Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 98: Emperor(III): Timeless Resonance

The Emperor didn’t immediately attack.

He observed Uriel as he stood to his feet, hacking out blood and desperately clinging to life.

’What a fascinating body. I wonder, what creature can boast such defenses at the G-Rank? It must’ve been quite expensive,’ he thought, impressed by Uriel’s sheer solidity.

To battle him for such extended minutes and only come out of it with a mangled arm was a feat many would find hard to believe.

He was a Diamond King Beast, an old one, a half step D-Ranker and within his home terrain.

Beasts were known to be more powerful than other races at the same rank, but he, compared to beasts as a whole, stood in his own tier.

Uriel surviving was an impressive feat.

’Perhaps a Gayatro Onyx Turtle?’ he mused. ’Mm. Maybe not, they usually lean towards flood-type affinities.’

’He’s strange.’

His gaze trailed across Uriel’s body.

The latter’s armour of darkness seemed gone, but the Emperor could see it, hidden beneath his skin. It was what had been dampening the might of his water bullets.

The exoskeleton of vines that’d been fitted onto Uriel had sunk into his flesh as well, empowering his muscles and flooding them with vitality.

’Talent truly is something. It makes a fool of hard work like no other can.’

Uriel stood to his feet.

The silver glow of his gaze darkened, and his core shook, silver aether rising in fumes around him. A bloody grin surfaced across his handsome face.

To say Uriel was unconscious would be inaccurate. It’d be more precise to say his aether-depleted state had locked away part of his mind, and pulled other parts to the forefront.

What he was was still Uriel, but a version ruled by instinct and emotion, void of thought and reason, purely relying on resonance and dominance to thrive.

It made him quite idiotic, but it also made him terrifyingly efficient and hard to kill.

WHOOOSH!

The Emperor frowned.

He felt something latch onto him, latch onto a part of his being he couldn’t quite define. It sunk into his bones, his flesh, and wrapped around his soul, impure and foul.

’A lineal talent?’ he immediately guessed.

Uriel, in the distance, let out a sharp giggle that, for some reason, sent a tremor down the Emperor’s spine.

"I’ll learn."

Uriel’s voice echoed for the first time, even more eerie than his giggle, shrill and dry, almost inhuman and too savage, bearing boundless malice and hate.

"I’ll learn, then, I’ll live."

If he couldn’t beat the Emperor with his current abilities, he’d simply learn.

His mind was his greatest talent, no?

Then he’d learn and defeat the Emperor, stealing its wisdom and mastery for himself.

Just like he’d done with the little witch, Lirik, the vine corpse, and both Ayah and Enoch.

...

Twilight Sky Resonance.

It was the name of the Lineal Spark Talent Uriel had formed after his evolution; his first major evolution and his first sublime evolution.

And it had come from a creature he’d created, with the intent and goal of upping his chances of survival both in battle and in situations in general.

His Shell allowed him to easily take damage and be stronger, while his uniqueness made his already sharp mind nearly unmatched.

Upon testing his Talent, Uriel had found that its abilities lay in analysis: it allowed him to perfectly comprehend the essence and details of anything he resonated with across its layers.

But simply put, he was wrong. Very much so.

His spark characteristic gave him a body able to contend with a half step D-Rank Diamond King Beast as a mere G-Ranker, one with an especially weak and crippled body.

In the hands of someone like Enoch or Ayah, Uriel wouldn’t be surprised if it gave them C- to B-Rank levels of physical power and durability.

And beyond this, his Uniqueness not only made his perception and mind unmatched, but also allowed him to slow the world to a stop, as long as he had aether.

With his now ridiculously large aether pool, to him, that might as well be an indefinite period of time.

With such ridiculous boons and gifts, the framing and scale of his talent didn’t make sense. Comprehension was nice, but was it truly up to par with the rest?

It was primordial to understand that characteristics were born to make use of the talent much more naturally and fluidly, but also enhance its use. They weren’t random changes to the body.

So, how exactly did his Shell help his talent?

The answer lay in the finer details. It always does.

—

[Lineal Spark Talent: {Twilight Sky Resonance}

>Details: This talent allows one to enter permanent Timeless States of resonance with any subject they innately have an affinity to. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

•This talent heightens Light, Earth and Dark Arts talents but also opens the doors to True Natal Mancy Sorcery!]

—

Timeless Resonance.

Resonance could be a myriad of things.

In the context of magic, it referred to a level of communion with the world and its energy, but also a level of authority over said world and energy.

In between individuals, it could be seen as a method of control, as seen through Uriel’s Resonant Dominance, or through Uriel’s mind resonance, allowing him to control aether through his mind.

To others, it may even be a method of comprehension, as shown once again by Uriel when he initially received his talent and analysed the rock, or when he saw through Amon’s disguise easily.

Resonance was a tool of great importance to all ascendants, one they all eventually learned to use through the path of ascendance, so much so that it could be called a pillar of an ascendant’s personal power.

But at its core, truly, what was resonance?

Attunement.

The answer was attunement, simply.

And what was attunement if not just a measure of change?

When Uriel used Resonant Dominance, what was he doing if not simply changing the nature of the harmony between him and his technique’s subject?

When he used runes and cast spells, what was he doing if not just changing the form, shape, and state of aether itself?

When he used resonance to understand, what was he doing if not just flipping—thus changing—the position of information within a subject, going from external to internal?

All things held information.

When Uriel picked up the rock to test his ability, all he did was switch the anchoring point of that information, from the rock itself to his mind.

Resonance was change.

And Timeless Resonance simply was the ability to cause and trigger change even the endless paths of time couldn’t stop or account for.

To cause change unpredictable and unforeseeable by time and space itself, change born of the void, of nothing, of primordial chaos, the mother of endless change and possibility.

Timeless Resonance was the ability to make the impossible possible.