Although Atlas was the strongest son, he did not follow the true path of the false gods. In the end, he chose to walk on his own feet and try his own way, which meant only Matheus continued on the path of the false gods.
Author’s note: Late chapters paid
"Hello, master," Han greeted Kayden as soon as he appeared. The rest of the mages kept a respectful distance from him. The demigods and the tenth realm mages had become a more fluid group over the years. Many of them understood there was no chance of claiming the great prize, so they abandoned their ideas of possessing solitary zones and instead united their forces in groups. Some zones, for instance, contained nearly a dozen distinct mages, both demigods and mages from the tenth realm.
At the moment, Netero only controlled one zone, while Atlas had four under his control. Jasmine had only two zones, as this wasn’t one of her focuses during this period. The Ice Emperor, however, had expanded his control to ten zones without any difficulty.
Kayden was one of the few who knew that if the Ice Emperor wanted, he could take all the zones in this universe with ease. It was likely that the mage was just waiting for his protected one to grow stronger and begin the real chaos.
Kayden still didn’t know exactly who the protected one of these mages was, but it was probably someone with an absurdly high talent. At the very least, the person must have a talent comparable to that of Atlas and Kayden, perhaps not as strong in terms of raw talent as the latter, but in terms of resources and techniques, they would likely surpass Kayden’s strength in the future.
The second strongest demigod, right behind Netero, also experienced a spectacular growth in strength. He found an incomplete law stone that perfectly complemented his own, nearly doubling his power during this period. He was now only behind a few others in the entire universe.
Among the mages of the tenth realm, a mage emerged with the path of the Lunar Monarchs, something completely new in this universe. This mage’s strength matched that of the second demigod. The universe seemed to be in a strange, invisible balance, but that was only for the fools who couldn’t see the truth. More than half of the zones were held by mages of the tenth realm, with at least thirty of them in their hands.
The universe began to resonate with a very ancient melody, a melody that traversed universes, something that should have been forgotten long before the existence of the universes themselves. There was no reason for it to still exist, but this was something no one knew.
The longer time passed, the louder the music grew. It reached a point where the music expanded across dozens of galaxies. No one remembered hearing something before; in fact, some very ancient mages had a vague recollection, but it was very different.
The mana of billions of kilometers began flowing toward Matheus without pause, an absurd amount of energy that Kayden didn’t remember seeing any mortal, besides himself, able to manipulate. It took only a few seconds for all of it to be condensed around Matheus, creating a vortex of immeasurable power. The universe seemed to hold its breath, as though the very fabric of space-time was tense, waiting for the moment when this power would manifest. Every particle of mana seemed to whisper ancient secrets, slowly revealing the true meaning of that cosmic convergence. Matheus’s transformation was about to begin, and the echoes of that distant melody resonated like the prelude to something that even the most powerful could not foresee. The universe was about to witness an ascension that could change everything.
Matheus’s soul began to merge with the mana unnaturally. Kayden had never seen anything before. The mana was entering his soul with all its glory and blending with it. Kayden couldn’t understand what was happening based on his usual knowledge, but thanks to his divine eyes...
"The law of mana and the law of control," Kayden murmured. They were two laws he had never encountered before. First, because they were extremely rare and ridiculously difficult to grasp. There were at least two dozen incomplete laws for each of them, just to understand the basics of each.
Matheus wasn’t a mage with great talents, at least not to the point of achieving something . Kayden had altered his soul and given him talent to an incomprehensible degree, but what he had learned in such a short time was still insane. This made Kayden remember his promise to kill Matheus’s soulmate.
If he fulfilled his promise, two scenarios could occur. The first was that Matheus’s mind would be completely destroyed, making him incapable of continuing his life. The second scenario was that he would enter an insane frenzy of improvement, seeking revenge against Kayden. It was a risk of gaining a true opponent for the future or losing the chance to have one.
Matheus’s soul continued absorbing mana, but less than 0.000001% of all the mana that entered was actually used by the boy. Most of it wasn’t absorbed by his soul. After a few minutes, the true ascension began. Matheus opened a hole in the void and began to devour mana from both planes without hesitation.
Kayden could see two things happening. The first was that Matheus’s soul was becoming more and more filled with mana, but there was a small problem. His soul was also suffering deep damage to its structure. It was a race against time, where the amount of mana wasn’t enough to cope with the damage to his soul.
Matheus had failed. He couldn’t take enough mana to elevate himself to whatever he was trying to achieve. This realization caused Kayden and some other mages to smile sadly. It was sympathy for a mage who should have been a genius but, in the end, was unable to achieve it. At least that was what would have happened if Kayden hadn’t intervened.
The boy began to convert all of his sixth sense into mana and used the law of equilibrium to generate even more. In just a few seconds, he placed an amount of mana that Matheus would have needed years to accumulate. Kayden threw all this pure mana at Matheus. The amount was so vast that mana monsters began to emerge.