Chapter 464: Consciousness is fading

Caelus gathered the six streams before his hand and guided them into the Axiom Origin. Golden light spread through its rings as the power returned to the place it had come from.

He felt each stream settle into a different part of the construct. The dim sections between its rings lit up one after another until light filled even the gaps that had seemed empty.

The construct shook and his vision suddenly filled with a tiny point of light. Caelus recognized it just as the singularity burst open.

BOOOOM!

This time he saw more than the birth of a single universe. Countless lights spread through the chaos and each opened into a vast space filled with newborn stars.

Three powers emerged among them as the multiverse continued growing. Caelus tried to follow their paths, but the golden one suddenly answered the power inside his body.

He felt the same pulse from the Axiom Origin in front of him. The two sensations joined and the vision disappeared as its innermost ring began turning.

Sylvia remained beside him without moving. Even the light drifting from her fingers hung in place as time stopped around them.

A face formed within the construct’s golden glow and looked toward Caelus. It showed no surprise at finding him there.

"You are the third generation?"

Caelus stared at it for a moment as its voice reached him. After everything he had heard about the Axiom Origin, actually speaking to it felt strange.

"Yes, I’m the third generation."

The face studied him without answering. Then a ripple passed through the surrounding rings and a thin stream of light entered his chest.

"I sense another power within you."

Endless Extraction stirred as the light reached it. The construct shook again and the face’s expression changed.

"No wonder I could feel it so clearly. You possess the power of Assimilation."

Caelus looked down at the light beneath his skin. He hadn’t activated his talent, yet it was reacting to the being in front of him.

"Are you talking about my Endless Extraction?"

"Is that what you call it?"

The face frowned as more light gathered around its eyes.

"How did you become its owner? There is no longer a boundary between you and that power."

Caelus’s brows drew together as he tried to understand. He had expected the Axiom Origin to give him answers, but it seemed just as confused about this as he was.

"You may be mistaking it for something else. I have an SSS-Rank Talent, so perhaps it’s like the one you gave Adam."

"No, what you possess goes far beyond SSS-Rank."

"What?" Caelus’s mouth opened slightly at the reply. Even after becoming a Primordial he had still thought of Endless Extraction as the talent he awakened so long ago.

"You have become one with it without learning how to use its full power. Once you understand what you possess, you will be unstoppable."

He looked at his hand again and remembered the black hole swallowing everything in his vision. Taking a few skills from a corpse suddenly seemed like a very small use of something that vast.

"I haven’t even come close to using all of it?"

The thought brought him back to his awakening. He hadn’t been supposed to awaken a talent at all, but everything had glitched and Endless Extraction had appeared.

At the time he had been too happy about obtaining it to complain. Even after all his gains he hadn’t once imagined that the talent could be older than the multiverse he lived in.

He pressed a hand against his chest and tried to feel where the power rested. There was no separate object hidden inside him that he could point to or pull out.

Caelus looked up at the golden face as another possibility troubled him.

"Does this power have a mind of its own?"

"No, and that is what makes it the most dangerous of the three of us."

Caelus’s excitement faded as he thought about that answer. If the power had no mind, it hadn’t chosen him for some grand purpose on its own.

Then why had it appeared during his awakening? He couldn’t believe the glitch that had given him something like this was a simple coincidence.

Caelus then remembered the third presence from the vision. He had seen what the other two could do, but that last one remained a mystery.

His gaze returned to the construct and its face immediately grew serious. It could read Caleus’s mind at its current state.

"Don’t ask me about the third. You aren’t ready to know who he is."

"I’m a Primordial now and that’s still not enough?"

"He is far too strong. If I speak his identity or even let my thoughts reach toward him, he will hear us."

Caelus felt a chill despite the strength filling his body. Something could hear them merely because another being thought about it?

He had only just reached a level where entire universes no longer seemed beyond him. Now he was being told that knowing too much about someone could bring that being straight to them.

Caelus stopped trying to picture the third presence. There were other questions he could ask without inviting something like that into their conversation.

"Then tell me about the Origin Network. Was that your creation too?"

"It is a fraction of the power I left behind."

He thought of Edran explaining how people in the mage universe struggled over Progression Power. Their own universe had given them levels and clear ways to climb through the ranks.

"Why did you make it so helpful? Growing stronger here takes far less time than it does in other universes."

"Because I wanted the people here to grow stronger. The Network gives them a path and helps them use power they would otherwise spend far longer gathering."

The face dimmed as it spoke and gaps appeared in the light around its mouth. Caelus moved closer when he noticed the change.

"I could leave that help behind even while I slept. I needed people strong enough to face what was coming."

Caelus watched another part of the face fade and felt the presence inside the construct weaken. The power filling its rings remained strong, but something else was slipping away.

"What’s happening to you?"

The face looked directly at him as the light around it began breaking apart.

"My consciousness is fading. Soon it will be gone."