"So you developed a domain at D-rank," Karlov said as soon as Shen woke up.

Or maybe the words woke him up. Shen wasn't sure. His thoughts felt muddied. Slow. Inadequate.

He tried to open his eyes but found he couldn't.

Ah, he wasn't awake. Karlov was talking directly to his sleeping mind.

Karlov. The man who could stop a domain from activating inside the domain holder. From everything Shen had been taught, the only way to achieve that was by having a considerably faster mind.

Karlov was probably B-rank.

Shen deflated. He couldn't run from a B-rank with a domain. Not unless a B-rank Void Spawn distracted Karlov for Shen. Sadly, this was a C-rank Voided Subnode. The strongest Void Spawn that had appeared to date was C-rank. Shen would have to hope the threat increased and wait for a good opportunity.

"I found out by reading some of your memories, if you're wondering," Karlov added. "I had reason to invade your mind. I suspected you to be a Void Prophet. Can you imagine it? A Prophet with first-class talent! If that were the end goal of their research, I would've uncovered the greatest conspiracy in history. They would go extinct. It would've been glorious."

Karlov had read Shen's memories. How much of it? What did Karlov know? What didn't he know?

Shen tried to speak but found he couldn't.

"Sadly, you're innocent," Karlov continued. "I'll force myself to forget everything immediately. I'm already stretching the boundaries of the rules by talking to you in as fast a temporal bubble as I can make. But I can't let you enter the Void the way you want to. It has consequences. If you do, we all die."

In the military, you might need to uncover some truths by reading people's memories. If it was vital information to the military, it could be shared. If the target had been suspected of being a traitor, but the mind-reading proved otherwise, you had to immediately forget it. Whatever the case, you also had to forget any unrelated information. Immediately. You could only hold the data for as long as you took to analyze it and reach a conclusion. And you also had to forget the conclusions you made from unrelated data.

The rules made it a potential hazard to read someone's mind even if you were justified. You had to either compartmentalize your mind or have a great ability to forget what you learned without destroying associated information and crippling yourself. Shen couldn't do it.

Not that the law mattered here. Karlov was obviously lying. He just wanted Shen to know he had Shen. If Shen escaped, Karlov would reveal that Shen was a Void Harbinger. He would spread the news far and wide.

There was nowhere to go. Shen would be hunted down.

Fortunately, being a B-rank didn't make Karlov perfect. He hadn't thought of Shen's plan to wait for the Alliance to cease existing. Granted, Shen did have to find a way to live for billions or trillions of years, but he could iron out his plans' details after he escaped this place.

Staying here meant certain death. Escaping at least gave him a chance.

As for claiming everyone would die if Shen escaped? Pathetic, cheap emotional manipulation. Even if it were true, Shen couldn't care less. They were all traitors and schemers. It only drove him to try harder.

Karlov kept talking. "I considered removing you from Stress Discipline training, but this is too fascinating. I'm sure they didn't expect your True Boundlessness or that you would become a Void Harbinger. I can barely feel these factors affecting the collective unconscious, and it's also related to your willpower somehow. I need to see what happens as you keep improving. I need to know, no matter the potential consequences."

Shen sighed mentally. That made absolutely no sense. It sounded like random "mysterious talk" to make him implicitly fear the grand wise Karlov.

As Alicia, the little traitor, would say, it was fucking bullshit.

"But I must do something. You'll find a way to escape if I don't. The training you received... The drow are lucky I won't remember any of this. They kept to the letter of the law, but it's the intent that matters in the military, and they stepped beyond it. You don't even realize how valuable your training is. It's hilarious. Your ignorance is your and the drow's greatest blessing. From what I saw, even your mentor is kept ignorant on some matters. It should be done by design."

More threats. He would report the drow if Shen escaped. Shen still didn't care.

Officially, he couldn't do that, of course. He would be punished, too. Mind reading was that much of a taboo. Knowledge learned using it had to be kept to the subject matter that made it acceptable. Almost any other violation, except those pertaining to fundamental tenets, like a betrayal of the Alliance as a whole, had to be forgotten.

"I'm wasting time but couldn't resist dropping a few clues here and there. The dark elves developed an amazing system but haven't seen what I have. Overall, they know more than I do, but not in all areas. They are too focused on themselves, but you are an outlier to their beaten Paths. You must explore your Path by yourself, not be led by invisible strings."

Clues. Words. Poison.

Shen would force himself to forget this entire conversation as soon as possible.

"Listen well, little chick. The technique I'm about to impart to you supplements your Baptism of Self. It's unknown by most and forbidden from being shared by the ones in the know. You've bathed in your Raw Will during your Baptism, but your Will is just the most primal part of your existence. You were made to fulfill it, but just like adults can ignore their survival instincts when they feel it's worth it, you too should handle your Will according to your beliefs."

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Shen would've frowned if he could.

He felt no falsehoods in the man's words. They resonated with something deep within himself. Something so central it couldn't be hidden or misled.

It should be poison. Good poison was imperceptible. But Shen also knew it wasn't poison.

"You know I'm telling the truth because I'm circumventing my domain's effects on you."

Shen wanted to frown harder.

That sounded relevant. Something about the domain effect should be related to the current him. But he just couldn't put his finger on it, no matter how much it felt was genuine.

"The technique is called Will-Path Merging. You were immersed in your Raw Will during your Baptism but don't realize yet that you're drowning in it. You're driven by a single absolute pursuit: unmatched power. There are advantages and disadvantages to it that I honestly don't care about. What matters here is that it's not part of your Path. As an Ethereal Harmonization realm True Path Walker, your Path is everything you identify as you. Currently, your Will isn't part of it. Your existence is split and silently fighting for dominance without your notice."

Again, that didn't sound like a lie. Shen was feeling lost. Confused.

Afraid.

He found himself believing Karlov despite knowing better.

Parts of his self fought each other as his perspective forked into two opposing ones. His mind hurt.

"Your Will was the spark at the start of your existence and determines the ultimate goal you seek to accomplish. Without a Baptism, it's a smooth undercurrent. After a Baptism, it becomes a steering force.

"The current you only seek absolute power. Like a drowning man's world is eventually consumed by water, so will you be consumed by your ultimate goal. It shall shed everything else away. Your stressed mind's recent thoughts notwithstanding, you already experienced it when you resisted First Lieutenant Zyn's Lawful Suppression. Do you remember not caring if you were remade into a Saber? That's why you need seven Laws to support your Path. You need a solid foundation to resist your very Will's absolute hunt for power.

"But you can only resist a dormant Will; your Baptism of Self changed everything.

"You claim to walk the Path of Omnipotence, but after your Baptism, your pursuit of omnipotence can only end with your Path sacrificed as you try to reach your ultimate goal. It's already happening to your morals and beliefs. You cared more about human lives before; now, you don't care how many die if standing up for them is inconvenient. You have good arguments, but at their core is the simple belief that you can even return any innocent victim to life after you become omnipotent. Everything else can be discarded to get there.

"You insist on the after. After, you tell yourself without noticing. After you become omnipotent, you can do whatever you want, including erasing past mistakes. The here and now doesn't matter."

A part of Shen believed Karlov. Most of Shen didn't.

He agonized in overwhelming pain.

Shen wasn't a commoner. He was a C-rank Ethereal Harmonization cultivator. He was his Path and also his beliefs on a fundamental level. Believing two opposing truths at the same time threatened to break him down.

Unfortunately, Karlov's words kept mercilessly drilling into Shen's mind.

"Merging your Will with your Path means exactly what it sounds: your Will and your Path become one. Or as close to it as it can get, anyway. Your Path will grow stronger, all of it. Your Will will strengthen your beliefs instead of trying to change them to accomplish your ultimate goal.

"And you would like that very much. Suppose you knew without doubt that killing your former drow lover would put you precisely one step away from omnipotence. The current you would eventually convince yourself to do it. You can't see it yet, but believe me, you would. After the Merge, you will become almost incapable of changing your morals that much. They would grow too strong. Only absolutely unquestionable arguments would work, and very slowly on top of that.

"Think of it like having the almost unchangeable personality and certainty of an A-rank without the time to put your beliefs to the test.

"The downside is that you'll need to attach a Counterbalance Truth to your Will. You will never, ever doubt it. That is the entire reason I'm doing this. Whenever this Counterbalance Truth is questioned, you will immediately know something is wrong, no matter what anyone is trying to do to your mind, regardless of their strength. It'll keep you grounded. Not immune to having your mind pressured and overwhelmed to the point of paranoia and becoming unable to form coherent complex thoughts, but you'll know something is wrong and know better than to act hastily and too stupidly. Not to mention the considerable willpower boost. It'll stop you from trying to escape."

Shen internally screamed in agony.

He couldn't hear his thoughts anymore, only Karlov's voice. Only the words he believed and distrusted at the same time. Only the source of his pain.

"The Will-Path Merging is an assisted technique. You will do most of the job by joining your qi, Path, mind, soul, and body in a specific way. I'll do the rest. You must do it willingly. I find the will to survive a great motivator, so I would usually threaten your life. However, that would be counterproductive to what I expect to gain from this research.

"The obvious alternative would be to temporarily stop stressing your mind so you can see reason. However, that would also taint the research. Your current, stressed, borderline crazy self is too perfect for raw, undiluted data.

"So, as inadequate as it sounds, I shall only reason with you. You will do what I'm telling you, or you won't. If you do, it'll mean your willpower improved even further without your talent. After all, there's no death threat here, only a choice to define your future. Such an improvement would make this entire thing twice as beneficial to you. I would like to see it.

"If you don't do it, I will stop stressing your mind but also erase our conversation from your memories. It would end with me being punished, but I have my core beliefs and integrity. I don't give away secret techniques; you must repay me with the only thing I want: data.

"You only need to know three more things before we start.

"One, you will likely never have another chance like this. This is a technique that you only teach your most beloved descendant, and from what I saw, your backers see you as little more than an experiment bound to fail. That's perfectly reasonable, too. I'm the one pushing their cutting-edge research even further.

"Which brings us to number two: no one wants you to succeed more than I do. I would say I'm the one being in the entire multiverse who can see the potential to accomplish an impossible thing within you. If you succeed, I'll publish my research and be showered in glory and rewards. But you can only succeed by being free. Your very Path depends on that; if I limit you in any way, you'll never be Truly Boundless and, thus, never go anywhere. I ask nothing of you but for you to become the best you can be, and let me watch.

"And thus, three: the Merge will be overwhelmingly beneficial to you. It more than makes up for the potential issues. There's even a chance your True Boundlessness will make it less restrictive. You pulled a fast one on everyone with that sneaky, sneaky Law. I don't think your drow mentor has any idea what it is.

"If you accept, I'll forget this conversation, but I'll notice the signals after you use the technique. I'll know. I'll learn. And I won't have broken any rule, only stepped on a few toes that are more worried about the Calamity. It's perfect for us both."

By now, Shen could barely hear Karlov's voice over his mental screams.

"Enough clues. Enough chitchat. Listen well, be a good boy, and do as you're told. Then, live, flourish beyond anyone's imagination, and stun the multiverse by accomplishing the impossible."

Shen couldn't even start to think about making a decision before the Lieutenant Specialist began sharing the technique in such a way that Shen was forced to pay attention despite his suffering.