I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1236: Supreme Will

All these things were unsettling in a strange way. Northern didn’t know whether to call this place a blessing or a curse.

However, hearing all of this was leaving a very bad taste in his mouth. Not because he suddenly cared for all the people who had approached the Vallithians with violence—their choices had consequences, after all. The general idea of such cruelty was bitter to swallow.

But also, Alystren and that elf were there too.

They most definitely harbored harm in their hearts. Alystren was shady, and maybe this was deserving—maybe it wasn’t. Northern didn’t particularly care about philosophical debates on justice right now. What he cared about was simple: he didn’t want to leave their fate in the hands of some damn mist.

’My judgment. Not yours, not nature’s, not anybody else’s.’

He turned his gaze to Anike.

His mother seemed to read the look in his eyes and held his hand even tighter, her grip almost desperate. Northern paid no attention to it. Instead, he gave Anike a cold look—the kind of look that had preceded a lot of very bad decisions from other people’s perspectives.

Anike still wore that gentle smile, nothing about her expression wavering despite the charging tension in the air. Like she was watching a child throw a tantrum over bedtime.

Northern straightened. He looked away for a moment and shook his head slightly, almost amused.

Almost.

”I’m sorry... I can’t allow it.”

Anike smiled still.

”Child of prophecy, you seem to not understand. This is not something we have control over. It is not a monster—this is merely a result of nature. Do you intend to fight nature?”

Northern silently shifted his gaze to the drifting crimson mist beyond the windows, watching it pulse and writhe like something alive.

’Nature. Right. Because that makes it better.’

”I’ve been strong for a long time,” he said quietly. ”But my strength has never been able to solve my problems. Somehow it was as if some irresponsible being just decided that before I had the chance to demonstrate my strength, the odds were already terrifyingly stacked against me.”

He paused, focus drilling into the mist like he could burn it away through sheer willpower.

”What I’m saying is, my strength has never been enough—even though it’s been plenty.”

Then he looked at Anike, and his eyes were colder than the mist outside.

”Anike, you don’t understand. It doesn’t matter whether it’s nature or a monster, you or my father, the constellations or the gods themselves—my will is my will, and I intend to use every ounce of my power to back it.”

He pointed toward the red mist.

”There are people in that place whose judgment only I should pass. Not some mist. Not you. Not your reflected violence or your constellation’s design. Me.”

His hand dropped.

”If destroying the mist is the only way to retrieve them, then say your goodbyes, Anike.”

She smiled at Northern, unbothered, serene as still water.

”You cannot destroy the mist.”

Northern laughed shortly—just a huff of air, really.

”Oh, watch me.”

Northern stepped away from his seat.

However, as he did, all of them rose as well—every Seraphae in the hall. They glared at him with cold golden glows kindling in their eyes, manifested their bucklers in flashes of light, and faced him with battle-hardened expressions that suggested this wasn’t their first time dealing with arrogant outsiders.

Northern looked at them. Looked back at Anike. Raised his brows.

”Really?”

The lady’s tone remained gentle and kind, like she was explaining basic arithmetic to a slow student.

”This is for your own good, child of prophecy. Let not your arrogance lead you to your death. You cannot destroy the design of the constellations. This is nature. It is beyond you, beyond any human.”

Northern shook his head, almost pitifully.

”Here I was thinking you knew me...”

He met her eyes.

”Apparently, you don’t know me at all.”

Northern’s expression didn’t change. He simply stood there, looking at the wall of golden-winged women with their shields raised, their eyes glowing with that cold, ancient light. Waiting. Assessing.

Then he smiled.

It wasn’t a warm smile.

”Let me explain something to you,” Northern said softly, his voice carrying that conversational tone he used when he was about to thoroughly dismantle someone’s worldview.

”You’re operating under a fundamental misunderstanding. You think this is a negotiation. You think your numbers matter. Your blessings. Your reflected violence.”

He tilted his head slightly.

”You think any of that matters right now.”

His eyes began to glow—not golden like theirs, but sea blue with deep black concentric circles rippling outward like disturbed water.

Shingan activated.

All three layers at once.

Northern saw everything. The structure of their souls laid bare, essence flowing through them like luminous blood. The invisible threads of constellation power binding them to the Lumisphere, taut and gleaming. He saw the pathways their abilities would take, the exact microsecond they’d activate their defensive techniques, the precise angle their shields would catch incoming force.

He saw fifteen different futures where they tried to stop him.

In all of them, they failed.

’Predictable. They’re all the same—trained the same way, blessed the same way, thinking the same way.’

”You think I need to strike you to get past you,” Northern continued, taking one measured step forward. The marble floor didn’t make a sound beneath his boot. ”You’re wrong. I don’t need to touch you at all.”

The temperature dropped further, but this time it wasn’t from the mist outside.

It was from Northern.

His essence began to manifest—not as visible aura, but as presence. Raw. Oppressive. The weight of every form he’d copied, every monster he’d killed, every impossible situation he’d survived pressed down on the hall like gravity itself had chosen a favorite. The air grew thick, hard to breathe, as if the space between molecules had suddenly remembered they could refuse to cooperate.

Sael stumbled backward, his face draining of color.

Even the Seraphae hesitated, their perfect formation wavering.

”Northern, please—” Eisha started, her voice tight with worry.

”Mom, stay out of this.”

His voice wasn’t angry. Wasn’t cruel. Wasn’t even particularly loud.

It was simply final.

Northern raised his hand, fingers spread like he was grasping at reality itself.

And reality bent.

[You’re using One’s True Self: Limitless One]

He existed in multiple states simultaneously.

There was Northern standing in the hall, hand outstretched.

There was Northern already at the door, palm pressed against the wood.

There was Northern behind Anike, having crossed twenty meters of space in no time at all.

There was Northern in seven different positions around the room, each one as solid and real as the others, each one’s eyes glowing with that same cold calculation.

The Seraphae spun, shields raised in practiced unison, but they didn’t know which one to face. Their mirror abilities required a target, required violence to be directed at them first.

’How do you reflect an attack from someone who exists everywhere at once?’

”Impossible,” one of them whispered, her voice barely audible.

Northern—all of him—spoke simultaneously, his voice layering over itself in a dissonant harmony that shouldn’t have been physically possible:

”I have ten owned talents. Each with multiple abilities. I can transform into thousands of forms. I can summon armies of defeated enemies as loyal echoes. I can see every possible future of this conversation.”

He paused, and all eight versions of him smiled the same cold, measured smile.

”And right now, in every single timeline I can perceive—and believe me, I’m perceiving a lot of them—you don’t stop me. You don’t even slow me down.”

His voices unified into one, coming from all directions at once:

”So please, for your own sake... don’t make me prove it.”

Auriel—a tall, powerfully built Seraphae with scars crossing her knuckles—stepped forward, her gold-pupilless eyes burning with something between rage and recognition. Like she’d seen this kind of arrogance before and watched it bleed out on the marble.

”You think you’re special? You think your power makes you—”

[You’re using Oblivion’s Mark: Absolute Lock]

Auriel’s voice cut off mid-sentence, the words dying in her throat.

She was still moving. Still breathing. Still conscious, eyes wide with sudden understanding.

But her talent—every single ability, every blessing, every fragment of constellation-given power she possessed—was sealed.

Completely.

Instantly.

Irreversibly, if he chose.

She clutched at her chest, gasping, feeling the sudden void where her strength had been a moment ago. Her wings flickered like dying embers, losing their luminous glow. The buckler in her hand suddenly felt impossibly heavy, and she couldn’t remember how she’d ever lifted it before.

Northern looked at her with something like pity.

”That’s Absolute Lock. I can seal any ability, any power, any function—physical, magical, conceptual. Doesn’t matter.” He tilted his head, studying her like she was a particularly interesting specimen. ”Permanently, if I choose. Right now, you’re as powerless as any normal human who’s never seen a rift in their life.”

He paused.

”How does it feel?”

Auriel fell to her knees, her shield clattering against the marble floor with a sound like a death knell.

The other Seraphae stared in horror, frozen between fight and flight.

”I’ll release it in a moment,” Northern said casually, like he was discussing the weather. ”I’m making a point, not an enemy. Well... not unless you force my hand.”

He gestured vaguely at Auriel’s crumpled form.

”The point is: your mirror abilities only work if I attack you with intent to harm. But what if I simply remove your ability to fight back? What if I don’t fight you at all—I just make you irrelevant?”

He snapped his fingers.

The sound cracked through the hall like breaking glass.

Auriel gasped as her power flooded back, constellation light surging through her veins. She stayed on her knees, shaking, wings trembling as they reignited. Her hands pressed against the cold floor, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to stand.

’She’ll remember that feeling. They all will.’

Northern turned to Anike, and now all eight versions of him began to converge, collapsing back into a single form through some impossible geometry that made the eye hurt to follow. He stood directly in front of her, close enough that she could see her reflection in those strange, ringed eyes.

”You said I can’t destroy the design of the constellations. You said this is nature, beyond humans.”

His Shingan focused on her—all three layers peeling back reality like layers of an onion—and even Anike, ancient and blessed and unshakeable, flinched under the weight of his gaze.

It was like being seen by something that shouldn’t exist.

”I am not,” Northern said softly, each word deliberate, ”a human. Not anymore.”

He glanced away, almost thoughtful.

”I stopped being that about three days ago. Actually, no—I stopped being human the moment I refused to be weak ever again. I stopped being that the moment I decided my will matters more than the universe’s opinion of what’s possible.”

He gestured toward the red mist beyond the doors, still churning and writhing.

”So here’s what’s going to happen.”

His voice was calm. Patient. Explaining basic facts.

”I’m going to walk out there. I’m going to enter that mist. And I’m going to take back what’s mine—because Alystren and that elf belong to my judgment, not yours, not the constellations’, and certainly not some glorified fog’s.”

His eyes hardened.

”If you try to stop me, I will go through you. Not over you. Not around you. Through you.”

He let that sink in.

”I’ll seal your talents one by one. I’ll copy your forms and use them better than you ever could. I’ll summon echoes of every enemy I’ve ever defeated and turn them against you until you can’t tell which direction the attack is coming from. I’ll make you understand—really, truly understand—exactly how outmatched you are.”

His expression softened slightly, almost sympathetic.

”Or—and this is the option I’m genuinely hoping you choose—you can sit down, finish your dinner, and watch me do something you’ve spent hundreds of years thinking was impossible.”

Silence.

***

A/N: One today, three tomorrow. Also returning to usual schedule tomorrow. Thanks for putting up with me.