence’ and filling its Dominion with it, so when I erase parts, it simply replaces those parts with the excess it has stored around it.

I need to completely obliterate both it and its Dominion in one move to kill it.’

And Jamie knew better than anyone that this was far easier said than done, since Kael gave him no opening to release any attack powerful enough to erase both at once, and he gave Kael no fraction of a picosecond to even begin forming a similar plan.

Their realisations made both of them arrive at the same conclusion simultaneously.

The conclusion that they couldn’t win as they were.

Not against each other.

Not against what they were.

The only path forward was growth.

Escalation was the only path to victory.

Elevation to another level.

To the Ultimate level.

Kael was the first to act on that conclusion.

They abruptly pulled back and took distance from Jamie, and though Jamie immediately compressed space to erase that distance, Kael rapidly retracted their entire Dominion into the space around them, creating a dense barrier Jamie’s hasty slash couldn’t break through.

Kael immediately expanded their Dominion’s range again, and now at the centre of it, they lightly spread their arms, their body seemingly merging into the grey fog that filled the overwritten section of reality.

Jamie wanted to charge at them, but he immediately stopped and held himself back as he instantly noticed something different about the Dominion.

He quickly poured more cosmic energy into his own Dominion to block the expansion of Kael’s, as he looked around, trying to figure out what was different.

It didn’t take even a second as he instantly noticed that Kael’s Dominion, which had once been filled with planets and galaxies all made of thick styrofoam-like fog, was now filled with more than that.

Entire giant orbs containing billions upon billions of galaxies, all consumed by grey fog, emerged within the Dominion, and Jamie’s eyes widened as he immediately realised what they were.

’These things aren’t generated by the Dominion. They’re actual, genuine universes that exist naturally in reality!’

[Look closer, Master,] The Galaxy Sword spoke grimly. [They’re more than just universes.]

Jamie’s eyes narrowed at those words, and a moment later, it immediately dawned on him.

’These deconstructed laws of space and time, almost similar yet subtly different... different space-time continuums!’

|It’s not just one universe. Each of those things is dozens of universes fused into one, all turned into large universe-sized Dead Zones.|