SSS Awakening: All My Clones Have Divine Bloodlines!

There were many places in the world that simply couldn’t be explored by humanity.

Some were beyond reach because of a lack of information. Others because of technological limitations, insufficient resources, or countless other obstacles.

The Earth’s core was unquestionably one of them.

Evan was no scientist, no engineer, not in his past life, and not now. But it was common knowledge that reaching the Earth’s core was simply impossible with the materials available to humanity. The temperatures alone made it a non-starter. And yet she was telling him that someone had managed it, and that this was also the reason the first Mana Apocalypse had occurred?

He wasn’t sure what to think.

The information he had already received was overwhelming, yet he could tell he had only seen the tip of the iceberg.

There was clearly much more.

"It doesn’t particularly matter how they did it," Seraphine said. "What matters is that they succeeded, and the consequences of that action were far more catastrophic than anyone could have anticipated."

"The Earth’s core appeared to contain trace amounts of mana, traces that by today’s standards would be considered negligible, but at the time represented an enormous discovery. And the uses that were found for it shortly after were nothing short of remarkable."

"As a chain reaction, people went from discovering that mana could manipulate the laws and concepts that governed reality itself, to creating the world’s first Awakened."

"But none of that was anything compared to what came next, the fact that they had found a way to multiply mana particles and increase their quantity, providing more than enough mana to fuel their operations." She paused, and as she spoke, a faint glow of something dangerous appeared in her eyes.

"Word spread quickly, and wars broke out everywhere. The scale of conflict shifted from weapons of mass destruction to Awakened. The first Awakened had officially made their appearance on the world stage. Up to that point, everything was, in a sense, manageable. But it turned out that the discovery of mana had brought consequences with it, consequences we are still dealing with today."

Evan understood immediately what she was referring to.

The Abyss.

He wasn’t yet certain how it connected to everything else, but it was the only thing he could think of.

"You’re a void energy user," Seraphine continued. "Your affinity with it is unnaturally high, which means you, more than anyone else, should have noticed the particular nature of that energy. Am I right?"

Evan nodded.

’So it is the Abyss,’ he thought, confirming what he had suspected, though he still wasn’t entirely sure how.

"It seems to be the opposite of mana in some sense," he said. "Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it’s a superior form of energy, one capable of absorbing mana, corrupting it, and altering it." He was drawing on the most basic characteristics he had come to understand about void energy through experience.

Void corruption was the most obvious manifestation to anyone who had encountered it, but the true scope of what that corruption could do was something only users like him could begin to grasp. He had experimented with it long enough to understand how to wield it more effectively.

"You’re not wrong to think of it as a superior form of energy, but it’s far more than that." Seraphine said, shaking her head slightly. "To be precise, it is the original source of energy."

The original source?

"Void Energy may appear malicious on the surface, but in reality it is largely harmless."

The statement hit Evan like a bomb.

’Harmless? Since when? Those hollows certainly wouldn’t agree,’Evan thought, clearly skeptical, but he kept his mouth shut for now and simply listened.

Seraphine, as if she had read his expression perfectly, let a small, knowing smile cross her face and continued.

"You see, Void Energy has always existed, And humanity came into contact with it long before the advent of mana," she said. Before he could interject, she added: "To be precise, this universe is like a vast, ever-expanding ocean made of void energy. You perceive it as a form of energy like mana, but in reality, it is the sum of all the laws that govern existence itself and allow life to flourish."

"The void beyond the boundaries of a world is saturated with this energy. It was always there."

"It was simply harmless at the time."

Hearing that, Evan grew more confused, not less.

Void energy wasn’t a form of energy? It was harmless? The entire universe was composed of it?

He felt as though his mind was beginning to buckle under the weight of everything he was receiving, and he was fairly certain that any readers following along were already cursing the novel’s author, who had in the meantime located a suitable bunker and quietly disappeared from circulation.

In the end, Evan couldn’t help asking the most obvious question.

"Then why does it seem harmful now? The Abyss appears to be a product of void energy, and that is clearly working against everything in this world. How can it still be considered harmless with all of this happening?" he asked, cutting straight to the point that mattered most.

Fear of the Abyss was something carved into the bones of every living person. Generation after generation had lived under the shadow of it, and even now that fear remained. The reason was simple, it was the force actively consuming life in this world. How could something like that be called harmless?

"It’s because of mana," she said.

That single sentence threw Evan off completely.

Mana, the one thing in all of this that had seemed like a positive force, was the cause of everything?

Seraphine, with the air of a teacher, and she had in fact conjured a pair of glasses made of condensed light, which gave her a rather striking appearance, continued.

"Let me give you an example. Imagine the universe as a vast, endlessly expanding ocean. The water of that ocean is the void, and that water is what permits life to exist within it, planets, and everything else out there.

But how does it do that, exactly? Through mana."

"Mana is a component of the void, with the specific function of regulating the laws of nature in such a way that a certain balance is maintained, one that allows life to exist on planets. The quantity of mana required to do this is extraordinarily small."

"Now imagine that suddenly, inside that ocean, a bubble of air appears. It goes against the nature of the ocean. And so the ocean responds, it compresses the bubble and expels it."

"Mana itself is not the problem. But the fact that it was multiplied to such a degree that the world itself changed, that created a disruption. One that goes against the laws of the universe."

"In short, the arrival of mana in these quantities created a bubble inside the ocean. And the ocean responded by producing something designed to eliminate the bubble."

It didn’t take a genius to understand what she was referring to.

"The Abyss," Evan murmured.

The Abyss was the only force actively working against mana, because it could corrupt it and break it down. That had always led people to assume it was directed at the living beings of the planet, but in reality it was directed at everything that contained mana, including the living organisms that carried traces of it inside them.

In other words, every living thing on the planet.

"By that logic, mana can’t be used to stop the Abyss," Evan said. "So how did you manage to do it in the past?"

Seraphine, unlike before, didn’t answer immediately this time. She remained silent for a long moment before continuing.

"We didn’t," she said, her voice carrying a weight of bitterness, and something else he couldn’t quite name, though he didn’t press it. "We lost. Every single time."

"What do you mean? If you never stopped it, then how are we still here? Why haven’t we already been wiped out?" he asked, feeling that something fundamental wasn’t adding up.

And in that moment, pieces of what she had said earlier began to resurface in his mind, one by one.

The world hadn’t suffered one Mana Apocalypse. It had suffered five. And on top of that, the world they were standing in right now was his original world, the place where everything had begun.

The world had been close to destruction...

It wouldn’t survive another cycle.

Once again, the words spoken by that mysterious being in his dream resurfaced in his mind.

’But another cycle of what?’

Evan noticed the detail immediately, and for some reason he felt as though he already knew the answer.

Seraphine seemed to notice the shift in his eyes and nodded slowly.

"Exactly what you’re thinking. We have never truly stopped the Abyss. Not even close."

"This world has already been destroyed by the Abyss. More than once."