Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 401: Garden of Flowers

Cracks spread across both their weapons, and as their eyes widened at the sight, the spears exploded, the force of the blast sending shards of the shattered Aspect Forged spears tearing into their bodies as they were hurled backwards through space.

Miranda forced the broken fragments of Sarina’s spear out of her flesh with her cosmic energy to stop the death energy from rotting her body, and immediately pulled her fist back, gathering cosmic energy around it in preparation to strike.

She threw it forward to meet Sarina’s punch, purple flames and black death colliding in a space-rending impact as both pushed against each other, struggling to consume the other.

In the end, Sarina’s darkness prevailed, swallowing Miranda’s purple flames and instantly covering her forearm in necrotic light.

Miranda pulled back and, without hesitation, severed her forearm, reducing the detached limb to ash before instantly regenerating a new one, bone knitting, flesh and vessels forming, and skin covering it all in an instant.

She instantly wrapped it in cosmic energy again, but just before throwing it out, her eyes widened, and she raised her left hand toward Sarina.

"Wait a second."

"??"

Her left hand struck the inner side of Sarina’s arm, deflecting the punch, and as the Nephalem immediately widened the distance, Miranda turned her attention to her right hand, clenching and unclenching her fist over and over.

Sarina watched her in confusion, but Miranda kept repeating the motion, each time dispersing and gathering the cosmic energy around her arm once more.

At first, the coating of cosmic energy showed visible ripples and distortions, but before Sarina’s eyes, those instabilities began to reduce, the cross-flow between the energy layers reducing until each one glided smoothly over the next, creating a laminar flow around Miranda’s arm that made the energy appear still.

It was clear to even a blind man that Miranda had just, in the middle of the battle, nearly perfected her energy control.

Sarina’s composed expression turned incredulous at the sight, and she sighed softly, shaking her head as she muttered,

"Geniuses. Frightening as always."

As a paragon of hard work, Sarina couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy toward geniuses like Miranda, who had managed to reach such a level of power control within an Existence Realm she’d only been in for just over six months.

If it wasn’t already clear, this clash between the two Hybrids was nothing more than a training spar meant to help Miranda improve her mastery over power control.

Ascending to the Supreme Realm had done more than simply raise Miranda’s raw power. Her overall output had increased, her energy flow had become faster, and her Authorities had been strengthened, amplifying the force behind every strike she delivered.

Knowing that control was just as vital as power itself, Miranda had chosen to improve it through combat against someone who’d been a Supreme far longer than she had.

They’d repeated these battles countless times throughout the past six months, each spar helping Miranda hone her control.

Their continued duels in this empty stretch of space completely outside Zanerth’s territories had long driven away every cosmic beast that once roamed nearby, and even inter-universal travel routes that once passed through the region had been forced to bend across distant paths to avoid getting caught in their clashes.

In the six months since the failed Universal Amalgamation of ZWF4105, neither of the Hybrids had returned to the Zanerth Universe.

The most they had done was remotely activate the avatars they’d left behind to receive routine reports from their subordinates within the universe.

Now, one might expect that their absence from Zanerth during such a fragile period would create room for serious problems to arise, but even knowing that, neither made any move to return, and for good reason.

Firstly, they had competent subordinates who wouldn’t collapse in their absence and could manage affairs alongside the other Supremes, especially since the Supremes of their own races were still around to repel anyone attempting something foolish.

Secondly, the Neo-Extinction Legion had already sunk their influence deep, not only into Zanerth’s ruling powers but also into several other Multi-Universal Empires, both near and distant, as revealed through Deryn’s memories.

That explained Jamie’s current absence, as the man was several billion parsecs away, at the edge of a gazebo surrounded by a garden filled with pink flowers of countless varieties.

He stood with his arms crossed, his gaze peering through space toward the two female Hybrids engaged in their spar.

As always, he wore a formal outfit, a three-piece black and grey pinstriped suit with his jacket buttoned and a small blue handkerchief tucked neatly into his chest pocket.

As he watched in silence, a feminine voice echoed from behind him.

"The way you look at her seems less like that of a lover’s gaze and more like a father proud of his daughter."

Hearing that, Jamie turned and met the gaze of the woman who’d appeared behind him, seated on the gazebo’s railing, before replying,

"Then something must’ve gone wrong with your eyes in the time I haven’t seen you."

"Pfft...hahahaha!!"

The woman burst out laughing at his words, shaking her head as she set down the wine gourd she carried on the railing beside her.

She was a fox beastkin, distinguished by the large fox ears, brown like her hair and eyes, that rose from the top of her head. Her outfit was a white and black kimono, embroidered with grey patterns, and she was barefoot, wearing only ankle beads, her open toenails painted black.

Nine fluffy fox tails stretched out from her lower back, swaying gently through the air, surrounding her with a sacred and graceful atmosphere that made anyone encountering her for the first time instinctively feel reverence.

"Between the two of us, it’s clear who something’s gone wrong with since we last met."

As she spoke, her slit pupils glowed faintly, and she took a moment to glance over Jamie from head to toe before continuing, "What the hell happened to you, Westley? The current you isn’t the Westley we know."

From her words, it was clear she was referring to Jamie’s loss of power.

Jamie’s ability to conceal it depended entirely on how much he’d recovered, and at his current level of Quasi-Supreme, he could hide it from anyone whose Existence Realm had ’Supreme’ in it.

For this woman to see through it immediately, it was obvious she was no ’Supreme’, nor was she merely in the Integration Realm above.

She was someone who held a position similar to Jamie’s in Zanerth—a de facto Ruler, though in her case, her authority was far more official.

She was the undisputed strongest and the Ruler of the closest multi-universal empire to Zanerth’s, a Superior Stage Zenith Haven Realm Existence, just like full-powered Jamie.

Calling her a Superior Stage Zenith Haven was, however, at best a misnomer and at worst an insult. It was far more fitting to describe her as a Semi-Ultimate.

She was one of the few people Jamie could truly relate to, for like him, she was among the rare existences who, during the process of ascending to the Ultimate Realm, had realised her ’path’ was flawed and willingly interrupted her own ascension to avoid ending up as nothing more than a False Ultimate, despite the immense soul damage and loss of power it brought.

Then again, compared to the tragedy of becoming a False Ultimate—where the only way to recover was either to cripple one’s entire power and start over from the Master Realm, a process that could easily kill them, or outright die and reincarnate—a bit of soul damage and power loss was a small price to pay.

Of course, she hadn’t dared to attempt it again, as the soul damage from that first failed ascension had crippled her power for several million years.

"So? What is it, Westley? Why’ve you come to us?"

"Do you remember the Destruction Supreme, Akari?" Jamie asked. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

At that, Akari raised an eyebrow before replying.

"Destruction Supreme? Yes, we remember them. We most certainly remember telling you that title was quite misleading.

How many a fool met their end thinking they were but a mere ’Supreme’ because of that title?"

"The name ’Destruction Supreme’ sounded a lot cooler than something like ’Destruction Zenith’."

Jamie’s reply made Akari shake her head with a sigh.

"We admit that’s honestly an awful title to hear, but correct us if we’re wrong—we distinctly remember them only reaching the Zenith before Ultimate during that fateful battle against you, Westley.

We also remember laughing at your predicament, at how absurdly movie-like it all felt, since they, in that moment, looked like a protagonist awakening to greater power when cornered by death against an overwhelmingly stronger foe, and then went on to give that foe the greatest existential threat he’d faced in millions of years."

Akari’s words unveiled details about Jamie’s fateful battle with the Destruction Supreme that few were aware of, including their true power level and how that level had been achieved due to the threat of mortal danger Jamie had posed.

It was truly the kind of situation one would expect of a protagonist.

"An irony, no? Considering you call yourself a Protagonist," Akari said, laughing heartily at the frowning Jamie.

Before Jamie could respond, her laughter faded and her expression turned serious as she asked, "So? What happened that made you bring up the memory of such a repulsive existence before us? We recall you reducing them to nothingness with that void of yours."

Seeing her switch in demeanour, Jamie matched her seriousness and briefly explained the matter concerning the Neo-Extinction Legion.