楼上的上瘾女士

Her tone was normal and not exactly defiant but its intention was clearly disrespectful nonetheless.

"What... Did you say?" the figure asked in its booming voice to which Melinda steeled her nerves as she said,

"I said No. I want to make contact with the network and if I say that's what I want, you have no right to stop me."

"Do you have any idea to whom you are speaking?" the Figure asked Melinda who shrugged,

"A pompous faceless elitist?" she asked to which the entire region shook as it seemed the figure stirred even though it did not appear to have made the slightest of movement.

"I am the guardian of all life force. By me, divinity grants immortality. I am the sentience of the Ordinance of Life itself and my existence surpasses that of the Primevals themselves.

To even stand there and defy my orders, I will henceforth strip you of your insight into the Ordinance of Life. Leave now before I take possession of your life force as well!" the figure said.

Melinda felt her insight into Life get seized from her and while she was instantly filled with a sense of loss, she retained her smile as she said,

"I will not leave here until I have what I came here for,"

"You have sealed your fate," the figure said and it began to reel in Melinda's life force. It started with her body in the Harem space getting pale and then continued with her ethereal self in the Region of Life beginning to fail.

Whatever manner Melinda had been using to keep herself upright was taken and she (her ethereal self) began to fade into nothingness while her body reached death's door.

However, as this all befell her and as she struggled, Melinda never stopped smiling ever so slightly as she had not come here without a plan and had especially not defied such a powerful being without something up her sleeve.

"Wh- what is this?... Impossible!" the figure said and this time it stirred in its throne and why would it not? It was facing a situation that it had never before seen.

Melinda had become completely siphoned of her life force so she reached out to the connection between all women in the Harem and she came on Elenor the Malignant who had insight into the Abstract Ordinance of Death and she used the Ordinance to keep herself in a state of undead that was customary of the Ordinance she was borrowing.

Her ethereal form became much more clearer and gained more substance. While it retained its former look, it was now corrupted with the black and grey of death.

The figure on the Throne indeed surpassed all Primevals, however, it was the purest definition of life that had never been tainted with its direct opposite; Death.

Melinda became upright again and her previously white eyes were now a deathly grey while crack lines of the deathly ordinance were all over her Ethereal form.

Melinda used deathly essence to shield the bit of life force she still had from the figure who could not siphon it without taking a very dangerous bit of the death Ordinance that Melinda now had within her.

Melinda created a blade of the death ordinance she had borrowed and she tossed it at the faceless figure who recoiled at the sight of it even though it managed to repel the attack easily.

The recoil told Melinda she had been right about her guess before venturing on this attempt of hers.

It was not about power as this guardian truly surpassed her and the gods themselves but the figure was also a concept beneath another concept which was Order.

It was Order who had established the separation between all Abstract Ordinances and made it so that no one could attempt to have more than one of them and in its bid to further that separation, the guardian of Life was given a weakness that, while not dangerous in the sense that it could destroy it, still forced the Guardian to be rendered powerless in situations where its region was infiltrated by death.

However, following these rules never caused the Guardian of Life any issues because those rules also applied to Death just as they applied to it.

Death handles death and Life handles Life or so goes the rules.

No one with insight into the Ordinance of Death could gain insight into the Ordinance of Life and hence enter this region teeming with Life so this situation should never have been possible. However, Hal's creation of Infinity was changing so many rules or rendering them worthless by taking advantage of loopholes.

Anyway,

The guardian could not make direct contact with Melinda or her death-corrupted Life essence but it had another option which was to kick Melinda out.

The moment Melinda was out of the region, she would be out of the guardian's jurisdiction and the guardian would have to give up on repossessing the last bit of Lifeforce she had and it was okay with that.

This was the moment Melinda could be stopped. Getting access to the Network and successfully integrating with it would limit how much the guardian could do to her.

Once she gained Harnessing Level comprehension, Melinda could continue improving herself on the outside and likely never return until she knocked at the door of Paragon Level Comprehension, and until she made another entry into the region, she would forever be out of the guardian's reach.

A wave of force slammed into Melinda with enough force to smash her body into tiny bits and its effect on her ethereal self was the same in its effort to kick her out.

As she was hit, Melinda transformed into an Ankh that was promptly broken apart into smaller ankhs that dispersed all about the region.

A few were indeed kicked out of the region but the vast majority used the force they had been slammed with to disperse as far as they possibly could.

"Wh-?" the Figure sounded confused which sounded a tad funny due to the contrast with its usual nigh emotionless tone.

"Infinity, bitch," Melinda said with her voice coming from multiple ankhs all at once.

She had taken from Hal's infinity when synthesizing her bloodline and with it, she had gained a good bit of its abilities with many more to come the stronger her Bloodline became.

All of Melinda's ankhs spread about the wide network and immediately began to integrate with the many life force on the network.

Each one of the tiny ankhs, which were still corrupted by the Ordinance of Death, that joined with the Network used the life force to fund the replicating ability of Infinity that they imbued with and they soon numbered in the thousands.

Melinda's mocking words had only just landed that all this had happened but, of course, the Guardian tried its best to get rid of Melinda's integrating ankhs to small or inconsequential success.

It certainly did not help the guardian that the death essence in every one of those ankhs only got worse in their attempt to evade weeding and that indeed reduced the level of control or power the guardian could exert.

It probably succeeded in getting rid of a hundred before they were done integrating but it could do very little against the many more already allowing Melinda to achieve what should be impossible for a mortal.

The integration was completed in seconds during which Melinda left behind the necessary imprints before she pulled herself away in the form of her tiny Ankhs that came together to form a complete ethereal form coated in more glory than it had entered the region with.

In the Harem space, Melinda regained her insight into Life that the guardian had taken and quickly reached the Harnessing Level of the Ordinance in an act that caused an unseen ruckus across the Cosmic realm.

Every higher being in the Cosmic realm, namely the gods, felt the break of a fundamental rule imposed on worlds lacking Divinity and it was yet another sign of changing times and an ever-present shift in the order of things ever since the creation of Infinity by Hal.

Now at the Harnessing Level and connected to the Life Network, Melinda could view just how much she still needed to do but that was not her true goal.

Hal, being her inspiration had Melinda thinking there was more to gain by breaking free of being beneath anyone that was not Hal.

While she had defied the guardian, she was still beneath it and she was still beneath the sentience of Life itself and that did not sit well with the Dane beauty.

She began to wonder about surpassing whatever limitations such beings could place on her and she used her connection with the network to briefly reason possible attempts at accomplishing this goal of hers.

Eventually, she paused making future plans to relish her recent success.

In the Region of Life,

Melinda, in her ethereal form, stood before the agitated faceless guardian and allowed herself a smirk before she repelled herself from the region and rejoined her body.