Beyond the Bloodline

Chapter 457: Paradoxical Hubris and An Impatient Transcendence

Realisation dawned on Jamie as he remembered the encounter with the Neo-Extinction Legion at the edge of the Zanerth Empire in the ZWF4105 cluster, the incident that had caused Miranda to become a Supreme Realm existence, where they had stopped an attempt at Universal Amalgamation.

’That’s what they were trying to do! They wanted to merge all those universes into one and turn it into one giant universe-sized Dead Zone, and they’ve done the same to thousands of other universes.’

Kael, seeing the look of realisation on Jamie’s face, then spoke as the giant universe-sized Dead Zones began to crumble, mixing into the grey fog of the Aspect Dominion, which was then absorbed into Kael’s body.

|I’ve always been prepared for a confrontation against you, Jamie Westley.|

Their power began to rise as they absorbed the Amalgamated Universe Dead Zones, each one filled with the deconstructed universal laws and Authorities of the septillions upon septillions of existences that once lived within them, along with the matter of all the stars, planets, and galaxies within them.

The gap in power between Kael and Jamie was practically non-existent, and even if they continued fighting, neither would win.

To change that, Kael was now consolidating all these corrupted universes into themselves to force transcendence into the Ultimate Realm, and if they succeeded...

’There’d be nothing left to fight for afterwards.’

If Kael succeeded in becoming an Ultimate, Jamie couldn’t win, leaving Jamie with two options now.

He could choose to interfere with Kael’s attempt to attain Ultimate... but Jamie didn’t.

He chose the second option.

Jamie immediately deployed everything he had prepared, everything he had refined over every failed attempt at reaching Ultimate across the billion years he’d lived.

The fragment of power he’d won from a bet with Ranus, and the one he’d obtained from Ranus’ twin, which he had used to trick the Neo Extinction Legion Heralds into thinking he was the Heart of Life’s host, emerged from his pocket universe and was absorbed into his heart.

The boundaries and limits of Jamie’s existence, redefined during the millions of years he’d spent in the Zenith Haven Realm, were already primed. The conceptual powers of his personalised Aspects had perfectly prepared his vessel for Ultimate.

The Chaotic and Ordered cosmic energies within the two items Jamie had possessed flowed into him, mixing with his own innate Balance.

In that moment, Jamie was overcome with the familiar sensation of time, space, and reality all blurring together and becoming meaningless for an instant.

His Aspect Dominion expanded rapidly, encompassing more and more space across the multiverse, absorbing egregious amounts of cosmic energy from within and beyond the multiverse, all of which was funnelled into Jamie’s body.

The total cosmic energy he could store, channel and sustain expanded exponentially to the point where it was impossible to rank it. All fetters of the Devour Class System of Zanerth and its higher multiversal databases were removed from his existence as the intricacy of his Aspects, Dictums and their Sub-Edicts deepened.

Jamie felt his sixth and seventh senses expand and awaken in that moment, his perception breaking past the boundary between all dimensions as his horizons expanded to encompass everything that defined structure across space.

What he perceived was no longer layered existence or stacked dimensional frameworks, but the totality of dimensional structure itself as a single continuous whole, where every point of space contained every possible axis of extension without separation between higher or lower order layers.

It was the limit of ’Dimensionality’ as a concept, where ’dimension’ was no longer something traversed but something fully contained within his awareness as a complete, bounded construct, with no further "above" or "below" remaining to ascend toward.

This was a process Jamie automatically went through, and Kael, before him, was undergoing a similar process, with the slight difference being that they were forcing it.

Kael pushed their existence past the boundary between all dimensions, expanding their horizons to encompass everything that defined structure across space.

In that moment, Jamie instinctively and intuitively understood what he needed to do.

Kael did not gain this instinctive understanding, but instead filtered through the possibilities and concluded logically on what they needed to do in that moment.

And simultaneously, both of them began to declare what they were.

|I am Jamie Westley, the Paradoxical Hubris, the defiant cosmic singularity who bends the laws of creation, attained immortality beyond my bloodline, weaponised failure, and turned a broken soul into an unbreakable path.|

|I, Kael, am the Final Judge, the inescapable reckoning born to cleanse MY universe of its unnecessary mutations. I am the true antithesis to life’s foolish persistence, and the final law of flawed extinction that embodies the balanced cleansing the universe requires.|

|I am Space itself throughout the Cosmos, and the living paradox where the Endless Void and Absolute Space collide to sustain one another!|

|I am the collapse that awaits all flawed existence, the equilibrium born from extinction itself, and the inevitable end that no universe can escape!|

The moment they made those Declarations and slammed down their cards on the table of reality at the exact same time, the multiverse itself trembled, and the surrounding space-time continuums violently distorted before both of them were forcefully expelled from within the multiverse entirely.

The layered structures of dimensional existence collapsed behind them as they were cast beyond the boundaries of all multiversal frameworks and into the Hyperverse beyond, where the totality of the Cosmos unfolded before them in its unimaginable vastness.

From that outside perspective, the ever-expanding complex multiverses that made up the Cosmos were no longer distant or separate structures, but immense interconnected systems laid bare before their sight all at once, endlessly branching, expanding, colliding, and evolving across incomprehensible scales of existence.

Jamie slowly clenched his fist and opened it again, and in that instant, he felt cosmic energy endlessly accumulating within his body in quantities that continued rising without limit or saturation.

His energy cores no longer had any conceivable upper boundary, continuously generating and storing cosmic energy without decline, without exhaustion, and without cessation, to the point that the accumulation would continue even after all existence itself had been reduced to void.

"So this...is what it means to be Ultimate," Jamie muttered with a soft sigh.

He couldn’t stop the smile that formed on his face. He wanted to boast to the whole Cosmos, to gloat about it to everyone that existed, to express his joy without limitation.

But he held himself back for now and turned his gaze to the grey-skinned, featureless humanoid before him.

Kael’s face had no features, no eyes, nose or mouth, and yet Jamie could sense it...they were displeased.

"You were impatient, Annihilation Catalyst," Jamie said.

For a moment, there was silence, and then a line spread across Kael’s lower face as they spoke.

"...impatient?"

"Yes," Jamie replied calmly. "You didn’t understand it, did you? You didn’t properly understand your own existence.

You were close, but you’re clearly still missing something vital. I can sense it from the way you frown."

Jamie’s eyes were tinged with the light of remembrance as he continued, "I once wore a similar frown nearly a billion years ago, when I realised my ascension was bound to fail.

But unlike me, who cut off my path to greater power after noticing that, you pushed forward. You forced your transcendence to Ultimate...and now you don’t feel any increase in the power of your Dictums, do you?"

"..."