The Quantum Path to Immortality

Aria smiled slightly and waited, observing from a distance.

The battle was cataclysmic. Each clash between student and serpent created shockwaves that propagated for thousands of miles. The dimension itself was groaning under the strain—reality warping, space cracking, time flowing inconsistently as their powers clashed.

Kieran unleashed his endless chain reaction technique—one attack that triggered infinite follow-ups, each explosion feeding into the next in an eternal cascade. The serpent was engulfed in a firestorm of infinite detonations that would have destroyed solar systems.

But it survived, roaring defiance. Its void energy consumed most of the damage.

Lyssa followed up with her efficiency-optimized strikes—minimal energy, maximum effect. Her blade, wreathed in condensed Law energy, carved through the serpent's defenses, leaving wounds that reality itself struggled to heal.

Jin deployed his continuous infinity technique—attacks that flowed without interruption, existing in all states simultaneously. His assault was like an ocean of power with no beginning or end, crashing against the serpent endlessly.

Finally, after ten minutes of reality-breaking combat that left the surrounding landscape completely devastated—mountains leveled, space shattered, dimensional barriers torn—Kieran landed a decisive blow.

His chain reaction technique overwhelmed the serpent's void core. The beast convulsed, its three-hundred-foot body thrashing and tearing holes in space-time, then collapsed with a final roar that echoed across dimensions.

The students cheered weakly, exhausted. An 800-point core materialized, glowing with concentrated Master-level energy.

That's when Aria stepped out of the devastated wasteland that used to be a forest.

"Nice fight," she said pleasantly. "You all worked together well."

Six pairs of eyes locked onto her. Recognition dawned.

"Aria Vance," Kieran said, straightening despite his exhaustion. "Come to congratulate us?"

"Come to take your points," Aria corrected.

Stunned silence.

"You're joking," Lyssa said flatly.

"I'm not. Hand over your point badges. All of you." Aria's tone remained pleasant, almost conversational.

Jin stepped forward, his expression cold. "There are six of us and one of you. Even if you're strong, those odds aren't favorable."

"The math is simple," Kieran agreed, his initial wariness shifting to confidence. "We don't want to hurt you, Aria. You're talented. But if you insist on this—"

"You'll try to stop me. I understand." Aria's smile didn't waver. "But you calculated wrong."

"How so?"

"You assumed six against one means you have the advantage." She released her suppression fully, letting her 50% Stage 2 Infinity Law aura wash over them like a physical force.

The effect was immediate and overwhelming.

Reality itself bent around Aria. Her aura didn't just pressure them—it rewrote the fundamental laws of the space they occupied. Gravity inverted and multiplied. Time slowed to a crawl for everyone except her. The ambient energy density increased ten-thousand-fold, becoming so thick it was almost solid.

All six students were driven to their knees. Some screamed. The weaker ones started bleeding from their eyes and ears as their bodies struggled to endure the pressure of being near someone operating at a fundamentally higher level of existence.

The ground beneath Aria's feet cracked, then shattered, then disintegrated completely. She floated in the air, her aura creating a sphere of warped space-time that made even looking at her difficult. Light bent around her. Dimensions folded. The very concept of "distance" became meaningless in her immediate vicinity.

"That's... that's Stage 2 Multiplicity at peak mastery?!" Kieran gasped, his Infinity Law comprehension allowing him to barely analyze what he was experiencing. "But you're the same age as us!"

"Father taught me well," Aria said simply. Her voice carried across dimensions, echoing in spaces that didn't exist a moment before. Then she moved.

It wasn't a fight. It was a cataclysm.

layers of reality simultaneously.

His trajectory carved a perfect line of destruction across the dimension—everything in his path was annihilated. Mountains vaporized. Space shattered. He passed through seventeen different dimensional layers before the combat dimension's safety measures finally caught him and teleported him out, unconscious but alive.

His point badge clattered to the ground, glowing faintly. Forfeited.

"One," Aria counted calmly.

The second student attacked in desperation while she was "distracted." He unleashed his strongest technique—a Multiplicity-based assault where one strike became a thousand, each one carrying city-destroying power.

Aria didn't even look at him. She simply raised her left hand, palm out.

All thousand strikes hit an invisible barrier and stopped. Not blocked—stopped. As if they'd struck the concept of "immovable" itself. Then the barrier pulsed.

A wave of pure Infinity Law energy exploded outward. Not a physical force—a conceptual one. The student and his techniques were simply rejected from this section of reality. He didn't fly backward or get thrown. He ceased to occupy this space, instantly relocated to a point ten thousand miles away, where he crashed into the dimension's outer boundary with enough force to crack it.

Teleported out. Badge dropped.

"Two."

The third student was smarter. She fell to her knees immediately, hands raised in surrender, point badge held out. "I yield! Take them! I'm not dying for this!"

"Wise choice," Aria acknowledged, accepting the badge.

That left Kieran, Lyssa, and Jin—the three strongest.

"Together!" Kieran commanded, desperation and determination mixing in his voice.

They attacked in perfect coordination, unleashing their most powerful techniques simultaneously.

Kieran's endless chain reaction exploded outward—infinite detonations cascading through space, each one powerful enough to destroy a continent. The chain reaction spread like wildfire, consuming everything in its path, creating a sphere of pure destruction that expanded at faster-than-light speeds.

Lyssa's efficiency-optimized strikes came from impossible angles—she'd bent space itself to attack from positions that shouldn't exist, her blade carrying condensed power that could split reality.

Jin deployed his continuous infinity technique—an ocean of power with no beginning or end, flowing in perfect circles, building momentum with each iteration until the force could crack dimensional barriers.

It was their ultimate combination attack. Against most Adepts, it would have been overwhelming. Against Masters, it would have been concerning.

Against Aria, it was insufficient.

She used a technique Father had taught her—Infinite Horizon Defense. An application of Stage 2 Multiplicity where she created countably infinite defensive layers, each one adaptive, each one learning from the others, all of them working in perfect synchronization.

The endless chain reaction hit her defense and... stopped. Each explosion was absorbed by a separate defensive layer, the energy recycled and used to strengthen the other layers. The chain reaction couldn't propagate because each detonation was isolated in its own defensive shell.

Lyssa's reality-splitting strikes found nothing to cut. Her blade passed through spaces where defensive layers shifted into different dimensional configurations, always finding emptiness, never finding Aria.

Jin's continuous infinity technique crashed against her defense like an ocean hitting an infinite dam. No matter how much power he poured in, no matter how endless his assault, the defensive layers simply adapted and multiplied faster than he could attack.

Aria stood in the center of the apocalyptic assault—explosions that could destroy worlds, strikes that could split dimensions, infinite power crashing against her from all directions—and she didn't move an inch. Didn't even seem concerned. Her hands remained clasped behind her back as her Infinite Horizon Defense handled everything automatically.

The assault continued for thirty seconds. The surrounding landscape for ten thousand miles in every direction was obliterated. Reality itself was screaming, dimensional barriers were failing, and the combat dimension's stability arrays were starting to fracture from the strain.

Then the three students ran out of energy.

"Are you three finished?" she asked politely.

They backed away, panting. The disparity was too obvious.

"How?" Lyssa demanded. "We're at 28-30% comprehension! You're only at 50%! That's not enough difference to explain this!"

"Comprehension is one factor," Aria explained. "Application is another. And I've had eighteen years of intensive training from a Sovereign. You've had... what? Normal academy instruction? Sect teachers?"

"That's not fair," Jin said quietly.