I Can Assimilate Everything
Chapter 329 - 329: The Flames That Speak I

The skies above the Capital were supposed to be gone.

Supposed to be nothing but obliterated memory- ash, ruin, the scream of millions swallowed into silence by the most devastating force their plane had ever known.

Gamma Radiation, pure and foreign, unleashed by the Neuronova-Stage Lunaris Throne, a death blow not even time could have remembered!

And yet…

There he stood.

Achilles.

Floating amid a sphere of collapsing cataclysm, obsidian light licking his figure like threads of reverence. The light bent toward him. The chaotic surge of foreign radiation was being pulled in with a terrifying grace, his palm outstretched and steady, fingers flexed only slightly as the stellar carnage vanished into him.

No defense runes. No arm-raising in exertion. No clenched jaw, no narrowed eyes.

Not even a flicker of discomfort.

His golden crown blazed behind him. His sun- his personal imperial sun, born of Adrastia's legacy- throbbed with rich purple gold hues, as if nourished by the radiation itself.

Selamira stared, her once-smug expression slowly hollowing into ash.

Her lips parted, the sharp breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding catching on the edge of disbelief.

If his face had at least shown strain.

If his hand had trembled. If his eyes had shut in concentration. If a vein had throbbed along his temple.

If he had shown even a hint of mortal effort…

But no.

Fucking no!

He looked like a titan listening to a lullaby. Calm. Unshaken. Distant.

And utterly, unforgivably magisterial.

Selamira's teeth ground together.

This wasn't right.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go!

In the distance, the Ancient Ones who had been scattering- High Elves with burning emerald armor, Panthera Lions with robes of royalty…

Their breaths burned in their throats. Their eyes didn't blink. Their hearts paused for beats too long!

He had devoured it. Devoured what should have obliterated them all!

And at that moment…

"He is breathless to look at, isn't he?"

…!

The voice was gentle, like warm venom winding through a frozen spine.

Before Selamira could even turn, it was too late.

BOOM!

Chains bloomed like terrifying snakes.

Chains of purple gold, slithering from nothingness like serpents of command. They coiled around her ankles, her wrists, her throat. Every coil pulsed with old, forgotten might. A resonance her soul remembered- from another time, another terror.

Chains that mirrored the Long Slumber.

Aeonic Chains! Why would there be Aeonic Chains here?!

She turned her head in horror…

And saw her.

Rose.

Verdant hair flaming like sentient emerald fire, every strand a whisper of some primal, celestial memory.

Her eyes, green lit with hues of gold, stared down with the calm of someone who had already made the decision to burn the world and just hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Her armor shimmered in lavender and royal flame, the Primordium Evolutius Suit adorned with cascading Runescriptures that danced like liquid stars across her frame.

She was magnificent.

Gloriously beautiful.

Terrifying!

"I'm not a fan," Rose said smoothly, her voice rising to fill the broken skies as it could be heard for a few thousand miles like a booming clap of thunder, "of accusations and misunderstandings."

Selamira struggled, fury surging, but the chains tightened, locking her power beneath the weight of old power!

Rose floated with easy poise, one hand glowing with green fire, the other grabbing Selamira's head by the hair. She raised it- paraded it like a condemned beast- her eyes sweeping over the broken capital below and the stunned faces of every Ancient One still watching in the distance.

"This one," Rose said coldly, her voice now echoing like a decree, "this whore in the skies- dared speak lies."

Her tone sharpened, eyes glinting. "She claimed that Man-" She gestured to Achilles, still devouring the last of the Gamma Storm with casual indifference. "….was an Outsider."

Silence spread like frost across fire.

Rose's voice did not falter.

"Look at him," she commanded. "He is absorbing what nearly killed you all. He is nullifying what could have ended tens of millions. That is not weakness. That is mastery. That is his will."

She turned slowly, eyes scalding with disdain.

"The Lunaris Throne- weak, pathetic- was the one who used the foreign authority. King Primal? He simply neutralized it. Because he is not your enemy."

Her voice hardened into steel.

"He is not the Outsider."

Her green flame flared. "But the one who gave the Lunaris Throne this power? The one who also supports this whore?"

She lifted Selamira higher, the woman struggling, growling, bloodied lips twitching with rage.

"That one," Rose spat, "that rat in the dark… is the true Outsider. The Primordial Light of Darkness."

BOOM!

Gasps. Murmurs. Disbelief.

Rose didn't let them catch their breath.

"Many of you already aligned with it. Pretending to unite under some banner to protect your world from alien threats, all while you sleep beside the very thing you claim to oppose."

Her voice thundered, voice thick with disgust.

"You idiots were fooled."

…!

Selamira roared, "Lies! All of it!"

SLAP.

Green flame burning with star light crackled as Rose's hand met her cheek. Then again.

SLAP. SLAP.

The sound echoed. Selamira reeled.

Rose turned her cold gaze upon the Ancient Ones again.

"We are not the ones who just tried to kill millions," she said. "Whether you believe us or not doesn't matter. But do not make yourselves our enemies. Don't make it your mission to fight us… when all we're doing is trying to save human lives that your so-called allies would discard."

Her hand ignited in verdant radiance.

"And for those who do get in our way…"

She flung Selamira forward into the air like discarded filth bound by chains.

The green fire in her palm bloomed, forming the shape of a vast phoenix with burning feathers of spiraling flame.

The fiery wings swept down.

SCREEE!

Selamira's body ignited with emerald wrath, her screams twisted and high-pitched as her form charred into nothing but a smoldering husk, ash trailing like black snow.

Silence.

Shock.

No one moved.

Not even the wind dared whisper.

Rose floated back to Achilles, her movement graceful, the fire along her armor slowly dimming as if it, too, was satisfied.

Achilles turned his gaze to her, his obsidian-stained palm slowly closing, the last of the explosion devoured.

His eyes…

Dark and endless and glowing.

Rose flicked her wrist, and the burned husk of Selamira floated toward him, weightless.

"Assimilate her," she whispered, voice soft towards him. "Let's see what this creature knew about her so-called master."

Achilles caught the husk in one hand, the other pulsing with black starlight.

The eyes of the world were watching a shocking show!