The Transcendent Godslayer-Chapter 40: Pathfinder

Time moved by in a flash... or was it at a snail's pace?

For some, three years felt like a fleeting blink. For others, it passed as expected—arriving and departing with the rhythm of life. And for the rest, it was an exhausting, relentless crawl, stretching endlessly like a trial that refused to end.

When people did what they loved, time slipped through their fingers too quickly. When burdened with the mundane, it dragged on unbearably.

For the Crimsons, it was just life as usual. A monotonous yet demanding cycle befitting a family of their stature. With their immense influence over Xenith, their responsibilities were endless, their attention constantly divided among countless affairs.

The younger generation had all enrolled in the academy—Atticus, Williams, Elyon, and Eliot.

Garth and Genevieve had already graduated, setting their sights on lands beyond Xenith. After all, Ares was vast, and Xenith was but one, among its twelve massive tectonic plates.

Everyone was busy, immersed in their own pursuits. To them, these three years likely passed at a normal pace.

Speaking of busy...

A crimson-haired youth dashed across a hellish landscape, his breathing ragged, and his muscles burning.

The ground beneath him was a chaotic maze of molten rivers, their fiery currents carving deep trenches through the terrain. Scalding geysers erupted unpredictably, spewing boiling vapor and searing heat into the air.

As if the hostile environment wasn't enough, a barrage of projectiles relentlessly pursued him; arrows whistling through the air, high-frequency discs that ricocheted off every surface, and piercing laser beams cutting through the space, towards him.

Sweat dripped from his brow, soaking him completely as he pushed his body to its absolute limit.

He sprinted forward, feet barely touching the unstable terrain, when a geyser exploded in front of him, forcing him to pivot sharply to the right.

Before he could recover, a metallic blade came slicing down at his head.

With reflexes honed to perfection, his body bent backward like a bow, nearly parallel to the ground. His fingers skimmed the scorched earth beneath him as the blade missed him by a hair's breadth.

The attacker—a towering mechanical golem—couldn't halt its momentum... Yeah, he was fighting golems too.

Its razor-sharp weapon clashed against a high-frequency disc mid-air, the impact sending both of them flying backward in a violent burst of energy.

Kallen exhaled sharply, his crimson eyes burning with determination. He was close... Very close, yet so far away.

He didn't have any moment to be thinking however, as a laser beam streaked toward him, cutting through the air with lethal precision. He willed his body to move... but then, he froze.

A violent tremor ran through him, seizing his limbs in place.

[CONGRATULATIONS]

A black-lettered notification flared within his mindspace.

Then, without warning, a surge of pain erupted from his head, flooding his body with unbearable heat. It spread like wildfire, setting every nerve ablaze. His muscles spasmed uncontrollably, his body writhing in place.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

One by one, countless projectiles slammed into his unresponsive frame. His flesh screamed, his bones groaned under the unrelenting barrage—until the room's AI detected something was off and abruptly terminated the simulation.

The hellish battlefield dissolved, revealing a stark white room. Holographic control panels flickered in the corner, their glow the only thing breaking the monotony of the sterile walls.

[Race-stat limits exceeded]

Another notification flashed in his mind.

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His body collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. His muscles convulsed violently, his back arching off the floor as waves of pain crashed over him.

It felt like his entire body was being dismantled and reconstructed in real-time.

His fingers clawed at the smooth floor, desperate to anchor himself against the torment. He grit his teeth so hard they threatened to shatter, his suppressed groans turning into ragged, choked gasps.

[You have forcefully broken your body limitations without the nourishment of dynamis]

[Remarkable]

More notifications poured in, but his mind was drowning in agony.

And then—the cold hit.

A bone-deep chill sank into his very marrow, the drastic shift from searing heat to freezing cold almost breaking his sanity. His body was being reforged through cycles of violent expansion and contraction, the conflicting forces warping and reshaping him into something new.

The pain reached a crescendo—then, just as suddenly as it came, it receded.

In its place, a wave of soothing warmth spread through his limbs, massaging the battered remains of his nerves with gentle pleasure.

[You have gained a title]

His ragged breathing slowed. His convulsing muscles gradually stilled, the agony giving way to an intoxicating sensation of renewal.

[You have gained the title: {Pathfinder???}]

Kallen lay there, his body trembling once in a while, breathing slightly labored, and heart beating erratically, until he was completely calm.

{Pathfinder???}

[You have opened a path long lost to the history of the universe... or one that has never existed. You have shattered the natural stat limits of your mortal race, breaking past the 30-point threshold without the aid of dynamis. Through sheer will and adaptation, you have forged a path where none should exist. Forge the body, forge a path.]

[Your Foundation is being reaffirmed]

[Limits Broken (1/3)]

[+100% to all current stats.]

Kallen glanced at the black-lettered notification flickering in his mindspace, his body still tingling. A fleeting light of silent satisfaction and relief passed through his eyes. Slowly, his lips curled into a smile.

"So, the chances of failure were high, huh? Leaving things to luck really leaves a bad taste in the mouth."

His gaze lingered on the part that read "never existed."

"One out of three limits broken... so I'll have to do this again to surpass the second and third? That means I'll have to delay my awakening for a considerable amount of time." He exhaled lightly.

"And what does it mean by my foundation is being reaffirmed?"

Foundation! That was not a word he had heard concerning the Existential Compendium before.

He frowned lightly.

From it's name though, he could make some deductions. But, although he had a vague idea, he couldn't be certain.

'Status'

[Existential Compendium]

[Name: Kallen Koa Luiz Crimson]

[Age: 9]

[Race: Aresian]

[Species: Aresian Mixed Blood (Human, Elf, Valgorian, Ethereal)]

[Roots: Crimson family, Dominator's Bloodline]

[Class:(-) Unascended]

[Level: 0 (Unawakened)]

[Will: Dormant]

[Title(s): Pathfinder]

[Comprehension: (-)]

[Laws: (-)]

[Attributes:]

[Strength → 65]

[Speed → 62]

[Constitution → 80]

[Agility → 70]

[Mental → 180]

[Dynamis → (-)]

[Dynisis → 300]

[Active Effects: {Pathfinder???}]

[Skills: (-)]

Kallen closed his status panel and stepped out of his training room.

"This'll take forever," Kallen muttered to himself, a grimace twisting his face.

Unawakened. Unascended. Level 0.

The words felt like a mockery. He hadn't even awakened his core, let alone started leveling up. Ascension? That was still a distant dream.

"Before I even start thinking about the 1st to 4th Ascensions, there's still Saint beyond that." He grunted in frustration, rubbing his temples.

"Just thinking about it is giving me a headache. However, this is also good."

High risk, high rewards. The rewards were surely good, he now had stats comparable to a talentless-to-mediocre person in their first Ascension. He would be nothing short of a monster, when he finally completed everything, and Awakened.

A fleeting thought briefly wandered his mind, he had already set his pieces into motion and his gambles were already paying off.

He wasn't joking when he said he could achieve what he wanted without any divine help. The system Samaelas had given him was still nowhere to be found, nor was the Infinity's Edge, and it was nine years already.

There was no trace of what happened in that astral temple except his memory. And even that, the events that followed the mysterious eye's appearance, remained shrouded in mystery, as he couldn't remember anything after that.