Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 356: The Hybrid’s ‘Secret’

"The reason it’s so difficult for us Hybrids to attain full Cosmic Superiority is because we’re essentially imitations of a mutated Cosmic Being, which means we already possess many of their traits," Jamie began, tossing popcorn into his mouth as light flashed across his 3D glasses.

"And since the Cosmos perceives us as too similar to actual Cosmic Beings, we fall within its margin for error. It ends up mistaking us for genuine Cosmic Beings, even though we’re not.

As a result, the advancement mechanism built into the Cosmos assumes it has no further role in our development, and we can’t reach Cosmic Superiority unless pushed by extreme conditions.

But that doesn’t apply to Concretizations. When it comes to that, we’re able to bypass the usual limitations and achieve higher-level Concretizations than what’s typical for our Existence Realm, which makes us unmatched within it."

He casually crossed his legs on the chair and took a sip of cola, eyes fixed on a star that fell and exploded, followed by another burst of light in the distance.

"But that’s not the only reason we’re so broken. The main reason, aside from our immortality, is that we possess Energy.

A LOT of Energy.

Even the Quasi-Supreme Mira has as much, if not more, Energy than an actual Grand Supreme, despite there being two entire Existence Realms between them.

There is a Cosmic Limit on how much Energy a being in a given Existence Realm can possess, but she shattered that limit. Not through some singularity nature like I did, but through brute fucking force."

Switching the popcorn’s flavour to caramel, he went on.

"I’m the only one with a singularity among all the Hybrids anyway.

Moving on, Mira continued to accumulate more and more Energy within her body. Once she reached her limit, she compressed it to improve its quality and make room for even more, then continued to accumulate. She repeated this process again and again until her Energy was compressed to the absolute limit.

By then, the quality already surpassed that of a Lesser Supreme, but Mira didn’t stop there. She kept absorbing even more Energy into herself, forcefully overloading her body.

Overload typically causes a body to break down. If you’re not careful, you could literally explode and die.

But we Hybrids are immortal, so even if our bodies break down, they’ll regenerate, then break down again, regenerate again, break down again, and guess what? They’ll regenerate again!"

Jamie switched to a different brand of cola, took a sip, then continued.

"Eventually, Mira’s body, after breaking down and regenerating over and over, adapted to handle the absurd amount of energy she was forcing into it. Once that happened, she crammed in even more, again and again, and when you repeat this over hundreds of millions of years, constantly compressing the energy to improve its quality, the result is a Quasi-Supreme who can beat the shit out of Grand Supremes, overwhelming them purely with raw power.

Screw Dictums. No need for Grand Dictums either. Grand Supremes with their Existence Declarations? Mira’s got her Fourth Concretization, which literally transforms and imposes her understanding of ’Fire’ onto the surrounding reality.

Her Third Concretization, Aspect Armament, can block out even the complex Authorities of Dictums."

Jamie spoke with pride, pushing up his 3D glasses as the ’lightshow’ unfolding in front of him neared its climax.

"There’s a very common explanation for the peak stages of the Sub-Cosmic and into the Cosmic Realms: Quasi-Supreme, Lesser Supreme, Supreme, Grand Supreme, and Dicta Integration.

First, you Forge your Identity—your Aspect.

Then, you Forge your Command—your Dictum.

And finally, you fuse both into your selfhood—your Existence Declaration.

In my case, I am space. Space exists everywhere throughout the Cosmos. Therefore, I can embody the Cosmos.

That belief is what gives birth to my ridiculous Domain Declaration, a miniature Cosmos."

Jamie casually said something so outrageous as he opened his palm and summoned a tiny Domain, then clenched his fist and crushed it, continuing.

"Does it matter if it’s real? Nah. I’ll just make it real.

At Quasi-Supreme, you state, "This is who I am," based on the understanding of the laws you’ve assimilated into your being.

At Lesser Supreme, when you begin forging Dictums, you assert, "This is what I command."

Once you become a Supreme and start evolving those Dictums, you say, "This is how reality bends around me".

At Grand Supreme, you declare, "This is what I have become."

When you reach the Dicta Integration level, you finalise it with, "This is the world I am."

Not just Mira, but John, Olivia, and Richard all know "who they are." They don’t just understand "what they want to command," but assert "what they do command," practically forcing it.

With their Fourth Concretizations, they’re already saying, "This is how reality bends around me."

As for "what they’ve become"? They brute force that part too! Hahahaha!"

The man burst into laughter just as the lightshow concluded, and the one responsible for it, the last Hybrid of the Six, whom he hadn’t mentioned earlier, appeared before him and asked,

"What have you been rambling about all this time?"

Catching Sarina’s incredulous expression, Jamie took a sip of his cola before casually replying,

"I was just giving the readers a little backstory on why the others are already so strong, even without achieving full Cosmic Superiority.

In your case, you were already broken from the start because of all this, so after reaching the Cosmic Realms, it makes perfect sense that you’d be able to trash a Superior Stage Grand Supreme in under five minutes, just like you did."

And so, the true nature of the ’lightshow’ Jamie had been watching was revealed—it had been Sarina’s fight against a Grand Supreme, which, as Jamie noted, had ended in less than five minutes.

"The readers? You mean those people you say can read our reality like a book?" Sarina asked, raising an eyebrow, and Jamie nodded.

"Yeah. In their reality, they can read the events of ours like a book, usually following the perspectives of certain existences called ’Protagonists. ’"

Jamie’s reply made Sarina nod. "Ah, yes. The Protagonists. You’ve mentioned them before..."

"Mhmm. Did I tell you I met two others while dream-walking in this universe called Valmone?"

"There’s really more of you?" Sarina asked with a hint of surprise, revealing that part of her still hadn’t fully believed Jamie’s talk about ’Readers’ and ’Protagonists’.

Jamie chuckled at her reaction, rising from his floating chair and glancing over at the unconscious Grand Supreme drifting through space, face bruised and eyes blackened.

"He’s just unconscious, right?"

"Yes. I didn’t kill him," Sarina answered, arms crossed as she turned her gaze back to the man who had attacked them only minutes earlier.

For context, Jamie and Sarina were not in the Zanerth Universe, nor were they anywhere even remotely close to it.

By Zanerth’s time, it had been over two months since they left for the Vladi Universal Supercluster, and now, they had finally reached its borders.

Surrounding them were numerous universes scattered along the outskirts of the supercluster, and the kind of power they possessed, uncommon in these parts, had quickly drawn the attention of the Grand Supreme responsible for monitoring this section of the Supercluster’s edge.

Their encounter unfolded like this:

The Grand Supreme had approached them with hostility on full blast, weapon drawn, and barked his demand.

|Halt! Beyond this point lies the Territory of the Vladi Empire. State your identity and purpose!|

Neither Jamie nor Sarina reacted to the aggression, instead choosing to remain calm. Or rather, Jamie did.

"I’m here to see your Overlord. Roseborn Vladi V. Tell him that J—"

But before Jamie could even get to the part where he introduced himself, the Grand Supreme immediately raised his weapon and pointed it at him.

|You... allies of the deposed Overlord!!|

"Deposed what now?" Jamie blinked, clearly confused and not understanding what he had just heard.

’Roseborn? That cunning bastard who steals his children’s bodies was deposed? By whom?’

Jamie didn’t even get the chance to ask those questions before the Grand Supreme immediately activated a Dictum and unleashed all the Authorities under its umbrella.

|DIE! ENEMY OF HER MAJESTY!!!|

He launched his attack at Jamie, who naturally avoided it and attempted to deescalate the situation.

"Hold on. There’s probably been some misunderstanding here. I’m not up to date on recent events, so I—"

|SILENCE! I HAVE NO WORDS FOR THE ALLY OF A TRAITOR!!|

The man cut Jamie off once again, swinging his sword and unleashing a wave of energy powerful enough to disintegrate galaxies on contact. Jamie, unfazed, teleported out of its path with ease, despite the surrounding space being warped by the man’s cosmic energy to disrupt such movement.

At that point, Sarina had had enough. She raised her hand and did something that left the Grand Supreme frozen in disbelief—she caught his slash with her bare hand and, using her own cosmic energy, overwhelmed and forcefully dissipated the power within.

|Wh-?!|

"It seems this one’s in desperate need of an attitude adjustment."

That statement kickstarted the beating that lasted exactly 4 minutes and 32 seconds, which brings us to the present moment where Jamie was staring at the unconscious man, wondering if he was still alive.

"Just asking, but when did you become a Grand Supreme, Sarina?"

At that, Sarina snapped her head toward Jamie, eyes wide and jaw dropping as she shouted back.

"You were the first to congratulate me when I reached that level over a hundred million years ago! You even told me to keep it hidden so the rest of the Supremes on the Zanerth Council wouldn’t find out how strong we Hybrids really are!"

"Oh... yeah... I did that..."