Chapter 183: East Anekta Crisis (22)

Eden’s eyes widened.

It was the same voice.

The one that had been mocking him throughout the battle. The one that had called him weak, pathetic, useless.

But this time, it sounded different.

It wasn’t mocking him.

It sounded...

Frustrated.

The voice came from behind him.

Eden’s breathing stopped for a fraction of a second.

Something was there.

A presence.

He had felt the same overwhelming sensation before, when standing before entities whose existence seemed to transcend everything he understood.

Nyx.

Mendax.

The presence behind him was comparable to theirs.

No.

Perhaps even more unsettling.

It wasn’t simply powerful. It felt fundamentally different from the Essence he had encountered throughout his life. There was something ancient about it, something that made the very concept of resistance feel meaningless.

Eden’s instincts screamed at him.

He slowly shifted his gaze over his shoulder.

For the briefest moment, he thought he saw something.

A silhouette?

A shadow?

He couldn’t tell.

Then it vanished.

The pressure disappeared with it.

The voice fell silent.

Eden stared into the empty space behind him.

There was nobody there.

Nothing.

Only the ruined conference floor, the terrified civilians, and Lucy struggling to get back on her feet.

’What... was that?’

He didn’t have time to investigate.

The Hydra’s attack was still approaching.

Eden turned back.

The crimson vortex was collapsing.

His Essence was almost completely depleted, and his arm was beginning to lose feeling. The three-headed monster was steadily forcing its way through Devour, its combined attack now only a few dozen meters away.

He had reached his limit.

No.

He had passed it several times already.

And yet, somehow, he was still standing.

’I need more.’

The thought barely crossed his mind before the System responded.

A notification appeared before his eyes.

[System Notification!]

["The Unending Apocalypse" has temporarily removed the limiter restricting the skill Devour.]

Eden froze.

For a split second, he couldn’t understand what he was reading.

’The Unending Apocalypse?’

He had never received a notification like this before.

And what did it mean by removing Devour’s limiter?

He didn’t get the chance to think about it.

Something changed.

The crimson Essence surrounding his arm suddenly stopped flickering.

The unstable tendrils froze in place, before twisting inward and condensing into a much denser mass. The enormous maw expanded, its edges stretching unnaturally as countless rows of crimson teeth emerged from within.

The Hydra’s attack struck it.

And stopped.

Completely.

Eden’s eyes widened.

The force that had been steadily pushing him backward was suddenly being swallowed at an alarming rate. The green flames disappeared first, followed by the purple lightning. Even the black beam was being consumed, its surface breaking apart as though it were being torn into countless fragments.

The crimson maw grew larger.

It began devouring the attack faster than the Hydra could replenish it.

For the first time, the three heads seemed to hesitate.

Eden stared at his own hand.

’What is this...?’

He could feel the difference.

Devour wasn’t simply stronger.

It was no longer behaving like the skill he knew.

Its hunger had changed.

Before, it had consumed Essence by breaking it down and absorbing it into his body. There had always been a limit to how much it could process, a boundary between what the skill could consume and what Eden’s body could withstand.

That boundary was gone.

The crimson mass spread across the sky, swallowing the Hydra’s attack piece by piece.

And then another notification appeared.

[Skill Devour [S] has evolved into Predation [SS].]

Eden’s pupils contracted.

He didn’t have time to process it.

The crimson vortex expanded again, its countless teeth opening wider. The energy it consumed no longer seemed to disappear into a contained space. Instead, it was being pulled into something far deeper, something that seemed to exist beyond the limits of the System’s ordinary skill framework.

A second notification appeared.

[Skill Predation [SS] has evolved into Gluttony [SSS].]

The pressure changed.

The air grew heavy.

Every remaining window in the skyscraper shattered at once, and the floor beneath Eden began to crumble. Even the Hydra’s enormous body was forced backward, its wings beating violently as it struggled against the pull.

Eden felt something move inside him.

It was as though an enormous lock had been broken.

A sensation of overwhelming hunger flooded his mind, so intense that for a moment he couldn’t distinguish his own thoughts from the instinct surging through his body.

The Hydra.

The island.

The buildings.

Everything around him seemed to have become something that could be consumed.

Then came the final notification.

[The Skill Gluttony [SSS] has evolved into the Authority: ■■■■■■■■ [X].]

Silence.

For a fraction of a second, everything seemed to stop.

The crimson maw vanished.

A vast, dark-red distortion spread outward from Eden’s hand, swallowing the remaining Hydra attack without resistance. The poisonous flames, the lightning, and the black beam disappeared as though they had never existed.

The shockwave ceased.

The trembling stopped.

Even the air seemed to become still.

Eden stood motionless.

His arm was raised, but he could no longer feel it.

The Hydra’s three heads stared toward him.

Aphelios, who had been standing atop the monster, slowly lifted his head.

For the first time since summoning the beast, his expression changed.

"What...?"

He couldn’t understand it.

The attack should have destroyed the entire skyscraper. Even if Eden had somehow managed to survive the initial impact, there was no conceivable way an A-Rank Awakened could have stopped it.

Yet the attack was all but gone.

Almost completely consumed.

And the thing standing in front of him...

Aphelios felt his stomach turn.

It didn’t feel like an Awakened anymore.

It didn’t even feel like a creature.

It felt like something that shouldn’t even exist.

His eyes were wide open, but his expression was strangely empty.

Another notification appeared.

[The host’s physical body is incapable of withstanding the power of the Authority: ■■■■■■■■.]

[Critical warning: The host’s existence is at risk.]

A sharp pain erupted throughout his body.

Eden’s knees buckled.

The authority was still growing, and his body was unable to contain it. Cracks spread across his skin, revealing crimson light burning beneath. His veins darkened, and the Essence circulating through his body began to move in directions it was never meant to.

His heart struggled to keep up.

"Eden...?"

Lucy had finally managed to lift her head.

She stared at him, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

The crimson energy surrounding him was gone, replaced by something far more ominous. It wasn’t flowing around his body anymore.

It was leaking out of him.

Like an ocean attempting to escape a vessel far too small to contain it.

Obsidian slowly raised his head.

Even the Black Knight seemed to understand that something terrible had happened.

Eden looked down at his hand.

He could feel the power.

All of it.

An incomprehensible authority that seemed to have no natural ceiling.

And yet, the more he felt it, the more his body began to break.