NOVPUB
Chapter 234: From Mortal To Master
Wind howled around me as I plummeted, faster and faster. The platform came into view below like a small dot growing in size. I waited until the last second, then flared the wings open.
The mist expanded instantly, catching the air, stopping my fall with brutal grace. I hovered in place again, barely a foot above the platform, with wind coiling around my legs like excited snakes.
I didn’t land right away.
Instead, I moved again—faster now, darting around the abyss with a level of precision that surprised even me. I rose. Dipped. Glided low across the edge. Twisted into a loop and came out flying backward. I slowed midair until I barely drifted forward and then stopped entirely, hovering with my wings held wide and steady.
Every movement, every shift of wind, responded to my will.
I descended slowly and landed back on the platform where Silver waited, his wings tucked in, eyes locked on me. I folded my own wings, and they vanished into a swirl of crimson mist, curling across my back before fading completely.
I exhaled and felt my heartbeat calm.
This was way more than I expected.
"These wings are insane," I muttered under my breath, still feeling the lingering energy along my back where they had disappeared.
Silver let out a low shriek, as if proud, and I nodded at him with a smile before de-summoning him. In a swirl of crimson mist, his form faded, pulled back into the core.
I looked down at myself. My shirt had been completely torn apart during the transformation, but other than that, I seemed... mostly normal.
Except for one thing—the black tattoo that now coiled around my right arm. Tattoo of a chain. It wrapped around my arm in tight, even loops like a snake crawling up.
Looking at the tattoo reminded me of that man.
The one I had seen for a brief moment—the one who tore open space like it was cloth. His chains were the same. Black. Broken. His expression had been wild, like he was always on the edge of madness. He looked dangerous, powerful... and completely unhinged.
And he might be a prisoner.
A shiver crawled up my spine.
I didn’t want to end up like that. I didn’t want to lose myself to whatever this power was. But right now, I had no answers, no facts to work with. So I made a quiet promise to myself—once I left this place, I would dig deeper. I would find out what this soul shackle truly meant.
A powerful man with chains. And now I had one too.
I took a deep breath and recalled the other change.
The green in my eyes was still there, but now there was a faint violet ring surrounding it. It was subtle, easy to miss. If anyone asked, I could just say it was from a vision-related trait. That was common enough.
But the wings? How the hell was I going to explain those?
I rubbed my chin, frowning a little. I could hide them, maybe, but eventually someone would see. There was no way something that massive wouldn’t get noticed.
Then the thought hit me.
And I chuckled.
"Why would I care what anyone thinks?"
I shrugged, smiling to myself.
I was strong now—really strong. And I had the feeling that before I left this strange realm, I’d become even stronger. Strong enough that no one would question anything so easily. I didn’t need to lie or make excuses. I’d just show them the results.
Both my class and race evolution were finished now.
It was time to see how far I’d come.
I opened my status window.
[Status]
--------------------------------------------------
Name : Billion Ironhart
Race : Executor(Human)
Class : Primordial Executor – Transcendent (Mythic)
Laws :
- Minor Law of Absolute - 40%
Awakened Weapon: Executor’s Staff
Rank: Master
Level : 104
Talent :
- Generator Nexus 2
- Essence : 90/90 (+90)
- Soul Shackle : 1
Attributes :
- Strength: 701
- Constitution: 555
- Dexterity: 452
- Psynapse : 866
- Essence : ∞
Skills:
- Essence Engine (Innate) Level 5
- Psynapse Overdrive (Innate) Level 3
- Seismic Burst Level 5
- Havoc Sfera Level 3
- Blitz Hakai Level 3
- Spatial Shield Level 2
- Absolute Level 4
- Revert Level 3
- Singularity Beam (Weapon Skill)
Abilities:
- Apex Body – I (Passive)
- Trait Acquisition
--------------------------------------------------
My Psynapse had climbed all the way up to 866. It was inching closer and closer to the 1000-point mark, and I couldn’t help but feel excited about it.
I didn’t know exactly what would happen when it crossed that threshold, but I had a feeling something major was waiting on the other side. Some kind of breakthrough, maybe. A transformation. Something that would change how I used my abilities entirely.
But for now, I shifted my focus.
Dexterity. That stat was lagging behind the others now, and it was starting to become a problem. My movements were fast, sure—but not fast enough.
In the kinds of battles I was expecting in the near future, speed, precision, and reaction time would matter as much as raw power. Maybe more.
Then there was the new stat: Essence.
I looked at it again.
Infinity.
Where everyone else had numbers—ranging from one to a hundred, with a hundred being the theoretical limit for humans—mine just said ∞. I’d heard of prodigies reaching the sixties. Some legendary figures maybe hit seventy. But even that was a once-in-a-generation kind of thing.
And mine had no cap.
It didn’t make sense. But maybe 100 was not the cap out there in the universe.
Still, it was hard to grasp what that meant for me in the long run. I’d just have to keep moving forward and figure it out one step at a time.
The other change was easy to spot.
Trait Acquisition.
The newest ability tied to my race evolution. I could take physical traits from the beings I bound through soul shackles. One trait per soul. And it lasted as long as the soul remained tethered to me.
That alone made the possibilities endless.
I exhaled slowly, then willed the 90 units of extra Essence to transfer into the Null Heart—the core that anchored Silver’s bond.
The moment I did, the core pulsed faintly and began spinning faster.
I rolled my shoulders and cracked my knuckles, feeling a familiar warmth creep into my limbs.
Everything was coming together.
I was ready to test more.
I stood still, eyes glowing, feeling the flow of Essence inside me. My heart beat once—strong, steady—and I let the command leave my lips.
"[Absolute Domain]"
A violet pulse exploded outward from my chest, invisible to the world but perfectly clear to me. It rippled across the grey expanse like a silent wave, spreading evenly in every direction. I watched as it stopped exactly 8.66 meters away.
One percent of my Psynapse. That’s how wide the domain was.
Inside that space, everything shifted.
Tiny red runes—smaller than grains of sand—floated in the air around me, scattered across the domain like stars in a night sky. They shimmered, silent and weightless, dancing with the invisible rhythm of my will.
I could feel it now.
Control.
Every particle, every inch of space within that boundary answered to me.
I raised my hand slowly and spoke a single word.
"Freeze."
The runes responded instantly, glowing brighter in a ring beneath my feet. I took a step forward.
My foot landed a few inches above the ground, pressing onto nothing—no platform, no magic circle, just frozen space. A step made from stillness itself. Solid. Unyielding.
I stood there, suspended midair by my own command, and exhaled.
I took another step, and the space responded instantly—compressing, folding in on itself, forming another invisible platform beneath my foot. I rose a few more inches off the ground, standing higher with each step into the air, as if climbing a staircase only I could see.
