We've got another dead end with the Eye. It's a lot more lucid this time around, but it still stays vague enough to be frustrating. And it doesn't last long before Bernhardt just obliterates it. Things we learn in the dead end:
- None of H.E.R.O.'s power trio should be as strong as they are. There's something weird about all of them. Malik is "completed, but kept whole by faith". Henri is "ascendant, yet still unborn". Bernhardt is "old, but somehow unbound".
- Bernhardt has an attack called Planck Pressure that's so strong that it distorts the fabric of reality in its path. Assuming that the name is literal and that he's actually producing the Planck Unit of pressure, his attack subjects the target to about ten million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion times the pressure at the heart of a neutron star. Let's hope he's exaggerating for dramatic effect, or we're never catching up to that.
- The Eye remembers manifesting and being defeated before. It knows that last time it appeared, things failed because of "the aberrant". I got some theories about what that means, but I'm not ready to jump to conclusions. And when Bernhardt kills it, it comments on its cruel fate of dying over and over and over again, but that evolution requires hardship. Its last words before dying are "until next time".
- The "She" that the Eye needs to complete itself is probably not Ella. It remembers Ella's name, but not the name of the "She" that is key to its completion.
I get the impression that the "natural order" of superhumans and monsters is to evolve until they are ready to be the perfect vessel. Im not sure if the choosen are supposed to be the vessel's for the arbiters/gods when they "come back" but i think so?
Following this thought these 12 or 6 at the moment are supposed to fight/kill each other sooner or later which leaves one winner behind who is the true good at this point (possessed by the arbiter? or reborn or whatever. This seems to be the nature in which the monsters believe and Ella imo adopted that, dropping hints in this update how great the group of friends of the MC is but in the end there can be only one.
Kinda links to Coles "only one" obsession too even tho he thinks its about being Ella's lover but i suspect at this point its Ella's goal to become part of the MC at some point.
But there seems to be another way the monsters and Ella doesnt really know about and it looks like its (as cringe as it sounds) its connected to love/friendship/companionship.
The choices from the eyes pointed towards that since the beginning and i think the eyes perception of Bernhardt/Mailik/Henri does too, all of them were the perfect vessels and should have turned/transformed already a long time ago but were able to resist their destiny/whatever.
Bernhardt being "unbound" could indicate that he simply destroyed his arbiter out of existance (maybe with help from Malik and Henri?), i always wondered how these over-powerful guys like the captians developed such a strong bond due to over fighting humans or weak monsters and it always was kinda odd how close for example Bernhardt and Malik or Henri are considering their entirely opposite personalitys, a bound like that seems to be forged due to true hardship.
Like maybe eradicating an arbiter out of existance together? Something which isnt supposed to be possible and only was possible because the three of them (or all 5 captains) were allied together? So they learned to appreciate and understand how much they need each other no matter how powerful every one of them becomes on their own? Im just brainstorming at this point lol.
Im not sure its possible to catch up to bernhardt in the time of the story lol, i suspect he will cease to exist due to indra or something completly out of there (the god tentacles?)
I think being reborn and dying kinda is the whole game of the arbiters, it sounds the neverending battle of who's able to manifest and stay in reality between the gods, so they would have naturally manifested countless times in countless worlds/galaxys already.
I think the "she" that she needs to complete itself is the mc's mom. She may took something with her when she "left", this could be the reason why her mom is "pissed" at her too
Edit: In the long run this would kinda mean the mc can either absorb all of our allies into him to become the overpowerful being and they become a part of him like Jack or Danica are already or we fight instead together with our allies against the arbiter?
