The beam of light cut through everything in its path, pausing for only the slightest moment on Caldrin’s forehead before it broke skin, spinning and tearing through.
—
[VICTOR: Grey Temolt]
—
Grey howled through the skies. "Fuck I’m good."
"..." The angel lady didn’t have the words to speak.
It wasn’t that dealing with a Dominion Class was truly impossible from beneath that tier. The problem was that it needed hacks. Obviously, if the final boss of arc one was in the Dominion Class, then not just Grey would have to figure out how to do this.
The problem was that these people would rely on external means.
As had been said many times before, the path through the Genesis Games had been drilled to death. Well, at least arc one had been. This was why Cracked Worlds made things so much more interesting.
It wouldn’t be until about half way through arc two that unexpected things might start to happen and viewership would truly pick up. That was why the start of arc two was used for establishing "characters" through the use of things like talk shows and the like.
They would use highlights from arc one to get a larger part of the audience invested before the real entertainment began.
This was all to say that the meta for clearing arc one for over a thousand iterations of the game now had always been to find a Dominion Class treasure, have it acknowledge you, and then use it to defeat the final boss of arc one.
That was how everyone had done it. That was how everyone had always done it.
Because of the rod in his hands, everyone watching now probably thought that Grey had just stumbled onto the very same meta.
Only Grey and the angel lady knew that the rod hadn’t acknowledged Grey at all.
This was entirely and 100% Grey.
Not only was it 100% Grey, but he had figured out what to do from a vague, somewhat hectic explanation that she had given him.
It was entirely inconceivable.
She let out a hollow laugh. Was it even possible for a human of all races to be so talented?
It wasn’t just the fact that Grey’s soul was impossibly large, but his trust in his own instincts was...
’His intelligence is off the charts but he simply doesn’t act like it. But somehow, that makes him even more dangerous. He doesn’t second guess himself. That is...’
It was scary. A call to action, a movement without care for the consequences, a deep trust in oneself even if it meant going against the entire world.
Who was that if not the embodiment of her littlest brother, Prometheus.
It was no wonder Prometheus had taken a chance on a human this time. Maybe he might have picked Grey out even if he was an inferior talent.
But this mindset and talent together...
’He used Last Paladin Spirit to steal from the ancestry of the goblins, forming a quasi Dominion on the back of his comprehension of the Frame. And then he used Holy Energy exceeding his body’s capacity to fuel it, using the elasticity of his Branching and Recursive Branches to support the output of his Resonant Frame. And then he used his Linear Frame to direct all of that might into a single purpose.
’It takes a lifetime to grasp control of just one Neural Frame to this level. He’s only just stepped into the Vector Class, and his comprehension feels like it’s already reached the Dominion Class...
’He is...—’
"Where the fuck are my rewards, man? Whose leg do I have to piss down for my shit to stop getting stolen?"
The angel lady’s lip twitched.
He really did make it easy to dismiss his magnificence.
"You won’t receive a reward. From what I heard from your conversation, he’s a Producer. The Genesis System won’t be able to apply proper rewards to such an external existence."
"Lame," Grey cursed, rolling his eyes. Just his luck for something like this to happen. "Whatever. I’ll take what I want, then."
Grey fell from the skies, landing on the corpse that remained of Caldrin. And then he began to eat.
His comprehension of Last Paladin had reached a ridiculous level just now, but he was still stuck at Level 30 for all of them. The reason was obvious enough.
His stats were limiting him. They weren’t high enough to push beyond Level 30.
He might have been able to manage it if he had hit 100% Core Sync like he had with Belly of the Forge which was currently Level 31, but the deeper connection the rebirth waters had given him with all of his abilities also made him realize just how deep he had to delve in order to reach that level.
Belly of the Forge only reached 100% Core Sync so easily because he literally had the Mechanical Jaw Spirit within him, and even then it had only done it for one ability and not all six.
Right now, his Last Paladin Frame was balancing seven abilities, which technically made it imperfect. It was only because he had a Branching Neural Frame that he could force it to balance. But his Last Paladin Frame was a Resonant Frame Type.
That incongruency was something that Grey would have to find a balance for. The strain of that battle was a lot heavier than he had made it seem.
But... what better way to improve his capacity and resistance than the corpse of a Dominion Class?
He had lied through his teeth just to piss Caldrin off. If anything, his flesh was some of the best meat he had ever had. It was clean—likely because of the purity of body you needed to reach the Dominion Class in the first place—not too fishy. Despite being raw, it melted in his mouth, but it also wasn’t slimy.
It was a texture just a little denser than jello, and it shredded apart in his mouth like smoked salmon. It was the most unique sort of meat he had ever had.
And the more he ate, the more his stomach thrummed and his body’s foundation expanded.
Right down to the very last bite.
BOOM.