"Yeah, that about sums things up," Seth confirmed casually, resuming his forward movement.
With each step Seth took, Evelin found herself forced backward despite every ounce of strength she channeled into her weapon. Her feet scraped and slid across the ground, leaving deep furrows in the earth as she was pushed back against her will. The harder she pressed, the more futile her efforts became.
"Y-you're only a tier 1!" she cried out, her voice cracking with disbelief. She was unable—no, completely unwilling—to accept that reality could function this way.
In desperation, she threw one arm skyward, calling upon the celestial power above. Brilliant rays of pure moonlight descended from the heavens, responding to her summons. The luminous energy flowed into her body, dramatically strengthening her physical capabilities and magical reserves.
"Your arrogance will be your doom!" she declared, her voice rising to a fevered pitch as she channeled every fragment of available power into her body.
As if responding to the intensity of her emotions and the direness of her situation, the enchanted gear she wore—which had been carefully sealing away a portion of its true power to prevent it from overwhelming her—released those restrictions. The seal shattered like breaking glass, and raw energy flooded through her system. Her combat power surged upward once more, climbing until it reached an impressive 1,710,000.
Drawing upon absolutely everything she possessed, Evelin condensed all of that overwhelming power into a single devastating attack. An arrow forged from concentrated moonlight materialized in the air, crackling with barely contained energy. At a velocity that exceeded the speed of light itself, the projectile launched forward and appeared instantly before Seth's position.
And then it stopped. Just like everything else, it froze in place at the last possible second, completely unable to reach him.
"Your attack can be as fast as you want it to be, but nothing can reach me," Seth explained patiently, though his smile had shifted into something different—something more complex and knowing. "But I'll admit, that was smart thinking. Channeling all your available power to launch an attack that focused purely on overwhelming speed rather than brute force."
But that smile wasn't merely one of simple approval. This arrow contained something far more dangerous than conventional destructive power—it carried the fundamental concept of death itself within its structure. The attack was actively attempting to drain the energy directly from his Nexus Barrier, trying to find any weakness or gap in its defenses.
Beyond that, the arrow simultaneously assaulted the barrier with multiple conceptual attacks: death, darkness, decay, and numerous other esoteric forces all working in concert to penetrate his protection. This allowed the arrow to slowly move towards him, instead of stopping completely
Breathing heavily from the exertion, sweat streaming down her face beneath her helmet, Evelin stared at Seth with a mixture of frustration and awe. Her eyes were fixed on the arrow that hovered before him, although it was moving, it was too slow.
When Seth calmly stepped aside, moving out of the arrow's direct path, the projectile immediately resumed its trajectory. Its speed was so incomprehensible that it appeared to simply vanish—not gradually disappearing into the distance, but blinking out of existence like a glitch in the fabric of reality itself.
The next moment, the planet shuddered violently beneath their feet. An explosion of pure death energy erupted at the point of impact, a catastrophic detonation whose shockwaves could be felt clearly across tens of thousands of miles in every direction. The blast radius was apocalyptic in scale.
Fortunately for all life on this world, the planet itself was massive beyond normal comprehension—large enough to absorb such devastation without complete annihilation. Had this attack struck a smaller, more ordinary world, the entire planetary body would have been shattered into cosmic debris.
"That attack might cause some serious problems with the nearby kingdoms," Seth remarked with an easy smile, casually sliding his hands into his pockets as he continued walking toward her with unhurried steps. "But regardless, I didn't come here to fight."
"I came to form an alliance," he continued, his tone pleasant and diplomatic. "So, where can I meet your king?"
The request left Evelin frowning deeply, her brow furrowing as she processed his words. Despite everything that had just transpired—despite the overwhelming display of power and the casual way he'd dismissed her strongest attack—she found herself trusting Seth on some fundamental level.
The one thing she understood about him with absolute certainty was that he possessed immense arrogance, yes, but that arrogance was backed by genuine capability. Just as she opened her mouth to respond to his question, however, another presence made itself known.
The elf king materialized before them without warning.
"What type of alliance are you seeking?" the King asked, his voice measured and authoritative. He had been secretly observing everything from a hidden vantage point, watching the entire confrontation unfold, and had chosen this precise moment to reveal himself.
"Simple terms, really," Seth replied with an air of casual confidence. "You help me, and I help you in return. I'll be staying in this world for six months, and during that time, I want you to consider me a full member of your empire—with all the rights, protections, and benefits that entails. Then, once I return to my own world, we can explore the possibility of forming a formal bond between our two empires. A mutually beneficial arrangement."
The proposal hung in the air between them for a moment before the King responded.
"Shall we form a Universe Oath?" the King asked, his expression serious and contemplative.
The question completely confused Seth, who had never encountered such a concept before. His bewilderment must have shown clearly on his face, because the King proceeded to explain the nature of a Universe Oath—a binding contract held with the universe itself serving as witness and enforcer.
It was an agreement of absolute certainty, impossible to break without severe consequences. However, each individual could only invoke a single Universe Oath throughout their entire existence, with that limitation increasing by one additional oath per tier achieved.
The weight and permanence of such a commitment became immediately clear to Seth.
{Name: Ray Moonlight
Race: [Royal Dark Elf]
Talent: [Moonlight King (A Tier)
Title: [King Of the Moonlight Empire], [Born Ruler]
Tier: 7 Tier (1,000,000/500,000,000,000 XP)
Combat Power: 500,000 (+75% Gear/x5 Within territory/ )}
"Then let's proceed with it," Seth agreed after a moment's consideration, though he added a crucial caveat. "But I'm not wasting my own oath on this arrangement."
The King's eyes narrowed slightly at Seth's condition, a flicker of calculation passing across his features as he weighed the implications. After a tense pause, he nodded slowly in acceptance. The King raised his hand and began the formal ritual, bind himself and Seth to it's terms to its terms
***
"999,997, 999,998. 999,999… one million!" Seth roared, his voice echoing through the training chamber before he hurled the massive weight he'd been holding to the side.
The metal crashed against the stone floor with a thunderous impact that shook the entire room. Breathing heavily, his body drenched in sweat that soaked through every layer of clothing, Seth pushed himself upright into a sitting position. His gaze immediately found Evelin, who stood framed in the doorway, watching him with narrowed, scrutinizing eyes.
"Is this all you do?" she asked softly, her tone carrying a note of disbelief mixed. "Train nonstop, without rest or pause?"
It had been exactly one week since Seth first arrived in this world, and he had wasted absolutely no time before throwing himself into brutal training regimens. He'd commissioned specialized weights to be forged for him—enchanted equipment capable of magically increasing their mass to accommodate his growing strength—and had immediately gotten to work pushing himself beyond normal limits.
Seth's approach to training was utterly ruthless, bordering on self-destructive. He set the weights so impossibly heavy that they literally shattered his bones under the crushing pressure, fracturing his skeletal structure with each repetition.
But his enhanced healing factor allowed his body to repair itself with remarkable speed, which meant he could repeat this agonizing cycle over and over again without pause. The result was that his combat power had been skyrocketing at an unprecedented rate, climbing higher with each passing day.
"What else is there to do?" Seth replied with a casual shrug, as if the answer should be obvious. "Everything I want will remain out of reach until I become the strongest. Speaking of which, how are things proceeding with the matter of you attacking that other region?"
Last week, Evelin's moonlight arrow—the one Seth had dodged—had continued traveling at impossible speeds until it eventually crashed down in a neighboring territory. The devastating impact had naturally caused that kingdom to demand immediate answers and explanations for the unprovoked assault.
The situation had grown tense quickly. Due to the fact that the neighboring rulers had no concrete idea who possessed an archer capable of launching such an impossibly fast and devastatingly powerful projectile, they were pushing diplomatic boundaries hard.
Their aggression was fueled primarily by fear—terror that someone of overwhelming strength had been born or had arrived in this territory, someone who could threaten their own power structures.