Whoosh!
Three figures appeared behind Apexion; they were his clones. They flashed inside his body. Apexion then reached out and grabbed the skeleton’s right paw with his own paw. Then,
"Fuse!"
He commanded in a domineering tone, after which the skeleton’s right paw started to pulse and shift into a somewhat jelly-like substance. The liquid then started to meld with the bone in his right paw.
Crack!
Inch by inch, his bone shattered apart and was replaced by a jet-black rune bone.
"Pain!"
He felt pain like never before, pain that transcended the physical and struck his very spirit, it was as if he was being punished, punished for going against nature, punished for daring to become nature.
"Come!"
He shouted as he gritted his teeth tightly. So what if he had to endure pain beyond his imagination? As long as, in the end, his strength increased, and it meant he could evolve into a greater being, he was willing, he will even embrace pain itself, so long...
Tens of days passed, and just one of his claws had been replaced.
His starry eyes gazed at it in wonder; he felt that the sharpness and hardness of that one claw had increased over a hundredfold. He felt that if he sliced himself with it, it wouldn’t have difficulty in it slicing his entire being in half, killing his body and spirit instantly.
His eyes shone with eagerness and determination. The fusing process continued; he knew that the process would be a long and grueling one, but time and pain were the least of his concerns. He had already become accustomed to pain, and he had over ten thousand years to spare.
Twenty years passed, and his entire right hand had been replaced by runic obsidian bones.
Another twenty years for his left paw.
Fifty years passed for his right leg.
Another fifty years for his left leg.
Another fifty for his spine; this one was his most painful yet, as the fusing caused cracks to appear within his spirit.
Another fifty years for his ribs.
Another hundred years passed in the blink of an eye, and he was an inch short of completely changing his entire skeleton into a rune.
Soon, his entire skeleton was transformed into rune.
Clang!
The moment it completed, a loud crack echoed through the vacuum, and the spirit particles started to swarm toward him and entered his body.
His vision shifted, and he appeared inside the ascension realm, standing on his path, and just like the last time, he walked forward.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
At that very moment, something unexpected happened. He gazed down at the paws below and saw them pulsing and changing color from golden to jet black. Then, suddenly, a loud, almost indescribable sound akin to an ancient bell ringing rang out,
DONG!
The sound instant reverberated throughout the entire universe but was only audible to creatures at a certain level.
At the same time, somewhere inside the ascension realm, possibly an incalculable distance away from Apexion or not, you can never tell due to how chaotic time and space are inside the ascension realm, a creature might seem to be an arm’s length away from you, only for you to reach out and discover that the creature was nigh endless distance away from you.
A humanoid figure, with flowing long golden hair and clad in bloodied golden armor.
His body pulsed with an indescribable aura as he sat motionlessly, with his eyes closed, on top of what seemed to be golden staircase, that burned with terrifying golden flames that illuminated the emptiness.
Suddenly, his eyelids trembled, then opened, revealing a pair of shimmering golden eyes.
His ears shivered slightly as he listened to the indescribable bell ringing.
An instant later, he raised his head, gaze into the emptiness above him and questioned in a deep and majestic tone,
"Did you anticipated this, oh absolute one? Did you foresee the birth of another alpha path? Can your shattered will bear the onslaught of three alphas plus the world itself?"
There was no answer, and he wasn’t expecting one, for the being he was questioning was too preoccupied, too dead, too broken, too chained to communicate with anyone, or so he thought. Suddenly, a horrifying voice that overlapped with countless other voices rang out from all direction and entered his mind,
"UN-grate-FUL!"
Hearing the voice, his eyes widened in extreme shock. He immediately stood and shouted,
"Impossible!"
After which his figure, along with the golden staircase, instantly vanished, he had to check on something; he had to make sure the effort and sacrifice he had made for tens of eons wasn’t for nothing.
An instant later, after he vanished, he reappeared in another area of the ascension realm. Right before him or not right before him was a beautiful and mesmerizing scene that would imprinted itself into the mind of any creature who laid eyes on it forever.
two colossal shimmering ethereal staircases that radiated a transcendent and otherworldly aura.
One of the staircases was identical to the one he was standing on, only far grander and with a river of shimmering golden blood that flowed downward like a cosmic waterfall.
The other staircase could only be described as death, countless corpses of incalculable different species piled together in layers to form the stairs, their blood mixed with another ungodly blood that stained the emptiness.
The two staircases twisted and spiraled around each other and what seemed to be a shining red column formed from pure will at their center; they were akin to two serpents coiling around a rod.
Around the two, thousands of realms bloom and shattered every moment.
On top of the two staircases sat two colossal beings of proportions that would dwarf an arch realm, their bodies each radiated a distinct but ancient aura, one of the being was in the form of a worm-like creature with two towering horns on its head, while the other being was identical to him, yes identical, for that was his main self, and he was just an independent and isolated sliver of his will.
He didn’t say anything, for there was no need to; from the moment he appeared, his main body had already known what happened.
Having done what he needed to, he willingly collapsed himself into nothingness, dying, because he could no longer continue living, for the moment he entered this area, he had been stained with karma so heavy that it would collapse half of the world if it got out.