I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1342: War General All of a Sudden

Northern stood at the peak of the tower.

Evening had settled across the mountains, though he hadn’t noticed its arrival. Three days had passed while he forged the Scerynx’s Hunger in the depths of his own soul, and now the blade rested in his grip with a weight that felt both familiar and new. He stared into the distance, but his gaze held no particular target.

His eyes were unfocused. His attention was elsewhere.

The [Omnisphere] stretched across hundreds of kilometers, and within that vast reach, Northern felt them. Heat signatures. Thousands of them, clustered in formations that had been still for hours but were now beginning to shift. He tracked their movement patterns, noting the rhythm, the coordination, the discipline.

’The Empire believes in its own strength. They’ll expect to tear through Ryugan’s vanguard and flood the city with sheer numbers.’ He followed the flow of bodies through his expanded senses. ’But are they really that predictable?’

Northern shook his head.

’The snake who lured the King with honeyed words wouldn’t choose the obvious path.’

This was precisely why he’d positioned the Storm Bastion here. If he wanted the Ryugan soldiers to follow him without hesitation, to commit to his command without that gnawing doubt that weakened armies from within, then he had to demonstrate exactly what he could do. Words meant nothing while results meant everything.

The enemy’s strategy assembled itself in his mind like pieces sliding into place.

The vanguard assault would serve as a decoy, drawing Ryugan’s attention and forces toward the front. Meanwhile, the Empire’s true thrust would come from behind, through the monster-infested rear of the mountain range. They’d establish a forward position somewhere in this territory, wait for the second wave against the vanguard to fully commit Ryugan’s defenders, then pour through the unguarded back and take the city before anyone realized the danger.

They wouldn’t expect an easy victory, of course. The monsters alone would require their stronger forces to clear a path.

Northern paused, his chain of reasoning still unspooling.

He lifted a hand to cover part of his face, trying to hide the fact that he was laughing. It came out as a soft, almost incredulous sound.

He was predicting them and it felt so sweet, like reading a book he’d already finished.

His mind had never worked like this before. Strategic thinking, the kind that generals spent decades developing, flowed through him as naturally as breathing. Where had this come from?

Through the [Omnisphere] alone, the enemy’s intentions seemed transparent. When he layered the Shingan’s perception over it, he didn’t even need to activate the full technique. The understanding simply existed, as if the knowledge had always been there, waiting for him to notice it.

’This comes from comprehension itself,’ he realized. ’Not power. Understanding... could it be the books? Did my mind adapt to something?’

He sighed and lowered his hand, forcing the smile from his face.

"When exactly will they arrive?" he murmured to the empty air. "I expected them by now."

Revant, and the Tower, they should have reached him within a day, but something had delayed their approach. His [Omnisphere] couldn’t stretch across an entire continent, not yet, so the specifics remained hidden from him.

’A pity.’

The thought carried a note of genuine frustration. If he could extend his perception that far, tracking every relevant movement would become trivial. Of course, monitoring every life across such a distance would be impossible regardless. There were limits even to his growing reach.

He sighed again.

At the very least, he could sense the Tower’s presence at the edge of his range. He felt it moving, then stopping. That much awareness came from being the Tower Master, a connection that existed independent of his other abilities.

"I hope they’re all okay."

He trusted that they would be. The people traveling toward him weren’t ordinary. Whatever they faced on the road, they were the kind of people destined to stand at humanity’s peak. Their current circumstances didn’t matter. Their potential did.

Northern turned his head toward the western slope of the Tempest Spire.

"Admiral Yan?"

Through the [Omnisphere], he watched the young officer making his way through the forest below. The sky still held traces of gold where the sun sank toward the horizon, but beneath the canopy, darkness had already claimed the mountain. The Admiral’s surroundings pressed in on him, thick with shadow and menace, and his head snapped from side to side as he searched for threats that seemed to lurk behind every tree.

Northern suppressed a laugh.

’Right. I forgot.’ He’d woven the abilities of Eclipsing Dread into the Spire’s ambient fog without thinking about it.

The [Supreme Shadow] spread its perpetual influence across the entire territory, granting Northern control over every shadow within its reach. But the darkness wasn’t merely obedient. It had developed a kind of autonomy, an instinctive intelligence that acted on his behalf without direct command. The fog surrounding the Spire had taken on enough presence, enough predatory weight, to drive away monsters. Even the high-ranked ones felt that pressure and chose to hunt elsewhere.

[Dread Manifestation] amplified the effect further, pressing fear into the minds of anything that entered the domain. Combined with [Eyes of the Shadow] for surveillance and [Eclipse Step] for travel, the entire territory had become an extension of Northern’s will.

Every kilometer the dark fog touched was reachable in less than a heartbeat.

Northern focused on Admiral Yan, tracking the young man’s nervous progress through the gloom, and a thought occurred to him.

’I wonder if I can do that...’

He activated the ability as the question formed.

[You’re using Eclipse Step]

But Northern didn’t move.

Instead, the shadows beneath Admiral Yan surged upward like a living tide. They swallowed him whole, pulling him down into darkness, and in the same instant, the man erupted from Northern’s own shadow at the tower’s peak.

Admiral Yan stood frozen.

His eyes had gone wide and glassy, trembling in their sockets. Sweat beaded across his face and dripped from his jaw. His chest heaved with sharp, shallow breaths, and his hands hung at his sides, fingers twitching as if they wanted to reach for a weapon but couldn’t remember how.

Northern smiled.

"It’s okay. I called you here."

’It worked!’

The Admiral stared at him without comprehension. Several seconds passed before awareness crept back into his expression. He tore his gaze from Northern and looked around the tower, desperately trying to force the fear from his face and failing completely.

His head turned toward the forest, toward the path he’d been walking moments ago.

He was here... already... here?

’How...’

The question hung in his mind like something too heavy to lift. Part of him didn’t want the answer. He looked at Northern again, struggling to hide the war between admiration and terror that raged in his chest.

Northern’s smile hadn’t faded.

"So?"