He unhesitatingly stepped into the Convergence again, just outside the Autarchy’s territory. With a firm gaze, he teleported to the place just a few meters above Bydrith. The Autarch instantly looked up, but he was just a bit too late. Liam’s Singularities instantaneously reached his forehead. Space was crushed. It shattered like glass before attempting to mend itself, being destroyed continuously by the storm of Aura and energy. Liam used his Will with only a single goal in mind: annihilating the opponent in front of him. His understanding of the Law of The Soul was used purely to negatively affect or extinguish the enemy’s spirit. Every fiber of his being desired to end this battle as soon as possible. Despite that, the Autarch held on. Immediately after being hit, the Dark Elf activated all of his defensive Supreme Techniques and swung his sword simultaneously. It was as if time had stopped. Liam looked at the slash. His body didn’t respond to him.

Liam could identify twelve Supreme Techniques imbued into the slash, seamlessly merged into something greater than the sum of its parts. It meant that, in addition to the defensive Supreme Techniques, the Autarch had more Techniques than what was publicly known. This thought only crossed Liam’s mind fleetingly before being buried under much more pressing matters. Namely, the power of the slash.

Even if Bydrith had hidden his most powerful Techniques and only used them now, it made no sense for this slash to be as powerful and fast as it was. In spite of Liam’s ability to perceive and move instantaneously, he felt as if he were being constrained by the incoming attack. Even teleporting out of the Convergence didn’t seem like an option. It was as if the blow were limiting his possible courses of action, and not just physically. Frankly speaking, Liam never expected an attack with twelve Supreme Techniques to be so much more powerful than one with eight. His thoughts ignored “speed” entirely, going back and forth in an instant.

Can I avoid this somehow?

Even if he could, so what? When he returned, all the Autarch had to do was swing his sword, making Liam retreat once more. Continuously retreating would get him nowhere. He needed to face this head-on if he wanted to win. But how? It was an attack that surpassed the scope of his calculations. He couldn’t think of a way to deal with it. Then, first, he should test its might. Liam’s Singularities curved, meeting the slash mid-way.

They broke apart almost immediately. Liam moved backwards in an instant, but the slash followed him all the same as if the distance between the two of them had never increased. It held a deep mastery of the Law of Space. Liam used the only resource available to him in this situation. He activated all of his Supreme Techniques with the Primordial Essence’s backing. As the Singularities hit the sword light, a change was immediately apparent. Now that he was actively using the Primordial Essence’s power, Liam managed to match the arcane sword swing for a short time. That amount of time was more than enough for Bydrith to cross the distance between them. Another slash, just like the one Liam was having so much trouble against, was executed, and then another. Liam gritted his teeth. Expanding back into himself would mean damage to his soul, but his Singularities couldn’t even deal with a single attack. He decisively teleported to the Endless Sea and sighed.

A month of training it is.

It would be more accurate to describe it as “studying,” but it mattered not. Distorting time around him to make the month go by as fast as possible, Liam began in earnest. He closed his eyes and focused his Perception. He felt himself becoming less human with each passing second, but he paid this no heed. He had already given up on his human emotions ever since the fight against Typhon and suffered part of the consequences of that decision. There was no need to hesitate now. As his knowledge about Laws grew and he got closer to creating another Supreme Technique, he felt his human emotions be even more suppressed.

Liam’s Inner World was calm and tranquil. The seas did not rage, and the cracks in the sky did not tremble. However, it was different, somehow. An arcane atmosphere filled the Inner World; it was as if the god of knowledge had dropped by, leaving behind untold secrets. These whispers and small insights gathered around Liam’s soul as if they were attracted by it. They merged with one another, creating longer strings of crude knowledge. Liam’s soul’s perception enveloped them, decoding their secrets and listening to their words. The secrets and insights appeared seemingly out of nowhere and endlessly. Liam absorbed all of them like a starving man who suddenly received an endless supply of food.

At a rate completely nonsensical to any other living being, Liam assimilated all of the insights he could perceive into all that he already knew. Instead of needing to find out where the new piece of knowledge fit in the puzzle, it automatically gravitated to its place. It was an extremely efficient process that broadened his horizons significantly by the second. As time started to pass, these changes accumulated. They weren’t only related to Laws but also to Technique comprehension. Liam’s Perception had grown to the point that doing both at the same time was possible.

I shouldn’t focus only on creating new Supreme Techniques. I should also strengthen and deepen my understanding of the ones I already have.

The Autarch had shown him this clearly. The slashes with only eight Supreme Techniques were capable of easily annihilating Typhon. A contest between Emperors wasn’t just about the number of Techniques but about their quality as well. It was only natural that some Techniques were more powerful than others. Liam needed to make his Techniques superior to that of all other Emperors. It was almost an obligation, given his Perception. How could he call himself the one existence with the highest comprehension if he couldn’t even use it to improve his Techniques?

Time began to pass.

By the end of the first week, Liam felt as if he had qualitatively changed. By the end of the second week, this feeling intensified. During the third week, he felt as if he had entered a lull. The whispers of knowledge suddenly went quiet as if he had reached his limit. In spite of that, he continued deliberating on whatever he could. When the influx of new knowledge ceased, he turned to the knowledge he had already acquired. He looked at it from different angles, compared other areas, and tried to merge them. By assuming that he already had all the tools that he needed to break through this plateau, he reveled in his knowledge, considering everything possible. It was as if everything he knew was a moldable piece of clay that he was busy working on. He changed its shape, density, size, how the different pieces interconnected, everything. The only thing that remained the same was the content. He couldn’t acquire new knowledge, and didn’t discard anything, no matter how seemingly useless. Every bit of information was pushed to its absolute limit.

It was at the end of the fourth week that he broke through. It was as if he had been met with a world full of fresh air after drowning for lifetimes. It was incomparable to anything he had ever felt. Even though his Perception hadn’t increased at all, the changes were so significant that, for a moment, he wondered if it had doubled. He had ascended to a level he had never reached before, one that he hadn’t even glimpsed. It had happened after one mere month of training. As expected, abandoning his humanity increased the effects of Perception exponentially. If he had a century or two, he was confident that he could become more powerful than Clyranth.

Liam dismissed the temporal distortion around himself. Only a few minutes had gone by in universal time. He was now a completely different being. Not only had he managed to create more Supreme Techniques and improve his Law comprehension, but his Skills and Techniques had developed as a whole. One of his Supreme Techniques, Aura Lord, which used to be an Active Skill, also supported all of the others. He was incomparable to before. Liam spoke to himself.

“Alright. Let’s end this quickly.”

One year and five months. It was the time he had. He didn’t know if it would be enough, so he needed to move quickly and decisively.

Hiding his presence to the best of his newfound ability, Liam teleported inside the Autarchy’s territory, locating the Autarch immediately. Bydrith was just a few thousand kilometers away from where their last exchange had happened. Liam crossed the distance between them, piercing forward with unprecedented might. As the Autarch moved his hand and attempted to swing his sword in response, the atmosphere shifted. A grim expression made its way onto Bydrith’s face. Liam’s spear cleanly pierced through his chest. The enemy was frozen in spacetime as if he had become a statue.

It was the effect of having complete mastery over spacetime. With his superior Law comprehension, Liam had frozen Bydrith in time and space, making him unable to execute whatever prized sword arts the Dark Elf possessed. That didn’t mean that the Autarch had become completely unable to react. A grey half-moon materialized mere centimeters in front of Liam’s face and slashed forward. The Autarch was executing his Supreme Techniques exclusively with his mind.

Liam grinned slightly and instantaneously appeared kilometers behind the frozen enemy. This distance was reduced to naught as his spear pierced forward. The spear made of golden light skewered the Dark Elf again, damaging his soul and making him grunt. As this happened, Liam’s mind was completely clear. All emotions and thoughts were minimized. All that remained was how to kill his enemy in the most efficient way possible.