Chapter 217: Chapter 195.1 : Light And Darkness

Micheal Ascania.

The Immortal, The Fifth Pillar, Radiant Face, Light of the World, Keeper of the Peace, Father of Potionology, World’s Strongest Man…

The man was known by countless titles, all of which echoed his significance, power and prestige. Micheal was a living legend, whose name had spread to all parts of Inis...and even beyond, spoken with mostly gratitude, admiration and appreciation.

Creating the life-changing wonders that were potions; his extreme philanthropy; putting a stop to several major conflicts, terrorist incidents and natural disasters, and then aiding in the recovery process...

His contribution to humanity's well-being and prosperity formed a list too long to recite in one breath or even a hundred. He was prolific, performing good deed after good deed. These string of good deeds formed a pattern as regular as the sun rising and setting. With this being the case, he had accrued an incredible amount of goodwill and gratitude in the hearts of humanity.

Ray’s interest though, didn’t lie in his seemingly impeccable character but rather, in his feats. He wasn’t alone in having this interest, Inis at large shared it, wondering how strong and capable the Raven was. Luckily for Ray and others, Micheal didn’t shy away from this question, and instead, heavily leaned into it.

The Fifth Pillar wanted the world to know his true capabilities and did many demonstrations to further that end. With the aid of others, he shot, produced and distributed dozens of high-quality Psi videos to showcase all of his various combat-related feats.

Micheal wasn’t a show-off and took no pleasure in standing in the spotlight. Despite bearing the title, the Light of the World, he prefered to keep to the shadows. He didn't enter the public eye too often and would mostly only appear during emergencies. He filmed these various demonstrations for a specific purpose, to act as a deterrent to any would-be villains out there.

The aged Ascendent believed that it was often due to ignorance that people committed errors, and so, saw it fit to enlighten the masses, and most importantly, the ‘elites’ who held greater sway of world affairs. To let them and others know what future would await them should their ambitions or foolishness lead them astray.

The Hunter Academies were a prime target for Micheal's propaganda. They were home to many future powerhouses after all. Power stroked certain grand ideas, both good and bad. Understanding this, Micheal used his influence to make viewing his feats videos mandatory for all students, to curb any wild thoughts they might have, and be a reminder to not step out of line, lest they wish to find themselves on the wrong end of the world's strongest man.

Were these videos effective?

To the question, one need only look at the state of the world. There were still rough edges to be found, and minor incidents broke out here and there, but ultimately, it was peaceful. And when asked what or who was responsible for this centuries-long state of peace, one name always came up, Micheal Ascania.

Now, in the Mental Space cinema, Ray sat, bubbling in anticipation. He had been putting off watching videos about Micheal's feats, stashing them away for a rainy day when a spell of boredom hit him. With his schedule as busy as is, said spell never had a chance to land and instead, it was his other self's prompting that nudged him into his current trajectory.

Ralf had recently watched them himself and wanted to discuss them with Ray. Hearing this, Ray happily obliged his other self's request; anything to please himself, after all.

With a snap of his finger, the black screen came alive with light and a documentary called The World's Strongest began playing. The documentary was advertised to perfectly lay out Micheal's feats and said to include all of his videos. Trusting it to be so, Ray summoned snacks and a milkshake to his side, reclined back and looked forward, forward to what should be an impressive showing.

'Micheal...let's see what you can do.'

***

Micheal had access to three Psi classes’ powers: Unique, Telekinetic and Telepathic class powers. His Telekinetic and Telepathic class powers were acquired only after stepping into the Ascendant realm and needed no thorough explanation. All that needed to be said about them, was that they were top-tier, with his Telepathic prowess said to be at a Mental Master-level.

Impressive as his Telepathic and Telekinetic abilities were, they couldn't hold a candle to his Unique powers, for they are what separated him from the common super-elite and transformed him into the world-altering existence he was currently. The crux of the aged Ascendant's combat prowess and absurd feats came cutesy of his original powers.

Versatile and deadly: were Micheal’s Unique abilities in a nutshell. He could do many things with his Unique Psi - or rather, there were very few things he couldn’t do with it...as he was currently, that is.

When Micheal first awakened his psionic power, he was totally oblivious to its nature and potential and would remain ignorant - and bitter, and envious of other psionics - for years to come. The young Micheal had cursed his awakened powers, believing them to be completely useless and well, for good reason.

While powerful, his Unique powers required a very specific activation condition to be met before they became useable. Until this condition was met, Micheal had been no different from a norin, albeit one that could sense Psi.

This was why Micheal was mostly a pretty face during Raven Tail’s quashing of the Great Scramble and the War of the End that followed. It was only after the Great Betrayal incident, during a life-and-death battle against a bunch of starving wolves, did he finally come to understand the true nature of his power. Activation condition met, the sky was the limit - no, even the skies couldn’t contain his power as he would later prove.

Presumed dead after the Great Betrayal incident, he entered isolation, heading to distant landmasses filled with monsters to train and hone his abilities.

His scholarly nature served him well in exploring the possibilities his Unique powers enabled. During the next five years, he would perform countless experiments, creating and perfecting his various abilities and techniques. Spurred on by both his natural curiosity and an intense desire to get revenge on Dimitri, he worked hard and smart...and also, without end.

By constantly recreating his body in a fully vitalised state, he staved off the need to eat and sleep. His work ethic didn't end there though. After mastering human biology through hundreds of experiments on copies of himself and others, he decided to transform his body into forms that would up his productivity.

Many horrific creatures came to be as a result of Micheal abandoning his human form, with Shattered Mirror, Micheal's cloning technique, being just one of them.

Shattered Mirror didn't produce True Clones, as the duo understood them, but rather Micheal-esque appendages.

Micheal sprouted a 'tail' from his lower back region. The thick white cord containing nerve tissue would connect to a flesh-covered giant amalgamation of brain matter, encased in a cubic glass structure holding blue and whitish fluid.

Micheal could make the structure opaque but chose not to in the video segment Ray was watching, for effect. The sight invoked images of a mad scientist, which frankly, was exactly what Micheal was during those five years.

From the grotesque structure, white cords sprang out and connected to individual 'Micheals'. The giant brain network was responsible for parallel thought processing and allowed the individual Micheals to focus on their respective tasks.

Using this setup, Micheal could make one clone or even a hundred, though the latter would need a mansion-sized Brain Centre, so he usually settled on a few dozen at a time. It was through the use of these pseudo-clones and constantly refreshing himself that Micheal managed to draw out the full potential of his power.

At first, he was limited to living organisms like animals, humans, monsters and plants but through continuous experimentation, he managed to fragment these organisms into smaller and smaller parts until eventually, he was left with individual elements. Five years of experimenting later and he was able to create most of what could be found on the periodic table - which he would later help create.

Those five years following the Great Betrayal incident had transformed a meek scholar into a force of nature, one wielding creation and destruction with equal proficiency.

Indeed. While known for his creative prowess, Micheal's destructive prowess was no less. Creation and destruction. The two concepts were two sides of the same coin, and Micheal's Unique power embodied this truth.

Zenki made up everything.

It occupied every space, all at once, with even space being a form of Zenki. To create something, anything, one had to destroy what was in that space previously. But what did it mean to destroy? In reality, Zenki couldn’t be destroyed. What it could be, was plane-shifted.

Reality was made up of several dimensional planes layered atop each other; this was known. These different planes interacted with each other in mysterious ways, with Zenki travelling between them.

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An example of this was the Zenki Ripple. The universal phenomenon saw Zenki move from the Great Aether, an upper plane, to the material world, a lower plane. Another example was when Psi or any other Aether Zenki seemingly vanished from existence. It did not. Rather, the Aether Zenki was simply plane-shifting, moving down to a plane known as the Lesser Aether.

When materialising Psi into the real world, Telekinetics, Mimics, and of course Micheal, inadvertently destroyed the Zenki that previously occupied the space. In this way, Telekinetics and Mimics were also creation users. Micheal was a vastly superior creation user though, and it stemmed from one fact, 'priority’.

In the vacuum of space or air, conjuring a block of ice, for instance, was easy. However, doing so, in the middle of a stone pillar was infinitely harder because solid and more complex structures were not so easily plane-shifted.

Rose the Great Flood had famously given this a go and even as an Ascendant, it had taken her all to even materialise a puddle of water in a tree.

If Rose, other Mimics and all other psionics' Psi had low 'priority', Micheal's Psi was set to highest 'priority'. His Psi creations could easily plane-shift nearly everything.

'Nifty,' Ray commented as he watched Micheal showcase this ability.

The White Mist of Destruction or just White Mist as it was often called, was a technique that utilised this destructive property. As its name suggested, the Psi took the form of a white mist of varying sizes and shapes.

It didn’t have to be white mist. Micheal could make it any colour or anything else. Regardless of its appearance, it was deadly. Anything purely physical would be instantly ‘destroyed’ if it made contact with the White Mist.

Micheal demonstrated its lethality by firing hypersonic columns of White Mist at various targets. Forests, mountains, cityscapes and even islands vanished at the technique's passing, gone in an instant.

This ability was as devastating as it was useful and allowed him to perform quite a number of impressive feats. The White Mist was an excellent offensive weapon, but more often than not, it was used for defensive purposes.

The next video segment showcased the White Mist's defensive value.

On a vacated island in the middle of nowhere sea, Micheal sat atop a plain wooden chair, sipping a sparkling orange beverage. Around him, the White Mist, and around that, dozens of high-tier grendo bombs set to detonate in seconds.

Not an iota of anxiety or panic radiated from his posture or expression, just grace and nonchalance. And his calm was justified as, after the all-consuming white flash, he and his immediate surroundings remained perfectly intact. In the fiery hell, he calmly drank his juice, undaunted by the cataclysmic destruction all around him.

The White Mist was incredibly useful as a barrier. That said, it wasn't a perfect shield. It couldn't block/destroy Psi or any other Aether Zenki. It wasn’t just against strong auras either, even weak auras could resist the White Mist's destructive effect.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Micheal possed a technique far more potent than White Mist.

Black Sun.

Black Sun was the opposite of White Mist. Instead of spreading his destructive effect over a wide area, Black Sun was the result of concentrating a substantial amount of his Psi into a single point. The action induced a curious phenomenon, one that even Micheal couldn't wrap his head around after centuries of study.

Pure darkness was summoned, seemingly from the nether. Visually, the darkness resembled flickering flames. That said, they weren't to be mistaken for ordinary flames. While they gave off no heat, these otherworldy black flames were unrivalled in their destructive capabilities. There was no Aether Zenki-physical substance distinction needed, these black flames destroyed everything they touched.

Micheal had little control over these black flames and had only managed to fashion one technique from them, Black Sun. The Ascendant had the summoned flames gather to form a soccerball-sized sphere. The black flames swirled around the initial point and occasionally, the orb's surface would flare up with specs of unruly darkness.

Black Sun was often compared to Soren's Devourer's Orb, given their shape and destructive capabilities, but unlike Soren's, Micheal's Black Sun couldn't be fired off as a projectile. It lived and died atop Micheal's palms. He could initially only make one but was said to be able to make two since becoming an Ascendant.

Micheal demonstrated Black Sun's destructive capability, in the same manner, his fellow Raven had demonstrated Devourer Orbs' effectiveness. He had a bunch of Rank 9 Telekinetics form a union technique barrier, then casually strode up and poked at it with his sphere of swirling darkness. The multilayered barrier that could withstand a cluster of grendo bombs going off at once was made to look like wet paper as it was punctured through with ease.

Black Sun was Micheal’s strongest anti-personnel technique, said to be unstoppable. The technique provoked both fear and awe in those in the know - which was most of Inis at this point.

Ray didn’t feel these emotions, far from it. Rather, another emotion dominated his heart upon capturing the vortex of black flames, disappointment.

Ray's gaze moved to his right palm.

"Endera."

Saying the familiar incantation, black flames, identical to the ones in the video segment, came to life atop his gloved hand. The Transmigrator's gaze lingered a second more before shifting focus to his left hand.

"Aldera."

Uttering, Ray observed as his left palm welcomed flames, these ones pure white in colour. The Transmigrator watched the pair of flames dance atop his palms with a bitter look; these flames were mere projections after all, not the real things.

Aldera, the Flames of the Beginning and Eldera, the Flames of the End. They were the strongest offensive techniques belonging to those of the Light and those of the Darkness, respectively.

He, Ralf and Silver had tried to invoke these flames in the outside world many many times but to no avail. It was disheartening. How easier would life be if they could wield their original powers. Alas, it wasn't so. The parts of their soul that had once been able to invoke these world-ending flames were scattered across the nigh-infinite parallel worlds.

Ray shook his hands and extinguished the unextinguishable flames, before replacing them with milkshakes, one strawberry flavoured and the other chocolate flavoured. He took a sip, one after the other, letting the injection of sweetness clear his head of useless thoughts.

The duo tried to think about their past self as little as possible, to prevent disappointment and frustration. The top had been reached once and so, in their minds, they believed they could reach it again, that it was just a matter of time.

'That's right. One must play with the cards they're given. So, while our current set of cards is no royal flush, we must continue playing to win...and then win in the end.'

Nodding, Ray's returned his sights to the screen, where Micheal continued to showcase Black Sun.

'Speaking of cards, he really lucked out. To summon Endera, even this inferior version of it, Micheal's original self must have been quite the avatar of Darkness. Luckily, he doesn't seem capable of invoking the real thing. I doubt a universe as fragile as this one could survive its summoning - at the very least, all life would perish.'

Having this morbid thought, Ray took a sip and continued watching the documentary.

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