[Due to the influence of DiY and Omniform, your abilities can be interwoven with each other to create an even better version]
[Congratulations, Infinite-Eyes has gained a new property: Embersight]
Northern paid less attention to distractions and focused on what he was seeing. An overlay of the waves he had witnessed earlier cascaded across the environment, but far superior—they flowed along every piece of matter they resonated from.
Everything that possessed heat was everything that moved.
’Hmm... strange...’
Everything in motion radiated red waves signaling heat emission. Everything motionless pulsed with pale-blue waves, while white lingered somewhere between.
Northern couldn’t grasp that phenomenon yet, so he concentrated on the moving and stationary objects. The wave patterns had shifted now that he observed the sphere with his physical eyes.
They streamed from the sphere’s apex to its base, which faced the ground.
Northern focused on the sphere’s bottom and grinned.
’Found you...’
He descended and touched down, then crouched low.
The waves flowed downward, converging somewhere between—but that convergence point rested on the ground.
Northern raised his hand and sent a mental summons to Titan.
The clone materialized beside him within seconds.
"You called."
Northern studied the base intently, then scowled.
"I wanted you to shatter the ground around this area, but I don’t think it’s possible."
Titan cocked his head slightly.
"Why not?"
Northern glanced at his clone, then back at the sphere’s base.
"The thermal waves interact directly with the ground. Break them, and they’ll just interact with the next layer down."
Titan’s eyebrows rose in understanding.
"Ah, I see... so what’s our move?"
Northern crouched lower.
’This construct is flawless, honestly. She sealed the only possible weakness and made it perpetually interact with the ground. The fact that all waves converge here means something crucial lies beneath... Perhaps the construct’s origin point?’
Northern felt he’d struck gold.
He pressed his palm against the ground beneath the sphere.
’Doesn’t matter. At least I can interact with it since it exists here too.’
For a moment, as Northern pondered the sphere’s nature, he discovered how truly devastating his power had become.
He could perceive the thermal waves of everything that existed—even the cold waves. And he possessed both fire and ice talents. With DiY and Omniform, he could weave them together, creating abilities that manipulated hot or cold to achieve any desired outcome.
Northern felt capable of annihilating the entire world by simply focusing on these waves and flooding them with more heat or cold than they could withstand.
Of course, world destruction would require literally infinite essence.
’Look at you contemplating global annihilation. Save your friends first.’
He exhaled and touched the ground directly beneath the sphere.
’We can’t afford to incinerate them...’
With frost-laden breath, the words escaped his lips.
"Absolute zero."
The instant those words emerged, Northern felt his essence surge—familiar like Sun’s Legacy’s heat, yet utterly different.
The cold rushed through him with a ferocity he’d never experienced. Perhaps it had always existed, but the crushing weight of void essence and soul essence had masked it. Now, with his essence so refined, every subtle movement blazed obvious within him.
The cold wasn’t merely heat’s absence—it was the negation of molecular motion itself.
His hand, pressed against the ground beneath the sphere, became the epicenter of absolute stillness. The thermal waves visible through Embersight began to decelerate, then stutter, as if reality itself was grinding to a halt.
The effect radiated outward in a perfect circle from his touch point. The red waves cascading from the sphere’s construct suddenly encountered something impossible—a zone where heat simply ceased to exist. Not cold, but the complete absence of thermal energy.
Northern watched through his enhanced vision as the flowing thermal waves struck this dead zone and began to fracture. The construct’s flawless circulation faltered as its thermal foundation crumbled.
But the technique exacted a brutal price. Northern felt his body temperature plummeting catastrophically. Ice crystals formed across his skin, and his breath materialized in visible puffs that froze solid before hitting the ground.
"Master!"
Titan shouted in alarm, stumbling back as the temperature around them plunged to lethal levels.
Northern clenched his teeth, struggling to maintain control. Absolute Zero was designed for external application, but wielding it required channeling that same void through his own essence. It was like grasping antifire—not water to douse flames, but the very concept of non-combustion itself.
The sphere above them shuddered. The thermal waves that had been feeding into the ground now had nowhere to flow, backing up like water striking a dam. The construct’s perfect circulation was disintegrating.
But Northern realized he had maybe ten seconds before his body temperature dropped beyond recovery. He needed perfect timing—disrupt the construct just enough to create an opening, then release the technique before it killed him.
Of course, the opening was meant to help Kryos escape the sphere of space, and with that, Ul would have no choice but to break free as well.
It was a catastrophic idea, given that Ul had an excellent chance of suppressing Kryos and restoring order to their world—albeit at the cost of one friend’s life.
Northern, in those ten seconds that could very well be his final ten seconds, contemplated yet another reckless decision he was making.
But what would it all be for?
All the power, all the strength—what would any of it matter if he couldn’t make a choice like this?
At that moment, an image formed in Northern’s mind.
’Perhaps this was what she meant...’
Could this be it? Passion? Purpose? Fighting to protect something precious.
’How far I have fallen.’
He tasted bitterness from his own pettiness—Roma had been right after all. If he possessed all the power in the world and still couldn’t save a single friend, Northern suddenly felt utterly powerless.
And right now, he had gained enough clarity to know he was anything but powerless.
In realizing that truth, Northern felt an explosion of will and passion in him, his entire soul blazing with fierce resolve he’d never experienced before.
Until now, everything had been about survival—about living, enduring, scraping by. But Northern had far outgrown that necessity, and thus came the emptiness.
What to fight for? He relished battle, he craved learning, but those desires paled compared to true purpose—the driving force behind meaningful action.
They paled so utterly...
’I mean... here I am risking my life to protect a friend... and grinning like a madman. Stars, I despise myself.’