Eren tried all he knew to block, dodge, divert, and attack as best he could. But there was only so much he could do when he was fighting against three official rankers. Soon his mana core was about to be depleted because of his reckless use of mana.

Bam.

Eren was brought to his knees by Stan’s attack from behind him while he was busy tackling both Jayce and Ralph. Eren released a haywire version of the AoE spell he knew, forcing the two to distance themselves from him.

Blitz Storm.

The spell was supposed to create a mini lightning field with the caster acting as its center. The domain was supposed to have a radius of about 5 meters. But what Eren had cast could only be called a shoddy attempt at an AoE. Its radius was shorter than 3 meters and it didn’t cover all the area around him.

Still, it was enough to make Stan and the rest who were already on edge back off. The guy had outperformed their wildest imaginations by fighting with three full-fledged rankers while starting as a non-ranker in the battle. He would have beaten them without any doubt had they attacked him individually.

Stan had a wild look on his face as he drew a runic sword from who knows where. This runic sword’s runes lit up when Stan imbued his mana into it.

“Stan. Fucking don’t. You know the rules, dammit. They are completely against rankers using their artifacts inside the cities. Those artifacts will leave behind mana signatures no matter what we do.”

Jayce looked at Stand angrily when he said that. ‘This rich bastard has lost it.’ he thought to himself while trying to make Stan realize what he was doing.

Ralph agreed with Jayce too. The former looked at Stan before saying in a serious tone.

“Don’t do it, Stan. We’ll be apprehended and made to sign the strictest of contracts that are nothing but slavery. All for what? Taking care of a guy like Eren?

I’ll be honest here. I’m fine if we can get away with what we’re doing. Nobody cares about a lowlife among us. However, we shouldn’t compromise our careers for blindsided revenge that has no basis. Reece isn’t about to say yes to you just because you killed him, you know.”

Stan shrugged his shoulders and flashed a cunning grin when he heard his friends trying to talk him out of using an artifact. It seemed he wasn’t interested in any of their talks.

Jayce decided to give Stan a reality check while keeping an eye on Eren’s movements who seemed to have given up.

“I’m all for that go-getter attitude, Stan. I also believe some things should be taken into one’s own hands instead of relying on luck.

But you need to understand that the situation is about to get a lot uglier before it gets any better. You can kill the guy, I am fine with it. Just don’t use the artifact.

He is already taking his last breaths. Just needs a bit of push from us.”

Jayce said and made Stan look at Eren carefully instead of looking at him through a lens of unfounded revenge. Eren was seen mumbling something as blood dripped from various parts of his body.

Eren wasn’t aware of what the trio was discussing. He had cut off almost all of his senses and concentrated on himself. His inner mind, the experiences that were swirling inside his head.

The palm of his right hand was placed over his heart and he felt his heartbeat gradually dimming.

‘Seek and ye shall find.’

He said to himself and took a long breath. He felt like he was again brought back to the pantheon of infinities. He felt that he was the only one present without any of his mortal senses or even the rankers’ mana sense.

It was as if the past and present Eren had been summoned into space at the same time. He was experiencing the abstract form of him repeating the same thought he had recited previously.

‘I need power so I won’t stay at the bottom of the barrel, as I always have. I need the power to rise above my circumstances.

If my enemies are infinite, I need infinite power to rule over them all. If my destinations are blocked by fate, I need endless ways to get to them.

I need infinite power to have infinite dreams. Infinite goals. And infinite possibilities.’

Eren was unaware that he was mumbling his thoughts out loud in both the real world and the ethereal realm. Unbeknownst to him, voicing them had an unknown effect on his surroundings. It was as if an unknown chant had been passed down to only him.

Eren’s faint voice was serving as the key to activating the runes placed on his soul by that unknown place, an unknown entity. However, the person who was saying the chant was only focused on completing it without realizing what he was doing.

‘If my lone power is not enough to support my ambitions, I need powers that are integrated into the very existence of the universe to be at my beck and call.

Infinite!

“I’ll begin my journey in infinity. And in infinity, my journey shall end.”

Eren continued to look down as he said the last part with a crystal clear voice that didn’t completely sound his own. He had a smile on his face as he felt something cold touch the back of his neck.

Stan had ignored his friend’s warnings and decided to chop Eren’s head off with his Rank 1 artifact. He observed Eren’s condition for a while and had decided that the time was ripe for him to take action.

Swoosh. Touch. Boom.

Stan’s mana-powered runic sword had just made contact with Eren’s neck. The latter’s mana defense layer was effortlessly breached by the artifact. The blade drew a line of blood on Eren’s neck as well.

But in the next moment, something unimaginable happened. Stan’s body was thrown in the air as it was pushed by a very intense mana pulse. The kinetic force behind this mana pulse was so strong that Stan felt like his body had been hit by a truck. As a result of the force’s repulsing effect, he became airborne.

Coincidentally, lightning crackled in the sky when the mana pulse was set off. Eren’s body was also sunk a bit into the ground as the area around him was depressed by the mana pulse.

The winds started flowing in the region, creating windy noises by rushing through abandoned buildings. The dark black sky was briefly painted with a multitude of colors. It was as if the whole world had gotten active for some reason or someone.

A mana storm broke out, with Eren acting as the eye of that storm. Stan was almost made to lose his consciousness because of that intense mana pulse. So he couldn’t process what was happening to Eren.

But two more spectators watched Eren with expressions of shock and dread as they understood what was going on. Eren was breaking into official rank once again. With even more intensity than before.

A second mana core.

A second mana core that drank the mana around Eren like a bottomless pit. It was as if Eren didn’t have to do anything. Additionally, it didn’t require any ranking technique to fill it up immediately.

All it was doing was spinning around itself continuously. When Eren felt the mana core with his newly gained mana sense, he felt like he could draw endless mana from it without it ever going empty.

An infinite mana core.

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