Chapter 367: Ch 367 : Efficiency has its own Price

The Overseer, the soul-clone of Sunny tasked with the god-like burden of managing the inner world, felt a sensation he hadn’t experienced in eons: panic. He was currently plucking his hair out.

In a moment of miscalculation, a rare slip-up born from the sheer potency of his recently evolved Nihilium bloodline, he had accidentally ignited the spark of the Law of Annihilation within Thera. It wasn’t the gentle, controlled flicker he had intended. It was a detonation.

“It’s only half-awakened,” the Overseer muttered, his hands moving with the speed of light as he wove Law Threads to contain the fallout. “Maybe… maybe there is still hope to reel it back.”

He lunged forward with his spiritual essence, attempting to capture the rogue spark before it could do what it was designed to do: unmake reality.

But even a Sovereign’s speed has its limits when dealing with the fundamental force of laws.

The moment the diluted drop of Faith touched the particle, it transformed from a seed into a black hole.

It didn’t just burn; it erased.

With a desperate flick, Sunny’s clone managed to trap the particle within a cage of reinforced spatial laws. The law of Annihilation hissed against his palm, unable to scratch his skin, but the damage to Thera was already underway.

“Thera, don’t you dare die on me,” Sunny whispered, his voice vibrating through the throne room.

He flooded the Bubble with a tidal wave of healing Faith. It was a race against the ultimate entropic force.

While the Law of Annihilation was systematically deleting Thera’s body and soul from the tapestry of existence, Sunny was frantically trying to rewrite her into reality.

It was a battle of Plus One versus Minus One, and currently, the Minus was winning.

Thera was being destroyed faster than the clone of Sunny could heal her.

“Should I call for the others?” the Overseer thought, his mind reaching out toward the 16 Soul Clones scattered across the void. “If we pool our mental processing power, we might be able to stabilize the Annihilation… No, i should instead break the law threads of Annihilation”

“Leave it, Overseer.”

The voice of Sunny’s Main Consciousness resonated from the deep void, calm and terrifyingly steady.

“This is no longer required; it is a test of her resolve. The Divine Intuition isn’t screaming of an end. It’s quiet. Which means this path, as bloody as it is, will surely lead to the awakening. If the universe tries to take her, we will simply make it give her back.”

The Overseer nodded, swallowing his fear. He channeled the SS-Grade Miracle healing talent from one of his lifeforms, pouring a river of life-force into the goddess of divine Annihilation.

“Thera!” the Overseer’s voice boomed inside her fracturing mind. “Maintain your consciousness! Do not let the dark take your Self! Initiate the Resilience talent NOW!”

At this moment, the SSS-Grade Resilience was Thera’s only shield.

In the metaphysics of the Inner World, Faith was a substance of infinite mutability.

Thera’s blind, absolute belief in Sunny, her conviction that he had only awakened it a little, acted as a conceptual anchor.

She believed she could survive because she believed he wouldn’t allow the law of Annihilation to kill her. That thread of trust was the only thing keeping her soul-core from dissolving into the black fire.

However, the reality was a nightmare. As the Annihilation deepened, it began to eat through her memories, her limbs, and her divinity. She finally understood why the Emperor had been so hesitant.

’I need to adapt…’ her mind screamed through the static of non-existence. ’I have to be more than just a God. I have to be the void that contains the void!’

She thought of Cai Zhen, his smile as he left for the new multiverse. She thought of her lost sisters, the concubines whose souls were dust in the wind, and her thirst for the power to ensure such a tragedy never happened again.

Time became a distorted thing. To an outside observer, only half an hour had passed. To Thera, it was a decade of being flayed alive. Her soul and body were being whittled down, disappearing until only 10% of her original essence remained.

She was a flickering candle in the heart of a hurricane, a single spark of “Is” in a vast ocean of “Is Not.”

“Thera, you have to do it quickly,” Sunny’s voice whispered, sounding like it was coming from a distant galaxy. “If you don’t adapt in the next ten seconds, you will lose a life.”

“L-Life…?” Thera’s consciousness was a fragmented mosaic. “What… is… life?”

She was slipping into the State of the End, where the mind can no longer distinguish between being and non-being.

“She’s fading,” the Overseer growled. “I need to stimulate her soul. Fear isn’t enough. I need… spite.”

“Thera!” Sunny’s voice suddenly turned sharp, mocking, and loud. “Think about Cai Zhen! You’re dying here because you’re weak! And if you die, you’ll be in the Reset state for hours, which is centuries in the outside world. Do you know what a God of Cultivation does with a few centuries of freedom? Do you think he’ll wait for a ghost? Maybe he’ll find a few New Sisters to fill the palace while you’re busy being dead!”

It was a low blow. It was a dirty, manipulative lie.

And it worked perfectly.

The 10% remnant of Thera’s soul didn’t just shine; it exploded with a silver radiance. In the heart of the obsidian fire, thousands of miniature Annihilation Swords began to manifest.

They were forged from her own talent, resonating with the very force that was trying to kill her.

The fundamental law of the multiverse states that Iron beats Iron. Thera was no longer trying to block the Annihilation with healing; she was fighting Annihilation with her own Annihilation. She was consuming the spark to fuel her own fire.

“Good job,” the Overseer whispered, his hands glowing as he doubled his Faith output. He funneled one stream into repairing her remaining cells and the other into the sword of divine Annihilation so she could maintain the counter-strike.

The sight in the throne room was gruesome and awe-inspiring. Thera’s body had been reduced to a floating, glowing head. The rest was annhilated.

But in that horrific equilibrium, the Resilience talent finally learned the frequency.

The diamond-like crystallization spread rapidly. The law of Annihilation, which had been eating her, suddenly stopped. It didn’t just stop; it began to flow into her, absorbed by the new, adaptive lattice of her soul.

“Finally…” Thera’s voice returned, no longer a scream but a low, vibrating hum of power. “I can feel it.”

The Overseer slumped back against the steps of the throne, wiping sweat from his brow. “That was… far too close,” he thought. He made a mental note: ’my Faith is dangerous. I should Dilute it by a billion next time i awaken a God.’

“Thera,” Sunny said, his voice returning to its calm, Sovereign tone. “You have achieved the impossible. You have gained Immunity to the Law of Annihilation. You are no longer its victim; you are its Master.”

He began to pour millions of Faith points every second into her, reconstructing her body from the neck down.

In the throne room: muscles, bones, and skin wove themselves back together in a beautiful, terrifying display of The savior talent.

Within minutes, Thera stood whole once more. Her skin was no longer pale; it had a faint, iridescent sheen, like a pearl that had been tempered in the heart of a sun. Her eyes were twin voids, calm and infinite.

“Now,” Sunny said, “the final step. The Law Particle is still in my hand. It is awake, it is hungry, and it belongs to you.”

He opened his fist. The obsidian spark didn’t try to fly away; it hovered there, circling his fingers like a loyal pet. It recognized the hand who had fed it and carried the same aura as the void mother, but it longed for the container who had survived it.

“Let’s finish this,” Sunny whispered. He dropped a single, perfect drop of Faith into the particle, fully awakening its SSS-Grade potential. “Your destination is not within my palm. Go. Complete the Goddess.”

He flicked the spark. It shot like a bullet into Thera’s chest.

The resonance that followed was so powerful it blew out the walls of the palace, sending a ripple of energy across the entire City of Gods.

Thera didn’t scream this time. She floated, her arms spread wide, as the Law Particle merged with her core, unlocking the True Goddess of Annihilation.

“It will take some time for the fusion to stabilize,” Sunny noted, checking his internal clock. “An hour at most. But the danger is over.”

He looked at the glowing goddess, then at his own trembling hands. He didn’t mention the fact that she had been a microsecond away from total erasure.

“Well,” Sunny said with a light, tired chuckle. “On the bright side, we saved at least three centuries of slow adaptation. I guess efficiency has its own price.”

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