Book 13: Part 16 – Ace’s Rival

The formation and fusion of the 11 new Divine Planes took another thousand years, and those thousand years seemed to fly by for everyone below the Sovereign realm. If they had their way, it wouldn't be the end, but unfortunately, it was.

But, it had to be said that there wasn't a single person amongst those present who hadn't made at least one major breakthrough.

Before this, there were only a few dozen Sovereign spread out in the universe – and that included the paragon level Sovereigns and Overgods, but now, excluding Sovereign and Overgods, the Yulan Plane alone had that many.

The Yulan Plane had truly become the gathering place for top-tier experts.

Even so, the ones recognised as the most powerful were Ace, Linley, and their respective groups.

Each of them was only a few thousand years old at most, but even the weakest of them had accumulated two units of Will after becoming a paragon of their chosen Law and Concept, and that literally referred to those of slightly inferior talent when it came to comprehension, like Bebe, Oscar (the two Apex Divine Beasts of Linley's group), as well as Gates and Wharton.

As for the others… Well, it could be said that now there were five non-official levels for those at the paragon level:

First is what is now known as a Tier 1 Paragon. Tier 1 Paragons are your standard Paragons who have reached the High God level and have at least one portion of Willpower.

Next are the Tier 2 Paragons. This level is reserved for those who have either accumulated between two and four portions of Will or are Apex Divine Beasts with at least one unit of Will. This is the level Bebe, Oscar, Gates, Wharton, Alyssa, Joel, Faith, and Yulana are currently at. Although the latter four can all be considered to have reached the peak of this stage, the fact remains that they are still a single breakthrough away from reaching the next tier.

Then you have Tier 3 Paragons. These are monsters that have at least five units of Will or have four units of Will and have something special about them, be they Apex Divine Beasts or Soul Mutates. This is the level that Linley, Yunaia, Olivier, Julius, Osiris, Leona, and Kannal have reached.

The next rank is slightly different. This rank is exclusively for those whose units of Willpower have reached double digits, and because of the difficulty of accomplishing such a feat, they decided to change the naming format for this rank from Tier Four to Alphas. As it stands, the only Alpha is Killian, who only did so after becoming a true three-way soul mutate paragon, accumulating a shocking total of eight units of will followed by a further two units for comprehending the Concepts of Earth and Destruction, respectively.

Finally, you have Omegas. This is an exceedingly exclusive realm reserved for those freakishly monstrous deities whose individual strength has reached the level of a Lesser Sovereign. As it stands, there are only two who have reached this level – Ace and Amira.

Nothing further needed to be said about Ace, but Amira seemed to refuse to be outdone even by her husband. It had to be understood that those direct descendants of the Gol Clan who were born with the qualities of a king were born with significantly more Willpower than those in the same realm.

After becoming a paragon, not even including the unit of will received for their comprehension, their Willpower jumps to three units. Then there's the fact that, after completely comprehending the fusion of the Laws of Wind and Light, similar to Muyan, Amira accumulated a total of four more units of Will, making a new total of seven. But Amira wasn't done there; not only did she comprehend a single Concept of both Wind and Light, bringing her total to nine, but she also comprehended the fused concept of Wind and Light, giving her another two units of Will.

Although she only had 11 units, one more than Killian, it had to be remembered that she also had access to the Gol Clan's monstrous Divine Ability, allowing her Willpower to double to 22 units – a number equal to Teresia before Ace killed her.

Still, that wasn't the end of Amira's list of monstrous abilities. Thanks to her Visual Manifestation, even as a Full God, she had been able to condense a drop of Sovereign Power of the unique Light-Wind element. A fusion which was three times stronger than ordinary Lesser Sovereign Power, but where before she could only refine a drop of Sovereign Power with her Willpower, now she could refine and store a total of five – each one allowing her to battle at the level of a Sovereign for 1 minute.

There were several other minor abilities Amira had access to, which allowed her to increase her power, but all one really needed to understand was that when she went all out, she was no weaker than Ace was back when he defeated Teresia a little over a thousand years ago.

Even so, Amira didn't seem completely happy with their breakthroughs. It wasn't just her either. As their training came to an end, Amira, Killian, Linley, and millions of others couldn't help but raise their heads to look at a distant point in the void where Ace was closing his eyes whilst concentrating on fusing the two Divine Planes of Light and Fire.

By now, everyone knew what Ace had done. It wasn't that Ace had gone out of his way to publicise the details for them, but when he left to face Teresia, there wasn't a soul present who didn't know where he was going, so when he returned and gave Garott the Lesser Sovereign Spark of Wind, they could guess the results of the battle.

By now, there weren't many on his side that would dare to bet him, regardless of the odds, but it didn't make their shock any less. It had to be remembered that Ace may only be the most powerful deity their universe had ever seen, but the fact remained that he was still only a deity – a Full God at that. For him to not only take on a Sovereign – Lesser Sovereign or not – and not only win but kill him. How could they not be shocked?

Still, whilst most of the gazes directed at Ace were filled with awe and reverence, there were still a few that were filled with a healthy level of competitiveness, namely those of Amira, Killian, and Linley.

However, whilst it could be argued that Killian and Amira had the qualifications to set their sights on Ace, Linley lost that right the day Ace became the progenitor of Pure Yang. Even so, his heart wouldn't allow him to give up.

Seeing the competitive light in their eyes, Aiden smiled approvingly. Still, there were more important things to do, for now, namely the matter of the missing Overgod Talisman.

Ignoring his disciple for now, Aiden approached Killian and the others. It was then that he revealed that the deities on the side of their enemies had gotten their hands on one of the Overgod Talismans, as for the third and final one, that had been in our possession this whole time.

As he said to there, Aiden turned his gaze to the unsuspecting Linley. Seeing the confused expression on Linley's face, Aiden asked him to bring out the tattered crown in his storage ring before turning to Kannal and telling him to bring out the soul pearl.

Linley immediately guessed what Aiden was referring to and brought it out. As he did, he watched the crown and pearl float out of their hands and merge together.

The formerly tattered crown instantly regained its vibrancy as it and the pearl let out a seemingly excited humming sound.

Aiden then flicked his fingers, willing for the pearl-infused crown to float back into Linley's hands.

Once again, Linley was shocked by the sudden development. He already learnt that the completion of an Overgod's Mission would summon one of the four Edict Overgods for them to grant the lucky winner's wish, as long as it was within the scope of their abilities. Still, he never expected to be directly given the two Overgod Talismans.

It was then that Aiden explained that since Linley was technically the first to get his hands on one of the talismans, it was only right that the opportunity to grant his wish be his.

Even though Linley was appreciative of the gesture and he knew that an Overgod would be able to do a lot for him, including giving him an Overgod Armour or Soul Protecting Artefact, he didn't feel all that excited.

Although both items would increase his survivability by leaps and bounds, neither would do anything to close the rapidly increasing gap between him and his rival.

Plus, if he really wanted an Overgod Artefact that badly, there were now three Overgods on their side. Although he wasn't particularly close to any of them, if he asked, he highly doubted they would say no.

Understanding what Linley was thinking, it was then that Aiden revealed something else. According to Aiden, although typically, the Sovereigns who had passed the Overgod missions in the past would always ask for an Overgod Artefact, that was far from the full extent of what the Overgod in question was capable of granting.

It had to be understood that the Overgod missions are enforced by the heavens themselves, meaning that when an Overgod is granting the wish of the winner of their mission, they are able to borrow part of the power of heaven itself to grant said wish. Aside from bringing those who have truly died back to life or rewinding time, there wasn't much else they were incapable of.

Hearing that, Linley's eyes lit up as he thought of something. Turning his excited eyes back to Aiden, Linley couldn't help but ask if they were capable of turning him into a soul-mutate.

It had to be understood that, over the course of the last two thousand years, Linley had not only become a Paragon of the Laws and Concepts of Water, Earth, and Wind, he had then gone on to focus a lot of his attention on the forming Divine Plane of Fire.

Although his affinity to the Laws of Fire was below average at best, thanks to his being able to watch a Divine Plane of Fire being created, he had managed to reluctantly bring his comprehension of the Laws of Fire up to the level of a High God. That meant he was on track to become a Paragon of four Laws – if he was able to become a soul mutate now, that would make him the universe's first four-way soul mutate.

It was exactly what he needed to bring his potential up to the level needed to rival Ace's.

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