Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 403: Countdown

Concepts.

The abstracts responsible for all fundamental phenomena across the Cosmos.

The Concepts governing the Multiverse Jamie lived in, however, were innately chaotic by nature.

In other words, they were volatile, unstable, and if left unchecked, they would dye the Multiverse in their colour—chaos.

Because of this, they had to be kept under control. They had to be maintained, to prevent these inherently volatile abstracts from unleashing catastrophic disorder throughout the Multiverse and beyond.

The ones who managed and maintained the Major Concepts were a group of 12 individuals known as the Eternals.

Each of them was an immensely old existence of the Ultimate Realm, wielding a level of power that nothing beneath their Realm could ever hope to match.

It was this insurmountable gulf between the Zenith Haven and Ultimate realms that made Jamie’s decision to challenge an Eternal appear to the rest of the Cosmos as nothing short of madness.

Alas, only Jamie, the Eternal he had challenged, and their lone spectator knew the true reason behind his actions.

But that aside, Jamie had come to Akari, a contractor of the Eternals, and had her summon the Eternal she was contracted with, the ’Governor of Causality’.

|Why have you summoned me, Immortal Anomaly?|

In response to that question, Jamie, wearing his usual flippant smile, waved casually and said,

"Sup, Roland. Long time no see."

Unfortunately for Jamie, Roland was the always serious, no-nonsense type. He immediately brushed aside Jamie’s light-hearted greeting.

|Get straight to the point.|

Jamie chuckled at that, already expecting such a response.

His relationship with Roland, the Eternal of Causality, was complicated in its own peculiar way.

To begin with, Roland was not particularly fond of Singularity existences like Jamie, since they frequently disrupted Causality’s policing of the Cosmos.

For instance, Jamie’s continued presence in the Zanerth Universe had expanded its Deviation Margin, giving causal offenders far more room to act before their interference triggered the cosmic alarms and drew the attention of Roland’s Enforcers.

Furthermore, Jamie, driven by personal interest, had interfered in Roland’s operations on multiple occasions, causing things to end quite unfavourably for the Eternal.

But Roland wasn’t blameless either.

He had meddled in Jamie’s affairs several times as well, and on more than one occasion, he’d even received help from Jamie.

After all, even the Eternals, powerful as they were, weren’t omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent.

There were still vast regions of the Cosmos they hadn’t reached, even after existing for over a trillion years, and some of those areas happened to lie within Jamie’s sphere of influence.

It was in one of those regions that Roland had once run into a problem and had been forced to rely on Jamie’s assistance to resolve it.

Of course, there had been a direct benefit for Jamie in aiding Roland, as he wouldn’t have done so otherwise.

Their relationship could best be described as one built on reluctant cooperation, a mutual understanding that "just because I don’t like you doesn’t mean I won’t do business with you."

That saying described Jamie and Roland perfectly.

And it was part of the reason Jamie had Akari summon him now.

"Akari, let him read the memories I just passed to you, excluding your personal ones. Just show him the Neo-Extinction Legion stuff."

At the mention of the Neo-Extinction Legion, Roland lifted an eyebrow, and immediately after, Akari’s left eye transformed from the Möbius Strip that signified Roland’s control back to her own feline pupil, her voice then echoing.

"Yeah, you’re paying us extra for this, Westley."

Her eye reverted to the Möbius Strip, with Roland once again in control.

"Go on," Jamie said. "Go through the memories and see everything."

Roland stayed silent for a moment before deciding to delve into the memories Akari had opened to him. He instantly absorbed every detail concerning the Neo-Extinction Legion that Jamie had collected and passed on to her.

After going through those memories, Roland’s expression darkened.

|This is going to be troublesome,| he said.

He immediately recognised the potential problems the Neo-Extinction Legion could create, not just for Zanerth, but for the Multiverse and the Greater Cosmos as a whole.

Especially if the reforged Annihilation Catalyst managed to reach a power level comparable to its Master, or even worse, surpassed it and achieved Ultimate.

If it reached that level, its ’Authority’ to ’Kill All Living Beings Within the Universe Weaker Than Its User’ would have been restored, and it would likely be able to use that Authority as it was essentially the Annihilation Catalyst’s Existence Declaration—the truest statement of what it was.

The scale of the Authority could also expand from the level of a ’Universe,’ which it had originally been created for, and if it were used indiscriminately, calling the consequences a ’disaster’ would be an understatement.

|How sure are you that its Authority isn’t restored yet?|

Roland asked this crucial question, and Jamie raised his left hand to rub his chin, as if thinking over how to answer.

A moment later, he extended the same left hand and, with a blade of spatial power, sliced off his wrist.

His severed wrist dropped to the floor, blood spilling, but a second later, it regenerated, and the severed piece on the floor turned to dust, blown away by the wind.

Then, without further explanation, he opened his pocket dimension and pulled out a bronze curved piece of metal, jagged at two points along its curves, likely where it had been attached to something else.

The metal piece radiated a strong cosmic energy signature, and Roland could sense a powerful Authority emanating from it.

Well, powerful to anything below the Ultimate Realm, that is.

|What’s that supposed to be?| he asked.

Jamie didn’t answer, only silently conjuring a projection in the air using light laws.

The projection was a 3D image of a bronze oil lamp, with a rounded glass chamber held within a bronze frame. Two curved handles extended from its sides, arching outward before curling inward toward the top, where a vented cap with a circular ring sat.

A circular base supported the structure, its surface showed faint ridges, and inside the glass enclosure was a flame-shaped gem glowing with a reddish-grey light.

Pushing the projection closer to Roland, Jamie finally spoke.

"That’s what the Annihilation Catalyst looks like."

For a moment, silence reigned.

Then Roland alternated his gaze between the projection and the broken piece of metal in Jamie’s left hand before looking up at him.

|You’ve had a fragment of the thing all this time?|

Anyone could see that the curved metal piece Jamie held was exactly the same as the left handle of the lamp in the projection.

"Its master tried to reforge it mid-battle. In the heat of the moment, I grabbed a handful of random fragments and tossed them into my pocket dimension to stop him from reforging the full thing."

Hearing Jamie’s explanation, Roland nodded silently, and recalling Jamie’s earlier demonstration where he severed his hand, he quickly understood what Jamie meant.

|It needs to regenerate its fragments to regain that Authority, and the fact that you still have this means the process isn’t complete.|

"Yes. Though, to be honest, this piece is the only one I have left," Jamie said.

Roland raised an eyebrow, recalling Jamie’s statement that he’d grabbed a ’handful of random fragments,’ and immediately understood why Jamie knew the fragments vanished when it regenerated.

|The other fragments you had have disappeared.|

Jamie nodded silently, dismissing the projection and tossing the fragment back into his pocket dimension.

Roland now understood why Jamie was confident the reforged Annihilation Catalyst, with its ’Kill all Living Beings Below User Authority,’ wasn’t an immediate threat.

But honestly, in the grand scheme of things, that was only a minor concern. The Cosmos had its fair share of occasional genocidal maniacs.

The Reverse Comprehension was also a concern, but in Roland’s eyes, it was minor enough that he didn’t need to intervene personally.

What he considered truly ’troublesome’ was the ability to weaponise pseudo-nonexistence.

He knew of the Dead Zone in the Zanerth Universe, where that pseudo-nonexistence weaponisation likely began, and he immediately thought about the possibility of it being used to create additional ’Dead Zones’ in other universes.

Tears that the Cosmos couldn’t permanently heal from were rare, even on a Cosmic Scale, and it was worse since these tears allowed the nothingness beyond existence to seep into the Cosmos.

Even the Reverse Comprehension, currently accepted as ’valid’ by the Cosmic System of Realm Progression, wouldn’t remain so for long.

After all, Reverse Comprehension was rooted in the weaponisation of pseudo-nonexistence, a diluted version of nothingness fundamentally incompatible with existence, drawn through an improper channel.

The issue at hand was both simple and complex: existence coherence.

If the Neo-Extinction Legion managed to create an army of existences capable of wielding this power, an army strong enough to challenge Zanerth’s forces—which they clearly intended to—then such a large number of pseudo-nonexistence users would inevitably trigger alarms, as their presence would cause instabilities in existence due to the incompatibility.

The first person those alarms would alert was the Eternal currently possessing Akari.

Hence, Jamie had called him, not to report the problem or ask him to handle it, but to do the opposite.

"Don’t do anything about it."

|...|

Roland blinked in silence, and after a moment, he asked, |Have you gone mad?|

"No. I’m simply telling you not to take action. This is a matter starting from Zanerth, and I want to handle it without escalating it to the point where you Eternals have to get involved."

Jamie spoke without his usual playfulness or nonchalance, keeping a serious tone as he continued.

"But if we fail to handle it, then you’re free to act."

|If you fail? By the time that happens, the threat would have been blown out of proportion, and unnecessary damage would have been done.|

Roland’s voice rose slowly as he spoke, and for good reason.

By his understanding, if Jamie failed to deal with the Neo-Extinction Legion, the threat would have escalated beyond the multiversal level and gone Cosmic.

"I understand. But this is something that happened because I didn’t properly destroy the Annihilation Catalyst when I killed its master," Jamie said, recalling the moment his Galaxy Sword split the device into pieces.

He also remembered how he hadn’t focused on the pieces and had chased after its master, whose power kept rising, the following clash being the one that tore apart existence and created the Dead Zone.

"I want to finish the job this time."

Clearly, this was personal for Jamie.

Besides, the intervention of the Eternals would cause immense damage to Zanerth and its forces, far more than what they’d already suffer at the hands of the Neo-Extinction Legion, and Jamie didn’t want that.

Roland figured that out immediately, and after a moment of silence, he spoke.

|Three Years.|

He turned around, cosmic energy rising from Akari’s body like mist as he continued.

|Handle it within three years.|

"That’s a bit unreasonable, no?"

Jamie turned to him with narrowed eyes. Ending a universal-level war in just three years?

|That’s the most I can allow for that thing’s continued existence. Besides, do you really think Akasha and Dulio would sit quietly when they eventually find out about this?|

The mention of the Eternals of Wisdom and Knowledge, as well as Light and Life, made Jamie frown, and seeing this, Roland continued.

|I’m simply letting you know how much I can stall them.|

"Then at least start your counter when I return to Zanerth. I can’t take proper action from outside anyway."

Roland didn’t respond.

He simply disengaged his link to Akari’s body, and his consciousness returned to his residence outside the hyperverse, restoring full control back to her.

As soon as Roland left, Akari, breathing heavily, dropped onto one knee, one of her nine tails flickering dangerously like an illusion.

Hosting an Ultimate Realm existence’s consciousness within her body, even briefly, was incredibly taxing, even at her level of power.

"You’re paying us double for this burden, Westley," she groaned.

"Put it on my tab," Jamie replied with a chuckle, lifting the Galaxy Sword and tearing a cosmic gate open with a swing of the blade.

"I’ll be using the special gate."

Akari fixed Jamie with a suspicious gaze for a moment before shaking her head and rising to her feet.

"You wouldn’t like our retaliation if you fail to repay us."

Jamie only waved silently as he stepped into the gate to return to where Miranda and Sarina were.

Left behind, Akari heaved a deep sigh.

"Now then, time for us to root out those who dare shake hands with our enemies."

The Shrine Priestess’s eyes glowed as she turned and stepped forward, vanishing from the gazebo.