I Can Assimilate Everything-Chapter 672: Glorious Reclamation!

The Mutated Creature that was infected with the madness of Infinity!

Its horse-like body had been broken in dozens of places. Its muscular human chest bore wounds that went beyond physical damage, authority having torn through flesh and foundation alike. Its handsome face still wore that smile of supreme confidence, crystalline blue eyes staring at nothing even in death.

The madness of Infinity had not saved it.

Lamashtu looked down at this corpse with coldness in his burning eyes.

Then he raised his foot and brought it down on the creature’s chest with force cracking the crystalline flesh beneath. He stomped again. And again. Each impact sent shockwaves through the surrounding ruin, his fury expressing itself through violence against something already dead.

The remaining Absolutes watched him with expressions they carefully kept neutral. They were heavily injured, their constitutions and foundations damaged in ways that would require significant time to recover. They glanced at each other with looks communicating things they would never say aloud.

Lamashtu stopped his stomping and stood over the ruined corpse, breathing evening out as his rage settled into something colder.

He was thoughtful for a moment.

Then he squatted down beside the body, his massive form lowering until his burning eyes were level with the crystalline flesh he had just been destroying. His chained hand reached toward the corpse, fingers pressing against the radiant blue surface.

His hand pierced into it.

The crystalline flesh parted around his fingers with sounds like breaking glass and tearing meat combined. He pushed deeper, arm disappearing into the chest cavity of the creature up to his elbow. His fingers searched through the interior, pushing aside organs that shimmered with corrupted Infinity until they found what he was looking for.

He grabbed radiant flesh filled with glimmers of Infinity.

When he pulled his hand free, it clutched a mass of crystalline blue meat pulsing with light. The flesh writhed slightly in his grip, Infinity still active within dead tissue, blue radiance dancing across his chained fingers.

He brought it to his mouth.

And he ate.

His teeth tore through the crystalline flesh with sounds that made the watching Absolutes flinch. Blue light spilled from his mouth as he chewed, Infinity mixing with whatever passed for saliva in a being of his magnitude. He swallowed with visible effort, the meat traveling down his throat in a bulge that glowed through his obsidian wrappings.

...!

The Absolutes around him looked shocked, expressions breaking through their careful neutrality.

"Master!"

One of them called out with voice holding alarm she could not suppress.

"The Infinity within that flesh has the...THE Gamaidjan, if you consume too much without proper anchoring..."

Lamashtu raised his hand coldly, silencing her mid-sentence.

"Quiet."

His burning eyes swept across his remaining forces with authority demanding obedience.

"I know what I am doing."

He reached into the corpse again, pulling free another mass of radiant crystalline flesh.

"I was at THE Second Scale once. I have seen Infinity before. I know its dangers better than any of you."

He bit into the second piece with the same deliberate violence.

"And I know its rewards. I know...how to be cautious."

Lamashtu continued to eat the corpse of an entity that went mad with Infinity, his burning hands tearing free chunks of radiant crystalline flesh and bringing them to his mouth with desperate hunger.

Blue light began raging inside him.

His massive form shuddered as Infinity flooded through foundations that had been separated from THE Second Scale for eons. The power was too much too quickly, authority that even his experienced existence struggled to contain. His burning eyes flickered between their normal intensity and something approaching crystalline blue.

He was forced to kneel.

His chained hands pressed against the ruined ground as waves of Infinity crashed through his being, threatening to unmake everything he had rebuilt since his imprisonment began. The remaining Absolutes stepped backward with terror they could not conceal, watching their Master battle something that had destroyed beings far more stable than himself.

Blue light began escaping from his mouth, his eyes, the gaps between his obsidian wrappings.

He was about to explode.

But at such a time, his voice emerged with conviction that pressed against reality itself.

"Adversity is required for everything."

His words came through gritted teeth as Infinity raged within him.

"THE Second Scale even more so. The threat of madness, the risk of losing everything I am to THE Gamaidjan, this is sufficient adversity for me."

His burning eyes blazed brighter as he forced himself to remain coherent.

"I have already set my Civilizational Anchor before! I know what I am!"

BOOM!

Waves of obsidian light raged around him, forming into a sea that pushed back against the crystalline blue trying to consume his consciousness. He roared while compressing his existence, authority that had once touched THE Second Scale remembering what it meant to reach out to Infinity

His aura began to rise.

"I am Lamashtu! The Oldest Sovereign of Binding Flames!"

His voice thundered across the ruined landscape.

"I am the one who broke his chains! I am the one who will reclaim what was taken! I am the architect of my own ascension, and no madness born from Infinity will tell me otherwise!"

These words were his Anchor. His beliefs about himself, the core of his identity that Infinity could not erode because he had defined them long before touching endless potential.

It was a step he had taken before. So if he had something spurring him on and he did something dangerous...

BOOM!

"Glory..."

A heavy and glorious aura began to rise from him as his obsidian light flared out brilliantly. The pressure emanating from his kneeling form made his remaining Absolutes fall to their knees involuntarily, their foundations unable to withstand proximity to what was awakening within their Master.

The glory of a distant Scale was returning.

"Haha..."

His laughter started soft, almost disbelieving, before building into something that shook the surrounding ruins.

"THE Second Scale! THE Proterozoic Scale!"

He rose from his kneeling position with movement that seemed to warp space around him.

"I have returned to your embrace after so long!"

HUUM!

His figure stood transformed in the aftermath of his breakthrough. His obsidian wrappings now pulsed with authority that exceeded anything he had possessed since entering this Observable Existence. His chained hands, those symbols of his imprisonment, now seemed almost decorative rather than restrictive. His burning eyes blazed with intensity that made even looking in his direction painful for his remaining Absolutes.

He raised his hands toward the corrupted crystals of The Existential Lattice and laughed madly, the sound carrying across distances that should have been impossible for mere sound to travel. He had processed the flesh of something driven mad by Infinity and affirmed his Civilizational Anchor as power flowed!

Power beyond Absolute. Power approaching what he had once possessed before his imprisonment stripped it away. Power that would let him harvest this Observable Existence with efficiency that made his previous efforts seem childish.

And yet inside his obsidian eyes, he and nobody else here noticed something.

A flashing blue light lay hidden in the corner of his pupils.

Small. Almost imperceptible. Easy to dismiss as reflection from the crystalline corpse he had consumed.

But it was there.

Waiting.