Chapter 42: Infinite Will...WTH!!!

Chapter Forty Two

What the hell... Seriously, what in the actual hell was happening? How could someone who was nowhere near achieving godhood attain Infinite Will already?

If reaching Sovereign Will was something that most beings could only dream about, with many not even daring to dream about it in the first place, then the next stage of Will... Infinite Will... was an entire realm beyond that.

It was something that actual gods chased. Yet right before him stood a young human child, barely sixteen years old, who had already achieved Infinite Will.

How?

Just how had he done that?

Even he, a being who had existed for who knew how long, had slept through countless ages and watched civilizations rise and fall. He had watched gods be born, watched them rise to unimaginable heights, and watched many of them eventually be killed.

He had witnessed more things than most beings could even comprehend. He could truly be described as ancient, so ancient that the very concept of being ancient had become mundane when compared to his existence.

And yet, even he was only at Eternal Will, merely two realms above Infinite Will.

But this kid... this sixteen-year-old human child... had already reached Infinite Will.

Just what was happening?

The being refrained from cursing at hell anymore. After all, from the few outbursts he had displayed so far, several hells had already been erased simply because they had startled him, while many more powerful hells had suffered tremendous strain from his reactions.

Calamitous encounters had shaken entire worlds, and countless realms had nearly suffered because of the being’s inability to contain his emotions.

Although all of those incidents were merely collateral damage, the main culprit responsible for making this ancient being so startled in the first place was, as unbelievable as it sounded, just a normal human child.

Although, at this point, the word normal was an absolute lie.

The being could testify to that himself. There was absolutely nothing normal about this kid.

Reaching Sovereign Will had already been unbelievable enough, and now he had attained Infinite Will.

What next?

Would he move on to Absolute Will?

The being couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought. "Impossible..."

No matter how impossible and unbelievable the things this kid had achieved were, reaching Infinite Will was already something that simply should not have happened. It was an absolute overkill.

There was no way his Will would make another breakthrough.

That was what the being thought as he continued watching Orion move from one trial to another.

And yet, even as he watched, the amount of time Orion needed to cross each floor continued to shrink. What had once taken a couple of billions of years was reduced to millions of years, then hundreds of thousands of years.

Eventually, it had reached merely thousands of years for Orion to move from one floor to another.

The trials were designed to become harder and harder to conquer, yet Orion was making them seem easier and easier.

It couldn’t be helped.

Infinite Will was simply too much for the trial set before him.

To put things into context, if someone who possessed Infinite Will entered the White Palace and took the Origin Trial, their trial would become infinitely harder than the one Orion was taking.

That didn’t mean Orion had it easy.

No.

He really had it rough. More than rough.

His Will had been reshaped, broken, and reforged countless times. He had crossed through the stages of Will one at a time, constantly pushing himself beyond what should have been possible until he finally reached Infinite Will.

Calling that unprecedented didn’t even begin to describe it.

Before, when Orion possessed Sovereign Will, the trial’s difficulty had already been reduced by eighty percent. But now, with Infinite Will suppressing the trial’s influence, the difficulty had been reduced by a staggering 99.99999%.

And if Orion had perfect control over his current Will state, suppressing the trial’s difficulty into the negative was not impossible.

With all of this, Orion’s victory should have seemed all but certain.

But the ancient being didn’t think like that.

Over the countless ages he had spent maintaining the White Palace and acting as the guardian of the Origin Trial, the highest any challenger had ever cleared or reached was the 500th floor.

And yet Orion had long ago passed the 500th floor.

In fact, he was already at the 900th floor.

But the reason the being didn’t believe Orion would win was because of what came next.

Starting from the 901st trial and above, the danger and challenge multiplied infinitely. Compared to the trials Orion had faced from the 10th floor all the way to the 900th floor, everything before this point could almost be described as child’s play.

His Infinite Will would be taken into account by the Origin Trial, and because of that, the trial would become so much harder that passing it would be all but impossible.

It made the ancient being question himself.

Did his Lord, the one who had created and set all of these trials, even want there to be an inheritor?

Because if he did, then why make the trial so impossibly difficult?

The being understood the importance of the Origin. In fact, its importance could not even be put into words. There was no language capable of truly describing how precious the Origin was.

So perhaps... Maybe that was why.

The being watched the trial with expectation. This was where he believed the kid would truly begin to struggle.

Perhaps Orion would barely survive the first few rounds. But the rounds after that?

Surely there was no hope of him surviving them.

That was what the ancient being thought.

And yet, once more, his expectations were shattered.

Orion’s steps did not slow.

Even as the already overwhelming trial became even more difficult, Orion continued moving forward. Where his Will failed to let him continue, he continued with nothing but spite.

Where even his spite failed to move him forward, he moved with nothing but absolute, sheer pettiness.

And where even all of that failed, where he became nothing but a shell with no consciousness, he still moved.

Nothing but a broken shell remained, his Infinite Will suppressed into a state of dormancy, and yet he continued forward.

At that kind of state, he was not supposed to be able to continue.

And yet he did exactly that.

He moved.

His mind was gone. His soul could no longer respond, and his active Will had fallen dormant, but Orion still continued moving forward.

It was as if his very body, that empty shell remaining after everything else had been broken, simply refused to stop walking.

Just as Orion had been doing all this while.

He continued moving without thinking, without breathing, without truly living. It was as if the very motto he had set his life upon at the beginning of this hellish trial had fully integrated itself into his body.

Keep moving forward.

It was no longer merely something Orion remembered. It was no longer simply a thought inside his mind. It had become a part of his existence.

Even when his mind could no longer function, his body remembered.

Even when his soul could no longer respond, his body remembered.

Even when his Infinite Will had fallen dormant, something deeper within him still remembered.

Keep moving forward.

So he kept moving.

He crossed that trial.

Then he entered another and crossed that one as well. Another trial followed, then another impossible hell, another step, and then another.

The ancient being finally collapsed back onto his throne, feeling rather weak in the knees as he stared at the absurd scene unfolding before him.

"He is unstoppable..."

His voice was barely above a mutter, filled with emotions he had long ago ascended beyond. Disbelief, shock, excitement, and many other emotions that should no longer have existed within a being as ancient as himself all surfaced as he watched Orion continue.

Finally, someone worthy of wielding the Origin had appeared.

The thought caused something deep within the ancient being to tremble, but he didn’t allow his hope to rise too high. After all, he could only truly celebrate if this absurd human child actually managed to wield the Origin.

Until then, there was still a chance that Orion would fail.

So the being continued watching in anticipation as Orion crossed more and more impossible trials, including trials that seemed absurd even by the being’s own standards.

He never gave up.

Every aspect of his existence was used against him. His emotions, his anger, his hatred, his love, his fear, and his attachments... every single thing that could possibly be used to slow him down was brought against him.

Every weakness was exposed. Every wound was reopened. Every part of Orion’s existence was tested in an attempt to slow his advancement and break his Will.

But his leg didn’t stop moving.

He continued taking the next step, then the one after it, and then another. Over and over again, he refused to stop even when his soul was shredded, his mind warped wildly, or his very core was crushed and reformed countless times.

His leg never stopped.

He never stopped taking that one step, then another, then another.

And right before the ancient being’s eyes, something even more absurd began to happen.

Orion’s Infinite Will started to soar higher and higher.

It climbed and surged, continuing to rise as though it wanted to break through yet another entire realm.

The ancient being nearly had a heart attack.

In fact, if he actually possessed a heart, he probably would have had one.

But that didn’t happen, and similarly, Orion’s Will didn’t break into the next stage either.

Not yet.

It had only come close.

Extremely close.

It was merely one step away. Just a little stimulus, a little enlightenment, or one final push, and Orion would undoubtedly step into the next realm.

The ancient being stared at Orion, completely out of words.

How was he supposed to describe this?

Calling him a monster was a disrespect now. An impossible anomaly was still too little to describe him. Even calling him unstoppable was doing him a disservice.

If there was anything he could call this magnificent existence before him, he had no idea what that word would be.

In fact, he doubted there even existed a word capable of describing how this puny human child called Orion looked to him right now.

There was simply no name suitable for him.

Meanwhile, Orion finally crossed into the 999th floor.

Finally, after what seemed like an infinity of suffering and an eternity spent passing through hellish trial after hellish trial, Orion was finally close.

Just one more trial.

One more.

And he would conquer this trial.