SSS Awakening: All My Clones Have Divine Bloodlines!

Supremes.

It was yet another term Evan had never heard before, one that, under normal circumstances, he should never have had reason to hear at his current level. He was still far from being an Overlord, let alone a Supreme.

And yet here he was, listening to what appeared to be the greatest truth humanity had ever sought since it first began to suffer under the weight of the Abyss.

A truth layered upon so many levels that Evan found himself wondering what the point of knowing any of it was.

But then the full weight of those last words hit him harder than he had anticipated just seconds ago.

Beings who assimilate more than one divinity. Beings like him, who held power over more laws than any single person should.

He had no doubt she was referring to him. But then, was the System a product of something they had engineered?

"I assume you’re telling me all of this for a reason," he said, deciding to be direct.

He wasn’t sure exactly how much she knew about him and his abilities, but given the naturalness with which she had communicated all of this, he couldn’t help wondering whether she knew everything about him, perhaps more than he knew about himself, especially when it came to his System.

Hearing his words, her expression didn’t change in the slightest.

"You have already begun assimilating three divinities within yourself," she said. "One more than anything I ever witnessed across all four previous cycles. That person disappeared into the folds of time after the first cycle. I never encountered him again, but the consequences of his actions have continued to ripple through history until now."

She took a step toward him as she finished speaking, closing the distance between them.

Perhaps a little more than what could reasonably be considered appropriate, and before he could say anything, she raised a single finger and pressed it lightly against his chest, directly over his heart.

"I believe you are what he was trying to create back then. In fact, I want to believe you are his reincarnation, your souls share traits that are remarkably similar. But that isn’t something I can confirm right now."

She lifted the finger from his chest and brought it to rest lightly beneath his chin.

It was a small gesture, but it was enough to stir something in him that he hadn’t felt in a while, or perhaps he had, given that the woman standing in front of him had been a persistent and rather difficult to ignore source of attraction since the moment he met her.

The finger lingered there for just a second. Long enough to set his mind running. Brief enough to avoid crossing a line too obviously.

Not that Evan had the luxury of focusing on any of that, because in that same moment something else entirely captured his attention.

Her eyes.

They were glowing, intensely, those emerald eyes that carried a certain hidden depth he was only now truly seeing. Beautiful, without question. But at the same time, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, they sent a shiver running the full length of his spine.

"But I will confirm it in the future," she said, her voice calm and gentle, carrying something beneath its surface that didn’t quite belong there.

"And when I do..."

"You won’t be able to run from me anymore."

Evan wasn’t sure whether to feel fortunate for receiving the attention of a literal goddess, or deeply concerned about whatever that person from the past had done, and how much of it was about to land squarely on him.

’Fantastic. Truly fantastic,’

’Just a second ago she was telling me how screwed I am in this dimension... and now she’s telling me she might end up screwing me over herself, depending on how things turn out?’

’There’s no way my situation can get any worse than this... right?’ Evan thought.

***

Fifty miles north of the Catskill Mountains, hidden beneath the howling blizzard, there lay a chasm.

Wide enough to make anyone who approached it uneasy. Its depth was unknowable — the darkness below swallowed everything, offering no indication of what might lie at the bottom.

Far down within it, past a distance that could not be measured, there rested a cocoon.

Large. Colossal, almost. Concealed within the depths of that void.

The surrounding area was barren, completely untouched by the snow above. The surface of the cocoon was smooth and gleaming, a deep violet-black, accompanied by vibrations, subtle, yet perceptible up close, that caused its elastic membrane to tremble faintly with each pulse.

It had remained this way for an unknown stretch of time.

Today was different.

Something had changed.

Between the rhythmic pulses of light shining from within, the silhouette of an enormous fetus could be seen for a brief instant.

Its form was still indistinct.

It was impossible to tell whether it was human or something else entirely.

But it was there.

And it had begun to move.

As it did, a thin current of energy enveloped the cocoon. The moment it trembled from the pulse the cocoon produced, that energy burst outward like a ring in every direction, silently, almost imperceptibly, spreading across the full depth of the chasm, rising all the way to the surface and continuing beyond.

One wave of energy.

Then another.

Then another.

On a small hill in the surrounding area, two figures could be made out through the storm.

One was a man somewhere in his forties, his appearance haggard, bleeding wounds visible across his body. The other was a woman, slightly older, but still in enough condition to hold on in these circumstances.

Both of them were in poor shape, the relentless cold already doing its work on them.

They were both B-Rank Awakeners, pulled here by a spatial rift that had opened from nowhere and dragged them in. Since arriving, they had been fighting to survive, and given their condition after only a few hours, it was clear they were losing that fight.

"We can’t keep going like this. We need to warm up," the man said, wanting to use his mana but not daring to, not after what had happened the last time he tried.

There had been three of them when they arrived.

Now there were two. The third had been the price they paid to survive the cold.

"We need to find shelter," the woman said after spending the last several minutes surveying the surrounding area.

"If we can dig ourselves a cave into this hill, at least we’ll be able to start a fire."

Just as the two of them were deciding what to do next...

Their bodies suddenly stiffened.

A moment later, both let out agonized screams as they collapsed to their knees.

"W-what the hell is this?!" the man screamed, pressing his hands over his ears as though trying to block out something, yet the area around them was silent. More silent than it should have been.

But for him, it wasn’t silent at all.

His eyes had begun to bleed. So had his nose. His ears. And finally, he vomited a thick surge of black blood.