Northern looked away, trying to ignore the Chaos Prince’s observation. But he couldn’t help being stunned for a moment.
The Chaos Prince... sensed him changing his name. Did he accurately sense the whole thing, and was just using such a misdirected comment to throw Northern off?
’He is very dangerous.’
Whatever it was only made Northern more wary of him.
He closed his eyes for a moment to force and deepen his focus, distracting himself from his thoughts about the Chaos Prince.
A moment later, his eyes began to reach the same clarity they had reached moments before he got distracted.
What Northern wanted to pull was simple. It was something he had seen Paragon Raizel execute in Lithia.
He had a vague idea how the Paragon was able to do it—which was largely due to the fact that Raizel was a Paragon. However, Northern was no Paragon.
That did not mean a silver lining didn’t exist. Even though he was no Paragon, he had a more potent grasp of Willpower, which was what being a Paragon was essentially about.
Becoming a Paragon meant turning your resolve into a weapon.
And Northern had more or less always done that up to this point. It was just that he hadn’t realized it until he wanted to cheat the Will of the world half an hour ago.
He stood in the air, eyes closed, feeling the violent current of the wind that resonated with the subtle tremors that rippled out with each monstrous step of the abomination.
Northern’s resolve had been a weapon for a long time. Was it in the throne hall of the Red Kingdom, where he battled the Night Terror tooth and nail even though he was dying?
Or was it on a small island where he brought Order to a dragon whose purpose was Chaos?
Northern, in every situation, regardless of his poorly evaluated methods, had always beaten the odds.
In fact, he was constantly beating odds—being a Sage who did things that were simply beyond the nature of Sages. Northern himself was an inexcusable, explicit definition of resolve sharpened to become a weapon.
So why couldn’t he just do what he knew how to do best and beat the odds one more time?
Do what a Sage should not be doing.
Northern breathed shakily, drenched in focus.
Burning Storm was a will of motion. Northern had to think deeply—how did Paragon Raizel make all those behemoths stay frozen with no choice but to wait for him, if he was an embodiment of motion?
Northern closed his eyes as he pondered this question while becoming more aware of his surroundings.
But he didn’t glimpse his surroundings through the vast spatial awareness of his natural body. He did so through Burning Storm’s natural sense of perception.
Motion.
From the swift sweeping of the wind, the ruffles of it against his clothes, his gently dancing hair, the little tattered rag that covered the Chaos Prince’s groin—anxious to leave—to the tremendous steps of the Skyrender, the violent tremors of the ground as Kryos and Ul clashed intermittently, the impact that resounded across the air as Koll pulverized Revant with punches that seemed to echo through space—each movement registered into Northern’s entire being.
It was a lot of information to take in all at once. Northern went blank for a moment. He lost himself trying to contain all that information.
But barely a second passed, and everything began to fall in line. His adaptability was insane. His mind seemed to immediately flow into countless streams of information channels, each carrying the motions that were registered, disconnecting his mind for a fragment of a second, but merging back almost immediately to register a derivative conclusion of all perceived motion.
This conclusion simply told Northern what each person was doing in quick succession without overwhelming his head.
A small smile graced his lips as he slowly opened his eyes.
’It feels... incredible.’
But it was also easy, because now that he could sense the space at such a vast level, there was something he intended to do because of that.
A bypass of some sort of Essence Manifestation.
Essence Manifestation was releasing one’s Will upon the world. Burning Storm’s Will was a Will of motion. But it was a Will that already existed—a will being constantly executed by space itself.
But that will was incomplete. Everything that moved had to stop; everything that stopped had to move. It was part of a whole that space related greatly with.
What Northern was going to do was tap into that other part through the part familiar with the nature of his own Will.
He was going to imbue a great deal of the will for everything to move, then withdraw that will at a vicious and terrible rate, making the entire space fall to an abrupt stop.
The third step was, of course, going to be the easiest.
His attributes were not limited by his name. Maybe they were, but not Omniform.
So, for the last part, Northern was going to change the form of his Will for a moment.
He was going to alter the nature of Burning Storm’s Will.
’I’m getting chills just thinking about it...’
Northern smiled cruelly, then released a great deal of Burning Storm’s will against the world.
As he did, tremendous pressure suddenly fell on the atmosphere. For a moment, everything seemed to blur into a turbulent stream of motion.
Even the Chaos Prince, who was standing idly in the air, felt a compelling need to move. His eyes widened for a moment, and he stared at Northern with a—difficult to read—expression.
One that was quite fascinating compared to his usual playfulness.
Northern was too focused to have seen it though. Just as the Will fell on the world, he had to withdraw it in an instant. In that moment, everything suddenly grew still.
The world came to a vicious stop. Everything halted.
To move against the freezing atmosphere became a grave taboo.
The Chaos Prince’s eyes widened even more, staring at Northern.
’Perfect!’
Then Northern changed the form of his will. That one didn’t have a certain way to explain it. He simply desired that he was an embodiment of a force that brought all force to a stop, and it happened.
But spreading it over the entire place was too much of a stretch and would damage the quality of his will. So Northern retracted the blanket of will and focused it on one enormous moving creature, despite the fact that movement was a taboo no one in this space should have committed.