NOVGO.NET Chapter 428: Entering the magus world again
Chapter 428: Entering the magus world again
While Ethan’s happiness clone in the Dragon World was bracing for the arrival of the Apocalypse messenger, his main body suddenly felt a pain in his soul.
It felt as if a part of his very foundation was being sanded away by a cosmic grater.
“What’s going on?” he gasped, his voice straining against the phantom agony.
He immediately activated his Law of Karma.
In his mind’s eye, a vast web of glowing red and gold strings appeared, representing his connections to the multiverse.
He traced the source of the pain, following a faint, nearly forgotten line of fate.
It led him toward a world he had visited once in his early journey.
The Magus World.
There, he had left a soul fragment to grow individually.
It was a common practice for higher beings to foster incarnations to experience different paths of cultivation, but Ethan had mostly left this one to its own devices, only stepping in once to save the boy’s family.
Someone was trying to delete his entire karmic existence by erasing that fragment.
Ethan’s main body was currently housing the Origin Dimension and the ruins he had retrieved from the primordial bird.
That origin dimension was precious to him, but this soul fragment was now proving to be a critical liability.
As he watched the vision, he saw the “Little Ethan,” his incarnation.
The boy had reached the level of a Dimension Master.
In most worlds, he would be a god.
But here, he was being crushed.
The reason for the pain was as ancient as time.
The boy had fallen in love with the wrong person.
He had given his heart to the daughter of a higher existential being.
“I told you to stay away from Lady Jenna,” an old man in a black butler’s suit said, his voice dripping with condescension.
He held a whip made of soul-burning lightning.
“She is way out of your league, but you chose the path of destruction.”
“She belongs to a family that lives in the 9th Dimension.”
“She only came down to this lower plane to enjoy a bit of mortal life, and you dared to express your feelings toward her?”
“You dared to touch the hem of her garment?”
The incarnation lay on a bloody stone floor, his body broken.
“But… she said she loved me too,” he whispered pathetically.
“That’s why I stayed.”
“That’s why I approached her.”
Ethan’s main body felt a literal chill of embarrassment run down his spine.
It wasn’t fear.
It was pure cringiness.
“How pathetic can you be?” Ethan muttered to himself, rubbing his temples.
“You are being tortured for love?”
“An incarnation of Ethan Hunt?”
“In all of creation, I am the most handsome and nearly invincible existence, yet this fragment of mine is acting like a tragic character in a cheap romance novel.”
“This is unacceptable.”
But then, a darker realization hit him.
He realized why he had been unable to take the final step into the Absolute Continuum.
He was not whole.
To become an Absolute being, one’s entire karmic record must be unified.
If this incarnation died or remained weak, Ethan would forever have a leak in his power.
To break through, he would have to make this incarnation as powerful as his main body and then merge with it.
“Ah! So many problems at once!” Ethan growled, nearly pulling his hair out.
He couldn’t leave the space cube.
But he couldn’t let this continue.
He instantly created a clone.
He severed his immediate karma with it to keep his movements hidden.
Then he ordered it to descend to the Magus World.
“Go,” Ethan commanded the clone.
“But do not interfere directly unless necessary.”
“Nurture him.”
The clone shifted its appearance.
It turned into a middle-aged man with sharp, scholarly eyes.
Then it vanished into the folds of the space cube.
Back in the torture chamber of the Trozan family’s temporary manor, the butler was getting frustrated.
“What is going on?” the butler grumbled.
He lashed out again with the lightning whip.
“Why is your existence so tough to delete?”
“You are a mere 3rd-dimensional bug.”
“As an 8th-dimensional being, I should be able to wipe you from memory with a thought.”
“Did you use some higher dimensional artifact to bind your soul?”
Ethan’s incarnation didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
His soul was being anchored by the sheer weight of the main body’s existence, though he didn’t know it.
“What are you doing?” a sharp, melodic scream echoed through the hall.
A girl in an elegant, shimmering dress made of starlight walked in.
She was beautiful.
Her hair was like spun silver.
Her eyes held the arrogance of a thousand suns.
This was Jenna.
The Little Ethan’s eyes brightened for a split second.
He felt a surge of hope.
“Jenna… help…”
“How dare you mess with my toy?” Jenna roared, looking at the butler.
Ethan’s incarnation felt his heart swell.
But the very next line pierced his soul deeper than any whip ever could.
“I am sorry, Young Lady,” the butler replied politely, bowing low.
“It was the order from His Highness, your father.”
“He wants the link severed permanently.”
Jenna tapped her chin, looking down at the bleeding boy on the floor with the same look a child gives a broken doll.
“It was Father’s order?”
“Oh.”
“Well, then what are you waiting for?”
“Kill him.”
“He was fun to play with for a few weeks.”
“But he’s boring now.”
The light in Ethan’s incarnation eyes died.
The betrayal was absolute.
From a fold in the shadows, Ethan’s clone watched this scene with a heavy sigh.
He had seen enough.
This was the problem with letting a soul fragment grow without The System or a cold heart.
They became soft.
The clone stepped out of the shadows.
His presence suddenly filled the room.
He didn’t release a crushing aura.
He kept it contained.
He looked like a mysterious wanderer.
“Hello, fellow cultivators,” the clone said calmly.
“Would you please let this poor boy go for my sake?”
“I can exchange some treasure for his life.”
The butler froze.
His hair stood on end.
He hadn’t sensed this man’s arrival at all.
In his world, if you couldn’t sense someone, they were either a mundane human or a god.
Looking at the man’s eyes, the butler knew it wasn’t the former.
“Who are you?” the butler asked, his voice composed but his hand gripping his whip tightly.
“Why would the Trozan family give you face?”
“Do you know who we represent?”
The clone smiled.
He didn’t feel like explaining the hierarchy of the universe to a servant.
Instead, he reached into the air and pulled out a sword.
The moment the blade appeared, the room groaned.
It was a 10th-dimensional weapon.
A tool that could slice through the 9th Dimension like paper.
“Perhaps this can make you feel my importance?” the clone asked.
The butler’s face went pale.
The pressure coming from that sword was more terrifying than his own master’s full power.
His instincts were screaming at him to run.
To apologize.
To do anything to survive.
“Please,” the clone said, his voice turning a bit colder.
“Let him go.”
“I won’t ask a third time.”
The butler was an old fox.
He knew when he was outmatched.
He began to form a friendly smile, ready to bow and hand over the boy as a misunderstanding.
He valued his life more than his master’s orders.
But he wasn’t the one in charge.
“I am Jenna of the Trozan family from the 9th Dimension!” the girl shouted, stepping forward.
She looked at the 10th-dimensional sword with pure greed in her eyes.
“You think you can threaten us?”
“If you want to leave this place alive, hand over that weapon and everything you have in your spatial ring without asking any questions.”
“If you do, I might let you become my new footstool.”
The butler looked at Jenna in absolute horror.
His mouth hung open.
“This bitchy young lady will be the doom of our entire bloodline,” he thought.
The clone turned his gaze to Jenna.
His eyes weren’t angry.
They were pitying.
“You have a very loud mouth for someone so small,” he said.
“Kill him!” Jenna screamed at the butler.
“Why are you standing there?”
“Kill him and take that sword!”
The clone sighed and looked at the broken Ethan’s incarnation on the floor.
“See this, kid?”
“This is what love gets you when you don’t have the power to back it up.”
The clone didn’t even swing the sword.
He simply flicked his finger.
A ripple of invisible force shot out.
The butler, who was trying to summon a shield, was sent flying through seven stone walls.
His 8th-dimensional core cracked instantly.
Jenna’s scream was cut short as she found herself pinned to the wall by an invisible weight.
Her expensive dress tore.
Her aura shattered like glass.
“You… you can’t…” she gasped.
“I can,” the clone said.
He walked over to Ethan’s incarnation and placed a hand on his head.
A surge of pure, high-level energy flowed into the body.
It repaired his soul.
“Get up.”
“We’re leaving.”