Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 381: Empowerment
Miranda felt exhausted.
Not physically, of course, as she possessed more energy than the universe she was currently in would likely ever generate in the entirety of its existence.
That was no small thing, given that universes endured for trillions of years before the possibility of ’dying’ even arose.
Her exhaustion was entirely mental.
It was far more difficult than it sounded to sneak up on other Quasi-Supremes who were full Cosmic Superiors, and remain hidden while listening to their exchanges. It was equally exhausting to sift through the memories of over a thousand individuals, each having lifetimes that stretched across millions of years, and it was taxing work to maintain her Third Concretization without pause to keep from being noticed by the Supreme in Sonerth, who had been wielding a Dictum to sweep across the cluster, likely with the intent of locating her.
So when Ulfur finally contacted her to report that he had gathered the force she instructed him to prepare, Miranda simply stared at the communication device in her hand for a long moment in silence before sighing and instructing him to brief them on the situation before she arrived.
’Do I even still need that plan? I have already gathered as much information as I possibly could from everywhere except Sonerth and Uetera.
The two Supremes in those universes... they are not to be underestimated.’
After scouring through the memories of dozens of Firmament Realm existences, Miranda had finally confirmed the exact number of existences currently in ZWF4105 that could truly be counted as a ’threat’ to her.
12.
If she narrowed the list to those she considered a ’real threat’, the kind she could not eliminate in a single strike even if she committed herself fully, that number fell to 6.
’Two Quasi-Supremes, Four Lesser Supremes and Six Supremes.’
Naturally, it was only the Six Supremes who qualified as the ’real threat’, particularly when she considered the possibility of them holding esoteric abilities on the level of her Violet Inferno, or wielding special weapons capable of cutting through durability as easily as scissors through paper, along with whatever additional support the Proelium Towers might provide them that she had not yet uncovered.
However, despite the value of this knowledge, it was still not the most important piece of information Miranda sought, and it did not outweigh what she had thus far been unable to learn.
"Just what the hell are they doing with those goddamn Towers?"
It was no surprise that Miranda’s patience was wearing thin, as nearly two months had passed and even after scouring the memories of thousands, she still couldn’t uncover the Neo-Extinction Legion’s Grand Plan for the cluster.
What she did know was that they were gathering energy for ’something’, and that ’something’ required the involvement of all ’12 Universes Simultaneously’, but that was the limit of what she had been able to discover.
She briefly considered probing the memories of the Masters of Sonerth and Uetera, but during the rare times they left their universes, she found that they had been bestowed ’Authority’ by another Supreme.
That meant the instant she attempted to touch them, the Supremes in Sonerth and Uetera (Deryn and Salenor) would immediately be alerted that another being of comparable power was around.
’If I had a Dictum of my own...’
Miranda clicked her tongue at the thought, the familiar sting of hatred for her Hybrid Nature rising once again, the trait that had obstructed her path to greater Cosmic Superiority by making her too similar to one.
In several respects, she was even better than they were.
She didn’t have a nigh-immortal body or soul with cockroach-like vitality as they did. Hers were entirely immortal by every known method of ’killing’ something.
Eternal Life, Resilience, Regeneration, and in the truest sense, ’Deathlessness’.
Miranda sighed and pressed her palm to her face to keep herself from spiralling into negative thoughts, releasing the unconscious Master of Lozion before turning away and walking in direction w.
Thus, no trace of Miranda’s presence in Lozion remained after she confirmed that the Master of that universe wasn’t aligned with those of Sonerth and Uetera.
’So, their Millennium Council Vote is publicly 5-4 in favour of the Neo-Extinction Legion, but in truth it is 5-7 against them.’
With those thoughts, Miranda tapped the fascinator in her hair, activating its Space Traversal feature as she warped out of the universe and returned to Luabos.
’I need to sleep. And I need to see Jamie. Is he back from that Vladi place yet? I could really use that sword of his...’
Her thoughts were all over the place as she floated almost aimlessly down the spatial channel, emerging once more in Luabos before relying on her own spatial powers to warp to the location where she could sense thousands of clustered presences of Law Assimilation and early-stage Firmament Realm existences.
As always, she appeared in an eruption of a pillar of purple flames, leaving the thousands of gathered existences stunned, for to them it seemed as though she had quite literally spawned from thin air.
"Have you briefed them?" she asked, turning to Ulfur, who nodded.
"I just finished."
With that, Miranda turned her gaze upon the assembled crowd, scanning them with her eyes.
She’d told Ulfur to gather only ’Elites’, and he had done exactly that. Not a small force, but thousands, possessing enough power to attack the Proelium Tower and inflict meaningful damage.
’Mostly werewolves, very few vampires, and...there are humans mixed in?’
The power Miranda intended to use couldn’t work on humans, so she took a moment to think of which other Authorities she possessed that could provide a similar effect.
’Tsk, this would be far easier if I had the Dictum of Fealty...’
Miranda sighed again, deciding that her ’Authority of Vows’ would have to suffice for the humans, before she lifted her gaze to meet the thousands of eyes fixed upon her.
’Should I say something?’
After a moment, she decided to say a few words, if only for the sake of dramatic effect. Such things, while seemingly unnecessary, often proved useful.
Infusing her tongue with a bit of magic power, she began.
"You have already been told why you were chosen and gathered here today, so there is little need for me to repeat it.
You were deemed loyal enough to stand here, and that loyalty will earn you power...with certain strings that will be attached for the duration of the...’crisis’ troubling this cluster.
What I shall grant now is power, and with it, a bond that cannot be broken. Authority for obedience, strength for subordination."
Her voice echoed across the vast space station, and as she lifted her hand, overwhelming magic power erupted from her body, so dense that space itself began to distort and creak beneath its weight.
She then muttered in a True Voice that carried clearly to the ears of all who were present.
|Aspect of the Wolf: Pack Leader’s Blessing.|
That particular facet of being a ’Wolf Pack Leader’ allowed her to grant power to the werewolves present, demanding fealty in exchange for a strength none of them could have attained on their own.
One by one, they submitted, heads lowered as her ’Authority’ was bestowed upon them. This ’Authority’ would be automatically infused into their attacks, enabling them to override enemy offensive techniques and break enemy defences that would have held against them before.
In simple terms, Miranda buffed their Attack Power by over 9000!
As Miranda turned her attention to the vampires present, Ulfur, who had been watching silently from the side, felt both unease and intrigue.
Sure, he’d expected empowerment, but the scale of it was staggering, leaving him to wonder just how much power she actually had to ’give away’.
He thought about asking, but his wolf instincts warned him that Miranda wasn’t in the best mood, so he kept the question to himself.
Had he asked, however, he would have received an answer, since Miranda didn’t regard that matter as anything particularly serious or secretive.
Power was fundamentally tied to Energy.
It was why, alongside the Body and the Soul, the Energy Core or Cores of an existence were considered among the three most vital aspects.
Energy was the fuel required for any sustained activity, and Miranda possessed an immense amount of it.
As Jamie had explained some time ago, Miranda held as much, if not more, energy than a Grand Supreme, despite there being two Existence Realms separating her from that level.
Her only limitation lay in how much of that energy she could ’output’ at once, as that determined the level of ’damage’ she was capable of inflicting.
If her energy output couldn’t exceed the durability of her opponent, then the attack would fail to deal the intended damage.
There existed a Cosmic Limit on how much Energy a being within a given Existence Realm could possess, but she broke through that restriction by gathering more than her body could normally contain, compressing it repeatedly to increase its quality and create additional space, continuing this cycle even after forcefully overloading her body until it broke apart and regenerated again and again across hundreds of millions of years.
Even so, that method of accumulation was not without its ceiling, and Miranda had ultimately reached it, for her soul could no longer strengthen itself enough to open more capacity for additional energy.
She possessed ’Immortality’, not ’Infinite Evolution’, after all.
The vast reserves she had acquired through this process, however, were still more than enough for her to distribute among nearly three thousand Law Assimilation and early-stage Firmament Realm existences while retaining sufficient power to face 12 Supremes simultaneously.
Not that she was crazy enough to do that on purpose.
Anyways, Ulfur, unable to sense Miranda’s true Existence Realm, silently concluded that she had to be at least a Supreme, both because of the immense power she released and because she was capable of wielding an ’Aspect’, something he knew only Supremes could use.
