— Frey Starlight’s POV —
Some time had passed since I first set foot on imperial soil ..
a few hours, to be exact.
To be honest, ever since I reincarnated into Frey Starlight’s body, I hadn’t explored the Empire much at all.
My memories here were almost nonexistent.
Most of my life had been spent either inside the Temple... or within the Nightmare Lands.
So stepping through these streets now felt like walking into entirely new territory for the first time.
Everywhere I went, I saw humans desperately trying to survive ..
fragile people with no way to defend themselves.
Their enemies were mindless corpses, puppets controlled by the power of the 13th Upper Demon: Geppetto.
Alongside those corpses were true demons as well ..
gray-skinned creatures with long horns and hollow eyes.
Primitive demons.
They were strong by the standards of ordinary humans, who stood no chance against such monsters.
But in front of me... they were nothing but trivial obstacles.
SLASH!!
From time to time, under the wing of darkness,
a violent purple radiance cracked through the night, shaking the entire region.
Moments later, the corpses and demons were reduced to shredded pieces scattered across the ground.
The fleeing humans always stopped, stunned, unable to comprehend what was happening ..
trying to figure out the identity of their savior.
But I was gone before they could gather their thoughts.
I didn’t have the time to lead them or guide them to safety.
They had to survive on their own.
"You pretend you’re leaving them to fend for themselves...
yet you’re the one who just saved them."
Nameless’s voice echoed in my mind, contradicting my thoughts.
"I merely ran into them by chance.
It’s not like I came here to rescue them."
I answered briefly, but Nameless replied again.
"So human lives mean little to you?
Or is that just what you keep trying to convince yourself of?"
"...What is that supposed to mean?"
Nameless took several long seconds before answering..
his deep, cold voice cutting through my skull.
"Killing those corpses will alert the one controlling them that something is wrong on this front.
In other words, you’ve raised the chance of the enemy discovering your presence."
Geppetto’s ability granted him full awareness of every corpse he reanimated.
If even one of them fell, he would sense it immediately.
Nameless had told me earlier not to fight until we found Ada,
yet I ignored him and slaughtered every demon I encountered.
"Your actions may very well jeopardize your sister’s rescue.
You disobeyed my instructions.
From this point onward, you will fight exactly as I command .. no objections."
His last words carried an authority that irritated me instantly.
"And what kind of ’command’ are you talking about?"
I asked, genuinely curious ..
only for Nameless to reply with something that made my expression twist.
"From now on, you are forbidden from using your regular aura.
You may only fight using Black Hole Aura."
I heard him clearly, and I froze in place the moment he finished.
"Are you serious?
I can’t use Black Hole Aura indefinitely.
It burns too fast."
"Then you will adapt.
It is the only weapon you have against stronger demons, since the advanced phases of Shadow Adaptation remain locked."
"Starting now, you are forbidden from using Dark Aura or Shadow Aura.
Only the Black Hole."
He reaffirmed his order, and I fell silent.
Black Hole Aura burned through my energy far faster than any normal aura ..
fifty times faster, at least.
If I relied on it alone, I wouldn’t even last a single hour,
even with my SSS-rank aura reserves.
What the hell was Nameless thinking?
No matter how I looked at it, it made no sense...
but I had no choice.
If I wanted his help later on, I had to follow his orders now.
Slowly, the purple aura around me faded—
replaced by a star-dark radiance:
the aura of the Black Hole.
Immediately, my strength multiplied several times over, but the pressure on my body intensified just as much.
Without being in Dark Ascension, which granted my body the output of SSS rank,
enduring the Black Hole’s power was taxing.
My normal state was only SS, after all.
"Forget saving Ada ..
I won’t even be able to find her while moving under this strain..."
Black Hole Aura was supposed to be my trump card..
something I used only for my strongest enemies, not for constant movement.
"That mindset is exactly why you cannot grow beyond your limits.
The mindset of the defeated."
Nameless’s voice echoed coldly within me,
and in the blink of an eye, I was dragged back into the dark void inside my consciousness.
There, in the deepest part of my inner world,
Nameless stood with his hands clasped behind his back ..
his glowing violet eyes burning behind the mask.
"At my peak, I could use Black Hole Aura endlessly.
Forever, if necessary.
Do you know why?"
It was a question worth thinking about.
"Because your damn aura reserves were infinite?"
That was the only answer that came to mind ...
and clearly not one Nameless appreciated.
"There is no such thing as an infinite aura reserve...
unless someone possessed a world-breaking ability capable of granting one.
Though I’ve never seen such a case before."
"My aura reserves were never the highest.
In fact... I wasn’t even in the top ten when it came to capacity."
Nameless spoke while manipulating a small flame of aura above his fist.
"The Demon King Agaroth, for example, possessed an aura pool many times larger than mine...
yet he was the one being drained faster during our fight."
Despite Nameless having far less aura than Agaroth, the Demon King burned through his power much more quickly.
"The key... is control."
Around Nameless, a circle began to form—its circular border glowing as waves of aura rippled outward.
They resembled the surface of a raging ocean, churning endlessly, reshaping themselves again and again.
The waves never calmed, no matter how long they rotated.
If anything, they grew more violent.
"Agaroth surpassed me in raw aura capacity...
but I surpassed him by far in manipulation and control.
By fully understanding the value of your aura .. and controlling it perfectly ..
you can reduce your aura consumption to almost nothing."
Before my eyes, a breathtaking scene unfolded.
Nameless was burning aura at a terrifying rate, rapidly draining his reserves...
Yet those reserves refilled almost instantly, as if he had never used any aura at all.
That was the purpose of the strange circle around him.
The aura leaving Nameless’s body was immediately reabsorbed from the air and the void around him,
allowing him to reuse it indefinitely.
In other words ..
every time Nameless launched an attack, he secretly reabsorbed its power, pulling it back into himself.
At first glance it seemed simple,
but it was anything but simple ..
it was something utterly impossible for anyone else.
It felt as if Nameless had absolute dominion over all the aura around him.
He forced it to circulate in a perfect loop ..
meaning it would always exist and never disperse.
And that was how he fought endlessly.
If Nameless’s aura pool was "1000"
and his enemy’s was "10000"...
after a long battle the enemy would eventually fall to zero,
while Nameless would still have his full "1000".
"Incredible..."
The word slipped from my mouth without thought.
What I had witnessed was beyond extraordinary.
How did he even create something like this?
And more importantly ..
how was I supposed to learn it?
"You can use it too, Frey Starlight.
Aura naturally gravitates toward you—exactly as it does toward me."
Reading my thoughts, Nameless dismissed my worries.
"Learning it won’t be impossible for you...
as long as you try with everything you have."
Hearing that, I stayed quiet for a moment before nodding firmly.
What Nameless had shown me wasn’t just a technique.
It was a reminder ..
that even in his incomplete, fragmented state...
the being standing before me was still the warrior who once shook the heavens themselves.
With a monster like this beside me...
I finally felt capable of altering my fate against my enemies.
Following his instructions, I continued traveling through the Empire using nothing but Black Hole Aura ..
pushing myself to learn his strange method of manipulation,
engraving it into my mind.
My journey across the Empire pushed on, seeking Ada.