Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 109: Minor Evolutions

So he chose none of them.

He refused to settle.

Beyond the fact that he could easily tell this was most likely yet another layer of Thoryl’s schemes, he simply refused to bow once more.

He refused to be broken and moulded by the desires of the pawns moving around him.

He’d already sacrificed all his memories of the past, burning years of lifetimes away, on top of shouldering the weight of a sin he didn’t commit.

Why should he sacrifice more?

At that point, what was the point of living?

He refused.

Uriel focused on the flame burning deep within him, the flickering brazier that fueled his Will and clarity, and almost instantly, he found its source.

The Runic Scar on his chest.

The one he’d etched into himself after the advent. Back then, he’d carved it while unconsciously using his spark to infuse the emotions he felt that day.

From the mark, he felt rage and humiliation, overflowing and endless, laced with furious determination and spite, a burning desire to conquer not the world, but himself.

A burning desire to control himself and void the schemes of fate. A consuming passion that sought to be great, and then even greater.

It was the mark that fought against the madness, bringing clarity to his mind and filling him with unbreakable fortitude and determination.

Realising this, Uriel immediately made a choice.

Perhaps he’d regret it, perhaps he wouldn’t; only time would tell.

Without hesitation, he poured all the remaining aether he had left into his talent and activated Timeless Resonance, focusing its limit-breaking evolution capability on the mark on his chest, on the flame that fueled his mind.

One path would make him emotionless, and the other would turn him into a broken hive mind, so he chose the third.

He chose to persist and to endure.

WHOOOOOOSH!

The mark on his chest gained a fiendish glow, silver and deep, sharp lines emerging from it and snaking across his entire body.

His Talent, Twilight Sky Resonance, bloomed in earnest, summoning waves of timeless resonance that surged forth and slammed into Uriel’s mind.

BANG!

His mind shattered, and the madness returned, the flood of emotions following, summoned directly by his talent.

WHOOOSH!

Yet in the next instant, his mind reformed, becoming one with the emotions, madness, and avalanche of memories Ophanis had formed.

Then it broke down again. Then it built back up.

And then it shattered again.

Every shattering came with an impending, horrifying sense of doom, as if he were dying and being dragged back into the deepest pits of hell, left to burn for eternity as his soul underwent endless agony.

The mortal mind wasn’t meant to break. To break was to die. Let alone breaking, it wasn’t supposed to reform, or even fuse with madness and memories as he was doing.

Only Third Step Ascendants would potentially have the tools to survive such things, and yet here he was.

Every reformation of his mind came with a paralysing wave of fear, fear of death and oblivion, but also with a surge of clarity that drilled into his very soul the essence of persistence and endurance.

Every fall came with agony, yet every rise tempered his will.

And as the cycle began, rapid and violent, Uriel felt his mind gradually break out of its cocoon. In fleeting moments of consciousness, he felt himself become... more sturdy.

It became harder for his mind to break and easier for his Will to persist.

It was working.

The moment he realised this, he knew that all he had left to do was keep his sanity and endure.

As for his body?

He already had a solution.

BANG!

Uriel triggered his Minor Evolutions.

...

As said, the First Step of ascendance was one focused on evolution, ranging from the nadir of the G-Rank all the way to the peaks of the Ex-Rank, the ceiling of the first step.

Each rank had four stages: initial assimilation, branching root, purifying replacement, and finally, ascent.

Uriel himself had already taken the first stage, initial assimilation. In that stage, through his forged path, he assimilated a subject and thus triggered his first Major Evolution.

From it, not only did he grow stronger and expand his aether pool, he gained his Spark Talent and Spark Characteristic, as well as his Uniqueness.

But following that stage, what came next?

The Branching Root and Purifying Replacement stages.

The Branching Root stage, at its core, had the primary goal of excavating and unveiling the potential of the initial subject assimilated during the Major Evolution of the previous stage.

This stage was divided into six minor stages, across which six Minor Evolutions would occur.

These Minor Evolutions were triggered by assimilating what were called ’branch subjects’ of the initial subject.

In simpler terms, the ascendant had to assimilate branching ’family’ members of the subject that caused their Major Evolution.

For example, if Uriel’s first evolution had been carried out using a Fire Dragon King–type beast, then all six of his Minor Evolutions would have to be caused by branching draconic beasts.

Fire Drakes, Magma Wyverns, Flame-Terra Dragoons—these creatures were branch subjects of the Fire Dragon King, containing traces of its lineal essence and bound to it.

By assimilating them just as he had for a Major Evolution, Uriel would trigger a Minor Evolution. Each Minor Evolution granted the full power of the assimilated branch subject in one fell swoop, while also bestowing something known as a Spark Trait.

A Spark Trait was the condensed essence of the branch subject, expressed either through a talent or a physical mutation.

This meant that the Branching Root stage granted six Minor Evolutions, each conferring the full power of the assimilated beasts, along with a Spark Trait.

But how did this relate to the so-called excavation of potential?

Unlike Minor Evolutions, Major Evolutions did not directly grant the ascendant the full power of the initial subject.

Upon the completion of a Major Evolution, the ascendant received a surge in power, but not because of the subject itself. Rather, it came from the refinement of their cores.

After a Major Evolution, one didn’t grow stronger because of the evolution alone. It was the sublimation of the core, alongside the acquisition of talents and characteristics, that empowered them.

The power of the initial subject itself remained locked.

Why?

It all cycled back to the dividing lines of Major Evolutions: Lesser Evolution, Greater Evolution, and Sublime Evolution.

What separated these titles was the assimilation rate. Thirty percent marked a Lesser Evolution, fifty percent or more a Greater Evolution, and one hundred percent a Sublime Evolution.

These percentages reflected how well the ascendant had assimilated their subject, how perfect the union truly was.

But the importance of assimilation rates ran deeper, directly linking to the underlying truth of the Branching Root stage.