Chapter 1312: Ninety Nine Seventy

I raised an eyebrow as the count continued climbing, passing fifty and then sixty, while the luminous threads spread between his palms like an increasingly intricate web. Each new strand added another layer to the structure, yet none of them interfered with the others, and all of them flowed under his control with an ease that seemed almost unnatural.

When the count passed seventy, my earlier confidence vanished entirely, and even Lyrate, who had been preparing to unleash our combined attack, stared at the display in open disbelief.

Eighty.

Ninety.

"Wait, what the hell?" I blurted out, unable to stop myself.

My future self glanced at me, and the amusement in his eyes deepened when he saw my reaction. Apparently, watching me lose my composure was proving almost as entertaining to him as whatever he was attempting to accomplish. The threads continued multiplying, filling the space between his palms with a dazzling lattice of multicoloured light, until I could no longer keep track of them by sight alone.

"Ninety-nine," I finally shouted. "All right, that’s enough!"

"Yeah, I think so too," he replied with a chuckle.

The threads stopped multiplying.

Ninety-nine distinct Origins flowed between his palms, each one carrying a different resonance, and I could only stare at the impossible sight before me. I had spent three years pushing forty-nine Origins to ninety percent resonance, believing that I had reached the limit of what my current foundation could support.

Yet the future version of myself had somehow broken through that very limitation, comprehending twice as many Origins without losing control of a single one.

The realization sent a surge of excitement through me, quickly followed by a dozen questions I had no time to ask. If this was what I could eventually achieve, then the bottleneck I had encountered wasn’t necessarily an absolute limit.

There was a way beyond it, a way to expand my foundation without sacrificing the Origins I had already comprehended. I didn’t yet understand how my future self had accomplished it, but simply knowing that it was possible changed everything.

Then the resonance of the ninety-nine Origins began to rise.

Ten percent.

Twenty percent.

Thirty percent.

The threads brightened as their power increased, and the pressure spreading from his hands grew heavier with every passing moment. I could feel the changes through my own connection to the Origins, each increase revealing a depth of power that made my current ninety-percent resonance seem far less impressive than it had a moment ago.

My future self continued raising their resonance with measured precision, keeping every strand stable while the combined force between his palms grew denser.

Fifty percent.....Sixty percent.

I swallowed audibly as the power continued climbing, and beside me, Lyrate had gone completely still. Even the enormous sword above her seemed insignificant now, its forty-nine stacked Origins struggling to compete with the sheer scale of what my future self was displaying.

He wasn’t merely wielding more Origins than I could comprehend; he was raising all of them together, maintaining perfect control over a foundation that should have been far beyond anything a single being could sustain.

Seventy percent.

The threads shone with an intensity that made the surrounding void appear dim, and the pressure rolling off them forced me to concentrate just to keep my own Soul Force stable. My future self finally stopped increasing their resonance and examined the web stretched between his hands, apparently satisfied with the result.

"I think this should be enough," he said casually. "If I push them any further, I might actually kill you."

He paused, then gave a short laugh.

"Which would mean I’d be killing myself. That would be rather inconvenient."

Seventy percent across ninety-nine Origins was already absurd, and yet he was talking about it as though he had merely finished warming up before a sparring match.

Before I could respond, he began bringing his palms together again.

The ninety-nine threads gradually compressed as the distance between his hands narrowed, their individual strands folding inward without tangling or breaking. Their colours gathered into a dense, swirling mass, and the intricate web steadily collapsed into a single point of light between his palms. When his hands finally touched, the last visible threads disappeared, leaving him standing motionless once more.

He closed his eyes.

For five seconds, nothing changed.

Then a multicoloured glow began to seep through the gaps between his fingers, growing brighter until the light enveloped both palms. I recognized the nature of the energy immediately, yet something about it felt profoundly different from the Absolute Authority I had invoked moments earlier.

My own Authority allowed me to bring my Origins together under a single will, merging their forces into a unified whole, but the power gathering between my future self’s hands seemed to be attempting something beyond simple unification.

The colours were brighter than mine, yet they also appeared strangely unstable, flickering as though they were struggling to transform into something else. For a fraction of a second, I caught a glimpse of white glow spreading through the multicoloured radiance, a pale brilliance that seemed to exist independently of the ninety-nine Origins surrounding it.

Then it vanished, swallowed by the shifting colours, only to reappear a moment later before disappearing again.

I stared at the intermittent white glow, unable to understand what I was seeing. It didn’t feel like another Origin, nor did it resemble the combined resonance of the others. Whatever it was, the ninety-nine Origins seemed to be converging toward it, as though they were trying to create something that none of them could produce individually.

My future self opened his eyes, and the flickering light steadied for a brief moment before he slowly pulled his palms apart.

The multicoloured glow remained suspended between them, compressed into a dense mass of power that seemed almost too bright to look at directly. He studied it with an expression of mild curiosity, as though examining an experiment that hadn’t yet produced the result he wanted, and then turned one palm toward us.

He pushed his hand forward.

The light erupted.

A gigantic palm materialized in front of him, expanding in an instant until its size rivalled Lyrate’s enormous sword. Its fingers stretched across the void, each one formed from countless overlapping layers of multicoloured light, while the broad palm radiated an overwhelming pressure that spread through the surrounding ruins. Space trembled beneath its presence, and the very fabric of the dead zone seemed to recoil as the enormous hand advanced into existence.

Yet the most terrifying thing wasn’t its size or even the power contained within it.

It was the silence.