SSS Awakening: Starting With Infinite Soul Copy

With no fear or caution to hold White back, the only choice available was for him to step through the gate and complete the quest, nothing more.

And without wasting another second, he stepped quietly towards the black gate.

Arriving before it, he could feel the strange pull, and without being told, one of his fingers lengthened into a claw and sliced across his own wrist.

Blue blood poured down, but it never fell onto the ground, instead hovering forward towards the pitch-black gate.

The second it was absorbed into it, blue runic lines resembling cracks appeared all over the gate before, all at once, it shattered into pieces, and from the shattering, something ancient came to a standstill.

A simple dark vortex.

And this time, it wasn’t spinning.

It simply stood there like a plate of darkness, yet the sight of it led the Queen to unconsciously take several steps back.

Not from fear, but from the feeling.

A feeling of being undeserving of standing in the presence of this vortex, and she felt a terrifying truth:

If it had been any other Umbrawyr apart from her, they would have been blown away with such force that not even their gore would have remained behind.

But to White, the vortex was nothing but inviting, and so he stepped forward.

Just one step away from entering it, he paused and turned back towards the Umbrawyric Queen, noticing the cracks that were continuously spreading beneath her feet as she struggled to remain standing.

His lips moved as if to ask something, but in the end, no sound came out.

Instead, he stepped into the vortex, which at the same moment seemed to enter into White as well, both of them wiping out the other and leaving nothing behind.

The pressure finally dissipated, and the Queen straightened herself once more, her eyes lit with slight annoyance before it faded into a grin.

"Truly the Umbrawyric King’s Ancestry Gate."

It was the only thing born of Darkness capable of placing any pressure whatsoever upon her.

Anything else would have been destroyed by the backlash of her own Darkness aura.

But then, something appeared at the corner of her thoughts.

The last scene of White leaving.

His lips moving as if to ask a question yet hesitated at the final moment.

It caused her brows to crease as she wondered what he could have possibly wanted to ask, but then she shrugged it off, whispering.

"I just need him to return with the Mallory Umbrawyrio."

Her hand reached out as the unique red grimoire appeared.

"With all of its powers harnessed into my Crimsio Umbrawyrio... I’ll become..."

________

The feeling of teleportation this time was the longest White had ever experienced.

He could swear it lasted more than an entire night before his feet finally connected with something solid and the darkness around him cleared away.

His eyes snapped open, body folding inward, every muscle hardening in expectation of an imminent sneak attack, but...there was none.

Instead, was silence.

Absolute silence, along with a bizarre feeling of peacefulness, one strong enough to force him out of his battle-conscious state and into one of observation.

He began to look around and quickly noticed that the realm around him was quite peculiar.

For one, the floor beneath him was made of black crystal, and every time he took a step forward, blue light radiated outward into the far distance, providing a strange form of illumination.

He lifted his gaze upward, but no matter how far his eyes pierced into the darkness, there was no ceiling to be found, nor were there walls on either side.

The place was a realm that seemingly stretched forever.

He began walking forward, blue pulses of light trailing into the distance before him, and the more he walked, the more he began to notice them.

Rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of thrones, thousands of them, and upon every throne sat a corpse.

It wasn’t rotten, nor decayed, but perfectly preserved.

As White drew closer and began examining them, he noticed the thorny blue crowns resting upon their heads.

They were nothing like the pointed pitch-black crown of the Umbrawyric Queen.

Instead, they resembled the branches of some blue tree, with thorns wrapped around to form a circle before being placed upon their heads.

And every single being upon these thrones wore one, revealing a truth:

"All are ancient Umbrawyric Kings."

White mused, his voice echoing repeatedly through the hall.

They all had different forms, some possessing more than twelve eyes spread across various parts of their bodies, some bore incarnations of horns, some even existed in shadowy forms that White couldn’t properly comprehend, but the blue crowns revealed truly mattered.

Still, that wasn’t all there was to them, for before every throne and upon every king was a glowing orb.

It appeared strangely familiar, but White still wanted to be certain.

Walking towards one of the thrones, he reached out and touched the orb.

He remained there with his eyes closed for a while before his hand slowly lowered.

Then he took three steps backwards, exhaled quietly, and spoke with certainty.

"Memory Orbs."

These floating orbs before every throne were Memory Orbs, and not fragmented ones either, they contained entire lives.

The complete records of every being here:

The Kings’ names.

Their births.

Their unique Umbrawyric sub-races before they became kings.

Their abilities.

Their evolutions.

Their cultivation paths.

Their wars.

Their laws.

Their victories.

Their failures.

Their children.

Their enemies.

And ultimately, their deaths.

And when White looked around and found close to thousands of these same orbs floating throughout the hall, his heart began to pound from the realization:

This was a treasure trove of knowledge.

A way for him to dive into the lives of ancient Umbrawyric Kings and witness how events had unfolded in the distant past.

But still, the end of the hall remained beyond sight.

Curious as he was to begin learning of the Umbrawyrs’ history, White knew he first needed to understand what all of this was about, so he continued walking forward.

Orb after orb, throne after throne.

Each one making him realize just how absurd the amount of information contained within this hall truly was.

But eventually, he arrived at something different. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Far from the end of the realm, yet clearly the end of the throne world itself.

And what stood there was a gigantic book.

A book so massive that it dwarfed White’s 4.2-meter frame and made him seem like an ant before it.

But what truly shook him was how it was restrained:

Chains.

Countless chains wrapped tightly around the book, and at the ends of those chains floated a total of seven incomprehensibly massive black suns.

White noticed the darkness flowing from the suns into the chains, as though the suns themselves were fueling the restraints and allowing them to keep the book sealed.

The meaning was immediately clear:

Some entity never wanted this book opened.

And judging by the amount of power being used to keep it shut, it was obvious just how badly they wanted it to remain closed.

All of that made White come to an absolute conclusion:

The chained book was,

"The Mallory Umbrawyrio."

The very thing he needed to claim in order to be recognized as King of the Umbrawyrs.

But more importantly, White knew this was what the Umbrawyric Queen truly desired.

Of course, he wasn’t foolish enough to believe the Queen genuinely wanted him as King, nor did she need one.

By her authority alone, a King seemed unnecessary.

But this book...

The Mallory Umbrawyrio, whatever it may contain in its pages, was her true goal.

As for White himself, he was merely an important link in her obtaining it, one that will be ultimately useless once she got her hands on it.

"Just what is it with you?"

White mused while staring at the chained book when suddenly the system panel flashed in bold.

[WARNING!] [WARNING!]

[THE HOST HAS COME ACROSS AN ANCIENT DEVIL ARTIFACT!]

[ARTIFACT SCAN COMPLETE!]

[HOST HAS COME ACROSS THE MALLORY UMBRAWYRIO.]

...

[Congratulations. Host has been recognized and deemed capable of standing before the artifact.]

[Accessing Requirements For Host To Successfully Claim The Artifact...]

The system panel flashed, displaying runic code after runic code, and the sight of it caused White to grin as he patiently waited for the information to appear.

[Assessment Complete.]

[For Host To Possess The Artifact, He Must Get Rid Of The Chains Surrounding It.]

"That’s obvious."

White mused.

"Now, how do I get rid of the chains?"

The answer seemed obvious.

Simply cut them apart.

But he wasn’t foolish enough to believe all he needed to do was somehow sever chains connected to seven black suns.

Yet the answer the system provided was not one he expected he either:

[It has been determined that all seven suns draw their power from some of the floating orbs of the Ancient Umbrawyric Kings.]

[Fully Go Through the Memory Orbs Of 250 Umbrawyric Kings to Dim the Black Suns’ Power and Unlock the Mallory Umbrawyrio.]