The Will-Path Merging ritual forced one's Will to empower the Truth and the Truth to empower the Will while they opposed each other. Everything else someone was, their Ethereal Whole, acted as both a support and a buffer to keep those forces in place. The simultaneous pull, push, support, and buffer precisely locked Will and Truth in place in a unique harmonical existence. Some imbalance was accepted, even desirable in some very specific circumstances, but there was a line that shouldn't be crossed.

By using True Boundlessness as a third core, Test Subject Alpha not only crossed the line but also shredded it into tiny pieces.

At least the attempt had been intriguing. Abbav approved of the creativity. A third core had the potential for greatness despite the likelihood of mediocrity.

Unfortunately, Alpha lacked the technical knowledge and foresight to make the three cores reach balance. The subject would expire. At least doing so by its own hands while Abbav tried to help was preferable to Abbav doing it by stopping the ritual midway through.

His first issue here was that the ritual was made to force only two cores to empower each other despite being opposites. How the third core interacted with the first two depended on them.

In Alpha's case, his Will and Law found common ground; Omnipotence would be a way of achieving True Boundlessness, and True Boundlessness spoke true to what could be achieved with absolute power. Although the Law's core was smaller and weaker than the other two, it still empowered the Will enough to destroy the Whole's balance and crush the Truth.

It didn't help that Alpha's Truth was the absolute opposite of that Law. In fact, True Boundlessness existed to counter the idea of Having Limits. They repelled each other.

Balance was impossible in such circumstances; the subject had manufactured its own demise.

Seeing Alpha be unmade was fascinating. The subject didn't implode or explode. Instead, it was simultaneously crushed by Omnipotence and unraveled by True Boundlessness. To its credit, the Having Limits Truth tried to properly set limits to the other cores but was simply too weak to withstand the united front.

Then, the destruction stopped as suddenly as it had started.

True Boundlessness also started empowering the Truth that was diametrically opposite to it. That should be impossible, but this was a special Law. It wouldn't be limited even by itself. It refused its own definition of rejecting boundaries to empower a Truth that was all about boundaries.

It wasn't a perfect balance, but things looked promising.

Unfortunately, Alpha's second issue was instability.

True Boundlessness couldn't be controlled and shouldn't be used anywhere that required steadiness. As suddenly as before, the Law stopped strengthening the Will. Not only was Omnipotence kept at bay, but the Having Limits Truth, still strengthened by the Law, also started to limit the Will too much. Omnipotence's roots were pushed back into it. Another kind of imbalance was created.

For the next few moments, True Boundlessness went all over the place. Even when it simultaneously strengthened the two cores, it often gave one more power than the other. It frequently also didn't support any of them, and the power vacuum in its region of the Ethereal Whole caused another type of imbalance that would see the Whole crumble from lack of support.

True Boundlessness never, not even once, let the Whole become close to balanced again.

Abbav wanted to watch it to the end, but True Boundlessness's instability made the subject's demise take too long. He would have to take action himself.

Just to make sure nothing wrong happened, he would use his Realization—

He stopped his action as things took a magnificent turn.

Alpha was breaking down, and Void Energy escaped the non-existing Breaches created by his unconscious collective.

Void Energy never interacted with anything. It was also impossible to control or use it. The only thing it did was stay in a place and unmake whatever it touched. Yet, it now seeped into the Whole, filled the cracks, and tried to infect everything.

It was rejected by the Will because Omnipotence was intrinsically part of Reality. The power to do everything included power, which didn't exist in the Void.

It was rejected by the Truth because limits didn't exist in the Void. The only thing limiting the Void was the boundaries of Reality itself. It was a reverse limiter.

It was rejected by True Boundlessness because it was a paradoxical Law by nature. It required boundaries to reject. True Boundlessness was technically an Anti-Law, which was part of what made it so unique.

Yet, the Void Energy filled everything else. It filled the Ethereal Whole. It did nothing at first, but suddenly, it seduced the unstable True Boundlessness.

It took Abbav a few instants to understand what he was seeing. The Void was non-existence. Nothing existed in it, including logic. True Boundlessness found a kindred soul in refusing the most basic rules of cause and effect. It found a kindred soul in bypassing the most fundamental principles of balance in a ritual created to balance opposing forces.

That acceptance gave Void Energy a supporting pillar to fully affect the Whole. Some basic logic concepts were shattered. Others bent. The Void tried to gain more ground but was limited by the union of True Boundlessness, Omnipotence, and Having Limits when the three agreed. True Boundlessness didn't want everything to cease, only a few inconvenient things.

Void Energy should push and unmake everything anyway. That's how it worked. Yet, here, it accepted to be stopped...

Why?

Abbav's eyes widened in realization. The test subject was a Void Herald. The Void's primary manifestations, like a space of nothingness and Void Energy, weren't harmful to Alpha.

So, the perfect balance was accomplished without any logic behind it. Without actual balance. Abbav's mind struggled to make sense of an imbalance Whole that was balanced.

Abbav learned some new things and had some ideas merely by looking at the events. This already made the experiment a success.

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Unfortunately, Alpha would perish anyway.

Reality itself would refuse that Ethereal Whole because, without Laws and Concepts and agreed-upon rules enforced by all of Reality, Reality would crumble. Cause and effect were the foundation of how everything worked. The subject could temporarily ignore it, but it won't be allowed for longer than an instant. Not with his power or with a bit of Void Energy.

Already Abbav felt the whole weight of Reality pushing down upon—

Oh. Oh! Alpha was currently existentially anchored to the Stillborn Phasespace, not to Reality! Without that, he would've already been smitten down by the Axioms that formed everything. Not literally, but his existence would've been rejected and unmade.

Still, this was only a temporary solution. As soon as Alpha returned to proper Reality, he would cease to exist.

At least, that's what should've happened.

As Void Energy helped the Ethereal Whole find balance, the Whole healed. The cracks where Void Energy had escaped from were also mended. The energy was pulled back into the unconscious collective's ability.

Without Void Energy, the refusal to cause and effect couldn't be maintained by True Boundlessness alone. However, the energy retreated slowly. As Reality's influence in that Stillborn Phasespace gradually retook hold of the Ethereal Whole, it didn't suffer its full might all at once.

Instead, the Void Energy seemed to retreat purposefully in a cadence and through a pathway that, when Reality pushed, caused all pieces in the Ethereal Whole to fall into place.

Omnipotence should be here and affect things this way—and so it did when it replaced Void Energy in those places. Having Limits should be there and do things that way—and so it did, instead of the other cores, which were otherwise preoccupied elsewhere. True Boundlessness should be exactly like this, and despite its instability, when the Void Energy retreated, the Law was behaving in the precise way it should to take advantage of the given space.

Perfect balance, in which each core precisely strengthened and repelled the other in exact doses, was achieved for a singular moment.

That's when Test Subject Alpha almost flared its domain.

Alpha didn't fully activate it. The subject was nowhere strong enough to use it without harming its soul. What it did was akin to pre-activating the domain, enough to share its goals and ideals with the Whole without the full mighty of a domain.

The subject's domain was about rejecting things. Alpha filled its Ethereal Whole with it to repudiate any other arrangement the Whole might attempt.

It would keep that perfect balance by force.

The almost-domain infected the Whole the way the Void Energy had. The difference was that it didn't leave. A domain was someone's Path led by their beliefs and emotions and fueled by qi. The Ethereal Whole contained all those parts. The almost-domain would perpetuate itself there, thus maintaining the status quo.

There were no new surprises after that. Alpha's idea worked. After a stable balance was kept for a few moments, the ritual's last steps happened automatically. The technique's structure was built to naturally fall in pieces the right way after this point.

At long last, the ritual entered its final phase.

Alpha's Ethereal Whole was firmly established. It would now pull everything he was into itself while expanding to fill Alpha's entire existence. Then, the three cores would merge into its new True Self, replacing its Raw Will. That True Self would permeate everything Alpha was according to the balance reached in the Ethereal Whole.

The tight and harmonious system reached in the Whole would also serve as the new model of Alpha's now-stronger existence. Every bit of Alpha would become one once and for all. Its True Path contained the entirety of its being, all under its control, all pieces improving each other in precise, permanent, and sustainable manners. Without the Will-Path Merging, only A-ranks could accomplish that—and even then, only after some experience with their Realization.

Abbav watched as Test Subject Alpha's utmost belief in Omnipotence, Having Limits, and True Boundlessness became part of it. Each core empowered and countered the other while also fueling the very domain that kept them from ever overpowering their nemesis. It was a mix of a trap and a paradox.

It was pure art.

So many seemingly random factors had come together at the right time to accomplish that! But they weren't random luck. As Abbav had previously considered, Alpha's victories were achieved step by step, and its current existence resulted from consistent growth, as fast as it might seem. Even now, the subject had done things in a way that others might not even think of trying.

And the benefits Alpha had gained from it...

First was pure power. The subject would be capable of using all its abilities and Path at a level only accomplishable by B-ranks. The raw boost should be between 10 to 20%, not counting the proper skill application at the right time, which Alpha had been trained on.

Second was willpower. Abbav estimated the subject's willpower would surpass a weak B-rank even without using its talent and anti-Void trick. If both were active, Alpha might defeat a mid-tier B-rank in a battle of willpower—and it was important to note that only elites reached B-rank.

Of course, Abbav himself was out of the charts of "average elites," but he played in a different league from Test Subject Alpha. Anyone with a Realization did, even its relatively weak former drow lover.

Abbav also guessed there would be other benefits, but True Boundlessness made any prediction impossible. Only Alpha itself would know what else it gained from its almost suicidal creative endeavor.

Whatever else Alpha ended up gaining, the ritual concluded in a resounding success. Abbav laughed in joy as he released his hold over Alpha's Ethereal Whole. It would become invisible to everyone after fully merging with Alpha, including to him, but he had seen enough.

Abbav had felt his own mind widen a tiny bit just from repeatedly witnessing the impossible. He had just expanded his horizons, even though he wouldn't remember any of it.

Test Subject Alpha's eyes became glassy and unfocused as his Ethereal Whole started the final merge. It was remaking, rewiring, and reinforcing multiple areas of his existence. The subject's pressured mind had enough power to keep it from fainting, but it still shut down in that it couldn't think at all. Alpha just stood still, looking at nothing.

Abbav gave Alpha a last look, then ruthlessly forgot everything he had seen in its memories and witnessed, and whatever was related to it—

—

— ...

...

Abbav was standing still near a dazed Lieutenant Shen. He recalled the decision to read the boy's memories because he might be a Void Prophet with first-class talent. Of everything he had seen and thought after checking his memories, he only recalled the conclusion: the lieutenant was not a Void Prophet.

That was unfortunate. The reasoning for checking the boy's memories was flimsy at best. He would never have done it without his anger for dragons, which blinded him in his pursuit of revenge.

He should expect retaliation when the A-rank dragon arrived.

For now, his primary goal was ensuring the boy wouldn't use his domain to escape into the Void. While the lieutenant wasn't in complete control of his faculties at the moment, Abbav had left him conscious after reading his memories. He took it to mean he should give Shen a chance not to try to flee before making the boy unconscious until the end of this exercise. And the fact that he kept pressuring the boy's mind suggested he believed the boy would remain despite that.

That was curious. Abbav wasn't an altruist and didn't care much for the Alliance, but he cared about Reality. He would never cross some lines, and putting this Reality Node at needless risk wasn't his style.

He would have to wait and see what happened to try to glimpse into and understand his forgotten self's decisions.

Speaking of which, Abbav's secondary goal was getting hints about what he had done. A fully-fledged investigation would be illegal, but piecing things together by asking what others had seen was acceptable. No B-rank liked to forget what they had done for entire seconds.

That meant talking to First Lieutenant Zyn. The lieutenant would have paid attention to Abbav's actions.

Abbav started heading towards the commander...

...and froze in place midway through.

Abbav's mind. It wasn't the same, and he wasn't talking about his lost memories. It had changed beyond that. He panicked and quickly reassessed every tiny bit of himself, only to be astounded by what he had found.

His mind had widened. Almost too little to be noticed, true, but still, it had happened.

Someone like him already had his mind at the very limits of B-rank. Improving it in any way was almost impossible. Yet, that had happened throughout his forgotten interaction with Lieutenant Shen.

Abbav resumed his journey toward Zyn, moving much faster this time.

He needed to find out what had happened.

Lieutenant Shen had suddenly become very important to him.