Sword Techniques of Neo were made of three parts: Incantation, action/attack, landing of attack.
As soon as the Eighth stance’s Incantation was completed, the attack had landed.
No one saw Neo strike because he never did.
That was the Eighth Stance.
The action of swinging the sword was erased from time.
Only its effect remained.
After injuring the maggots, Neo stepped over their remains.
His shoes left scorched prints on the ruined ground.
He approached Zeus’ broken corpse.
“You okay?”
The corpse stood up, headless, and left without responding.
Then again, it was not like it could talk without a head.
Screens appeared before Neo’s eyes.
[You have inflicted a wound on the Angel of S@!$W.]
[Quest ‘Inflict a wound on the Angel of S@!$W’ completed.]
[Reward: Life Affinity.]
Neo felt a foreign yet familiar power budding inside him.
The power of Life.
As soon as he received it, more notifications followed.
[Life affinity detected.]
[Conditions to fully unseal the third stage of Blessing have been met.]
‘So this was why I couldn’t get the third stage to awaken fully no matter what I did.’
‘I needed Life Affinity for it.’
Neo wished he had been given more information about these things instead of being left to move around in the dark.
He had gone by for decades without knowing how to unseal the full third stage of his blessing.
However, it didn’t matter anymore.
He had awakened the Primogenitor skill.
It would tell him about these things as long as he had free slots.
Neo clenched and unclenched his fists.
He could feel the World Energy coursing through him.
It was a gentle but overwhelming current, far more vibrant than the power he had wielded before.
He could easily tell the difference between his current self and the version of him who hadn’t awakened World Energy.
Even twenty of his past selves would be no match for him now.
Neo couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
A lot of things he hadn’t noticed before became painfully clear to him now.
The pieces were finally fitting together.
Previously, he had been wondering where the Divine Energy came from when he revived himself using Eternal and Immortal.
It had made no sense that his Divine Energy pool was refilled after the revival.
“All of it was the power of my Will all along,” he muttered.
He had been on the verge of awakening World Energy since long ago.
The power for his Immortal skill activation had been coming from his Will.
He had just not realized it.
A soft chime echoed in his mind, drawing his focus back to the floating notifications before him.
[Conditions required to upgrade Status to Ver 3.0 met.]
[Would you like to update the Status Screen?]
Neo read the lines.
‘Yes.’
[Status will be shut down until the upgrade is completed.]
[Time remaining: Indefinite.]
His attention shifted to the Angel when he heard its voice.
‘This changes nothing.’
The Angel’s voice was back to its calm, taunting demeanor.
‘You can now damage me, so what?’
‘You are far from doing any substantial damage.’
The awakening of World Energy signified awakening limitless untapped potential.
However, in this world, only Neo and the Angel were present.
He had no one to teach him.
There was no one who could be his rival and become his motivation.
He could never hope to achieve his full potential.
‘Just rot here.’
The Angel was pissed it couldn’t stop its awakening; however, that was all.
It was a mere inconvenience.
A while ago, the Angel had been too afraid of the power of World Energy and forgotten how difficult the path of Intent was.
Even with wise masters leading them, the heaven-sent geniuses could barely make any progress.
Neo was alone, on a planet that had no one left.
He couldn’t do anything.
The Angel shifted its focus back to Zeus’ corpse.
Neo didn’t try to engage it in a battle either.
He turned around and moved toward the core region of the World Time Spell’s magic circle.
The sky was dark, swirling with ominous clouds as distant thunder rumbled, adding to the tense atmosphere.
He plunged his sword into the ground.
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Using it as a medium, he transferred his World Energy into the magic circle.
It flowed down, into the earth.
The land began to shine, a soft glow emanating from beneath the surface.
Sigils appeared over it, shimmering with ethereal power.
An overwhelming amount of pressure surged.
It kept on increasing and increasing, until it was almost unbearable.
When it reached its peak, nothing happened.
The glow of the Spell died down, and its aura disappeared.
“The Spell failed,” Neo muttered, frustration seeping into his voice.
He wasn’t surprised by this outcome.
The Angel knew about the World Time spell, and it didn’t try to stop him from activating the spell.
There must’ve been a reason.
It knew the spell wouldn’t activate.
“…”
Neo clenched his jaw and raised his head, staring at the sky.
Dark clouds hovered ominously above, and the wind began to pick up.
Days after days, he was overcoming his limits.
But what he found after climbing the walls of challenge was more despair.
There was no sweet ending waiting for him.
Without the World Time spell, everything would fall apart.
“Fuck this shit, if the spell won’t activate, then I’m killing that fucker no matter what.”
Neo pulled his sword out of the ground, the earth around the blade cracking as he wrenched it free.
The blade gleamed in the dim light.
The ground beneath his feet was cracked and scorched from his previous attempts.
Turning back time himself? It wouldn’t work.
Neo’s manifestation of Time was not geared towards going back in time.
It was suited for devouring time.
If he wanted to reach such a high mastery in Time that he could travel back in time, even with his Time manifestation, he would need to train for decades, maybe centuries, hopefully not a millennia.
The difficulty of going back in time was exponential.
Going back 1 year was hard.
Only talented Time mages could go back 2 years in time.
Going back 3 years was unheard of.
Going back 4 years could only be done by once-in-a-century geniuses.
Five years back? You had to be a genius and lucky not to be targeted by Time and Fate.
But a thousand years? It was impossible.
By the time Neo was capable of going back a few decades into the past, a thousand years might’ve gone by.
Instead of a pointless endeavor like this, he would rather train and try to become strong enough to kill the Angel.