Chapter 431: Attacking the executioner Ethan gripped the hilt of the Sword of Infinity. He looked at the shimmering space in front of him, the boundary that separated the known world from the domain of the One Above All. Ethan didn’t hesitate. He swung the Sword of Infinity. There was no sound, only the sensation of reality tearing like wet silk. Through the jagged rift, he saw it. A colossal, crimson eye that seemed to span the entirety of a hidden dimension. It was the Eye of the Executioner, the One Above All, the administrator of the positive plane. The eye widened. It wasn’t just looking at Ethan. It was weighing his soul, trying to find the "delete" key for his existence. "Who are you? Do you want to be erased?" The voice didn’t come through the ears. It vibrated in the marrow of Ethan’s bones, a cold, heavy pressure that demanded absolute submission. It was the sound of a god speaking to a speck of dust. Ethan didn’t bow. He didn’t tremble. Instead, he felt a surge of defiant adrenaline. He looked at that massive, divine eye, raised his hand, and extended his middle finger with a grin that was half mad and half genius. "Fuck you, scum. Take this!" Ethan lunged. He didn’t use 100% of his power. He wasn’t trying to win a fight he couldn’t finish yet. He used exactly 51%. The Sword of Infinity emitted a beam of pure, white extinction that slammed into the crimson pupil of the great eye. Ethan didn’t wait to see the damage. Before the light of his own attack had even faded, he slashed the air behind him and stepped through a new rift, vanishing into the folds of the dimensions. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then, the entire positive plane screamed. The One Above All had existed since the dawn of the cage. It had never been touched. It had never been insulted. To be flicked by an "ant" and then watched as that ant ran away was a humiliation beyond comprehension. "DIE!" The word was a command to reality itself. The One Above All triggered "Erasure." This wasn’t a physical blast. It was a logical command that told the plane Ethan Hunt no longer existed. The space where Ethan had just been standing turned into a vacuum of non existence. Ethan, now three dimensions away, felt the cold hand of the Erasure reaching for his spine. His skin began to flake away into nothingness. "Not today," Ethan grunted. "Extinction!" He swung his sword in a circular motion. If Erasure was the command to "delete," Extinction was the command to "destroy the deleter." The two absolute laws collided in the void. The Erasure was neutralized. Ethan’s body reformed instantly, his Grade 1 Absolute Continuum power acting as a shield. "What a dumbass!" Ethan shouted into the void, knowing the One Above All could hear him. "You missed! Is that the best the ’supreme’ ruler can do? My grandma hits harder than you!" He jumped again. This was the plan. It was a dangerous game of tag. To the rest of the plane, it looked like two gods were playing chess with the stars as pieces. Every time the One Above All tried to lock onto Ethan’s signature, Ethan would shift his "address" in the multiverse. He was a ghost in the machine. A pebble in the eye of a giant. For hours, the chase continued. The One Above All was no longer a calm administrator. He was a raging storm of red energy, tearing through his own domain just to find the pest that had poked him. Planets were caught in the crossfire, ground into dust by the mere passage of the Executioner. "Master, your energy consumption is at 40%," Yumiko warned. "The One Above All is reaching a state of ’Singularity Rage.’ He is beginning to ignore the laws of the cage to find you." "Good," Ethan panted, wiping sweat from his brow. "The angrier he is, the less he thinks. If he’s blinded by rage, he won’t notice the other ’guest’ in our neighborhood." Far below, in a mundane city inhabited by the lizard race, the atmosphere had turned heavy. The lizard folk were hiding in their cellars, terrified by the thunder that shook the heavens. But in a small, dusty tavern, a man in dark clothes continued to eat his steak. This was the Messenger from the neutral plane. The intruder. He was a Grade 2 Absolute Continuum being, a predator far more dangerous than the local Executioners. He paused, a piece of meat halfway to his mouth. He looked up at the ceiling, his eyes piercing through the wood, the clouds, and the very fabric of space. "How curious," the Messenger whispered. "An indigenous life form has reached the Absolute state. And he is... playing with the administrator? How bold. How very foolish." He tried to focus his gaze on Ethan, to see what kind of soul could perform such a feat. But his vision hit a wall. It was like trying to look into a mirror in a dark room. "A concealment treasure?" The Messenger’s interest was piqued. He dropped his fork. The food no longer mattered. "I should capture him. A soul that can hide from me is a soul worth studying." Back in the void, Ethan felt a sudden, paralyzing chill. It wasn’t the hot rage of the One Above All. It was a cold, clinical observation. It was the feeling of a scientist looking at a bug under a microscope. The intruder had noticed him. "Shit! Yumiko, he’s looking! He’s looking right at us!" [Master, the pressure is exceeding safety limits! If he moves now, we cannot escape!] Ethan didn’t panic. He had one card left. He stopped running. He stood still in the middle of a collapsing star system, the One Above All charging toward him from one side, and the invisible pressure of the intruder closing in from the other. "Come on, you big red eye! Over here!" Ethan yelled, fueling his voice with 60% of his power. He unleashed a barrage of sword strikes, not at the One Above All, but at the space around the intruder’s hidden location. He wasn’t trying to hit the intruder. He was trying to paint a target on him. The One Above All, blinded by hours of frustration and insults, saw the energy fluctuations in that direction. He didn’t care who was there. He just saw a target. "ERASE EVERYTHING!" the One Above All roared. A wave of red annihilation, thick enough to drown a galaxy, surged forward. Ethan didn’t wait. In a flash of silver light, Ethan pulled his entire existence into the pocket dimension of the Cube. He vanished from the "map" of reality entirely. The red wave of Erasure didn’t stop. It slammed directly into the spot where the intruder was standing. The Messenger, who had been calmly preparing to catch Ethan, suddenly found himself facing the full, suicidal fury of the positive plane’s guardian. "Impertinent local," the Messenger hissed. He didn’t move. He simply raised a hand. "Begone." The collision was catastrophic. The "Erasure" met the Messenger’s "Void Hand." The resulting explosion didn’t produce light. It produced a hole in reality. The One Above All was hit by a counter force so strong that his physical form, the giant eye and the cosmic body attached to it, shattered into billions of glowing red particles. For a moment, the One Above All was dead. But the positive plane would not allow its heart to stop. From every corner of the plane, golden streams of energy rushed toward the site of the explosion. The laws of the cage began to stitch the One Above All back together. It was a forced resurrection, a painful and violent process that made the guardian scream in agony. The Messenger stood in the center of the chaos, his dark clothes slightly ruffled. He looked disappointed. The "rat" he was hunting had escaped, and he was now stuck in a feud with a local spirit that wouldn’t stay dead. "A waste of time," the Messenger muttered. He turned his gaze toward the horizon, sensing for Ethan’s trail, but the Space Cube had done its job. Ethan was nowhere. Inside the Space Cube, Ethan collapsed onto the floor, his lungs burning. He was covered in cold sweat, but he was laughing. "Did you see that, Yumiko? It worked! They’re fighting each other!" [Master, your heart rate is dangerously high. But... yes. The One Above All is currently being reconstructed, and the intruder is distracted. You have successfully survived the first contact.] Ethan looked at the Status Panel floating in the dim light of the cube. [Time until Power Synchronization: 11 Hours, 42 Minutes] "Twelve hours," Ethan whispered, his eyes glowing with a sharp, predatory light. "In twelve hours, I gain Grade 1 power permanently. And with the Sword of Infinity in my hand, I’ll be Grade 2. I’ll be his equal." He stood up, leaning on his sword. He knew he couldn’t stay in the cube forever. The Messenger would eventually find a way to pierce the concealment. But for now, he had bought himself the one thing money and cultivation couldn’t usually buy. He had bought time.