Chapter 455 Gluttony · Primordial—Infinite Strikes

"How naive of you, Hulim."

Irus shook a finger at her, her tone teasing yet firm.

"Precisely because this power is so extraordinary, you can never escape the fate of wielding it. So instead of waiting for these forces to come knocking on your door someday, bringing nothing but trouble, it’s far better to master them now, while the world is still at peace."

"Besides—when you’ve used this power before, have you ever suffered any adverse effects from it?"

"Hmm... I suppose you’re right."

Thinking back to the Primordial Fury she already commanded—at first, even the slightest leakage of its power had shaken an entire mountain range. Yet once she’d tamed it, it had never harmed her in the least. In fact, it seemed to resonate with her own emotions.

"Actually..."

At that moment, Irus’s voice softened, dropping to a near whisper as if she were speaking to herself.

"There’s another reason too... a rather selfish one, I’m afraid."

"?" Hulim frowned, staring at her in confusion. "Why would you say that?"

Irus met Hulim’s gaze, her emerald eyes serious for the first time.

"Because the Demon Lord has already descended upon this world."

Hulim froze.

Right.

The world was teetering on the brink of disaster......

One wrong step, and everything would be lost to irreversible ruin.

For Irus—who truly wished to protect this world—she would seize any chance, no matter how slim, to turn the tide of battle. Even if that chance lay in the hands of beings shrouded in mystery.

For now, at least, this power would be an invaluable ally.

Just like the ancestors before her—they must have felt uneasy about this power too. But they chose to trust that, for the sake of this world, embracing it was not a curse... but a necessity.

Because this world was in desperate need of strength.

But—

Irus......

Hulim stared silently at the elf before her, her thoughts unspoken.

This isn’t a burden you have to bear alone......

"I know what I have to do."

Hulim lifted her feet and stepped onto the narrow path leading to the island in the lake’s center.

As she turned her back to Irus, she spoke over her shoulder.

"Irus—that’s not a selfish reason at all."

"......"

......

The path to the island was barely wide enough for one person, too narrow for two to walk side by side.

On either side, the mirror-smooth lake surface glowed with blue light, reflecting Hulim’s figure perfectly, as if there were two of her walking toward the temple.

She came to a halt at the island’s edge.

A barrier blocked her way forward.

She raised her right hand and touched the barrier gently.

Hum.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A ring of light rippled outward from her palm, spreading across the entire barrier.

Then—

Swish......

The barrier dissolved into a shower of ethereal light particles, scattering into the air above the lake. The mirror water reflected the countless glimmers, wrapping the entire island in the illusion of a starlit cosmos.

And now, there was nothing left between Hulim and the temple......

The interior of the temple was exactly as she remembered it.

At its center stood the same pitch-black monolith she had seen before.

Hum......

As if sensing her arrival, the monolith—silent for untold ages—began to hum and resonate, emitting a faint, pulsating glow.

Beneath the light, strange, ancient runes flickered in and out of sight, twisting like living things.

The power already coursing through Hulim’s veins stirred in response, thrumming in harmony with the monolith’s vibration.

Hulim took a deep breath, steadying her resolve.

She stepped forward and stood before the monolith.

Then she reached out her right hand once more.

Plop~.

Her fingers made contact with the stone, and ripples spread across its surface, like a drop of water falling into a calm pond.

A flood of colossal runes surged into her mind, accompanied by a surge of power that made her grunt softly—but it was not an unpleasant sensation.

This time, she was more than ready to bear the impact of such power merging with her own.

At the same time—

A familiar scene unfolded before her eyes once again......

A realm of profound, endless darkness.

A place abandoned by time and space, existing only in the depths of dreams.

Having witnessed this once before, Hulim did not startle.

Drawing on her memory of the last time, she tilted her head "upward"—following an instinct she could not explain.

Sure enough.

There, floating in the void above her, was a single star.

An orange star.

Before she could gaze at it any longer, the star began to change.

An eye opened within its glowing core.

Then a beam of light shot down from the eye, piercing straight through her body.

A bone-chilling cold swept over her, making her shiver involuntarily—but it was quickly replaced by an insatiable hunger, unlike anything she had ever felt before, gnawing at her very core.

And an ancient incantation, beyond the bounds of mortal language, slowly etched itself into her mind. Its true name echoed through her soul......

【Gluttony · Primordial—Infinite Strikes】.

As the ability fully integrated into her body, a sudden sense of weightlessness washed over her.

Hulim blinked—and the orange eye above her was gone.

Then her body began to plummet downward......

In the blink of an eye, she was back inside the temple.

The space before her was empty. The Forbidden Monolith that had stood there moments ago had vanished completely, its power now a part of her—forged into the ability known as Infinite Strikes.

Hulim glanced around, still feeling a faint sense of unreality.

She lowered her gaze to her hands, whispering the true name of the power she had just claimed.

"Infinite Strikes......"

As she spoke, the full scope of its abilities unfolded in her mind.

And in that instant, she was left utterly stunned.

Her first ability, Annihilation Divine Light, represented the pinnacle of destructive power.

It had always felt too abstract to her—she had never truly grasped what "absolute destruction" truly meant. But this new power, Primordial Gluttony, was terrifyingly concrete.

Infinite Strikes.

Effect 1: Breaks the limits of mortal mana capacity. After acquiring this ability, the user’s maximum mana pool increases continuously, every second of every minute. Additionally, all conventional methods of increasing mana efficiency are amplified exponentially—with no upper limit to its growth.

Effect 2: Drastically accelerates mana regeneration. Furthermore, the lower the user’s current mana reserve, the faster their mana replenishes itself.

Effect 3: Removes the cap on spell stacking. The user can channel an unlimited amount of mana into any spell, boosting its power infinitely and ignoring all inherent restrictions of the original spell.

"......"

There was no denying it—this ability was easy to understand.

And that was precisely why Hulim finally realized just how terrifying the Forbidden Powers truly were.

With this single ability alone, she now possessed unlimited mana.

Unlimited mana......

This was a realm far beyond the reach of any mortal being.

What’s more, when she examined the three effects closely, she saw that they complemented each other perfectly, forming an unbreakable positive feedback loop.

Effect 1 ensured that Effect 3 would only grow stronger—for as her maximum mana increased, so too did the amount of mana she could stack into any spell.

Effect 2 transformed Effect 3 from a one-time burst ability into a power she could wield continuously, without ever exhausting her reserves.

Most importantly, Effect 3 allowed her to maximize the potential of Effect 2—and the more she used Effect 3, the faster her mana capacity would grow via Effect 1, which in turn amplified Effect 3 even further.

Together, the three effects created a cycle that would push her mana limits to unimaginable heights at an ever-accelerating rate!

A spark of curiosity ignited within her.

Hulim decided to test it out.

"Enhancement——"

BOOM!

In the blink of an eye, her entire body was engulfed in a brilliant white light, turning her into a luminous figure.

Hulim stared at her glowing hands in shock.

A simple, ordinary Second-Tier Spell—Enhancement—when amplified by Infinite Strikes, had reached the power level of a Sixth-Tier Spell!

It was true that the power of a spell varied depending on the skill of the caster.

But there was one universal rule in the world of magic: no matter how skilled the caster, a low-tier spell could never match the power of a high-tier spell of the same rank as the caster themselves.

Yet now, that unbreakable rule had been shattered—right here, right now—in her hands.

From this moment on, any spell she cast could be a Sixth-Tier Spell.

Or even stronger......