I never finished.
The moment the question began forming...
My entire body froze.
The All-Knowing Eyes erupted with terrifying hunger.
Soul Force poured out of me so violently that my Generator Core instinctively accelerated to compensate, yet even that wasn’t enough. I could literally feel my life being dragged toward the Talent before the question had even been completed.
Blood immediately flowed from both nostrils. A splitting headache exploded inside my skull.
Every instinct I possessed screamed the same warning.
Stop.
Without the slightest hesitation, I forcibly canceled the ability. The black markings vanished.
The rotating crosses slowed.
I remained seated on the floor, breathing heavily while blood dripped quietly onto the wooden boards beneath me.
For several long minutes, I didn’t move.
I simply stared blankly ahead while my mind slowly assembled everything I had learned.
The answer wasn’t complete.
Not even close.
But it was enough.
Enough to know that Augustus hadn’t been warning me about some powerful enemy waiting behind the gate.
He had been warning me about something far more terrifying.
Something that could kill you...without you ever realizing you were dying.
But I had my answer.
More importantly, I had an idea of how to prepare for it.
Whatever awaited beyond that gate wasn’t a monster that could simply be overpowered. It was something far more dangerous, something that preyed upon the mind itself. If I wanted to survive whatever lay beyond the seal, I first needed to reach it.
Without wasting another moment, I sat down once again, closed my eyes and began recovering the Soul Force I had exhausted. Nearly half a day passed before I finally opened my eyes and activated the All-Knowing Eyes once more.
This time, however, my questions had nothing to do with the Twelfth Soul Current itself.
They were all directed toward the strange school of stingrays.
Every vision that had shown me the gate had also shown those creatures. At first I had dismissed them as part of the scenery, but after watching the same sequence unfold repeatedly, it became impossible to ignore the pattern.
They weren’t merely swimming near the entrance, they were connected to it. Whether they guarded the gate, instinctively traveled to it, or simply knew where it was didn’t matter. At this point, they were the only reliable trail I had.
The following two days disappeared into an exhausting cycle of questioning, meditation and recovery.
Every carefully worded question revealed another small fragment of their migration, another landmark hidden within the endless Soul Sea, another piece of a route that no map recorded.
The progress was painfully slow, but unlike the previous mysteries, this one gradually began taking shape inside my mind until the scattered fragments finally connected into a complete path.
By the end of the second day, I finally knew where to find them.
The location was so far from the Ironhart Settlement that even I couldn’t help letting out a quiet whistle. Had I attempted to fly there on my own, the journey would have taken an absurd amount of time while exposing me to countless dangers hidden throughout the Soul Sea.
For the first time since Gerald had mentioned building his ship, I genuinely appreciated the old man’s foresight.
We were building the only practical way to reach the beginning of this expedition.
I leaned back against the chair and allowed myself a quiet smile.
At least one major problem had been solved.
I now knew where the expedition needed to go. Finding the gate would no longer depend on wandering aimlessly through the endless Soul Sea and hoping for a miracle. The stingrays had become my compass, and sooner or later they would lead us exactly where we needed to be.
But there was still another thing that I needed to do and that was to prepare for the expedition and what better way then to increase my strength and soul force.
I needed something. Something that belonged to a Saint. Something that perfectly matched everything I already possessed.
For several minutes I quietly arranged every thought inside my mind before activating the All-Knowing Eyes once more.
The familiar black markings spread around my eyes, and the rotating crosses slowly accelerated.
This time my question was remarkably straightforward.
"What is the most suitable Saint-level skill for me that fully utilizes my current comprehensions and abilities without requiring my Domain?"
The Eyes accepted the question.
The drain on my Soul Force was noticeable, but nowhere near as frightening as the questions regarding the Twelfth Soul Current. Almost immediately another vision blossomed inside my consciousness.
Unlike the previous visions, there was no mysterious figure.
Instead...
I was watching myself. An older version. A stronger version.
He stood alone above the endless cosmos with his hands resting calmly behind his back. Millions upon millions of abominations swam toward him, stretching so far into the distance that they looked like an endless living ocean.
He didn’t move.
He simply closed his eyes.
The world itself seemed to become quiet. Then, all at once, countless silver threads spread outward from his body.
They didn’t travel through the water.
They ignored distance completely.
Instead, they appeared directly around every soul within range, weaving effortlessly through space itself before wrapping around each target like invisible coordinates.
The moment the last thread settled... Time stopped. Every abomination froze in place simultaneously.
The older me slowly raised one hand. His fingers closed into a loose fist. The countless silver threads immediately condensed.
Then...
Every marked creature bloomed. There was no explosion of fire.
At the exact same instant, a beautiful silver flower unfolded inside the chest of every single beast. The petals expanded from within, tearing through flesh, Essence and Soul alike before bursting outward in a shower of glowing particles.
Millions of flowers and millions of deaths.
All at the exact same heartbeat.
The blooming lasted less than an instant.
The silver petals dissolved as quickly as they had appeared, leaving nothing behind except drifting Soul Force.
The older me finally lowered his hand.
Generator awakened.
The surrounding Soul Force surged toward him like countless rivers converging into the sea. Entire streams of energy crossed the battlefield before disappearing into his body, causing the already terrifying aura surrounding him to rise even further.
The vision didn’t end there.
Instead, knowledge naturally flowed into my mind. The skill possessed no fixed attack range. It depended entirely upon the user’s Spatial Comprehension.
Every target first had to be located through Space. Once identified, Time briefly synchronized every marked location into the same instant, allowing the attack to occur simultaneously regardless of distance.
Finally, Soul Force condensed directly inside the target’s Soul before blooming outward under Silver Force, destroying the victim from within.
The process bypassed ordinary defenses because nothing traveled toward the enemy.
The attack was born inside them.
The only true limitation... Was the number of targets the user could control.
A newly ascended Saint...
Perhaps a few hundred.
A stronger Saint...
Several thousand.
An experienced Saint...
Tens of thousands.
Beyond that...
The limit would continue growing alongside the user’s comprehension of Space and Time.
The final piece of information settled naturally into my consciousness.
Saint Art — Thousand Soul Blossoms.