My attributes are increasing infinitely Chapter 434: Taking Erebus as his servant
Previously on My attributes are increasing infinitely...
Erebus wasted no time in deciding.
Ethan's invitation to seek refuge inside his personal inner realm offered far more than simple evasion. It presented a true opportunity for continued existence.
Within the Negative Plane, Erebus existed as a pursued monarch, a survivor from a bygone age shackled by unbreakable restraints.
Silently, the ancient shadow entity glided through the glowing tear Ethan had ripped open in the void of space.
Yet Ethan prevented the shadow from roaming unchecked across his inner domain.
This space was entirely his own making, a sacred haven where his rules held complete sway.
He guided Erebus straight to the core of his realm: the Origin Sea of Entropy and Energy.
Upon passing through the rift's boundary, the surroundings transformed in an instant.
The oppressive, icy emptiness of the Negative Plane had vanished.
Replacing it stood an immense, horrifying vista that challenged all geometric and rational principles Erebus had encountered.
He touched down on a platform formed from dense, shadowy energy.
At once, an endless force bore down on him.
This wasn't mere bodily strain. It embodied the immense pull of a superior reality.
Erebus, who had endured endless ages of solitude and torment, dropped to his knees.
His features, typically a fluid veil of darkness, grew deathly ashen.
He fixed his gaze on the ground, breathing in harsh, uneven bursts.
For an unknown reason, dread kept him from raising his eyes.
All his innate survival urges, honed in the universe's deadliest realms, blared warnings within.
Refrain from gazing forward.
Avoid beholding the presence ahead.
Yet Erebus stemmed from innate wonder and arrogance.
Through a fierce battle against his terror, he gradually lifted his head.
The view caused him to retch violently.
He bent forward and expelled a thick ooze of shadowy essence.
Ahead loomed two enormous seas.
One consisted of radiant, pristine Origin Energy.
The other formed a chaotic, boundless sea of Entropy.
They faced each other directly, churning in an ideal yet fearsome equilibrium.
Perfectly positioned amid these dual endless powers sat a majestic yet unadorned seat.
Upon that seat rested a form exuding serene command.
It was Ethan's Primordial Spirit.
He lounged with a hand propping his chin, a faint, entertained grin curving his mouth.
The seas themselves inspired the deepest horror.
Erebus attempted to scan them using his divine sense, seeking edges or depths.
But as soon as his awareness brushed the surfaces, it got devoured.
No boundary existed.
No boundary could be found.
"How... is this possible?" Erebus murmured, his voice quivering.
"How does a soul hold infinity?"
In that instant, the truth struck him like a solid strike.
The individual facing him surpassed mere strong cultivator or fortunate oddity.
Ethan embodied Infinity in its purest form.
To confront him meant facing the origin and conclusion of everything.
Without instruction, Erebus reacted.
He rose from his slumped state into a respectful, profound bow.
He lowered his forehead to the ebony surface.
"My lord," Erebus rasped, his tone laced with fresh, zealous loyalty.
"Please welcome me as your follower. My existence, my core, and my darkness shall eternally serve you."
Ethan’s Primordial Spirit gazed upon him, his eyes resembling paired star systems.
"Oh? Just earlier, you acted as a 'fallen king' negotiating for liberty. What prompted this abrupt shift? Why would I accept you as my follower?"
Erebus kept his head down.
"My lord, I represent the Concept of Darkness itself.
I didn't arise from any exalted lineage, yet I originated in the Neutral Plane as an impossible entity.
Numerous mighty entities have sought to bind me to their will.
A foretelling in the upper realms states: Should Erebus select a lord, that lord will inevitably ascend beyond all."
He drew in a shaky inhalation.
"I exist beyond conventional ideas.
Even the Law of Darkness pales against my fundamental nature.
That's why those entities dreaded me.
That's why they banished me to the refuse of the Negative Plane.
Yet only Infinity deserves to rule over Primordial Darkness.
My full strength can awaken solely beneath your influence."
Ethan stayed silent, consulting his system inwardly.
"Yumiko, is he speaking truthfully?"
[Yes, Master,] Yumiko’s voice resounded in his thoughts.
[He stands as an irregularity unto himself.
His being poses a grave danger to the creators' ordered structure.
I recommend you take him in.
He'll prove an essential ally against those who claim divinity when the moment arrives.]
Ethan drummed his fingers against the throne's armrest.
The noise reverberated across the boundless seas.
"Fine then," Ethan declared.
"I'm forging a lasting empire.
You will join my Five Generals.
Prove your value, and I'll grant you freedom from your bonds."
"I offer my undying thanks, my lord!"
As Erebus uttered those words, a luminous shard of his soul—a fragment of the Primordial Dark—emerged from his torso.
It floated across the space and fused into Ethan’s Ocean of Entropy and Energy.
Upon the soul shard's integration, a fierce torrent of knowledge assaulted Ethan’s consciousness.
It comprised the full, raw recollections of Erebus’s whole life.
Ethan slipped into a profound daze.
He witnessed the cage's formation.
He observed Erebus arising from the initial "void" that formed with light's creation.
He viewed the "Creators" attempting dialogue with this dark irregularity.
They demanded he yield his autonomy, serving as an instrument in their grand design.
Erebus rejected them.
Driven by profound inner arrogance, he opted for solitude.
In response, the Creators imposed a crippling hex on him.
They ruled that Erebus could never achieve Absolute Continuum status independently.
He remained stuck at a power ceiling, barred from rising without pledging to a superior.
It served as a mechanism to compel his obedience.
Ethan perceived the Neutral Plane via Erebus’s vision.
It revealed a realm of breathtaking splendor and daunting vastness, with landmasses rivaling primordial worlds and atmosphere dense with Origin Energy.
He beheld the "End-Timers" of the Apocalypse Race, seeing them swarm like insects across inferior realms.
BOOM!
Within the inner realm, a blast wave burst from Erebus.
Having at last selected a superior—and one embodying Infinity's irregularity—the Creators' age-old hex fragmented.
The "barrier" on his capabilities didn't merely crack.
It erased completely, as though never present.
The Creators had never foreseen one irregularity encountering another.
Irregularities' destinies lie beyond the "River of Fate."
No oracle, regardless of might, could foresee this alliance.
Erebus’s soul initiated a drastic evolution.
Nourished by Ethan’s boundless core, the darkness grew, intensified, and purified.
Following three hours of painful change, Erebus rose.
A rush of strength coursed through him, unseen for millions of years.
The restriction on his Origin Energy sea—the Grade 4 barrier Ethan had hesitated to disturb—melted away as a side effect of the soul fusion.
By submitting to Ethan, the restriction had been "deceived" into believing its toll fulfilled.
Two gains from a single act.
In the Neutral Plane, buried in the Fate Race's Ancestral Palace, an aged entity jerked awake.
His gaze, normally serene as timeless voids, blazed with unbridled fury.
"Someone... someone has broken my seal?" he bellowed.
The palace's barriers fractured beneath his mental force.
He plunged into intense focus, projecting his awareness through realms to locate his captive.
He combed the Negative Plane, probing hidden spatial layers.
Yet nothing appeared.
Erebus had disappeared.
Worse, the one who "released" him left no trace.
Since the seal shattered via a loyalty pact rather than outright assault, no "trace" lingered for pursuit.
It seemed Erebus had simply faded from being.
"What's happening?" the entity snarled.
He extended toward a glowing sphere, summoning fellow potentates.
"The Shadow Anomaly is lost. Locate him. Immediately!"
...
Far above, in a realm so elevated that notions like "time" served only as hints, a figure cultivated a modest garden.
He resembled a common laborer, clad in plain garments soiled by earth.
He paused his labor, resting on his tool.
He peered toward the inferior realms, a subtle, curious grin forming on his lined features.
"That shadow irregularity... he's chosen a leader at last?" the laborer pondered.
He cleared the perspiration from his forehead.
"Fascinating."
He lingered briefly, reflecting on the alteration in the enclosure's equilibrium—one he had helped devise—before dismissing it and resuming his sowing.
To him, even an irregularity's emergence marked just another cycle.
Returning to the material world, Ethan remained oblivious to the turmoil he had stirred in superior realms.
He had smoothly reentered the Positive Plane, his form vibrating with the might of his finished advancement.
He traversed the sky, materializing quietly within the Space Cube.