Monroe narrowed his eyes slightly, his voice low and cold:

  “We, the Shadow Tribunal, are the chosen. This Earth was always meant to be ruled by us. Seraphine’s appearance changes nothing—it’s already time to purge the inferior races.”

  He turned to the contemplative Tom. “I believe the Tribunal feels the same. Otherwise, how do you explain half a century of funneling 500 billion annually into the Doomsday Shelter Initiative?

  So be prepared. Be ready to launch world-ending nuclear strikes at any moment. When the 【Crucial Moment】 comes—do not hesitate, and do not fear.

  If we can’t ensure that this world belongs to us... then let it burn. Better to reduce it all to radioactive ash than to let it fall into the hands of lesser beings.”

  “Hoo—Alright.”

  Tom let out a long sigh, his eyes full of shadows as he nodded. “Understood. Then... Mr. Monroe, what about Seraphine? Do you have a plan?”

  “No need to rush. The nuclear annihilation protocol is merely a last resort—odds are we won’t even need it.”

  Monroe tapped the armrest of the sofa lightly, smiling as if it were all a game. “Strategically, yes, we must treat Seraphine with the utmost seriousness. But tactically... perhaps I can handle her myself.”

  As he spoke, an eerie glint flickered in his eyes.

  There, in the Gray Palace, Monroe quietly invoked his most arcane and enigmatic superpower—Laocoon’s Eye.

  Skill Effect:

  Upon activation, the user’s conscious projection can leap forward and merge with their own future mind at any moment within the next 120 hours (five days).

  This is not a symbolic glimpse of future possibilities, but a literal traversal into future spacetime—allowing the user to directly experience what’s to come.

  Once there, the user can either:

  ? Permanently overwrite their current consciousness to continue existing in that future timeline (but will lose all memories of the skipped period),

  or

  ? Stay temporarily, gather detailed information, then leap back precisely to the moment of activation in the past.

  By wielding this power, Monroe had spent a lifetime sidestepping countless disasters, outmaneuvering formidable foes, and securing an unbroken legacy of victory.

  And now, he was about to wield it against Seraphine.

  Buzz—

  The ability activated.

  Everything around Monroe—the couch, the walls, even Tom—began to blur, distort, and dissolve into nothingness.

  In an instant, his consciousness was severed from the 【Present】.

  He leapt.

  Hurtling straight toward the 【Future】—120 hours ahead.

  There, he intended to investigate Seraphine’s actions firsthand, gather intelligence, and design the most meticulous strategy for eliminating her.

  Buzz—

  In a blink, Monroe’s awareness snapped into focus.

  He had arrived.

  The future—five days later.

  “Hm? What is this…?”

  To his shock, everything around him was darkness. A void. Nothing remained.

  Monroe’s heart clenched.

  He had seen this before—far too many times.

  This void always meant one thing:

  In five days, he would be dead.

  “What… How?!”

  Suspended in the abyss, his projected consciousness trembled with disbelief.

  “Other than that ancient freak from the Secret Society... who else could kill me? Seraphine?”

  He searched his memory.

  For centuries, there had been no one—no one—capable of truly killing him.

  He was, after all, armed with regeneration, self-healing, even resurrection.

  Unless someone detonated a nuclear warhead in his face without warning—

  No existing weapon could kill him.

  Nothing could even harm him.

  “I have so many powers... so many safeguards... Who could it be? How is this possible...?”

  Confused and deeply rattled, Monroe immediately reversed the jump, his consciousness snapping back to five days earlier.

  “Mr. Monroe, you…”

  Monroe opened his eyes slowly, meeting Leader Tom’s concerned gaze with a calm, calculated smile.

  “No need to be alarmed, Mr. Leader. I’ve found a way to deal with Seraphine.”

  He rose from his seat. “However, I’ll need to make a few... intricate preparations first. If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Uh…”

  Tom looked up at him, momentarily surprised, then nodded. “Alright, Mr. Monroe. I won’t keep you…”

  Whoosh—

  Before he could finish his sentence, Monroe vanished into thin air.

  “…Okay then.”

  Tom blinked, a bit bored, and gave a small shrug.

  Just then, a staff member of the Gray Palace entered after knocking. Walking up beside him, the man leaned in and whispered:

  “Mr. Leader, you’re scheduled to attend the bicentennial celebration of the Capital City Grand Museum later. Your speech has been finalized.”

  Tom casually brushed his bangs aside. “Ah, right. I remember. Okay, I’ll head out soon.”

  South Pacific, Madek Trench.

  Ten thousand meters beneath the ocean surface, inside a massive base buried under crushing seawater pressure, Monroe suddenly materialized—his body having traversed thousands of li through super-psionic transmission.

  His expression remained calm, but there was an unmistakable trace of unease in his eyes.

  “Who killed me…?”

  Still gripped by this question, Monroe stepped into a room echoing with smooth jazz.

  It was a bar—his private one—nestled deep within the base.

  The white-suited bartender, who had been polishing a glass lazily, startled upon seeing Monroe, then straightened and bowed respectfully.

  “Boss. Good evening.”

  Monroe gave a brief nod. “Mm. One Imperial Deer Praise.”

  It was a rare vintage brandy.

  The bartender quickly moved to retrieve the bottle and poured him a glass.

  Monroe took it, settled into the music, and began to sip slowly.

  He wasn’t exactly indifferent to the vision of his death, but panic would get him nowhere. Laocoon’s Eye required an hour-long cooldown between uses.

  So, all he could do now—was drink, think, and wait.

  Dozens of minutes passed.

  Monroe finally set the empty glass down. The eerie glow returned to his eyes.

  Laocoon’s Eye—activated again.

  This time, he chose to leap 72 hours ahead—three days into the future.

  Buzz—

  His consciousness surged forward—

  Only to awaken again to the same darkness.

  Still the void. Still nothing.

  It wasn’t five days later.

  It was three.

  And he would be dead.

  “…Damn it!”

  He snapped back to the present once more.

  Brushing past the politely smiling bartender without a word, Monroe exited the bar. His steps echoed down a long, sterile corridor as he walked deeper into the base, a shadow of melancholy flickering across his face.

  Eventually, he arrived at a secluded laboratory.

  Inside, at the center of the room, lay a powerfully built white man, sleeping in artificial stasis atop an operating table.

  This was none other than Catastrophe Star—Saloyan Atley.

  Towering beside the operating table was a massive, strange machine, covered in arcane circuitry and shifting metallic patterns.

  The Abraham Machine.

  A device Seraphine had long been curious about—but had never managed to obtain.

  As for why Saloyan now lay in this suspended state—

  It was because Monroe intended to harvest his superpower genes and corresponding superpowered organ tissues using the Abraham Machine...

  In order to implant them directly into himself.

  The so-called Hexagram was originally a select group of rare superpower 【Hosts】—painstakingly cultivated by Monroe through brutal, almost Gu-style refinement methods.

  Through this very process—and with the help of the Abraham Machine—Monroe evolved from a man with just three abilities: Laocoon’s Eye, telekinesis, and immortality…

  Into a superpowered overlord wielding dozens.

  “Alas—”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Monroe slowly approached the sleeping Saloyan, bent down beside him, and said coolly:

  “Your fellow companions… Their abilities may not have been as rare as yours, but Seraphine slaughtered them all the same. What a shame.”

  “But thankfully, you’re still intact. And your 【Annihilation Breath】—still within you. Otherwise, I’d have taken a significant loss.”

  He paused, a slight twinge of regret in his voice.

  “Only Sorren… tsk. That woman. A pity—I quite liked her.”

  With a soft sigh, Monroe turned and began operating the Abraham Machine.

  As he moved with practiced speed, the surgical table holding Saloyan began to tremble slightly. Then, following hidden tracks embedded in the floor, it slid slowly toward the massive machine.

  Seconds ticked by.

  Once the table arrived before the Abraham Machine, the device shuddered—and then unfolded.

  Like some mechanical kraken, dozens—hundreds—of mechanical arms burst forth in synchronized motion. Each gleamed with dense, glowing threads of light. They surged forward and engulfed both Saloyan and the surgical table completely.

  Next, a segment of the colossal machine split open. From within, more tendrils emerged—folding and weaving into the shape of a strange ‘bed,’ over three meters long.

  Its appearance was eerie.

  But Monroe, having undergone this procedure dozens of times before, showed no sign of discomfort. With a blank expression, he lay down in the cradle-like formation.

  Over the centuries, the Hexagram had not emerged only once.

  There had been many generations.

  In the beginning, each new generation produced a remarkable superpowered “fruit” that delighted Monroe.

  But as time wore on—

  Decades, centuries passed.

  Monroe acquired more and more powers:

  Psychokinesis, self-healing, regeneration, resurrection, immortality, Laocoon’s Eye, super-psionic transmission, weather control, lightning manipulation, flame manipulation, low-temperature fields, intangibility, super strength, super stamina, steel physique, rubber body, kinetic energy absorption, thermal absorption, electric absorption, energy manipulation, molecular control, telepathy, empathy, life force deprivation, lifespan bestowal, illusion casting, limb detachment, hyper-frequency brain activity, force field generation, toxin immunity, high-density energy storage, hypnosis, information symbiosis, and consciousness digitalization.

  And as he grew stronger, his appetite grew… sharper.

  He no longer desired everything.

  Only the exceptional.

  In recent years, few powers caught his eye—maybe one or two per generation.

  This generation’s standout: Saloyan Atley, the Catastrophe Star.

  The power that intrigued Monroe most:

  Annihilation Breath.

  Annihilation Breath: By generating a unique oscillating field, the user can fire a beam that continuously disrupts the outer electron interactions in atomic structures—effectively dismantling all covalent bonds in matter.

  When struck by Annihilation Breath, all solid and liquid matter in nature collapses into a chaotic soup of unbound atoms. No physical body—no creature of flesh and blood—can survive. Even telekinetic barriers are shredded in an instant.

  As the cradle closed around him, Monroe muttered under his breath with a faint smirk:

  “I’d like to see who can kill me now.”

  Rumble—

  With a deep mechanical hum, the Abraham Machine powered on.

  Nearly an hour passed.

  Then, the operation concluded.

  Mechanical arms withdrew. The metallic bed unfurled again, and Monroe sat up.

  Before him, Saloyan’s mangled body was rolled out on the surgical table—crushed and mutilated by the power extraction process.

  Coldly, Monroe muttered:

  “You’re useless now.”

  Raising one hand, he activated Annihilation Breath.

  With a sudden exhalation, a radiant beam of iridescent light shot from his mouth—cutting through the air toward the half-dead Saloyan.

  Thump~

  A soft, eerie sound.

  The moment the beam made contact, Saloyan—and the table beneath him—twisted violently, collapsed inward, and melted into a shimmering, luminous fluid.

  That puddle—dimly glowing—spread across the floor.

  All signs of life, gone.

  Monroe didn’t spare it another glance.

  Instead, he activated Laocoon’s Eye once more.

  The third temporal leap began.

  This time, he targeted 48 hours into the future.

  Monroe inhaled sharply, hyper-focused.

  He had to uncover the identity of the one who could kill him.

  Buzz—

  He emerged.

  And this time, to his surprise—

  He was still here.

  Still in the laboratory.

  It wasn’t darkness.

  "Hoo ~"

  He exhaled slowly, quietly.

  "It seems that unknown enemy..."

  But Monroe suddenly froze.

  Something was wrong.

  The Primis (Ether) concentration around him—

  It was far too high!

  "What the—?!"

  It felt as if the very air around him was vibrating, surging with torrents of Primis.

  Every cell in Monroe’s body was trembling, groaning—awash in such overwhelming comfort, it bordered on the verge of explosion.

  He forcibly suppressed the waves surging within his chest, narrowing his senses to fully perceive the ecstatic, flowing currents of Primis engulfing the space.

  He quickly ran a mental calculation—estimating the density spike.

  Just seconds later, Monroe gasped in disbelief:

  "At least... ten thousand times!"

  "But how—how is this possible?! A second Primis outburst?! And it's ten thousand times stronger?!"

  "No... no, no, no. The first surge already amplified Earth's ambient Primis levels by over a hundredfold. This time... ten thousand times?! This defies all logic!"

  But Monroe didn’t feel relief or excitement.

  Instead, a creeping dread gripped his heart.

  His mind latched onto a horrifying possibility.

  He suddenly recalled that ancient aberration—the thousand-year-old monster from the Eliondra Secret Society.

  Could it be that this overwhelming surge of Primis...

  Had finally pushed the concentration past the critical threshold—

  Allowing that thing to move freely once more?

  Could it now awaken from its abyssal slumber, tear across continents, punch through the reinforced defenses of this deep-sea fortress, and kill him outright?

  "Damn it."

  Monroe abruptly stood, pacing with growing agitation.

  "That ancient freak... even Laocoon’s Eye’s timeline warps can’t stop him. None of my trump cards work against something like him!"

  "What the hell do I do now?!"

  Just as the fear threatened to spill over—

  CLANG —— CLANG ——

  A deep, thunderous vibration rocked the entire undersea base.

  The tremors were so intense that the entire massive steel structure—embedded into the continental shelf thousands of meters below sea level—began swaying from side to side.

  CRACK CRACK CRACK—SCREEEEECH!!!

  Deafening, metallic shrieks echoed from the outer hull.

  Monroe’s mental power surged outward—and what he "saw" froze him in place.

  The entire exterior layer of the base—from top to bottom—walls several meters thick, forged from reinforced alloy, were now folding inward like damp paper.

  They were being violently crushed from the outside—

  By some immense, invisible force.

  In that brief moment, it felt as if a giant hand had plunged into the ten-thousand-meter-deep abyss...

  And was now slowly curling its fingers—

  Wrapping the entire base in its crushing grip.

  "Telekinesis!!"

  Monroe recognized it instantly, stunned.

  Who—who on Earth could possibly exert such telekinetic power?

  To compress a deep-sea fortress hundreds of meters wide... as if it were nothing?

  Before he could even finish the thought, that vast, boundless telekinetic force suddenly surged inside the base.

  It moved with terrifying precision—

  Ignoring every other lifeform, object, or structure—

  Locking onto Monroe alone.

  It swept in like a black tide, crashing down from every direction, as if the entire universe had turned its crushing focus on him.

  Not even a second passed.

  The overwhelming force enveloped him entirely—

  And began compressing, tearing, and annihilating his body—

  On a cellular level.

  In the blink of an eye—

  Monroe was pulverized into dust.

  What self-healing, regeneration, resurrection—

  Under the opponent’s titanic and utterly incomprehensible telekinetic force, all of it was meaningless.

  “Argh, argh, damn it!!”

  Monroe’s soul let out a tormented scream as it burst from the mangled heap of bloody dust that used to be his body. Just as he was preparing to burn over half his soul-body to escape from his soul core—

  That monstrous telekinetic force, now saturating the entire deep-sea base, suddenly withdrew.

  From within it, an overwhelming and suffocating spiritual power surged forth.

  It instantly locked onto his disoriented and terrified soul.

  Then—

  It compressed him into a minuscule orb...

  And swallowed him whole.

  “Damn it! That was way too fast!”

  Monroe's eyes snapped open, fury flashing in them.

  “If I had been fully prepped, fully combat-ready—there’s no way you could’ve killed me that fast!”

  For someone like Monroe—a superpower user with dozens of overlapping abilities—full activation required precision. His powers needed to be awakened one by one in a specific sequence; otherwise, they’d clash and cause catastrophic internal damage.

  He forcefully suppressed his frustration, closed his eyes, and sat back in the circular command chair—grim and silent, waiting.

  One hour passed.

  Then Monroe’s eyes opened again. Calm, deadly.

  He reactivated Laocoon’s Eye, initiating a timeline jump.

  Buzz —

  This time, he jumped back several hours earlier than the previous event.

  He now had time.

  Time to fully activate every last power he possessed—no shortcuts, no holding back.

  This time, he would face his enemy in perfect form.

  “Inhale ~ Exhale——”

  He drew in a deep breath. His eyes shimmered with icy focus.

  First came the activation of his self-healing, regeneration, and resurrection systems—the core of his survivability. Once deployed, even if his body were shredded into a mist of blood, it could reassemble in seconds.

  Next: his Steel and Rubber Dual-Form physique.

  Unbreakable hardness like Carbyne. Unmatched elasticity rivaling hyper-elastic synthetic rubber.

  To reinforce this, he activated auxiliary molecular control, restructuring every molecule in his body into a cohesive, interlinked fortress—amplifying his physical durability to absurd levels.

  In this form, conventional weapons of war—even the most advanced—were virtually useless against him.

  Then came kinetic energy absorption, electrical energy absorption, and thermal energy absorption—fully unleashed.

  Even if struck by a hundred simultaneous cruise missile impacts, he could absorb all the energy in a single breath, storing it in his internal super energy core.

  Next, he deployed his force field shield and telekinetic field at full output.

  This layered defense had once allowed Monroe to tank a direct hit from a Cloud Burst Bomb at point-blank range—

  And walk away unscathed.

  Buzz, buzz, buzz—

  The air trembled as he activated Annihilation Breath, setting it to continuous operation.

  He would wield Dragon’s Breath as his spear—

  Turning offense into defense.

  His plan: overwhelm the incoming telekinetic wave before it could reach him.

  And finally—

  He primed his Super Psionic Transmission—capable of teleportation across half a planet—into a semi-activated standby.

  His contingency.

  If the battle became unwinnable—he’d retreat.

  No, not retreat.

  Strategic withdrawal.

  In this fully deployed state, Monroe’s physical strength exceeded a million tons.

  His layered defenses formed a fortress that could even withstand a direct hit from a high-yield nuclear strike.

  He was ready.

  Even if that ancient entity from the Secret Society emerged again—

  It wouldn’t be able to kill him easily.

  He maintained the activation sequence, stabilizing all systems.

  Outside, the Primis field began to stir.

  It surged violently, its density spiking upward in a wave of power.

  “Is this the Primis outburst? Theoretically, that mysterious enemy will descend soon.”

  Monroe narrowed his focus, tracking the atmospheric changes. His body’s systems adjusted automatically as power levels shifted.

  But then—

  “No… wait. It’s only a hundred times? Wasn’t it supposed to be ten thousand? That’s... odd.”

  BOOM!!!

  The already-rioting Primis suddenly exploded into chaos.

  Another wave. Then another. Each one stronger than the last.

  Several times. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands.

  It hit him like thunder:

  This wasn’t just a Primis surge.

  It was a double outburst—a second and third phase descending simultaneously.

  Monroe stared into the air, breath shallow.

  And muttered—

  “The world… is about to descend into chaos.”

  Buzz buzz buzz——

  Time surged forward.

  Clang clang clang clang——

  Just like before, the deep-sea base began to shake violently.

  With metallic groans echoing from its outer hull, a colossal telekinetic force erupted from all directions—bearing down straight on Monroe.

  He muttered under his breath:

  "It’s here."

  In that instant, he unleashed Annihilation Breath, letting it explode in every direction.

  Chairs, instruments, long tables—every scattered object around him—and even the distant metal partitions instantly disintegrated into a swirling haze of color and particles, reduced to a glowing atomic soup that flooded the room.

  But even that terrifying annihilation, so vivid and precise, was like soap bubbles against a tsunami—utterly insignificant before the tidal wave of telekinetic force bearing down on him.

  The next moment—

  His force field and Telekinetic Field shattered instantly.

  His trio of frantically-operating energy absorption abilities?

  Useless.

  They were like a household pump tossed into the heart of the Pacific—incapable of even making a ripple.

  His internal energy organs overloaded on the spot, rupturing with wet, sickening pops—turning into mangled flesh and bloody froth.

  His Steel and Rubber Dual-Form, along with his molecular reinforcement?

  They didn’t even delay the attack for a fraction of a second.

  And then—

  The worst blow.

  His last resort—Super Psionic Transmission, the failsafe teleportation escape—malfunctioned.

  Completely inactive.

  It simply refused to respond.

  In the end—

  He was once again crushed into dust.

  And his soul—

  Devoured.

  Buzz —

  Time reversed.

  Monroe’s consciousness was flung back into the 【Past】.

  His entire body trembled as he rose from the circular chair.

  A twisted grimace stretched across his face as he howled at the ceiling:

  “F——CK——!!”

  His voice shook with rage, fear, and helpless frustration.

  After several deep, ragged breaths, he slowly began to calm.

  One hour passed.

  And then—without hesitation—he activated his ability to jump again.

  Buzz —

  The future.

  Monroe's eyes snapped open, instantly flooding his body with every available ability.

  This time, he wasted no time.

  Pulsing with high-energy vibrations, he rose and marched out of the lab.

  Through twisting corridors of silver-grey alloy, he passed through seven turns and eight descents—heading deep into the core of the base.

  A few minutes later—

  He arrived at a small, hidden chamber.

  Inside stood a strange suit of armor, encased in webs of wires and coiling cables.

  Its surface shimmered with an alien design of gold-etched patterns—neither metal nor wood, yet exuding a faint, unmistakable vital aura.

  “Holy Spirit Armor.”

  Monroe stepped forward slowly, his eyes transfixed as he brushed his fingers across the inhuman patterns.

  He murmured, voice laced with reverence:

  “After all this time... after all the resources I’ve burned through... you’re finally whole again.”

  He had discovered this armor within the wreckage of an alien craft.

  Based on his analysis, it was a semi-mechanical, semi-biological, direct-integration exosuit.

  To restore it, and to tailor it for his own use—

  Monroe had invested over two centuries.

  One of the key challenges was repairing the armor’s gene-lock authentication system.

  To do this, he’d built miniature ecological derivation labs in each of his bases, carefully crafting alien gene compound rings to match the armor’s design.

  Some efforts focused on reconfiguring the armor’s integrated defense subsystems—

  Others on deciphering its cryptic inner framework.

  Progress was painfully slow.

  Until the last Primis outburst—

  When Monroe’s 【Information Symbiosis】 ability surged to a whole new tier.

  With it, his reverse-engineering efforts entered a breakthrough phase.

  Information Symbiosis: Enables the user to decode any system’s underlying architecture, directly from the fundamental information embedded in physical matter.

  And yet—

  Even with such a potent gift, deciphering alien technology remained nearly impossible.

  The disparity between civilizations, between species, was staggering.

  Everything—from their written scripts to logic trees—operated on a framework so foreign, it was like trying to build a bridge across the void of interstellar time.

  An insurmountable chasm.

  But after the Primis outburst—perhaps more accurately, the Great Ether Surge—Monroe’s energy levels skyrocketed across all abilities.

  The insurmountable problems of yesterday—

  Became conquerable.

  Not solved entirely—but finally within reach.

  Yes...

  The Primis outburst had changed everything.