<h4>Chapter 19: -19- Death and Destruction</h4>


    <i>"A beast, arge, strong beast, killed them all!"</i> Red said, so flustered and happy to finally meet his brother that he didn''t hear Ss''s question.


    <i>"What, a beast?"</i> Could a beast have wiped out his n? It was unlikely—there shouldn''t be a beast strong enough inside the inheritance realm to go unnoticed, enter his Armstrong n, and kill everyone.


    ''Wait, the vige,'' Ss suddenly thought as he began to rush toward the Ironfang vige that he had called home for close to a year.


    <i>"Yes, a beast! A peak Transcendent lifeform killed everyone! The entire vige is dead! It''s gone!" </i>Red finally confirmed his fears.


    ''Dammit!'' Ss thought as he ran toward the vige. While he wasn''t from the vige and didn''t have any family there, he had grown to love that little vige, and he had even started to consider it his vige to fill the hole his previous vige held in his heart.


    Ss eventually crossed Red''s path, and after about an hour at his top speed, he made it to the vige.


    "Dammit!" he yelled. The entire vige was gone; what little remained was currently being burned down.


    "Not a soul survived. I barely managed to escape," Red said.


    Ss walked forward to where the front gate had previously been, and he was surprised at the gruesome scene.


    While the beast that attacked had ughtered and eaten all the humans, it didn''t seem to want to do that to the vige guardian, the early Transcendent ck panther. It had hung its corpse up by its tail on a beam it had nted in the ground.


    Ss could tell the beast had fought hard for its life and the vige, but it was no match for a peak Transcendent lifeform.


    "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Ss yelled.


    He then started to walk through what was left of the vige. First, he walked to the ce he had lived for the past year, and after that, to the stream...


    About two hourster, Kai finally rushed into the vige.


    "First brother, second brother, are you both ok?" he yelled as he entered the vige.


    "Yes, we''re over here!" Red yelled.


    Ss was currently sitting on a rock, thinking about the past of both this vige and his previous one. How was his vige doing? Was it still ok? Did the war affect it? Had a beast crossed its path and destroyed it?


    After another 20 minutes of silence went by, he looked up to Kai, who was standing beside Red on a branch of a tree, and said, "Kai, I want you to go find that beast and bring it to me."


    Kai quickly nodded his little head, "You got it, boss."


    Kai then took off, following the scent of the beast. They were both Transcendent lifeforms, so they couldn''t fly yet, and the beast was clearly not a bird type since its trail was there and easy to follow.


    ***


    Three hours went by, and while Ss was waiting for Kai''s message of the mission''s sess, he was surprised at first and then slightly saddened to see Kai walk back into the vige with his hands empty and a sad look on his face.


    "Kai, what happened?" Ss asked. He knew something had to have happened—there was no way Kai had just decided to give up on the mission for no reason.


    "I''m sorry, boss," Kai said with his head held low.


    "I tried, but the beast was too strong... If it was a peak Transcendent beast alone, I could have handled it easily, but it''s also a king beast that''s managed to touch one lesser Dao of the fire type, so I could at most fight it to a standstill," Kai exined.


    "Damn," Ss said with a sigh.


    "I''m sorry, boss. If I had cultivated a little more instead of ying around so much, I wouldn''t still be an early Transcendent lifeform, and I would have been able to capture it," Kai said, his head down.


    "Don''t worry, Kai. It''s not your fault... Besides, I kind of wanted to kill the beast myself, so once I''m strong enough, I''ll do just that," Ss said, making a promise to both himself and the vige.


    "So what kind of beast was it?" Ss asked.


    "It was a red scorch crocodile," Kai said. He then shared a prompt.


    <strong>[Scorch Crocodile (King Beast) - Qi Cultivation: Peak Transcendent - Body Cultivation: Peak Transcendent]</strong>


    ***


    Three weeks quickly went by.


    Kai had once again split off on his own, this time saying confidently that he wouldn''t y around as much and would actually try to cultivate a little.


    Red no longer had a vige to stay in, so he followed Ss around and was currently watching Ss battle the lynx while sitting next to the Late Transcendent hawk.


    Ss still hadn''t managed to reach Transcendent yet, but he knew it was any day now, so he kept battling the spatial lynx.


    ***


    Ss was now sitting on a rock overlooking a vastke, thinking about his newprehensions.


    ''How does this rte to death and destruction?'' Ss pondered. To rank up as a Transcendent lifeform in his body cultivation, he would have to fuse both death and destruction together. This was the path his Grim Reaper King Fiendgod refinement technique took him down. This was the path of the Grim Reaper King.


    As the darkness deepened, Ss stood up and walked to the edge of theke. He stared into the murky water, seeing only his reflection and the swirling shadows beneath. His thoughts returned to all his training over the past year. His scythe was an instrument of death, its de the creator of destruction.


    But no matter how hard he thought, merging death and destruction, creating a bnce between them, seemed impossible. The more he thought, the more he realized he hadn''t even begun to grasp the core principles.


    "The fusion of death and destruction," he muttered. "How do I merge something so profound?"


    His gaze then shifted toward theke. The reflection of thendscape seemed to shift with the wind, and he watched as dead leaves floated on the surface. They moved in circles, first to the left, then to the right, caught in an endless spiral. As the wind intensified, the leaves were pulled under the water, consumed by the dark depths.


    Ss''s eyes widened as realization struck him.


    "The leaves... they spiral in both directions... but they never stop moving, never settle. They are pulled down into the depths, where they disintegrate into nothingness. That is the bnce. The spiral of death and destruction... one feeding into the other."


    His breathing slowed, and his senses heightened as he attuned himself to the world around him. He could feel the subtle shift in the air, the creeping chill of death in the night wind, and the underlying current of destruction. Slowly, his thoughts, his body, and his spirit began to merge with these elements, drawing him closer to a greater truth.


    The energy surrounding him thickened, and Ss felt a powerful resonance with the forces of death and destruction. His consciousness expanded, touching upon a primal force that had existed since the birth of the universe. He could see it now—an endless cycle of creation and devastation, of life and death. And within that cycle, the path of the Grim Reaper King was clear.


    Ss sat down in a lotus position, letting his spirit fully immerse in the dark essence surrounding him. He closed his eyes, focusing on the profound insights that had begun to form. His breathing became shallow, his body still, as he reached out to the eternal forces of death and destruction.


    Suddenly, from the darkness of the night, shadows began to gather around him. Wisps of ck mist coalesced, forming jagged, ethereal shapes that danced in the air. A faint, eerie glow emanated from Ss''s body as dark energy wrapped around him, forming a barrier of shadow. Two enormous leaves of darkness began to manifest—one leaf forged from the energy of death, the other from the energy of destruction. They swirled around him slowly, one turning left, the other turning right, creating a strange harmony in their opposing forces.


    The swirling energy drew power from the very air, the earth, and the decay that permeated the forest. The two leaves, ck as night and filled with an aura of finality, continued to turn, fed by the inexhaustible well of destruction and death.


    At that moment, Ss realized the significance of his breakthrough. He had be a conduit for the forces of the Grim Reaper King, death and destruction. As long as he remained in this state, he could harness the essence of death and destruction without effort. It was the first step toward true mastery.


    From the shadows of the forest, a pack of Mortal Dire Wolves watched him from a distance, their eyes glowing in the darkness. The leader of the pack, a hulking ck beast with fangs like daggers, growled low in its throat. The scent of death surrounding Ss only fueled their hunger. The wolves began to advance, their bodies low to the ground, ready to pounce on their seemingly defenseless prey.


    But as the first wolf leaped into the air, aiming for Ss''s throat, the swirling leaves of darkness responded. With a sickening crunch, the wolf was torn apart mid-air, reduced to nothing more than dust. The others hesitated, growling in confusion, but the oue was inevitable. The swirling energy shredded the wolves before they could evene close, leaving only silence in their wake.


    ***


    ***


    [A/n: I changed some of the ranks it now goes:


    1. Mortal


    2. Transcendent


    3. Revolving Core


    4. Golden Core]