Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 634: Fictional Reality

With Malrik making the first move, everyone tore toward their respective opponents without the slightest bit of hesitation or delay; at their level, everyone understood that even a split second could decide life or death, could determine victory or defeat, could separate the winner from the loser in an instant that could never be reclaimed.

And with that, various weapons collided into one another like comets crashing violently into each other, Astra energy burning with the intensity of a star, abilities activating instantly as they all moved with speed that seemed both unquantifiable and immeasurable. The Empire itself trembled under the overwhelming might of these individuals who dared to call themselves human, their presence alone distorting the very stability of the world beneath them.

Floating in the air, hundreds of kilometres away from the other battles, was the Wargrave First Great Elder, Morthen Wargrave. Before him stood three members of the Royal Cabinet, all floating in place, their figures steady yet tense. Although it was three against one, the Cabinet Members did not dare lower their guards even slightly, their faces rigid as though they had swallowed something deeply unpleasant, as though the mere act of standing before Morthen Wargrave was enough to suffocate them.

Their names, Daniel, Gabriel, and Israel.

"What are you so afraid of? I am literally a single man, you know," Morthen stated calmly, his tone light, almost casual, as the golden book from earlier floated serenely before him, unmoving, yet carrying an invisible weight that pressed upon the battlefield.

The reason the three opponents did not dare make a move was simple, it was because he was Morthen Wargrave.

Hundreds of years ago, those who were alive at the time knew Morthen; his name alone had been enough to send fear crawling down people’s spines. During that era, he and the former Wargrave Primarch, Azaron’s father, had both stood at the pinnacle of their generation, competing for the position of Primarch as the strongest of their era, until Morthen abruptly withdrew from the race, stating plainly that he had no interest in the title.

To even be considered for the position of Wargrave Primarch required overwhelming strength and monstrous talent, and Morthen had stood at the very edge of claiming that title. What had made him truly terrifying centuries ago, however, was the very same book that floated before him at this moment.

Unlike other Wargraves, Morthen had not awakened a conventional weapon such as a sword, spear, or bow. Instead, his awakened weapon had been a book, yes, a book. And unlike the others who awakened elemental affinities, Morthen had awakened something entirely different, an ability known as: Fictional Reality.

The ability was exactly what its name implied, it allowed fiction to become reality, using his soul-bound book as the medium through which that impossible process was achieved.

As for how the ability functioned, it operated in a manner that could only be described as absurd. Fictional Reality required Morthen to read about fictional characters within stories and novels, form a genuine emotional connection with them at the deepest level, and from that connection, manifest a single ability belonging to that character into reality, permanently recording it within his soul-bound book.

However, such an overwhelming ability did not come without limitations, though those limitations were almost negligible in the face of its sheer potential.

Firstly, Morthen could not manifest more than one ability from a single fictional character or novel. Secondly, he had no control over which specific ability he would manifest, it was entirely dependent on the depth and nature of his emotional connection. Thirdly, using these manifested abilities without the assistance of his soul-bound book would significantly reduce their power and effectiveness.

For example, the Mass Teleportation ability he had previously used, if he had attempted to use it without his book, he would have only been capable of teleporting a few thousand individuals at most. It was only through the use of his soul-bound book that the full magnitude of the ability could be realized and expressed without limitation.

Another restriction was that he could not falsify his emotional connections, nor could he interfere with the creation of the stories themselves. He could not suggest ideas to authors, influence narratives, or manipulate characters to his advantage.

The Wargrave family had once attempted to exploit this ability by commissioning novels filled exclusively with overwhelmingly powerful characters and abilities, but despite Morthen forming deep emotional connections with those characters, he manifested nothing from them. The interference alone was enough to invalidate the process, even if Morthen himself was unaware of it.

Theoretically, Morthen could possess an infinite array of abilities and powers, limited only by the authenticity of his emotional connections and the purity of his reading experience. If those conditions were met, there was virtually no ceiling to what he could achieve.

He could stop time, reverse it, resurrect the dead, obliterate planets, shatter galaxies, or even wield powers that existed at the very beginning of creation itself, he could, in theory, do all of this and more, if and only if he successfully manifested those abilities into reality.

With such a broken and unparalleled ability, Morthen had once stood at the absolute peak of the world centuries ago. He was feared universally for this very reason, his combat style completely unpredictable, as no opponent could ever anticipate what ability he would draw upon next. This unpredictability was precisely why those who had lived during that era feared his soul-bound book more than anything else.

Over time, however, people began to believe that Morthen’s weakness lay in attacking him before his soul-bound book could finish flipping its pages and allow him to manifest an ability. But such a belief was nothing more than false hope. Morthen was overwhelmingly powerful in every sense, and even his supposed weakness had already been accounted for.

His soul-bound book possessed an inherent ability of its own, every time its pages flipped, time itself would halt entirely for Morthen. Within that frozen moment, he was unable to act physically in any way, but he could still activate and select his abilities without interference, making it impossible to truly catch him off guard.

This was the reason he had eventually become a Librarian. He had transformed a section of the Wargrave Library into his personal domain, a sanctuary of endless novels, where he spent years upon years reading, immersing himself in countless stories, and forming emotional connections with characters across an infinite spectrum of worlds.

Truly, Fictional Reality stood as one of the most overpowered abilities ever recorded within the history of the Wargrave family, a power so vast that it defied conventional understanding.

And yet, one could not help but ask, what kind of monster had the previous Primarch been? What kind of abilities did he possess, what kind of power did he wield, to stand on equal footing with, or even surpass, a being such as Morthen Wargrave?

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