---
[Skill: Sovereign’s Decree]
Rank: SSS
Abilities:
•— Concept Erasure —•
Speak a single word infused with pure void.
That concept is erased from existence within a certain range for 20 seconds.
Examples: Fire. Gravity. Healing.
Beings and objects that rely upon the erased concept receive catastrophic Void damage.
Note: The user is immune to this effect.
Effective range scales with energy expenditure.
Cooldown: 24 Hours
•— Void Echoes —•
Create up to seven perfect echoes of yourself.
Each echo possesses eighty percent of your current power and operates independently.
When an echo is destroyed, every memory, experience, and piece of knowledge it obtained is instantly transferred to both you and the remaining echoes.
If all seven echoes are destroyed simultaneously, the backlash is reflected onto the user.
One random negative status effect will be inflicted.
The severity depends on the force responsible for destroying the echoes.
Duration: 2 Hours
Cooldown: 24 Hours
•— Shadow Between Steps —•
Slip into the Void for a fraction of a second while moving.
Effects:
Ignore one physical obstacle or attack per activation.
Blink up to fifteen meters in a straight line.
Leave behind a silent afterimage capable of attracting attention.
Uses Per Day: 6
Number of uses increases as the user grows stronger.
•— Void Severance —•
Coat any attack with Void Severance.
The attack tears through space itself, collapsing the distance separating the user from the target.
The amount of distance collapsed depends upon the user’s strength.
•— Null Bloom —•
Plant a Void Seed into an object, location, or living being through physical contact.
After sufficient time, the seed blooms into a sphere of absolute nothingness that devours everything within a limited radius before collapsing.
Range and destructive power scale according to the amount of energy supplied.
Delay before activation increases alongside the contained energy.
Limit: Only one active seed may exist at any given time.
Cannot be planted upon living beings whose strength exceeds a certain threshold above the user.
---
For several long seconds...
Kael simply stared.
Then the corners of his mouth slowly began to rise.
The smile grew wider.
And wider.
Until he nearly burst into laughter.
Fortunately, the remaining bit of rationality inside him managed to stop him.
It was already late, and Lyra was still in the living room watching TV.
The last thing he wanted was for her to kick down his bedroom door, convinced he’d finally lost his mind.
Even so...
The ridiculous grin plastered across his face refused to disappear.
"This..."
"This is broken."
There was simply no other way to describe it.
Unlike the Eye of Judgment, which specialized in analysis, perception, and information gathering, Sovereign’s Decree was created for one purpose alone.
Combat.
Pure, overwhelming combat.
That wasn’t to say the Eye of Judgment had become any less valuable.
Far from it.
It remained one of the most useful abilities in his arsenal.
However...
When it came to direct offensive power, Sovereign’s Decree was on an entirely different level.
His eyes naturally settled on the first ability.
Concept Erasure.
Even after reading it three times, Kael still found it absurd.
Eraseing a concept.
Not destroy.
Not suppress.
Erase.
For twenty whole seconds, the chosen concept would simply cease to exist within a designated area.
Just imagining the possibilities made his mind race.
Fire.
Ice.
Lightning.
Gravity.
Healing.
Nearly every awakened individual relied upon one or more concepts to fight.
Elemental users depended upon their elements.
Support-type Hunters relied upon healing.
Movement abilities often depended upon gravity, wind, or space.
Remove one those concepts, Even temporarily and the opponent’s entire fighting style could collapse in an instant.
Twenty seconds might sound short.
But in a battle between experts, twenty seconds was an eternity.
Against someone whose strength depended heavily on a single concept, they would become little more than a helpless target.
Yet...
That wasn’t what truly caught Kael’s attention.
His gaze slowly shifted downward toward a single sentence.
Beings and objects that rely upon the erased concept receive catastrophic Void damage.
"...Interesting."
A dangerous thought quietly surfaced inside his mind.
Almost every living creature relied upon breathing.
Suppose...
He erased air.
Ordinarily, twenty seconds without oxygen wouldn’t kill an experienced Hunter.
Even ordinary humans could hold their breath longer than that.
Powerful Awakened possessed physiques far beyond normal people.
But that wasn’t the point.
The moment air disappeared...
Every living creature within that area would instantly become something dependent upon a concept that no longer existed.
Which meant Catastrophic Void damage.
Kael’s eyes gradually lit up.
Now that...
That was terrifying.
His thoughts immediately began branching into countless possibilities.
The more he thought about it, the more frightening the ability became.
Naturally, such overwhelming power wouldn’t come without a price.
The larger the area, the greater the energy consumption.
That limitation alone prevented the skill from becoming completely unreasonable.
Even so...
It was still an absurdly powerful trump card.
Satisfied, Kael shifted his attention toward the second ability.
Void Echoes.
Compared to Concept Erasure, this ability felt far more straightforward.
It allowed him to create seven independent copies of himself.
Each one possessed eighty percent of his current strength.
That alone was already incredible.
Whether used in battle, exploration, scouting, or completing multiple objectives simultaneously, the applications were practically endless.
The echoes weren’t mindless puppets either.
They could think.
Act independently.
Accumulate knowledge.
Most importantly...
Everything they experienced would eventually return to him.
That meant the echoes could effectively train in different areas, explore different locations, or gather different information before transferring every bit of that accumulated experience back to him upon their destruction.
From that perspective alone, the skill’s value was immeasurable.
Of course, it wasn’t without risk.
If every echo happened to be destroyed at the same time, Kael himself would suffer a random negative status effect.
Fortunately...
Compared to everything the skill offered, that drawback was surprisingly reasonable.
It wasn’t the sort of crippling penalty that rendered an ability unusable.
As long as he exercised a little caution and avoided recklessly sacrificing every echo at once, the downside was entirely manageable.
No, if anything...
Calling it a downside almost felt too generous considering everything Void Echoes was capable of offering.