Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 377: Memory Alteration

’They have a power beyond a Firmament on their side!’

That was the thought at the centre of Ravok’s mind as he and his twelve subordinates sped through space, desperate to leave Luabos behind and deliver the news to his Master, Kellam, who at that moment was keeping Ulfur occupied at the Millennium Council Station at the centre of their cluster.

The werewolf moved as fast as physically possible, silently lamenting that he had not devoted more effort to comprehending spatial law despite his poor affinity for it.

Had he done so, he could have been moving at twice his current speed through the vacuum, heading for the side gate his Master had created when he lured Ulfur away.

Just as he passed beyond another barren galaxy, nearing a region of the universe brimming with life, a sudden wave of spatial energy erupted from below, expanding outward in an oval.

Within a second, the entire group of thirteen was sealed inside a barrier almost identical to the one they had used against Mei not long before.

"WHO?!"

Ravok reacted just as Mei had before, unleashing his destruction energy in an attempt to appear threatening. Power erupted from his body, flooding the quarter-light-year-wide barrier and crashing against its edges.

His intent was to shatter the barrier with his destruction energy, but when the wave struck, the sight before him made him doubt his own eyes.

"!!"

Not only was his destruction energy repelled by the barrier, it was entirely absorbed, leaving behind nothing but pure cosmic energy stripped of its ’destruction’ and absorbed by the barrier.

Without hesitation, he gathered half of his total cosmic energy, channelling it through his body as he prepared to launch another attack.

But just as his squad cleared out of his line of fire and he was on the verge of unleashing the attack, a calm voice echoed from all directions.

"Are you so dumb you can’t see the futility of that action?"

"Wh-ugmph!"

Miranda grabbed his face with her palm, silencing him as she turned her attention to the other twelve, who had drawn their weapons and now hesitated, unsure whether to attack a foe who had subdued their leader so effortlessly and without even breaking a sweat.

With a wave of her other hand, she sent a wave of purple fire rushing towards them, and at the sight, two of them activated Authorities of Fire, raising barriers to block the flames.

But just before the blaze crashed into the defences, shattered them, and reduced them to ashes, Miranda’s eyes widened as she suddenly had a new idea.

She snapped her fingers, and as her flames tore through their fire-resistance barriers, the twelve were not reduced to ashes, but...frozen?

Yes, Miranda had just used fire to freeze them.

When someone comprehended the Universal Law of Fire, they weren’t merely dealing with ordinary flames, but with the underlying principles governing combustion, temperature, heat transfer, and energy release across existence.

’Heat’ itself fell under fire’s dominion, for fire was fundamentally the process of releasing and transferring energy as heat and light.

In physics, heat transfer naturally happens from the hotter body to the cooler one until thermal equilibrium is reached.

But to Miranda, conventional thermodynamics shouldn’t bind her, and since she could manipulate the ’heat transfer’ aspect of fire, she didn’t require a cooler body to move thermal energy and could dictate the flow of heat at will.

She should be able to force heat into or out of any system, regardless of its temperature, and in that instant, she changed her flames’ command from ’burning’ to ’extracting all heat’ from the twelve she targeted, freezing them as their temperatures plummeted to absolute zero.

This was simply a manifestation of Miranda’s personalised understanding of Fire, expressed through her Violet Inferno Aspect.

As for where the extracted heat went, well, there were stars all around, weren’t there?

She simply created a link between them and the nearby stars, drawing all the heat from their bodies and dumping it into the stars.

Even though the stars were hotter than they were, she was overriding the natural gradient of heat transfer rather than relying on it, causing them to freeze while the stars’ temperatures barely changed due to their immense heat capacity.

This understanding of hers was one reason for her high resistance to ice- or water-based Aspects, which, by all rights, should have been her weaknesses.

She rarely used this technique, however, since employing her flames directly for damage was more efficient, and she also possessed methods that could restrain opponents faster than she could extract their heat to freeze them. It was a difference of mere milliseconds, but for beings who fought at FTL speeds, that was significant.

Info dump aside, why did Miranda suddenly choose to freeze them?

Because she had a different plan for this group, rather than simply killing them all.

’That would only alert the potential Neo-Extinction Legion operatives they are likely connected to, possibly forcing them to restructure their plans, become more cautious, and tighten security, making moving around undetected a pain.’

Holding up Ravok, she forcefully read through his memories, confirming that he had not yet reported to Kellam, and with that, she made her decision.

’I’ll alter his memories.’

Memory Reading, Alteration, and Erasure were naturally not abilities everyone was born with, but they proved invaluable.

Not only Miranda, but many existences who had lived as long as she had, comprehended the Law of Knowledge specifically to acquire this power and/or to gain resistance to it.

This was how Miranda had been able to read the memories of the souls of Heilong and his co-conspirators, and it was how she was now able to modify the memories of Ravok and his twelve subordinates.

She erased Ravok’s recollection of finding and cornering Mei after a fight, replacing it with memories of encountering a stray space-dwelling monster and being forced to battle it, which caused them to miss Mei entirely and never encounter her.

After finishing with Ravok, she released him and repeated the process for the other twelve, carefully shaping the details and perspectives of each memory to ensure nothing contradicted another.

Only once she was satisfied did she dissolve the containment barrier and let them go, teleporting back to where Mei was.

The moment she vanished, Ravok snapped out of his daze, blinking a few times before shaking his head and muttering,

"Damn it, I couldn’t carry out Master Kellam’s orders...!"

Turning to his subordinates, he barked,

"Let’s get back before Ulfur returns and notices us!"

With that, they continued toward the hidden entrance, while Miranda quietly explained to Mei what she had done.

"In other words, if you encounter him or his Master again, control yourself and don’t react. Act as if you haven’t seen them for a long time. You can do that much, can’t you?"

Leaning in with narrowed eyes, she added,

"If you can’t, let me know so I can erase your memories of encountering them."

"Erase my...? No! That won’t be necessary!"

Mei quickly waved her hands in front of her chest, shaking her head, clearly having no desire to have her memories erased or altered.

Miranda regarded her silently for a moment before asking,

"So? Have you contacted your Master?"

"Y-yes! He’s on his way back from the Council Station. He said he met with the Council Chairman and was discussing matters with him."

"Council Chairman?" Miranda echoed, and Mei nodded before continuing,

"Yes. Every ten councils, we elect a Firmament Realm Existence unconnected to any Pantheon and install them as Chairman, after making them swear an oath to remain unbiased toward their home universe in any way.

They preside over the meetings."

Hearing Mei’s explanation, Miranda nodded in silent understanding. She both liked and disliked how the universes in ZWF4105 managed things, but then again, no system was perfect.

Even Zanerth’s Multi-Universal Empire’s management was far from flawless. If it were, the Neo-Extinction Legion would never have had the audacity to try anything in a Werewolf-Ruled Cluster.

Sighing, she shook her head, turned her gaze back to Mei, and asked.

"Where is this universe’s Proelium Tower located?"

"Hmm? It’s in the Capella Galaxy Clust—wait, do you want to go there?! I don’t know what realm you are in, but if an existence of your level enters, it would disrupt the laws that make up the Proelium Tower, and those bastards in Sonerth and Uetera would immediately become aware of it!"

Mei realised Miranda’s intentions midway and quickly protested.

The Proelium Tower had rules governing it, and one of those rules stipulated that beings outside their respective levels could not enter floors of the tower not designed for their level.

"Master Ulfur is a 9th Firmament, and even the highest level of the tower could not fully accommodate him. You would undoubtedly cause serious problems in the tower if you attempted to enter!"

Hearing Mei’s words, Miranda frowned, then drew in ambient cosmic energy and used it to impose artificial caps on the amount of magical power released by the energy cores surrounding her beating heart in her chest.

Before Mei’s eyes, the power Miranda exuded, which she had previously been unable to sense due to the vast gap between them, diminished to a level she could perceive and then was reduced even further to a level below her own.

"..."

"Would this work?"

Mei blinked in shock, unable to distinguish between the Miranda before her and any random Law Assimilation level existence. Only after a few seconds did she nod, still in a daze.

"...it should..."

"Good. Now tell me where the Capella Galaxy Cluster is. I want a star map, and provide me with all the information required to enter the tower."

Miranda gathered all the information she needed from Mei, then sent the brown wolf off to return to her Master, as well as to inform Ulfur to be prepared for her eventual arrival once she had finished inspecting the Proelium Tower.