My attributes are increasing infinitely Chapter 398 - 100 million clones vs 100 million candidates

The silent, grey expanse of the trial grounds was no longer empty.

It teemed with an overwhelming number of candidates.

The declaration made by the Will of the Eternal Domain had functioned like a single drop of blood falling into waters infested by sharks.

Ethan remained at the eye of this rising storm, his features unreadable and calm.

Fear did not touch him.

He wasn't even feeling particularly frustrated anymore.

His anger had evolved into a state of absolute, freezing clarity.

"So," Ethan muttered, his words nearly drowned out by the sound of the dimensions themselves fracturing.

"This is the way the game is played. Once a piece on the board grows too dominant, the rules are rewritten to crush it."

He glanced down at the Sword of Infinity gripped in his hand.

The weapon felt weightless, as if it had become a natural extension of his own spirit.

The blade anticipated the coming slaughter.

It pulsed with a ravenous, vibrating energy.

Far in the distance, the initial wave of participants manifested.

They did not arrive in small groups.

They emerged by the thousands.

Each was the "protagonist" of their own legend.

These were men and women who had fought their way up from the filth of mortal realms to achieve the pinnacle of power.

Under normal circumstances, they would have been competitors.

However, the lure of two wishes granted by the Will of the Eternal Domain had fused them into a single, predatory pack of wolves.

"He's over there!" a voice thundered, bolstered by the laws of Axiom.

"The Anomaly! The one who believes he can look down upon us all!"

A young man clad in robes woven from liquid starlight stepped forward.

He brandished a spear that bled the essence of a collapsing sun.

Behind his lead, tens of thousands of others hovered within the void, their gazes burning with avarice and the artificial strength bestowed upon them by the Will.

"Ethan Hunt!" the youth yelled, his laughter ringing out.

"You are a lone man. We are millions! Every one of us has been elevated to an Axiom Dominion master."

"Do you truly believe you can avoid being swallowed by the ocean?"

"You are like a pathetic emperor of fate, trying to keep from drowning by clutching at a single straw!"

The massive crowd behind him broke into mocking jeers.

The collective sound resembled thunder, vibrating through the very fabric of their current reality.

They were familiar with Ethan’s name.

They recognized his face.

The Will had placed a target on his back so radiant that it blinded them to the actual threat he posed.

Ethan offered no reply to their insults.

He didn't even acknowledge the young man who had shouted.

Instead, his eyes were fixed on the ground at his feet.

He was performing a mental count.

One million.

Five million.

Twelve million.

The gateways continued to spill out more people.

The void was becoming congested.

The "ants," as Ethan categorized them, were arriving in unprecedented numbers.

To the watching candidates, Ethan seemed to be frozen by terror.

He stood perfectly still, his hands resting easily on the pommel of the Sword of Infinity, which was buried in the "floor" of the void.

Beside him, a lone clone stood in silence.

It was a perfect replica of him, possessing only 1% of his total power.

"Look!" someone shouted.

"He's so desperate he's already resorting to clones! And he can only manage one!"

"Is that the best you can do, 'Anomaly'?"

More mockery followed.

More derision filled the air.

"He must be losing his mind from fear," a woman with wings made of fire sneered.

"He's standing there like a statue because he realizes his life ends today."

Finally, Ethan raised his head.

But he didn't look at them.

He stared through them, as if they were nothing more than transparent glass.

"You talk too much," Ethan remarked softly.

With a casual flick of his wrist, a shimmering blue barrier surged from his body, forming a flawless sphere with a ten-meter radius.

It shielded both him and his solitary clone.

"Attack! The bastard is trying to hide behind a barrier!" the youth in the star-robes bellowed.

Instantly, the void erupted in a blinding flash of light.

Millions of techniques crashed against the blue sphere.

Gleaming beams of pure energy.

Slashes that cut through dimensions.

Hammers designed to crush the soul.

Violent elemental tempests.

The combined might of millions of Axiom-level entities should have been sufficient to blink a reality out of existence.

Yet, the barrier did not even tremble.

Inside the sphere, Ethan sat down.

He closed his eyes and resumed his waiting.

Time within the trial grounds was an inconsistent thing.

However, for those on the outside of the barrier, ten days felt like an eternity.

They never relented in their assault.

They rotated through their ranks, channeling every bit of their gifted power into the blue shell.

"Why won't it shatter?!" a candidate wailed, his knuckles bloodied from striking the barrier for forty-eight hours without pause.

"It's just energy! It has to deplete eventually!"

They failed to grasp the situation.

A typical Origin Paragon might have struggled to maintain such a defense against millions.

But Ethan was far from typical.

He was the host of a World Tree.

His energy reserves were not just a reservoir.

They were a limitless ocean.

He wasn't actively consuming energy to sustain the barrier.

He was essentially doing nothing; the energy was being supplied to the barrier passively.

Within the shield, Ethan opened his eyes.

"98 million," he whispered.

He waited for a few more hours.

The void was now packed with people.

It was a sea of humanity, stretching toward the horizon in every direction.

The final portals flickered out and vanished.

The last of the candidates had made their entrance.

"One hundred million," Ethan stated, rising to his feet.

He observed the faces pressed tightly against his barrier.

Expressions distorted by greed, fatigue, and malice.

These were the "heroes" of the multiverse, now reduced to mere scavengers.

"One last warning," Ethan’s voice projected clearly through the barrier.

"You insects should cherish your lives instead of trying to murder me."

"If you retreat now, I might allow you to exist in the distant corners of my world."

The only reply was a wave of curses and a renewed frenzy of attacks.

They had lost all reason.

The promise of the wishes had acted like a plague, rotting their logic.

"Very well," Ethan’s tone grew as cold as ice.

"You have made your final choice."

Ethan snapped his fingers.

The blue barrier didn't break.

It simply evaporated as if it had never been there.

"Yes! We did it! The shield is down!" the candidates cheered, rushing forward like a massive tidal wave.

"Prepare for death, vermin!"

But before the first blade could reach him, the space surrounding Ethan began to distort.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!

In a heartbeat, a clone materialized in front of a candidate.

Then ten more.

Then a thousand.

Then a million.

The candidates froze where they stood.

The sight before them was impossible.

The void, which had been crowded with 100 million candidates, was now suddenly filled by an equal number of Ethan Hunts.

One hundred million clones.

Each one grasped a mythical sword.

Each one watched with the same freezing, predatory stare.

"How can this be?" the star-robed leader faltered, his spear shaking in his hands.

"No one has the capacity to maintain this many clones."

"This must be an illusion! They aren't real! I'll bet they aren't even real!"

He lunged at the Ethan clone standing before him, his sun-spear aimed directly at its chest.

"Die, you fake!"

The clone didn't flinch until the spear was barely an inch away.

Then, it caught the tip of the weapon with just two fingers.

The spear, a tool capable of piercing through dimensions, snapped like a piece of dry wood.

"Real enough for you?" the clone asked.

Ethan’s voice echoed from every direction simultaneously.

"Ultimate Domain."

The grey void transformed into a realm of pure white and gold.

The laws governing the Eternal Domain were forcibly overridden.

Within this space, Ethan was the sole God.

"Release," Ethan commanded.