I am an Eldritch Entity

The Rite of Authority Severance.

The anomalies almost never initiated this ritual because it came at a great cost if one failed to steal the authority.

If it was anomaly A who initiated the ritual and failed to steal the authority of anomaly B, it would be subject to heavy penalties.

As a target, anomaly B wouldn't be faced with penalties even if it failed to steal the authority of anomaly A.

These penalties could range from never being able to initiate the ritual again, never being able to use their ability again, a drop in their realm, a drastic decrease in their energy absorption capability and so on.

Even the weakest penalties consisted of never being able to initiate The Rite of Authority Severance against the same target or not being able to use one's own ability for a certain number of years.

The harshest penalties ranged from immediate death, to intense pain upon the soul of the anomaly every second it lived.

These penalties naturally deterred the anomalies from initiating the ritual, which was a battle of wills.

It wasn't as if anomaly A could measure its own will which was at seventy eight, and then choose to safely challenge anomaly B whose will was at forty nine.

After all, will was a deeply abstract force. It wasn't something that could be weighed or measured with any known tool.

No scale could balance it, no eye could truly see it, and no art could perfectly grasp its magnitude.

Will was forged in the fires of suffering—the quiet defiance of a soul that refused to shatter.

It was not born in a moment, but accumulated over years, across trials, failures, pain, and perseverance. It was grit.

Every setback endured, every dream chased through despair, every choice to rise when it was easier to fall—these were the bricks that built a will.

It was composed of more than just determination. It carried the weight of a person's beliefs, regrets, love, fear, hope.

It was shaped by their identity, by everything they had lost and everything they still clung to.

How could one quantify that?

Could one compare the will of a grieving father to that of a betrayed warrior?

Could one say a martyr's conviction outweighed that of a survivor clinging to life by sheer determination?

No.

It couldn't be quantified and compared. Not even this ritual could do it.

What the ritual did instead was pit them against each other, with will as the only axis of competition.

So what if will couldn't be measured? The ritual was still mystical enough to allow willpower to display its prowess.

Also, The Rite of Authority Severance allowed an anomaly to steal the authority of the other anomaly only if it could overpower the willpower of the other anomaly.

If there was only a small difference, the targeted anomaly could easily be successful at holding on to its ability till the end of the ritual, not letting it fall into grasp of another anomaly.

It was essentially a tug of war with a time limit. If one wanted to steal the authority, they would need overwhelming will power to snatch the authority within the time limit.

Eryndor's Hunger filled mind gained a semblance of clarity for the briefest of moments when The Rite of Authority Severance momentarily satiated the hunger through its activation.

Naturally, during this moment of clarity, Eryndor gained all memories related to this ritual.

So this is what the Hunger was about? To obtain authority?

No wonder just the initiation of the ritual brought me a moment of rationality.

It was just like when you were incredibly hungry, and if someone began cooking for you, you would at least feel a tiny satisfaction, right?

It was the same concept here.

Of course, that was all he could think of. Eryndor's rationality was soon snuffed out by overwhelming hunger as the last scene he registered was his surroundings changing.

The place where the ritual teleported them to was a vast space, with stars on all sides.

If one could look closer though, they would notice that it wasn't actually stars but countless runes which had coalesced to form different shining shapes.

Two huge obsidian colored objects floated in the center of the vast space, with a luminescent orb floating perfectly in the middle of both.

Eryndor emerged on one side, safely appearing directly on the huge obsidian colored platform.

It was as if his Hunger filled mind recognised the place, it didn't foolishly try to have Eryndor approach the other platform but stayed still.

On the platform opposite to Eryndor, what teleported wasn't the middle aged man but something drastically different.

The entity was ridiculously large, its body towering like a jagged monument of fused flesh and minerals.

Its surface was a patchwork of slick silver linings, and pulsing red rocks, similar in texture to obsidian, with deep grooves that pulsed with a dim, internal blue-white glow.

It looked unnatural, creepy, and something from the realm of the unknown.

It had six limbs — four thick, jointed legs ending in blunt, clawed feet, and two massive upper arms that branched into multi-jointed appendages, each ending in segmented fingers that tapered into curved talon-like tips.

From its back, a crown of spine-like structures jutted upward and outward — some straight, some spiraling — all constantly rotating at slow, uneven speeds.

The head was shaped like an elongated dome, with no visible mouth. Instead, a cluster of nine eyes—each a different size—were embedded along the front and sides of the head, arranged asymmetrically.

Some of the eyes blinked independently, and others moved on stalks that could extend outward briefly.

Unquestionably, all of the eyes were currently fixated on Eryndor.

It was the true form of Daoisto!

As soon as He appeared, the luminescent orb in the middle began spinning, projecting two huge holograms, one above, and one below the orb.

A symbol of scales with a hand pointing to an object on one end manifested above the orb.

While a symbol of Cloak appeared below the orb.

Finally, a thin white glowing strand connected both the entities to the glowing orb in the center.

The ritual had begun!