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nSeeing the sleeping Antonia, Beatrice’s eyes became slightly red. She got up and walked to the omni-clone, taking her daughter from his arms and holding Antonia close. Antonia, even asleep, recognized the familiar scent of her mother and snuggled in closer, a silly smile appearing on her little face.

nBeatrice stroked her daughter’s hair and spoke softly. “I’m sorry, my love, mommy has let you down.” .

nSeeing that Beatrice was able to understand the problem, Dante sighed and stood up, holding the two in his embrace. “For me right now, more than any universe crisis or raising my power, there is nothing more important than taking care of the two of you.”

n“We have quite possibly a very long life ahead of us, and I want to make sure you’re happy for as much of the journey as possible,” Dante stated his position softly, making Beatrice feel reassured.

n“Okay, that’s fine. Still, you’ve already captured more than 75% of all the Lara clones in less than a few hours. There’s no point in slowing down now, get them all and let’s finish this thing so that we can move on to the next stage of our lives,” Beatrice responded with a smile after calming her emotions.

nDante grinned warmly. “That’s my Beatrice.”

n“Right, so what do we do about that forest fairy chick?” Beatrice asked silently, glancing at the room where Keira was slumped over a bed while being tended to by android maids.

n“Collecting them for Etz, basically. She is the one who dragged them down here, so she is responsible for them. She has not considered it yet, but she will have to account for them after dealing with Lara, so I’m doing a part of her job for her,” Dante explained while folding his arms.

nBeatrice took Antonia to their bed and placed her down gently, covering her with the sheets. “That Etz should be grateful that she has you, really.”

n“Hahaha, I agree, but without her, I would never have met you, so it cancels out,” Dante said as he sat beside Beatrice, laughing.

nThe two continued to chat peacefully while discussing their future plans even as the multiverse tremored from a huge quake. Hundreds of thousands of universes were undergoing groundbreaking changes that would forever shift their trajectory in the form of a conquest as well as the usurping of their premier political influence.

nDante truly had to give it up to Lara. She adapted based on the technology, political, and social climate of the universe she was on, sometimes working in the shadows, sometimes working through proxies, sometimes being the overall leader herself, and sometimes even having forcefully subdued the entire universe herself.

nThe variety of methods could be codified into a book called the ‘Art of Control,’ which would likely become a timeless classic on par with another literary great of a similar name.

nHowever, one thing rang true, and that was that each universe she controlled had a very established system for the two gates her main body crafted. She mostly used the academy – or a similar tutelage – system for the Zero Gate, only allowing newly awakened youngsters to enter within at the behest of the universe’s powers.

nFor the First Gate, it varied. Some universes were ignorant about it like the Eternal Universe, with only a small amount of fighters allowed to enter, controlled by a force that could be a council, a board, or even a senate.

nSome universes, it was common knowledge, like the Nova Universe, and only those specially trained were allowed in, while in others, one could enter in a mercenary-like manner to take on ‘jobs,’ while in others, one had to pay for entry or sign some contract.

nHowever, what was important was that each universe thrived in its own way under Lara’s control. Obviously, not everyone could be number 1 given how things worked?as well as have so much territory, but every universe made somewhat of a net positive gain each year using her various methods.

nThis would be good if the consequence of such a thing was leading to a possible demise of the entire multiverse after a few million years go by.

nAfter the capture, it wasn’t like Dante would act reckless and leave the politically devastated universes to enter chaos to fill the gaps. His supreme mecha soldier would quickly accelerate the conquest process and take over everything while establishing a new universal order and educating all species about the evil of the Zero and First Gate.

nComing to know how close they were to killing themselves, most species were spooked whereas a good percentage were skeptical and believed it to be propaganda. To that, there was nothing Dante could do because it was not possible nor did he have the energy to show them irrefutable evidence.

nHowever, the reason he hadn’t captured every Lara at once was due to the fact that even with trillions of troops, he still did not have enough to cover all the universes. He had to wait for his current troops to finish their assignment before being deployed to the final billion or so universes to carry out the necessary task.

nSo with the urging of Beatrice and his own ambition rekindled, Dante finally decided to raise Quantum Entanglement up to the final EX Rank, its pinnacle and the point where everything would change for him.

nTo that end, he entered meditation and seclusion once more. Since he had no idea how long this one would take, he created more than a few clones to handle various issues he might be needed to be present for.

nLuckily, Beatrice had all his abilities, so she could fill the gap for him. She could also create omni-clones in the various universes and capture any Lara clone into the quantum space, so Dante wasn’t worried that anyone of them would slip the net and escape.

nThe final sprint of EX Rank Quantum Entanglement was not a joke at all. It was just one single cord that was about as thick as an industrial pipe but it was the largest of the lot and seemingly the central one.

nDante could tell that every other cord was present to serve an auxiliary function for this one, which was why without it, he could never reach the EX Rank. If he wanted to perfectly inherit the Authority from Etz, he would need to ensure that this particular connection was primed and ready.

nWorking on it was something that Dante wished he could document for others to understand the difficulty and frustration. It felt like he was a child trying to carry a tray of food across a garden to his parents on the other side without dropping it.

nEven with origin energy and Origin power, this was the current difficulty he was facing. Dante truly wondered how on earth he could ever have reached the EX Rank on his own had he not ascended to an Origin God.

nWas that why Etz initially gave him a time frame of millions of years?

nIn terms of progression, Dante wasn’t sure how to quantify it. Rather than untangle this one like the others, it was more like he was trying to ‘clean’ it, allowing things to pass through smoothly.

nCurrently, it was completely blocked and unusable. As Dante worked, it became slightly better, but the amount of time it was taking made him shake his head. An entire week had passed outside, but he had only made what he estimated to be 1% progress.

nThe good news was that this would give his clones and troops time to capture the various Laras on the side, on one hand, and that the further hewent in clearing this connection, the faster and easier it would be to clear the rest.

nIn the end, over 12 weeks passed, and he had made about 15% progress. That was 3 months gone, but Dante was only about 1

/7th of the way there, which made him frustrated, but he reasoned that he would need to develop this kind of patience for the years to come. .𝒎

nThis time, 24 weeks came to pass, and he was now sitting squarely at 60% completed. This was 6 whole months and surpassed the longest period of time he had spent on Quantum Entanglement since he began.

nWith a sigh, Dante could only continue after taking a short break since he was locked in and committed to achieving this difficult task that would have originally taken years upon end using simple Zero Energy.

nFinally, another 24 weeks passed, making it a grand total of 61 weeks spent on this upgrade, or a year and two months!

nOn this fateful day, Dante was forced to take a break because he was finally at the limit, at 99%. One more push would see him through to the other side and cement his greatest achievement in life, allowing him to stand above all living beings in the multiverse!

n𝘪𝘳.𝒸𝑜𝑚

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