ã€ŠReincarnated as a Worldã€‹


 PROLOGUE

    CRASH!

    The silence of a bedroom filled with luxurious items was disrupted as a despondent looking Eridel burst into the scene. He didn¡¯t seem to care about the items that had been felled in his path to his goal; his bed.

    You didn¡¯t need to look close to notice the bruises that could be seen on most of his exposed skin.

    "For fucks sake¡­" Eridel muttered as he struggled to drag his clothes off of his obviously exhausted body.

    Scenes of the night rolled through his mind.

    Eridel had so many Women that it was actually embarrassing. When one could claim to have 2 or 3 girlfriends, Men would admire you and Women would shame you on the outside, but secretly wonder what made you so great that you were capable of having multiple girlfriends in harmony.

    However, when the number of Women you had actually managed to reach triple digits. You could only be looked at as a perverted wastrel. Most would sneer with disdain, completely unbelieving of the fact that you could satisfy so many Women on the inside.

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    And naturally Eridel wasn¡¯t any different. Even with the help of libido boosting supplements, no one had the capability to keep 213 Women satisfied. More importantly, it was even more impossible to keep most of these Women emotionally invested in this sort of relationship where you are competing with 212 for time with one Man. Ludicrous.

    But this fool kept increasing the tally. Just 2 hours ago, Eridel had been with a new girl that he had courted just 2 days ago.

    It had to be said that even if Eridel had nothing going for him, he had an extremely handsome face and a silver tongue. A being like him could seduce a girl very easily, especially when you took into consideration his other aspects.

    Anyhow, 2 hours ago, Eridel and his new conquest named Ciel, a beautiful girl with a curvaceous figure and a gorgeous face could be located in a love hotel making the sounds of ¡°oohs and ahhs¡± when the door burst open.

    BANG!

    A nigh 7ft big bald dude with a tattoo on the left side of his face and a scar on the other (he seemed to be dual wielding the dao of gangster) had literally kicked down the door. This man was dressed in a white tank top and faded baggy jeans¡­ he also wore black Air Force 1¡¯s¡­ Oh dear.

    ¡°WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WITH MY B*TCH YOU BASTARD!¡±

    And the rest is history.

    Eridel tutted in annoyance, wondering how ¡®big and violent¡¯ even found him and how long it would take for his wounds to heal as he clambered in bed in just his underwear as he always sleeps.

    Despite the aching injuries, Eridel managed to sleep quite swiftly. Could Eridel have learnt his lesson? Maybe he would cease to increase the amount of lovers he had. Or at least refrain from the ones that had already told him ¡®I have a boyfriend but I don¡¯t care about him anymore¡¯.

    20 hours later, it had to be asked - Why had Eridel not woken up yet?

    His wounds were definitely not that severe, he shouldn¡¯t even be in a coma. Looking at his increasingly pale face and the¡­ lack of breath. He couldn¡¯t be dead right?

 Ch.1 A New World

    In an unknown galaxy containing 196 Worlds, hid an undiscovered 197th. When it came to Worlds, there were 4 Grades; Low, Mid, High and Law.

    Everything was graded and Worlds, Stars, Galaxies and more could definitely not escape that.

    This new World was the lowest of the low, barely 10,000 years old and was already on the brink of destruction. This wasn¡¯t actually uncommon though. Numerous Worlds rose and fell everyday and before a World could form its consciousness to steer everything towards perfection, anything can happen and more often than not, self destruction was the result.

    The World had naturally not formed a consciousness yet, such a thing was reserved for High Worlds and very, very rarely could you see one in a Mid World. So at least it wouldn¡¯t have to watch itself slowly die.

    But something changed. Something that would cause great changes in the fragile peace of this galaxy and usher everything into a new era.

    Something that looked like a golden star came shooting down from god knows where without a single sound. In just a moment the ¡®star¡¯ had struck or rather it seamlessly slipped into the World, causing it to shake and emit ripples in space that went on for thousands of miles with this debilitated World at the centre and no one to see before dissipating.

    Inside the World you could see that the reason for this reaction was that the entity had actually managed to finally collide with something after an unknown amount of time which had caused the previously mentioned shaking.

    It had hit the World¡¯s Core. And contrary to expectations, the entity did not blow apart the world but it seemed to actually¡­ fuse with it. Despite the fact that the World had begun to shake at this moment, what occurred inside was very different.

    The previously wrathful volcanoes that seemed to want nothing but destruction suddenly turned docile as if their Grandfather had entered the room. The dense amount of smoke and smog in the surroundings slowly but visibly vanishing.

    Arrogant seas that put no other existence in their eyes, forming towering tsunamis and laying waste to the planet abruptly dropped down to regular sea levels and soon after settling down, let out gentle and calming waves that seemed strangely placating. As if trying to soothe someone''s ire.

    The earth that had previously been violently ruptured, with no vegetation on sight, signifying the doom of the planet had also started it¡¯s own changes. Every single crack and every single unnaturally formed ravine and valley quickly started ¡®healing¡¯.

    The way it seemed to be frantically erasing the blemishes on the planet, even bursting out all manners of plant life was like an employee who¡¯s unexpected Boss had come in to see his dirty work station and the employee tried to remedy all mistakes.

    Even more shocking was the actual plants that managed revi- no, the old plants were done and dusted, but it seems from the very few remains, new plants were born and those plants were rapidly proliferating all over the place, even trees were rising up and becoming fully matured trees in mere minutes.

    But by some unimaginable means, there were areas that the plant life didn¡¯t invade, as if¡­ as if some force was making it that way.

    If you looked from afar, you could actually notice that these plants were actually NOT appearing in random places and were in fact incomprehensibly placed in such a way that it looked like beautiful and natural locations of nature.

    Grand forests, Rain forests, Plains and more had appeared, even oases had appeared in the deserts that had previously been arid beyond redemption but now looked like lustrous lands of sand.

    It was like the god of nature had decided to bless the entire planet, spreading harmony across the lands. But that was most certainly not the case.

    This seemingly peaceful and awe inspiring scene would raise the hairs of the oldest of Men and make the most fiendish of Monsters scream in terror. And it was because of what this sequence of events meant.

    The entire process actually took 2 months to complete, something that would normally be impossible, actually happened so quickly.

    When a planet was on the path of destruction, only a High World and above had the ability to save itself. This was because it was not the same as a planet being damaged. Even if a planet was sliced in half, as long as the core was not damaged, the planet would only need time to heal and the help of residents could hasten the recovery. And even then, if the planet was as damaged as this one just was, even with the help of billions of residents that certainly would not be surviving in that environment, it would take centuries at best and often a few millennia for this kind of full restoration.

    But when the core of a world was damaged, no matter how small the damage. It was game over. And that was what was going on with this World too.

    The laws of destruction would invade the planet, its mere presence harmful to all lifeforms, and its ability to destroy planets unparalleled amongst the laws.

    It usually took only 1 year for the laws of destruction to end a mere Low World so this begs the question; how did this lowest of the low survive?

    Fortunately, no one was there to witness this sequence of events that defied all logic¡­ Well there was one person; Eridel.

    ¡°Good¡±

    An extremely Ancient voice that sounded like it came from the depths of the earth sounded across the entire World.

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    ----------

    When Eridel died, his soul that should have normally gone through purification and reincarnation (which was the cleansing of all memories, defects and more before entering a new life form just seconds before its birth) was suddenly hit by¡­ something.

    It looked like a condensed ball of golden light the size of a baseball. Although this thing had somehow fused with him, turning his previously white coloured soul into gold coloured soul, it also harmed quite severely and damaged souls were always a problem no matter how small.

    Eridel didn¡¯t even have time to swear before he blacked out.

    This was the point where fate had forever changed for Eridel. His soul was sent flying off into the distance, missing the rift that was supposed to cleanse his soul.

    Thankfully, whatever mutation occurred in his soul had given it passive self-healing abilities even if it was very slow.

    ???????? ?????????? ??????????

    Eridel was fed up. His soul had perfectly healed 1990 years ago and he had naturally awoken again, but he was still flying like a shooting star. He figured that whatever happened after death shouldn¡¯t be so¡­ tedious.

    The first year he was fine, he was already mentally strong and could take the rare solitude. But it got worse and finally he started to get angry.

    Although he noticed that some type of energy seemed to be rising inside of him that he would later know as primordial essence which was the source energy of all souls and should NEVER be rising the way it was constantly now doing, he was no longer entertained by it.

    After 10 years of righteous fury came 2 years of despair. Something much worse than any amount of wrath filled years. After those years something broke in him and he remained silent and accepted the situation, his mind becoming cold and very slightly primitive.

    In the remaining 1977 years, he had seen many, many things, he had even been attacked a few times by¡­ things that could still give him shivers even if he remained unharmed each time.

    The only thing that kept his mind sane and even improving it was the occasional¡­ upgrades? That he felt, he didn¡¯t know what to call the feeling, but it came with bursts of euphoria that cleansed his depression completely before it began to accumulate again.

    He also noticed a substantial increase in both quantity and quality of the energy inside but he didn¡¯t care at all. Such a ¡®useless¡¯ thing, could it help him get women? He would even be happy to see his bastard Dad at this point.

    What more interested him was the memories and instincts that he obtained each upgrade. Eridel now knew what the point of this endless journey was. And it was naturally to find a new body, something he guessed a thousand years ago.

    However, the reason it took so long was because he was meant to collide with a core. Any type of core, whether it be in the form of a mana core, beast core, item origin, it had to be the core existence of something that could end up becoming a life form. It didn¡¯t matter if the life form already had a soul, because it would blink out of existence when he invaded.

    Eridel had to actually make contact with the core, not just the body of it so you could imagine how hard it was when he couldn¡¯t even control his own bod- soul.

    He had gone through a countless amount of worlds and even a few bodies but he missed the core every time. It was just too frustrating.

    However, after 2000 years, something changed. He finally made contact.

    ¡­

    ¡®This is my body now?¡¯

    Eridel was flabbergasted when he finally made connection with the core, and by association, the world. He had actually become an entire planet. A dying one too. He didn¡¯t even see it coming because he was asleep, something he did most of the time out of boredom.

    Shockingly, Eridel calmed down after half a minute, then started to get extremely excited, causing the World to shake and his primordial essence (the name he now knew the name of because of the memory inheritance) to release quite visibly.

    Eridel soon devoured the memories and instincts that every World should have in a mere 5 minutes, which was shocking when you looked at how much information there was, centuries wouldn¡¯t be enough to digest that knowledge. However, if you could actually take a look at the level of his soul, it would seem normal.

    Looking at the vast amount of devastation on his ¡®body¡¯, Eridel began to move.

    He first put the remaining tenacious living beings into a coma. Which we will talk about later.

    He used his primordial essence to forcefully contain the entire laws of destruction but he didn¡¯t dissipate it, even if all he needed was a thought to do so. Despite how simple it sounded, it didn¡¯t look simple at all.

    Golden energy(Primordial Essence) filled the world, and wherever there was red energy(Destruction Essence), golden energy contained it, eventually collecting it all until it was all compact into a ball of what looked like a very visible and very red gas. Surrounded and contained by a thin golden glass. These energies were originally very transparent, but when condensed to this extent, how could it not be visible?

    Surprisingly, the usually hyper-violent Destruction Laws didn¡¯t have the ability to resist at all. It could only roll around in its cage like a trapped ghost in a jar.

    The caged Destruction Laws were actually put next to the Core of the World which would give anyone heart palpitations, but looking at the completely stable golden cage¡­ It was probably okay.

    ¡®I have plans for you¡­¡¯ Eridel thought.

    He then began to heal his core which also seemed effortless but would make anyone seeing scream in surprise. After this came the healing of the planet.

    Looking at the delicate planet, Eridel became frustrated. He knew that he couldn¡¯t just endlessly pump his energy into it because he knew that the brittle plane wouldn¡¯t be able to handle it. So he did it slowly, ordering the lands to use the energy to heal itself, the process taking 2 months.

    Eridel looked at his envisioned ideal planet that had become a reality and ¡®smiled¡¯ in satisfaction. Unaware of how horrendous and terrifying his actions were.

    ¡°Good¡±

    Eridel actually managed to speak out, something any World consciousness could do¡­ if it actually had the ability to comprehend language. The only time you would hear a World¡¯s voice was when it was in severe pain. This could be a result of a powerful attack or more¡­ sinister means.

    While a World consciousness is extremely smart, smarter than any other lifeform (this also goes for Eridel, boosting his already high intelligence), they could not speak nor understand words at all, it never happened and it never will happen.

    Or that¡¯s how it was supposed to be. Being a Human reincarnate, how could Eridel not know how to speak? This was just one insignificant bonus that Eridel had as a result of his reincarnated status.

    For now. Eridel looked at the last remaining species on his planet that he managed to keep alive in these 2 months with his boundless Primordial Essence.

    Seeing the Essence of Destruction that he didn¡¯t dare to remove from their bodies, Eridel frowned.

 Ch.2 A Shocking Mutation

    In a continent located in what could be considered as the centre of the world that Eridel temporarily called the central continent, you could see a family of peculiar¡­ lizards. With a grand total of 71.

    Most of them were the regular grey colour, but they were a whole 3 times bigger than usual at around 90 centimetres long. And their heads were certainly not like the average lizard, having a more protruding snout and two suspicious bumps on each side of their forehead.

    9 of the 71 hatchlings were a dark shade of red, the exact colour of the essence Destruction. Despite being asleep, an aura of brutality could be sensed from them and It didn¡¯t take much to guess the reason why. These lizards were even bigger than the grey ones being 1.5 meters long and the bumps on their head had actually been pierced to reveal onyx black horns. Though they could barely be seen at the moment.

    Surprisingly, 2 of these dark red lizards were different from the rest, being a shocking 2 meters long and having horns a few centimetres longer. The scary thing about these horns was the fact that the essence of Destruction seemed to swirl around them, looking like red fireflies were dancing around them.

    Eridel also noticed the 2 ridges on the back of these lizards. Looking at the horns and the developing skull structure, it didn¡¯t take much to guess what they were hiding

    ¡®Are the lizards trying to become dragons?¡¯ Eridel was both surprised and amused. It wasn¡¯t impossible for lizards to evolve into dragons if they lived long enough, had a fortunate encounter and kept evolving. But that was when magic energy had been awakened on the planet. That was when all life forms started evolving.

    Even then, it was still very rare for a lizard to become a dragon. It was very often for them to just keep growing every evolution and develop some special abilities.

    Eridel suddenly saw something that made him pause. Something other than the¡­ even more ¡®special case¡¯ that he¡¯ll mention later.

    The brutality around one of 2 special ¡®lizards¡¯ was impossibly calm. It felt more like water, but this water was certainly not innocent and more of an entire sea that could consume you whole without making a commotion, inducing an instinctual fear in those in its presence. This ¡®lizard¡¯ was female so Eridel temporarily called her Calmilla.

    The other one had the most volatile brutality out of all of these ¡®lizards¡¯. It was like a raging flame that sought the destruction of EVERYTHING. This one was obviously going to grow up to be an extremely wrathful being, even now in its sleep, its face was twisted in anger. This ¡®lizard¡¯ was male so Eridel called him Aeshma. Named after the demon of wrath as an inside joke, but little did he know¡­

    ¡®How interesting¡¯ Eridel was very pleased with these surprises.

    Seeing how these 9 hatchlings were the ones that carried the densest residue essence of destruction in their bodies. Eridel had come to the conclusion that all of these ¡®lizards¡¯ had been mutated.

    Eridel used his innate ability as a World to look at something that could only be described as ¡®World Archive¡¯. Everything that happened from the beginning of this World till now were recorded there.

    Going back a little more than 2 months ago, a hair-raisingly tenacious female lizard, although dying, had actually managed to give birth to a whopping 98 babies.

    But miraculously, whilst the lizards were still in their eggs and they were not completely formed, they had actually managed to gradually absorb the Laws of Destruction and develop a resistance while the egg shell took the brunt of the Destruction essence.

    10 of them even took it as far as to subconsciously develop varying levels of affinity with the Law of destruction, only the Calmilla and Aeshma reaching perfect affinity. It didn¡¯t need to be said that they were extremely talented. Unfortunately, one of the ¡®destruction lizards¡¯ was too hasty and died in the process.

    The only reason these babies had managed to survive the essence of destruction coming in contact with them was because of the simple fact that the fate of the World relied on them. While it wouldn¡¯t stop the eventual end, if a Low World lost all of its residents in that situation, the World would have been finished, no need to wait for everything to break apart.

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    Residents were a World''s bread and butter, having no residents was just like having no blood. Only World¡¯s that had just been formed had the grace period of 5000 years to start producing life forms. On the other hand, a Law World was completely fine, whether they had residents or not, all they served was to continue to boost their quality.

    Facing this precarious situation, the world instinctually saved them. Just this fact showed that the World had potential to become at least a High World. The fact that it¡¯s instincts were active showed what could only be called talent.

    Eridel temporarily pondered on why such a World would self-destruct but decided to save it for later.

    When they were born, all but Calmilla and Aeshma began to die. The Laws of destruction were still present at this time and despite the resistances, even the ¡®destruction lizards¡¯ began to die, although at a much slower rate.

    This was because they weren¡¯t completely affiliated with the Laws of Destruction like their 2 siblings just yet. It would take just 1 evolution to rectify this, and even though the evolution wouldn¡¯t increase their levels of affinity with the Laws of Destruction, they would definitely become beings of destruction, gaining complete immunity.

    Unfortunately they didn¡¯t have the time. Unsurprisingly, the lizards began to fight amongst themselves, most if not all the fights initiated by the ¡®destruction lizards¡¯. It was just in their nature and they weren¡¯t old enough to control their urges yet.

    Only Calmilla refrained from initiating fights, while surprising, wasn¡¯t too unexpected, giving her obvious traits. But the glint in her eyes as she watched the others was like a snake looking at prey.

    But this did not mean she didn¡¯t fight. Even though most would not dare to antagonize her, instinctively recognizing her supremacy, the same did not go for Aeshma.

    That little shit wanted to fight everybody, resulting in 3 deaths amongst the regular lizards. This made Eridel slightly annoyed but he naturally couldn¡¯t interfere, he wasn¡¯t even here yet, he was only able to watch the scene through the ¡®World Archive¡¯.

    After that, Aeshma would only pick fights with Calmilla, showing a love for battle more than simply killing. If it wasn''t for this, Aeshma wouldn''t be able to escape death. Eridel would never leave behind a being that liked to kill that much and endanger the last remaining species on his planet.

    Luckily, Calmilla was able to fend off the battle maniac and even gain the upper hand every time, showcasing her superior intelligence.

    But unfortunately the deaths didn''t stop with 3.

    1, 2, 3, 8, 13¡­ A whole 20 more babies had died as a result of the Laws of Destruction, leaving their corpses all over the place.

    The rest of the Lizards were getting weaker too, not just because of the Laws of Destruction, but¡­ but because they didn''t know how to eat yet. They were starving and beginning to lose vitality. 3 more of the hatchlings died.

    But Eridel wasn''t worried, he had counted 71 before looking at the Archives and knew no more deaths would occur. He just wonder how they learned to-

    ''I see¡­''

    Calmilla had discovered how to eat. And as a result, so did the rest, Aeshma especially eating with gusto on the corpses of his brethren.

    The lizards had begun to cannibalise.

    Eridel turned his attention to the anomaly. The only thing he couldn''t explain. It was a lizard like the others, but¡­ not like the others. It was a lizard who for some reason, chose not to go through any sort of mutation, but managed to survive. Looking like a regular lizard and with no hidden specialties. Yet...

    Like the others, it absorbed the essences of destruction whilst in its egg. But it did not mutate like the others that were all walking on the path to becoming dragons. And yet¡­

    Eridel could clearly see that this lizard was somehow storing the Laws of Destruction, the ones it absorbed from its egg days. Despite the fact that this damaged the Lizard faster than the others It still¡­ managed to survive.

    The reason it was still breathing was probably because unless when eating, this lizard barely moved, it would just sit in one place, closing its eyes or watching the others most of the time. The only other time it would move was to stealthily escape when Aeshma came close, surprisingly showing good survival skills.

    This obviously meant it was not retarded and had a well functioning brain, so why did it hoard the essences of destruction and not fuse with them like its siblings? It didn¡¯t make any sense, did it not wish to evolve? But that was impossible, no primitive species could fight the allure of evolution. It was obviously smart, even Calmilla copied its habits to preserve strength, so why-

    BOOM!

    ¡®Ah, here I finally revived¡¯ Eridel watched as the ¡®past Eridel¡¯ had started the restoration of the planet. When he watched the ¡®past Eridel¡¯ notice the last living species, instilling them with his Primordial Essence to sustain their lives and put them in a coma. Eridel noticed something.

    Before the strange lizard had fallen asleep, it suddenly grinned, releasing the essences of destruction and making them¡­ fuse with his Primordial essence. Eridel almost screamed. A mere lizard had actually fused a Law essence with his Soul essence.

    It was like trying to mix water with oil, it was impossible. But what was the situation?

 Ch.3 Unbelievable...

    Eridel watched as this incomprehensible creature forcefully fused these two completely incompatible essences together.

    ¡®You¡­?¡¯

    It was then Eridel remembered one of the lizards he saw that were completely different to the rest before he started looking at the archives. Golden scales and¡­

    ¡®Damn, what a freak¡¯

    Eridel honed his gaze on the happenings of the lizard¡¯s actions. Finally noticing that things weren¡¯t exactly as it seemed. Looking at the two essences coming in contact with each other. Eridel immediately realized that it was not really a fusion, but¡­

    ¡®THIS THING IS ACTUALLY USING MY PRIMORDIAL ESSENCE TO CHANGE THE PROPERTIES OF THE LAWS OF DESTRUCTION?!¡¯

    Eridel¡¯s ridiculously powerful mind almost froze from shock.

    Not only was this Lizard performing these unfathomable actions, it was also doing it with shocking efficiency. Eridel was just too confused. He, a World Consciousness, couldn¡¯t understand what was happening within ¡®him¡¯.

    It was at this moment that the Laws of Destruction, under the influence of his Primordial Essence¡­ became the Laws of Creation. Losing its dark red colour and inherited the colour of his Primordial Essence. Gold. Though it could be said that the Laws of Creation were gold anyways.

    The firmly controlled and converted Laws of Creation was then fully absorbed and fused into the lizard¡¯s body. Doing what it should have done inside the egg. It was finally choosing to evolve. At the same time, this was the moment that ¡®past Eridel¡¯ sent the entire ¡®lizard¡¯ race into a coma.

    ¡®Unbelievable...¡¯

    It obviously didn¡¯t matter that the ¡®lizard¡¯ was put into a coma because the ¡®lizard¡¯ had undergone its evolution process, taking a whole week to do so. Well, not that it mattered, most life forms, especially the beast race - slept when they were evolving, so her coma induced state might have even been a help.

    After the week and a vast change in scenery as a result of the healing lands, gold lights erupted out of the sleeping liz- no. Dragon. It might not be a fully fledged one but it was clearly becoming a dragon. The Laws of Creation flared out its body, creating a scene of raw and pure majesty. Instilling awe into those in her presence. Even Eridel was impressed.

    ¡®The Laws of Creation are no joke¡­¡¯

    When the golden lights died down, it revealed an absolutely beautiful creature. 3 metres long with Sleek golden scales, an elongated neck that its siblings had not achieved yet, a fully transformed dragon head complete with 10 centimetre tall horns and like it''s 2 special siblings, it had achieved perfect affinity with a Law and had the horns to match, golden lights swirling around her 2 much lighter shade golden horns.

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    Shockingly, this baby dragon that he could now identify as female had the claws to match, complete with the swirling lights and resplendent colour.

    Eridel really had to appreciate the sight of these horns and claws, he could confidently say that they looked like they were carved out of golden jade, it was too fantastical.

    But it was then that Eridel noticed something else. Because despite the Laws of Creation and Destruction being on the same grade. She looked greater than her 2 special siblings of the opposite Law. Bigger than them, more defined than them, transformed claws, even her tail was longer and thicker than her 2 siblings despite them all achieving perfect affinity in the same grade of Laws.

    That was when he noticed¡­ Eridel looked on with impassive ¡®eyes¡¯, promising to just take it in stride no matter what this creature did.

    This hatchling had actually managed to break through and awaken mana, further evolving 1 more time in the process as all animals did when they awakened mana. But that, although extremely bizarre because Eridel had not chosen to awaken this World¡¯s magical energy yet - was not the reason Eridel was unable to keep his recently promised impassiveness.

    Mana was worldly energy that had been converted in the body to enhance it and more. Obviously, you could perform magic and skills with it too, granted you had techniques and the required amount of energy.

    Magical energy was the first and most vastly spread wordly energy, on top of that, it was very versatile and much easier to wield than other world energies you could come across so it was of course what all beings (that didn¡¯t have race specific energies like demon energy) used to form Mana.

    But there was no magical energy on this plant, so what did this freak of nature do? It decided and succeeded in using the essence of creation to form her Mana. This meant that whatever she absorbed in future, would convert into her mana which was made out of the Laws of Creation.

    While this would result in a slower cultivation speed. Her powers had increased exponentially. She would very rarely ever find an equal in the same level even if she left for other Worlds. But at this point, the more special this creature was, the more Eridel ¡®frowned¡¯.

    It was just too crazy, these were the kind of heaven defying talents that he saw on Anime and Manga.

    ¡®What is the meaning of this? Did someone powerful reincarnate into this body and create this situation? Is she a protagonist?¡¯

    Eridel just decided to let it go. Even if she was a reincarnation, what could she do to him? In fact, it would be beneficial if they could trade knowledge in the future. He was a world, Worlds don¡¯t fight, only the residents do.

    If only Eridel could see the future, he wouldn¡¯t be opening his stupid mouth to placate himself by saying ¡®Worlds don¡¯t fight¡¯.

    Eridel pondered for a few seconds before deciding

    ¡®A beautiful creature with the ability to create¡­ I shall name you Gaia¡¯

    Giving someone such a name, it was obvious Eridel had grand plans for her. After coming up with a few calculations and fondly looking over the last species on his planet. Eridel retreated out of the Archives.

    ¡®It¡¯s time to put a few of my increasing plans in action¡¯

 Ch.4 The Truth About gods

    As if he was removing fog off a window, Eridel removed the remaining essence of destruction from the regular hatchlings. At this point, they had no hope of gaining an affinity with those laws and keeping it within their bodies would just slowly kill them.

    In future, it was indeed possible to gain affinity with the Laws of Destruction and they even had better chances than any other life form - having experienced and even absorbing the Laws whilst in their gestation stage.

    But unfortunately, it was very, very hard. Affinity was like talent, and such a thing could scarcely be changed after birth. That¡¯s why 9 out of 10 times, rich families inject all kinds of drugs, divine treasures and more directly into their child''s while still in the womb in hopes to increase their natural talents.

    This would only ever benefit the child and never harm it if you knew the correct techniques. If you were foolish enough to mix in herbs with too much energy, or treasures that only suited specific races and weren''t even the same as you¡­

    You could only blame yourself when the child directly blew up, killing the mother in the process, or even came out completely crippled.

    Eridel knew that the regular hatchlings had missed their most opportune time and they wouldn¡¯t be able to gain affinity with destruction before that same destruction claimed their life first.

    They had their chance and they missed it which was perfectly fine. Having 9 ¡®dragons¡¯ of destruction with 2 of them reaching perfect affinity was already a blessing and Eridel was satisfied.

    Eridel also left the other 7 ¡®dragons¡¯ of destruction with the essence of destruction still inside their bodies. It was indeed still slowly killing them but Eridel didn¡¯t care. It was not because he had confidence in his Primordial Essence removing the risk even though it did - but because he knew that they only needed their first true evolution (the one Gaia had already gone through) to become completely resistant and that would happen when he awakened magical energy in the planet.

    Having the essence of their Law in their bodies when they breakthrough would be extremely beneficial and make the process smooth sailing.

    It may seem like what the hatchlings had gone through already was an evolution, but it was not, it was more of a half evolution, commonly called a mutation.

    A mutation was something that occurred because an outside influence had forcefully upgraded you, changing you, but not on such a grand scale. An example of a mutation was a Human consuming Dragon blood and gaining horns and wings.

    An evolution came from cultivation, breaking your limits personally and causing a complete upgrade in your DNA. That was why Gaia was so much greater than her siblings.

    After looking back one more time at the slumbering up and coming dragon race, Eridel turned his attention back towards the rest of the world.

    Eridel had extremely stupendous plans for his planet. Ones that would cause immortals to hide and gods to fear, if they all came to fruition.

    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    But first, Eridel needed to start with the basics - creating more species. Like he said before, residents were a World¡¯s bread and butter. No residents, No progress. And with no progress, you could only wait for death. More on that later.

    ¡®For my first created species¡­ hmm, let¡¯s go for snakes¡¯

    Eridel used to have a pet snake in his last life that he was very fond of before it died. At the time he was 12 and cried for quite a long time. Even now, despite experiencing 2000 years of solitude, he still got mildly agitated just thinking about it.

    ¡®Hehehe¡­ now, it is time to use my trump card, my own personal golden finger¡¯

    The reason that Eridel was so excited after realizing he became a World was because he knew that it came with the ability to manipulate all the Laws¡­ granted you had the source energy for it.

    But here was the twist. There was not a single World that had any kind of source energy. Source energy was a personal energy that was ¡®GENERATED¡¯ from you and for ¡®YOUR¡¯ personal usage, both of those two terms were key.

    A World awakening magical energy was not for them. It was for the residents. In fact, a World did not have a single lick of ability to wield magical energy. For Worlds, awakening magical energy was like going through puberty. You had no say over it at all.

    So how did World¡¯s try their best to manipulate Laws? They don¡¯t have a chance to own source energy so they looked for beings who did. The beings who were naturally born on their planet.

    When a talented individual had come to a World''s attention. The World can decide to offer a¡­ contract. The god contract.

    A god was someone who had complete affinity and sole governance over 1 Law in the world they were made in, they are now able to generate the essence of their Law inside their bodies instead of having to absorb and convert magical energy into it. Completely meeting the criteria of being a source energy.

    But in truth, they had to follow the World¡¯s every whims and could never leave it. Why? That was because the contract ensures that in exchange for power, ¡®you must do my bidding¡¯. These contracts brand the soul of the god and if broken would kill the god in retaliation.

    That was why Immortals disdained the gods, calling them slaves. Immortals were those that achieved similar levels of power and obtained source energy, but completely by their own efforts.

    A god was also restricted in the changes they were allowed to make to the World and ironically, this was because of the contract, something that a World actually had no control of.

    So while a World wields gods to control Laws, the level of control is simplified so much they could only do the most basic things. Only the god of creation was the most useful to a World, but how can a mere life form like that possibly have enough energy to truly create anything relevant?

    When a World wanted to create a new species, they had to use the god of creation, the god of life, the god of death and all sorts of related gods, just to have enough energy to create 2 beings. 1 for each gender. Even then, each occasion would leave all involved gods on fumes for a very long time, we¡¯re talking century or 2 here. That¡¯s why they rarely did it.

    In the end, the one thing gods did the best was to defend. When other Worlds invaded, they had to be extremely careful of the gods in their own domain. So when a god is out of commission - the World is naturally vulnerable. Just another reason why a World barely actually used their gods for anything and why they were so handicapped.

    ¡®BUT IS THAT THE SITUATION FOR THE GREAT AND MIGHTY ME? NAY!!!¡¯

    Eridel looked all over his lands greedily, thinking about the Primordial Essence that had never stopped generating inside of his soul since 2000 years ago. If he still had a face, it would look embarrassingly perverted at this moment.

 Ch.5 Creating A New Species

    Eridel was ecstatic! May I remind you of what the characteristics of a source energy is again? Energy that you can freely generate and utilize.

    What was Primordial Essence? A type of soul energy that he had been generating passively for 2000 years.

    What did this mean for him who could innately control all Laws? ANYTHING was possible! Everything was in the palm of his hands so long as he had the energy for it. And he had energy, so much energy.

    To prove this point. The restoration of his planet only took 0.001 percent of it. GOD! What were these figures?! A nonentity. Absolutely nothing to him! It was at that moment that he realized how powerful he was and why he was so happy now.

    With his abilities... would it not be possible to create his own avatar? Would it not be possible to forge the most talented divine body to cultivate? At that time, wouldn¡¯t he be a World and a person at the same time?

    Eridel was so exhilarated that the World started shaking again.

    ¡®Oops¡­ Anyhow, creating an Avatar is far down the line anyways, I have to put my World on a path of supremacy first. A World that will eventually surpass the Laws¡¯.

    ARROGANCE! In this entire galaxy, there are 197 Worlds, but not one has surpassed the Laws! If others knew of his thoughts they would laugh with disdain.

    Calming down again, Eridel began to harness various Laws, hopes and dreams relying on the success of his current actions...

    The little dragon family currently lives in 1 of the largest forests in the World, located in the West of the central continent. Another forest of equal proportions was directly opposite, lying in the East. For them to be placed like that Eridel naturally had plans for them to be placed like that.

    In a humongous 715km wide and 937km long cave near the centre of the temporarily-named Eastern Forest, a fantastical show that would break all logic began.

    A splendorous convergence of multiple coloured lights appeared in various locations. Looking at the scene would leave even the darkest of creatures awed. But what was alarming was the extreme density of essence that was contained in those spectrum-like lights. It was obvious that these were the Laws.

    As they swirled and danced around, they became more and more condensed, seemingly trying to form a shape. Faint whispers of an unintelligible language could soon be heard, serving to make the scene more mystical, becoming louder and louder as time passed.

    BOOOOOOOM!

    A loud resounding boom accompanied an explosion of pure golden light signifying the Laws of Creation and the completion of whatever actions were taking place.

    After peace was once again returned, something that would normally cause a normal person to flee was now the most wondrous sound Eridel had ever heard.

    ¡°Ssss!¡±

    Inside the previously empty cave, more specifically the back-end, where it was the most spacious, exactly 1000 snakes of varying sizes and colours hissed and slithered around! New life! A shocking 1000 new life forms in one go!

    ¡°MARVELOUS!¡±

    Eridel¡¯s awe-inspiring and archaic voice was once again heard throughout the whole World. However, last time there was no one to hear it. Now, there were 1000 living beings who were very much present, and definitely not asleep like their far away predecessors.

    All of them were silenced in fear, now realizing that the powerful aura they had previously felt wasn¡¯t actually normal. They couldn¡¯t be blamed though. They were born mere seconds ago and had zero knowledge to speak of.

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    Feeling that presence - which was a result of Eridel¡¯s full attention - on them the entire time. So surely it¡¯s just how life should feel and it was normal right? Well it was not and they now knew, recognizing the connection between the ¡®sound¡¯ and the increase in pressure.

    ¡°Oops, sorry my lovelies¡±

    The ¡®sound¡¯ was once again heard but not as loud as before. More importantly, the presence they felt was no longer fear inducing and majestic like before, and was now soft, soothing and fluffy like a¡­? They don¡¯t know. But they now liked the feeling of it.

    Eridel marveled at the sight of his creation. Actual lives....

    ¡®This¡­ this is the beginning of everything¡¯

    Eridel didn¡¯t consider any of his prior actions as monumental. What restoring the planet and clearing out the Essence of Destruction? What helping out a lizard become a Dragon of Creation. Could they compare to creating lives?

    Eridel honed his gaze on the largest snake here.

    Although each and every of those thousand snakes were of a different species and some were just naturally small or big. The snake Eridel was looking at was too big. 10 metres long to be exact.

    It was impossible for it to be just naturally big when it was just a mere juvenile like everyone else. And of course it wasn¡¯t. Although it looked like a king cobra, Eridel had¡­ tampered with it¡¯s bloodline. Giving it a special bloodline that could be upgraded the more the snake ate.

    Eridel called it the [ Earth Devouring Bloodline ]. Anything the snake ate would directly be converted into mana and slowly increase its size. There were more levels to this but that was for the snake to unlock.

    Despite recognizing it¡¯s gender as female, something he decided not to control, making it random for everyone - he called it ¡®J?rmungandr¡¯. Which admittedly wasn¡¯t feminine at all, however, the name was too cool and perfect. Eridel decided she could be called J?rma for short.

    Apart from being gigantic, her scales were also pitch black, making any location a perfect hunting spot as long as it was night time. She also had alluring ruby red eyes that had a glint of dominance and innate superiority, giving it a lofty look which was further amplified by it¡¯s majestic hood.

    Eridel ¡®nodded¡¯ in satisfaction, turning to the other 2 special snakes that he created.

    The first one was a male. 4 metres long with vibrant amber scales, prideful golden eyes and a red mane on it¡¯s head that seemed to be half made out of flames. The snake was also girthier than normal, making it look more dominant and masucline, which was cool but... he was too eye-catching!

    This made Eridel a little embarrassed. A snake that was supposed to rely on hunting to eat¡­ Looking at the snake that could be easily seen from a kilometre away, Eridel worried if it would starve to death.

    Despite things. It was clear that the snake had affinity with the element of Fire, but in fact, it was the Laws of Fire it had affinity with and it was a perfect affinity! There was a big difference between the element of fire and the Law essence of fire. Need it be said which was more powerful? It would probably be able to eat just fine¡­ probably.

    Eridel called him Drako.

    The last snake was female and also extremely eye-catching, this time both on purpose. This was the only snake who¡¯s gender he chose because of the bloodline he gave it. The name was called [ Malevolent Enchantress ] and despite the term ¡®malevolent¡¯ it didn¡¯t mean it was innately cruel. But it did sound cool right?

    This snake had the ability to attract anyone and put them in a daze. Because of its gender, it was much easier for it to attract both genders. Most males, even if they were attracted to another, would fight against that desire with all of his will, not wanting to be considered gay. It was just how guys were.

    But females did not have that problem, most of the time they were perfectly fine admitting another female attractive, not even questioning their sexual orientation. Could it be said that females were more mentally stable? Err¡­ no. But more emotionally stable? Maybe? Who knows.

    This snake, who was 3 metres long, had pure white scales and seductive amethyst coloured eyes, would not have any issues attracting people and making them let their guards down. With it¡¯s gentle and playful aura that was opposite to that of the prideful and domineering Drako. Most would not believe in its lethality or they would ignore it.

    On top of that, the snake that he gave the name ¡®Lily¡¯, also had the ability to create illusions. A perfect assassin, one that wouldn¡¯t even need to hide.

    Eridel watched as the snakes gradually forgot him and started to turn their attention to the 3 obvious leaders. J?rma, Drako and Lily.

    ¡®Perfect¡¯ Eridel thought.

 Ch.6 How Could I Not Come Bearing Gifts?

    ¡®Month 4 of the 1st year, huh¡­¡¯

    In these past 2 months, Eridel had spent the time creating all non magical species that he knew of, filling the previously-silent-continents with noises that never ended.

    Animals could be found all over the World, filling it with life and nature. Something that fell incomplete before.

    From predators like lions and tigers, to prey like mice and sheep. All species from his home planet; Earth, were here. Something that the snake clan seemed excited about¡­

    In fact, J?rma was able to reach the 1st stage of cultivation, growing an entire 5 metres longer. (From now on, the growth would me much slower, it only exploded like this because she broke into a new realm).

    This event meant that she obviously  acquired mana. Now taking into consideration that the World had no magical energy yet, it was obvious that this snake (that managed to solidify her status as queen), had not wasted the potential of her bloodline, directly converting food into mana...

    But besides that, everything else was pretty mundane. Although he created many new animals, he didn¡¯t make any of them special. No bloodlines, no augmented affinities, no nothing. If there was any talents amongst them, it was by their own luck. Eridel randomized everything.

    Something he should have done with the snakes too, but as his first created species, he couldn¡¯t hold himself back from doing something a little special.

    But despite that, he wasn¡¯t bored in the slightest.

    He didn¡¯t know if it was a ¡®World¡¯ thing but each increase in species filled him with immense satisfaction.

    But screw that. Now, it was time to take another step forward with his plans. Creating the first ¡®enlightened¡¯ species. The race that will spur the progress of this World.

    The enlightened species were a race that had obtained complete sapience and potential to learn. This could be something like Humans, Elves or Angels.

    Evolved beasts didn¡¯t count, they obtained their intelligence from their own abilities, not because it was an inherent trait of their species. And Eridel was not going to change that. It would be asinine to do so.

    Moving along, Eridel had to choose which race came first. Angels were crossed off because he had bigger plans for them later.

    So the remaining choice was between Elves and Humans.

    After thinking of the pros and cons for a while, he decided to start with the Elves.

    The Elves were a race that always positively affected their surroundings. A blessed race bearing a close affinity with nature in its entirety. Earth, Wind, Water and Wood. All these elements that are considered nature were easily grasped by them.

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    Although some could argue that fire was a part of nature. It was not. Fire was not natural, numerous coincidences must occur for fire to naturally come into fruition. For example, lightning striking a tree, causing a fire. How could that be natural?

    In fact, Elves had a higher affinity with the eccentric lightning element than they did with fire. But nowhere near as close to Earth, Wind, Water and Wood.

    But it could also be said that the reason it would be the case in this World was because Eridel willed it to be so. If he wanted to give the race major affinities with darkness, blood and undead, who was to stop him?

    They were created by him and if he chose to change everything about them, he could. But Eridel would never create such abominations. Eridel was a really big fan of letting things naturally progress.

    Not because he was some 10,000 year old fart who thought that messing with fate was dangerous. But because it was just so much more entertaining for people to do it themselves.

    It would be 100x to 1000x more fun to see someone accidentally become a zombie because of some crazy incident, and then starting the undead race, spreading fear across the lands while becoming the undead king. WHAT A GREAT TALE!

    Of course, he could still just create a zombie king, or even a zombie god if he wanted. Accomplishing the same feat or worse.

    ¡®Oops, it would appear that I¡¯m having dangerous thoughts.¡¯

    Eridel was naturally not foolish. Creating an undead king to terrorize his own World¡­ Is there anyone that evil? If so, Eridel would be sure to erase such a person if he or she ever  came close, he was quite fond of his planet and would never let such a black star close.

    ¡­

    [ In a completely grey World devoid of life ]

    In what looked like a palace with completely dark furnishings was an extremely black and gargantuan throne that was decorated with bones of all kinds.

    Sat on that throne was a 10,000 Metre tall skeleton covered in dark robes and adorned with a golden crown, golden flames rolling around in its eye sockets. Although horrifying, this skeleton radiated an aura of such majesty, that the true nature of this being was almost hidden. Almost, but not quite.

    The ghastly aura that was filled with such vicious killing intent and death itself proved all too hard to be hidden.

    A truly terrifying scene.

    What we didn¡¯t know was that if any immortal or god chanced upon this skeleton, they wouldn¡¯t think twice before using all their life-saving items to escape.

    The golden flames in its eyes suddenly flickered.

    ¡°Hmm¡­? Who schemes against this King?¡±

    ...

    Eridel would also never let things go too far. If it seemed like World destruction was possible, he would reduce the threat and all related individuals to nothing.

    So the conclusion was that Eridel would leave most things to be regular. He would only change things that would help him with his goal in becoming a World that surpassed the Laws.

    So If there was ever a mutative variant race of Elf, it was by their ancestors own doing.

    But while he said all this¡­ He couldn¡¯t¡­

    ¡®I can¡¯t¡­ I CANNOT RESIST! I must add at least one special person here, how can I not? My first enlightened species. IT WOULD BE A SIN TO NEGLECT THEM!¡¯

    Eridel was just joking around. He always planned to create a leader for this long lived race.

    There was naturally a reason, and it would naturally be revealed in the most exemplar scenario. No need to even speak of it.

    ¡®I could just create them in some corner of a forest, but¡­

    How could I not come bearing gifts?¡¯

 Ch.7 World Tree

    The area at the centre of the Eastern Forest was the most resplendent scenery that you would ever see in your life. Tall and magnificent trees with luscious shimmering leaves that had different colours, some trees with silver leaves, some with blue, some were pink.

    Between some trees, long vines that seemed to be dripping with vitality were hanging with exotic fruits attached to them.

    All kinds of animals hung around. Monkeys picked fruits, birds chirped and deers pranced around. Even predators like Tigers and Wolves lazily sat around in harmony. The usually arrogant snakes that could be spotted were peacefully hanging around trees.

    At the centre of all this was a lake. There didn¡¯t seem to be anything special about this lake, but it was very clean and very pure. There were even animals that drank and splashed around in it.

    There was no hostility at all. Only harmony and mother nature at its most beautiful. A truly glorious scene.

    But the peace was broken in a single moment

    CRRRRRRRRR!

    Deep under the lake, the ground started to rumble and crack, undulating as if something big was moving around underneath.

    CAW! CAW! Flu flu flu!

    REEEEEK!

    The animals didn¡¯t even hesitate, fleeing the place immediately as if they could sense something dangerous.

    It was quite comedic, seeing the dense amount of birds rising above the trees, escaping in every direction, not to mention the monkeys that pranced all over the place like it was their lives on the line.

    The more adept animals like tigers and snakes vanished like ghosts. And any moment now, all animals would be-

    ¡®Hmm?¡¯

    Oooooerr!

    A Deer, or to be more precise an Elk, had fallen, and from the looks of its repetitive failure to stand up again, it was crippled. Probably a result of the stampede.

    ¡®Well, whatever, it doesn¡¯t need to run anyway¡¯

    Eridel turned his attention to more pressing things. The reason for this grand turn of events.

    At the centre of the lake¡­

    A Tree was growing¡­

    Rapidly¡­

    And noisily!

    CRRrRrrRRrRrRrRRrrR!!!

    An ear piercing sound like cracking wood resounded through the forest. Alerting all residents, predator and prey alike. Even J?rma narrowed her eyes at the direction of the lake.

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    SPLOOSH!

    The tree had finally broken the surface of the lake, causing a massive wave to rise.

    Looking at this peculiar tree, it seems that not only did it get taller at a stupendous rate, but it also got thicker as well, it was already 2 metres thick and still growing.

    But just a growing tree wouldn¡¯t be enough to set all those dumb animals running as if there was an apocalypse. It was actually the extremely dense amount of essence that arose with it.

    Although¡­ If these animals were any smarter, they wouldn¡¯t be so foolish as to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity.

    Be that as it may, there appeared to be one animal that would be witnessing the scene. A scene it would never forget for the rest of its life.

    The tree¡¯s growth didn¡¯t seem to stop and neither did the rise in essence, which was a vibrant green in colour and could actually be identified as¡­ the Laws of LIFE!

    A TREE RADIATING THE LAWS OF LIFE!

    Something that only occurs when a tree becomes a world tree was actually happening in a tree that was just born!!!

    To understand the gravity of the situation. You have to look at the evolutionary paths of a tree.

    In the beginning, a tree could either grow for 100 years without suffering any injuries or loss of vitality to become a spirit tree, or they could be lucky enough to absorb something that elevated them to the same status. Whatever the case, the first stage of evolution for a tree is the [ Magic Tree ].

    This was a stage that enabled them to have their own mana. But it could only enhance the fruits, leaves and other such things that might have grown from the tree. Only 1 in a 1000 trees actually reached this status.

    After the [ Magic Tree ] came the [ Spirit Tree ]. At this stage, a tree starts to develop a consciousness, enabling the Tree to actually do things of its own choice. But no matter how much it grew and how strong it got, it would always be a primitive soul.

    Trees had no emotions after all. Time, death, life, all of those things meant nothing to them. So they didn¡¯t care about anything and they didn¡¯t bother to cultivate even if they could.

    Apart from that. All functions of the Tree were dramatically improved, they also greatly increased in size too. At this point, fruits born from them were great treasures that could cause kingdoms to fight over the rights to monopolize them.

    The [ Spirit Tree ] required 1000 years of life to evolve, though, it was more lenient on the damage it could sustain. Of course, if the tree decided to cultivate or absorb other treasures, it could become a [ Spirit Tree ] much faster.

    After that came the [ Fate Tree ]. At this stage, anything could happen, hence its name. All functions evolve once more and fruits born from these trees become ¡®divine¡¯. No one dared to monopolize these trees unless they wanted to fight to the death with the rest of the continent. It wasn¡¯t rare for other continents to get involved.

    The benefits of a [ Fate Tree ] were just that great, capable of helping someone directly become an immortal. Of course, they would have to withstand the energy contained inside first.

    If a country were able to monopolise this tree, they would be able to produce immortals after immortals. A force that no one wanted to fight against.

    A [ Fate Tree ] usually took up to 50 thousand years of life.

    After that came the extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY rare [ World Tree ]. Something that barely happened, and even if it did, you would never see another in the same World. Effectively becoming a worthy figurehead of that World, hence its name.

    These trees were able to embody the Laws of Life, being capable of instilling the essence of life into its fruits naturally making them many times greater.

    And despite the fact that these terrifying trees took a whopping 1 millions years to grow, they were so powerful that people thought it was only right and that was because they had the capability of helping someone¡­ surpass the immortal stage!

    BOOM!

    And that¡¯s what it looks like this tree in front of us is becoming.

    ¡®SIKE!¡¯

    While it was indeed becoming a [ World Tree ]. At the same time, it would never bear anything¡­ edible. So there would be nothing to do here but admire the tree.

    Is what should have been the case.

    However, a reaction occurred.

    The Water that this Tree was born in began to change.

 Ch.8 The First Anomaly In Existence!

    The lake began to shake violently, waves rising and falling all over the place.

    It looked quite terrifying, if anyone was superstitious, they would have thought some sea god was angry. But just when the waves were reaching a crescendo, they suddenly stopped. All waves falling back down and bringing peace back to the lake.

    ¡®It is time.¡¯

    Within 2 seconds the lake soon reached perfect stillness, even with the strange tree still ferociously growing. Quite the strange sight to say the least.

    But then something hundreds of times more shocking happened.

    The lake itself also began leaking copious amounts of the Laws of Life, the liquid water even changing colour and becoming a very faint green.

    The lake¡­ had become a [ Spring of Life ]!

    A [ Spring of Life ] was a body of water that had fulfilled 2 steps to evolve.

    Step 1, was to make contact with a treasure with at least the life element. This gave the Water the ability to slowly absorb it over time. But at most, it would only become water filled with dense essence. Half of the time it didn¡¯t even take on the element of life.

    Step 2, was to actually not absorb the essence of life from the treasure, but to enter a symbiotic relationship with it. The stronger the treasure grew, the stronger the [ Spring of Life ] became, and the stronger the [ Spring of Life ] became, the more nourishment it could provide the treasure.

    Normally, it was exceedingly difficult for a body of water and a treasure of life to enter a symbiotic relationship, it was simply because 95% of the time, neither of them had any sort of consciousness to speak of, so how could they be capable of asking for a partnership?

    Even in this situation, neither the lake or the abnormal tree had a consciousness. However¡­ How can Eridel not know?

    Being a World, who¡¯s most creative ability was the one to create contracts¡­ Would Eridel ever need to fret? Never! Being a prior genius human, he had boundless ideas rolling through his non-existent head.

    So naturally, he was able to find a way to help other beings create contracts without involving him.

    And that is exactly what is happening now.

    ¡®I must say, for a Spring of Life to enter a symbiotic relationship with my¡­ special tree, it must be the most talented Spring of Life in existence. Well, what could you expect from the great me, haaahahaha¡­¡­haa... What is that?¡¯

    Something universally WRONG began to take place that even Eridel couldn¡¯t predict it.

    The Lake began to change again. This time, it began accumulating the Laws of Water and the Laws of Creation, further changing the colour of the water from the faint green it should have forever remained at into a very vibrant emerald green.

    But while extremely dizzying, it was not the end.

    Something else began to accumulate, something that made Eridel flabbergasted.

    It was a soul.

    ¡°A SOOOUUULLL?!¡± Eridel¡¯s mighty voice boomed throughout the forest.

    Eridel couldn¡¯t believe what was occurring right in front of his ¡®eyes¡¯. That his creation had just developed a consciousness right in front of him without his input.

    While it wasn¡¯t impossible for a natural treasure to develop a consciousness, it was extremely rare, it would only ever be primitive, it wouldn¡¯t pick up a couple of Laws like they were cabbages and they certainly shouldn¡¯t be having the kind of infant thoughts that he could sense coming from the Spring of Life.

    And just as he was about to come back to his senses, he noticed that the Lake¡¯s attention had snapped to a¡­ very lucky Elk.

    The crippled one from earlier that seemed as dumbstruck as he was.

    ¡®I know right? Bro, we¡¯re watching something cra-¡¯

    BOOOOM!

    Laws of Life, Water and Creation slammed into the Elk like a blue, green and golden coloured avalanche, endlessly and seamlessly soaking in like this damn mammal was a sponge.

    Naturally it began to evolve.

    It began to grow (everything just seems to be growing here), becoming larger and larger as it¡¯s evolution took place. It¡¯s fur also began to fall off like sand on a hill, as did it¡¯s antlers. But new replacements took place soon after.

    Fur as white and bright as the stars began to grow out slowly. Antlers that looked like they were carved from ice, irrationally started to grow out of its skull with the Law essence of Water swirling around them.

    It¡¯s eyes that were previously a mundane brown became a frigid sky blue that glowed domineeringly.

    It¡¯s hooves also broke apart like it was made from glass, causing the poor Elk a greater amount of pain than what it was already enduring.

    ¡°Ooer...¡± It groaned.

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    Soon enough though, new hooves took place. Made from the same material as it¡¯s Antlers. And while it¡¯s antlers had the same effects that the special dragon hatchlings had on their horns. Portraying it¡¯s perfect affinity with Water, specifically the branch [ Law of Ice ] - It¡¯s hooves took on a different effect. Releasing a small amount of ice mist that was extremely cold.

    It¡¯s body stopped growing at 6 metres tall, courtesy of the Laws of Life which was to be expected. With the Laws of Life, how could it not gain a behemoth body, filled with endless vitality?

    Eridel could even see that the mind of the previously primitive Elk was not left out of the evolution, stopping at a point where it was as smart as an ordinary Human.

    He could also see that it had inherited memories from it¡¯s obvious benefactor; the Spring of Life. Something that should be impossible, given the fact that the thing was literally minutes old.

    BOOOM!

    The Laws of Ice blasted out of the body of the now valiantly standing Elk, signifying its advance into the first re- never mind, the SECOND realm. Skipping the 9 Magic Beast stages entirely and becoming a Stage 1 Spiritual Beast.

    ¡®Unbelievable...¡¯ Eridel muttered

    It had even used the essence of Ice to form it¡¯s Mana.

    Feeling the boundless power rapidly rising in its body, the Elk screamed his heart out.

    ¡°OOOOOOOERRR!!!¡±

    Having vented, it turned its gratitude filled eyes to its incomprehensible patron. The Spring of Life.

    The lake was obviously paying attention. But it soon did something that shocked Eridel again.

    ¡°Good¡± it spoke in a delicate yet melodious voice.

    ¡®The fuck?!¡¯ Eridel, this mighty existence that performed miracle after miracle wondered if he was dreaming.

    Even the ceaselessly rising Tree that was at centre of all this seemed to have pause- nope never mind, just my imagination, it¡¯s still growing, keep it up buddy.

    SWOOSH!

    A large portion of the lake abruptly raised up before floating in the sky and rapidly condensing into the shape of a human. A very cute human that looked about 10 years old with twin tails.

    Although half transparent and green.

    If that wasn¡¯t enough to make Eridel stunned, the fact that it looked at his viewpoint and called out

    ¡°Daddy!¡± sure did

    Eridel metaphorically blinked.

    The Elk also blinked. From his inherited memories, he knew what a ¡®daddy¡¯ was, but he wondered why his benefactor wasn¡¯t speaking to anyone in specific. He also wondered¡­ Why didn¡¯t he have a daddy?

    As he began to think, an extremely intimidating and cold voice nearly made him jump out of his skin.

    ¡°Who are you?¡±

    Who else but Eridel could sound so mighty?

    But the little lake girl didn¡¯t seem to appreciate it. In fact, she began to tear up, which in itself was a surprising sight, taking into consideration that she was made of liquid herself.

    ¡°Sniff! Sniff! Daddy doesn¡¯t like me? Waaaaa!¡±

    Eridel felt stumped, feeling a migraine coming for the first time in 2000 years.

    ¡°Hey, heyy, relax~ Don¡¯t cry, okay?¡± Eridel coaxed

    ¡°Sniff! Sniff! Okay¡­¡± the little girl snivelled

    ¡°Can you explain to me why you have memories already? And why you are capable of creating a contract?¡±

    Because that was certainly what happened between the Lake and the Elk. A contract was initiated by the Lake and the Elk agreed. Eridel was actually able to supernaturally read the wordless contract, and knew it¡¯s contents.

    It went like this: IN EXCHANGE FOR ME GIVING YOU POWER. YOU WILL PROTECT ME FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

    As simple as that.

    Now they were both bound by the contract, or rather the Elk was. The lake had already completed her side of the deal. The Elk would never ¡®complete¡¯ his. That¡¯s how powerful a contract could be.

    ¡°Sniff! I don¡¯t know, but when daddy created me and helped me make a contract with tree-tree, I was born with this ability that only a World should have. Ah! I also have some of daddy¡¯s memories, hehe!¡±

    !!!

    If Eridel still had legs, they would have given way by now. But ¡®unfortunately¡¯ that was not he case anymore.

    ¡®What an anomaly, this is something that should never have happened, and yet...¡¯

    ¡°Ahem, okaaaay~ so why are you a girl then? Shouldn¡¯t you be a boy?¡±

    Eridel couldn¡¯t comprehend why a soul packed with his own memories shouldn¡¯t be a nigh carbon copy of him.

    ¡°Because daddy likes girls!¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    The World began shaking

    ¡°Aaah! Daddy calm down, are you upset? Sniff! Do you not want me anymore?¡±

    ¡®So embarrassing!¡¯

    Eridel was mortified, finding out that his ¡®daughter¡¯ knew of his strong desire for women. Even taking the form of a girl just so that he would ¡®like¡¯ her more.

    A stupid reason. As a father, how could he differentiate between a boy and girl if it was his child? The ONLY difference would be him telling one how to get girls, and telling the other how to stay away from boys. Hmph!

    Eridel didn¡¯t realize that he was already thinking quite strangely.

    ¡°Daddddyyyy-¡±

    ¡°Aaah, sorry, sorry, I was just shocked¡­¡± Eridel muttered.

    ¡°Does daddy like me then?¡± the little girl said with a trembling voice.

    ¡°...Ah, yes? Yes, of course I do. How can I not love my own child? In fact, I should give you a name now¡±

    ¡°Yayyyyy!¡±

    ¡°Your name is now Ciera Domicus¡± Eridel said with majesty in his voice, a strange way to speak to his own daughter but whatever works.

    ¡°Hehe! I am Ciera! But daddy, I thought you don¡¯t like the Domicus family¡± Ciera said, while tilting her head.

    ¡°Cute¡­ cough, that isn¡¯t really true, the rea- nevermind, we¡¯ll talk another time, the [ Tree of Life ] is about to finish growing¡±

    ¡°Ah! Okay!¡±

    ¡®How troublesome, hopefully there¡¯ll be no more anomalies like this...¡¯

    Eridel decided to put the matter of Ciera to the back of his mind. He couldn''t for the life of him comprehend how these things happened, nor could he do anything about it unless he wanted to destroy her, which he didn''t, so he would just ignore the matter altogether for now.

    ''Anyways, something like that shouldn''t be happening again.''

    If only he knew...

 Ch.9 All Hail The Queen!

    The [ Tree of Life ], Eridel¡¯s original gift to the Elves.

    ???????????? ?????????????? ???????? ?????????????????? ???????? ???? ???????????????? ?????????????? ?????? ?????????? ???? ???????????? ???????? ?????????????? ?????????????? ???????????????? ????????????. ???? ?????? ?????????? ?? ???????????????? ??????????, ?????????????? ?????????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????????? ???????? ?????????????? ????????.

    The truth about elves was that the way Elves and Humans came into existence was not different at all.

    Microscopic organisms were made and through various coincidences, they evolved into becoming true life forms. Depending on the result, it could take millions to even billions of years.

    ???????????? ?????????????? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????????????? ???? ?????????????? ???????????? ????????????, ?????? ???????? ???? ?????? ?????????????? ???????????? ?????? ????????????????. ?????????? ???????? ?????????? ???? ???????? ?? ???????????? ????????????????.

    Most of the time, whatever enlightened species appeared first in the World was the only one that would ever appear.

    Meaning, you would rarely find World¡¯s that contained something like Humans, Elves and Demons at the same time, unless it was a conquered World that was being occupied by foreigners, keeping the original enlightened race as slaves or forced coexistence.

    There were 2 reasons for this. 1, creating an enlightened race was too hard, so if they already had one, a World would rarely choose to create another.

    2, in the rare cases that gods worked together to create another race. Wars that would only ever escalate to the point of self destruction would occur.

    Why? Let me give you an example. The gods are humans and maybe a few beasts that were lucky enough to become gods. For some reason, they decided to create angels. 1 million years later, those angels are on equal or greater levels with the humans now. So¡­ why should they be beneath the humans? Why should there only be human gods and no angel gods?

    Resentment is born, and sure, that¡¯s all it is. But it only takes one impulsive person for everything to go to shit and war is here. And the gods can barely do a thing about it, if they even attempted, the god contract would destroy them first.

    So war will continue. And it will not end.

    This creates a weakness. And weakness is unforgivable in the laws of this dog eat dog universe. It doesn¡¯t take much to guess what happens next.

    The only way for multiple enlightened races to coexist like rabbits and squirrels, was for them to be there from the beginning.

    The god council will be filled with each of their races and everyone gets the same start and privileges.

    There wouldn¡¯t be a case of one race filled with boundless superiority, and the other filled with boundless jealousy.

    Alas, such a thing was never done before.

    ¡®Hahaha... Indeed it¡¯s never been done before, but who am I?¡¯

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    Eridel¡¯s heart was filled with arrogance as he watched the final transformation of his [ Tree of Life ].

    Melodious songs began to play in congratulations. Ciera clapped her hands and squealed while the Elk¡­ did it¡¯s best.

    Dark Green plant pods began to grow out of the tree, only being connected by stems that looked suspiciously like umbilical cords.

    Each of these pods were about 40 - 50 centimetres long and 30 centimetres wide. However, there was one that was over 2 metres tall. This one actually brimming with the Laws of Life and Wood.

    Eridel was amused, thinking of what those pompous immortals and gods that thought that they knew it all - would think if they were to watch all the spectacles that were happening on just this one day.

    When the 2 essences contained inside the bigger pod reached a crescendo, they burst out. But 1 was significantly more than the other.

    The tell tale signs that someone had a breakthrough.

    Clearly, something inside of the pod had cultivated Mana but against expectations, it was formed from the Laws of Wood.

    In the next moment, the pod detached from the tree and fell into the Spring of Life with a splash.

    A few seconds later, buoyancy caused it to float back to the top of the lake despite it¡¯s obvious weight. A little party trick that all Spring¡¯s of Life have. The 3 spectators watched with various emotions ranging from expectation to curiosity.

    SHICK!

    All of a sudden there was a tearing sound.

    A delicate and slender hand had pierced through the pod with surprising ease, followed by another. They gripped both edges of the gaping cut and abruptly yanked them aside. Revealing the most bewitching face Eridel had ever seen.

    A woman crawled out of the pod, instincts preventing her from making a fool of herself when she emerged into the water.

    After a brief look of surprise on her face, her eyes connected with the 2 visible figures that she could see not too far from her. Seeming to understand something, she made her way towards them without fear.

    It was awkward at first, she naturally didn¡¯t know how to swim 10 seconds after birth, so she wiggled around for a few minutes but eventually managed to waddle towards the shore. A most glorious sight for a certain invisible voyeur.

    When she reached the shore, it was another mission of figuring how to stand. Something she was trying to copy from the strange smaller girl in front of her. A process that burned another minute.

    But she eventually did it, and what an enchanting sight it was.

    The woman stood at 5¡¯10 tall. A tall height for a female, but it suited her perfectly. A soft and seductively curvaceous figure that caused her huge breasts and majority of her lower body to jiggle with each step.

    The iconic delicate but pointed-looking long ears of the Elves were naturally not missing. Adding to her charm.

    Her succulent skin wasn¡¯t unlike jade. Even sharing the same green colour, a clear result of her royal blood. Her plump lips (both of them) and nipples were of a darker shade, attracting the gazes of both genders and inadvertently rising lust in the hearts of others.

    A truly divine body, but her most striking features were her hair and eyes.

    Her long hair was a pure unblemished white that supernaturally glowed, falling down to her calves. Her thin eyebrows and long eyelashes of the same white.

    But Her eyes¡­ her eyes were actually completely white with no irises or anything else. On top of that, they shone like stars. And yet, this didn¡¯t make her look weird at all.

    The splendor of those features instantly regulated the abundant sex appeal that the woman had, making her look more noble, elegant and divine even without clothes.

    It actually made her already sublime beauty burst out of mortal comprehension!

    This was the Queen! The Queen of the Elves!!!

    ALL HAIL THE QUEEN!!!

 Ch.10 The Invincible Trio

    Eridel watched as the Queen looked all around the environment with the curiosity of a newborn - which in essence, she was.

    After a while, she focused her attention on Ciera, the only thing that looked like her. And while it would sound nice to say that she cutely tilted her head to the side, it was not possible.

    She didn¡¯t even know she was confused, so how could she know about facial expressions and body language?

    So it was more like she stared blankly, yet somehow imposingly - waiting for something to happen.

    ¡°Ah! She¡¯s looking at me! Hello!¡±

    Squealed Ciera as she waved her hand high.

    ¡°She isn¡¯t knowledgeable enough to speak yet, idiot. You should offer her a contract.¡±

    Eridel¡¯s heart palpitating voice spoke. Shocking the Queen, causing her to look all around for the source of the ¡®unknown thing¡¯. Surprisingly enough, or maybe not so surprising, was the fact that she didn¡¯t look afraid at all unlike the other animals.

    Eridel was now capable of focusing his voice in certain locations, not causing global panic each time, but it was still loud and intimidating.

    It could be the fact that she was Queen that stopped her from cowering, or she didn¡¯t have the innate instinct of an animal that screamed ¡®run from power¡¯. Or both.

    ¡°I¡¯m not an idiot! Um, what should the contract terms be?¡±

    Ciera exclaimed, before turning to his general direction. Funnily enough, the Queen followed her example and looked straight at his viewpoint with those fantastical eyes of hers.

    ¡®How exquisite¡¯ Eridel silently marvelled at her beauty before focusing on the question.

    ¡°Somewhat the same. You will give her knowledge and you will also make sure to help advance her race. And in turn, her entire race must protect you.¡±

    !!!

    CRAZY! Eridel was actually enforcing an entire race to protect Ciera! WASN¡¯T THIS TOO OVERPROTECTIVE?!

    ¡®Hmph. The Elves should consider themselves privileged to protect my daugh- to protect Ciera.¡¯

    Who does this guy think he¡¯s fooling?!

    ¡°Okay!¡±

    ...

    Either Ciera didn¡¯t care or she was dumb.

    After closing her eyes for a few seconds, she opened them again with a satisfied expression on her face.

    At the same time, the Queen suddenly blinked. The only sign of confusion she could show.

    She then stared straight at Ciera as if she could tell that it was Ciera that was the cause of her confusion.

    The 2 stared at each other for what seemed like a minute before the Queen responded.

    Her eyes suddenly lit up, leaking the translucent and overflowing soul energy that suddenly started emerging inside of her.

    As her soul age forcefully grew, many images and comprehensions invaded her head.

    Life and Death.

    Race.

    Power.

    Language.

    Kingdoms and Empires.

    King and Queens.

    The Tree of Life.

    The Heavens...

    More and more knowledge infiltrated her mind, causing her to change rapidly.

    This consisted for 10 whole minutes, before her eyes returned to normal. But nowhere near as deadpan as before. If before, she looked like a very sexy robot. Now, she looked like a very sexy QUEEN!

    The previously lacking majesty was now leaking in abundance.

    The way she stood with her arms crossed together in front of her chest, the way her chin was slightly raised and the way her eyes narrowed. All these things portrayed the bearing of someone above the masses.

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    The Queen gracefully turned her head to look back at the Tree of Life. A look of doting briefly showed on her face before she solemnly focused her eyes on the avatar of Spring of Life. Her race¡¯s 2nd life line.

    Without hesitation, she dropped to one knee.

    ¡°This Queen greets the Heavens and the Heavenly Daughter¡± The Queen spoke for the first time.

    Her voice was like that of the celestials, absolutely mellifluous and enchanting, yet filled with majesty! However¡­

    ¡®Eh?¡¯

    Eridel was quite confused¡­ For about a quarter of a second. Which is quite something, considering his powerful mind.

    His speculations were confirmed when he heard an annoying ¡°Ehehehe!¡±

    Ciera placed her hand on the side of her somehow blushing face.

    ¡°No need for that~, daddy Heavens can get quite embarrassed.¡±

    ¡®... ¡¯

    ¡°Ciera¡­¡±

    Eridel¡¯s ancient voice filled with indignation sounded out. This time it actually affected reality, shaking the trees and blowing strong winds.

    Even the Tree of Life creaked, causing the Queen''s previously awed face to pale and twist with trepidation.

    ¡°My Lord, please calm your ire!¡±

    ¡°Eek!¡± Ciera yelped before diving back into her lake. Abandoning the shivering Elk that had lost the strength in it¡¯s legs. Being in the same position it was in before it¡¯s transformation.

    ¡°Haaah¡­¡± Eridel forcefully pushed down his rumbling emotions and sighed, bringing peace back to the mystical environment.

    Eridel focused his full attention on the Queen, unconsciously increasing the pressure on her. It was time to wrap things up.

    The reason he was mad was because he didn¡¯t want to disclose his identity to anyone yet, even worse, a false one like the heavens. This could cause all sorts of confusion later on. Especially if she started spreading that knowledge to the rest of her race.

    ¡®How annoying.¡¯

    ¡°Queen of the Elves. I hope that you do not speak of my identity to any other being.¡± Eridel said coldly.

    The Queen shivered, nodding her head like a chicken and causing her massive mountains to start shaking.

    ¡°Is there anything you would like to say?¡± Eridel asked

    ¡°I...I-I would like to thank the Lord for his generous gifts!¡± The Queen stuttered, losing all of her royal bearing.

    ¡°Mmh¡­ It would seem that you understand the plentiful privileges you have been born with.¡±

    As mentioned before, all enlightened beings were born like any other, born through microscopic organisms that had gone through countless evolutions and mutations.

    So why was it that they were now being born from the Tree of Life like they were fruits?

    It was because that was Eridel¡¯s gift.

    An elf born from the Tree of Life would only fall off the tree and finally start his life when he reached adulthood. Essentially 18 years old. But on the tree, that was shortened to a month-long process.

    During that entire time. The Elf would be continuously nourished by the Tree of Life, developing a very high innate talent. They would also form a supernatural connection with the Tree of Life that came with many benefits.

    Through that connection, the Elves could do many things.

    They could telepathically contact other Elves, they could temporarily draw energy from the tree, they could even use the connection to sense the Laws of Life and by association the Laws of Water. A great boon to any faction.

    There were other benefits but they were best left unmentioned for now.

    ¡°Yes, my Lord! Order this Queen and I will make sure to accomplish your tasks to the best of my ability!

    The queen said almost fervently with a gradually expanding smile on her face, forgetting her fear and failing to hide her excitement.

    It couldn¡¯t be helped. Even with all her knowledge, she still lacked experience.

    At this moment, Ciera poked her head out of the water again but Eridel ignored her. He also chose to ignore the Elf¡¯s useless pledge of fealty.

    ¡°I name you Titania, surnamed Sillvane. It is the Sillvane name that you pass on to your descendants just as you pass on your blood, but I¡¯m sure you know that.¡± Eridel drawled.

    ¡°Yes, my Lord!¡± Titaniawas ecstatic ¡®I was named by the Heavens itself!¡¯

    That¡¯s right. Eridel planned on the Queen finding a spouse amongst the Elves and bearing children.

    Could it even be considered a royal bloodline if there was no royal family?

    Just like the Queen, her descendants will have the same green skin, white hair and white eyes. This was a result of the royal bloodline. A bloodline that was directly aligned with the Laws of Wood.

    Other Elves were born with white or black skin. Blonde, brown or black hair. Blue, green, brown or black eyes. Pretty much just like humans. Any other colours will be a result of extreme affinity or bloodline.

    ¡°Hi Titania!¡± Ciera seemed to have forgotten her fear as well, jumping up and landing in front of the Queen.

    ¡®Tch¡¯

    Eridel was still quite peeved with Ciera. Deciding to leave.

    But before he left. He turned his attention to the Elk that looked like an abandoned puppy.

    ¡°You, fortunate Elk that has been chosen by fate.¡± Eridel wondered if it really had been chosen by fate. Too many coincidences were involved and funnily enough, it was the strongest being alive, if you didn¡¯t count an anomaly like Ciera. ¡°I ordain you as the [ Guardian of the Eastern Forest ] and I name you-¡±

    ¡°Wait!¡± Ciera interrupted him ¡°I want to name him!¡± She turned to the Elk without waiting for an answer. ¡°Your name is Dodo!¡±

    Eridel felt like spitting blood.

    ¡®I¡¯m sorry, young Elk.¡¯

    Eridel could have sworn he could see a tear falling out of its eye.

    ¡°This is to both of you. [ Guardian of the Eastern Forest ] and [ Queen of the Elves ]. In whatever you do... Be Wise, Be Strong and Be Courageous.¡±

    Eridel¡¯s presence vanished from the scene. Completely overlooking the potential of 3 future powerhouses concentrated in one spot.

    With the snake family not too far from them and more hidden talents biding their time¡­

    The Eastern Forest was surely bound to be chaotic.

    How wonderful~

 Ch.11 Awakening Magical Energy

    It had been a week and Eridel had accomplished many things.

    First, he had finally created the human race. In each continent, you would find 40,000 humans, each split into groups of 4 and placed in the 4 directions; North, East, South and West.

    Naturally, a lot of them had already died.

    Humans were a race that relied on knowledge when they had no strength. But what knowledge could they have with a 6-7 day long history?

    It was especially perilous for the Humans in the East of the Central continent, after all, that¡¯s where all the big shots were. The Eastern Forest. In fact, of the 10,000 humans there, only 6000 were left.

    It was mostly the doing of the snake clan, the domineering hooligans of the East.

    Wherever they rolled, everyone else fled. When they said yes, no one else dared say no. Whenever they occupied territory, no one resisted.

    The snake clan was unrivalled under the heavens¡­

    Or so they thought.

    When they arrived at the center of the Forest, seeing the bountiful resources, they didn¡¯t think twice before trying to occupy the place. They didn¡¯t yet understand the concept of ¡®resources¡¯, but they did understand that consuming things filled with ¡®energy¡¯ would increase their strength.

    So seeing so many treasures filled with energy, they didn¡¯t hesitate at all. Would the owners even fight back?

    But their thoughts were shattered when they felt the behemoth-like pressure that suddenly arose from behind them. And before they could even turn around to confront the issue-

    CRASH!

    Blood spattered and bone pieces flew out. Some even severely injured other snakes. Looking back they could actually see that one of their brothers had actually had his skull stomped into paste!

    But what was even more terrifying was the gigantic elk that stood imposingly above their slain brood member.

    Drako and Lily didn¡¯t even think twice before fleeing. J?rma wasn¡¯t actually there, after an accidental cave-in that occurred in one of her adventures, she usually sent one of her fellow snakes to a location she wanted to enter, if she hadn¡¯t already been there before.

    What happened next terrified the rest of the snakes to the point of severe PTSD. A ghastly scene they will never forget for the rest of their life.

    Half of them were massacred!

    Ever since then they didn¡¯t dare tread to the center of the Forest, and when they saw any other elk, even a baby one - they vanished at top speed.

    In fact. Dodo could have killed the entire race. But he was the ¡®Guardian¡¯ of the Forest, not the ¡®Executor¡¯. He only killed them to that extent because of their unscrupulous ways. Now they would think twice before arrogantly invading everywhere.

    Now back on the situation of the Humans.

    It was much better in the West. The dragons were still all sleeping, and other animals weren¡¯t all that fierce. So they managed.

    If you could call moping around like zombies ¡®managing¡¯.

    It couldn¡¯t be helped. They had no purpose, and they had no hunting skills. They could only take notes from herbivores and eat plants to survive. Humanity was the lowest of the low.

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    But Eridel didn¡¯t care in the slightest. All enlightened species went through this phase. The process of struggling to survive will ultimately help their descendants. Their descendants will learn from the past failures of their race and rise above their predecessors.

    Eridel had much more exciting things to worry about. 2 main projects. One would be pretty quick, the other would take a very long time. By mortal standards anyway.

    The first thing he was going to do was to finally awaken magic energy in the planet.

    He was quite excited about this because he would be the first World to awaken magic energy so early. There was a chance that this was a requirement for his goal in becoming a World that surpassed the Laws.

    ¡®A roughly 10,000 year old World is awakening magic energy. Completely unprecedented. But¡­ this World is ME so what else could be expected?¡¯

    Eridel¡¯s hubris knew no boundaries.

    ¡®Alright, here goes nothing¡­¡¯

    Eridel focused his attention on his core. It looked like a spherical grey coloured pearl that had the diameter of 10 metres. It was very smooth and had a prominent sheen on the surface. But¡­ that was it. It was quite bland.

    Eridel ignored the docile-looking-ball of destruction essence that sat trapped beside his core and peered into the inner workings of his core.

    And what he discovered made him pause.

    He discovered¡­ nothing. Well, nothing that could help him activate magical energy.

    ¡®How annoying¡­¡¯

    2 hours later he still couldn¡¯t accomplish anything.

    ¡®Could it be that I have to wait like ¡®everyone¡¯ else?¡¯

    Awakening magical energy was like going through puberty. A process that could not be controlled. A process that started whenever it wanted to. A process that could also never be reversed.

    When you started growing hair on your chin, no matter how much you shaved. It would always come back.

    With magical energy, when it appeared, it would only keep growing. But of course¡­ there were horrifying situations that did the opposite. But that¡¯s for another time.

    ¡®Will I have to sit and wait¡­? Again?! NEVER, I REFUSE!¡¯

    Driven to near madness by the possibility of stagnation, Erridel decided to do something drastic!

    He actually summoned forth his Primordial Essence of his soul and actually shoved it into his core!!! MADNESS!!! DOES HE COURT DEATH?!

    A golden light began to emerge from the center of his core like a lone star surrounded by the vast cosmos.

    The golden light grew bigger but it was at a snail''s pace.

    Eridel watched with trepidation as he continued to flood his core with more and more of his essence.

    CINK!

    A hair-raising sound was heard that sounded suspiciously like broken glass.

    Looking at the small but visible crack on the side of his core, Eridel was filled with fear for the first time in centuries.

    His core was damaged.

    Consequently, the Laws of Destruction slowly began to form, just like before when this planet was nearly destroyed the first time.

    This would spell the end of most World¡¯s but Eridel was here. So how could it accomplish anything when it failed the first time? He unhesitatingly vanquished the essence that didn¡¯t even have time to form yet.

    He didn¡¯t even have the attention to think of containing it in his already trapped ball of destruction essence. He was just too nervous and he didn''t dare to be distracted.

    With haste, he quickly healed the crack.

    He contemplated stopping the entire process but his irrational hate of stagnation took control of his actions again so he persevered.

    10 days passed and half of his core was filled with the golden light, but in no way was it an easy process.

    His core would frequently fracture and each time would be bigger than the last. Naturally, the Laws of Destruction that erupted were denser as well but they still vanished before any harm was done.

    If Eridel could sweat, he would be drenched by now. Not from exertion, but from the nerve-racking process that was happening before his ¡®eyes¡¯.

    Thinking of the chance of possible self-destruction, Eridel started to become dangerously furious.

    ¡®Why should I be destroyed just because I want to become greater? Is this what it means for man to propose and god to dispose? Why¡­? WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO YIELD?! WHY-¡¯

    CIIIINK! CKK! Ck! k!

    Half of Eridel¡¯s core splintered.

 Ch.12 Doomsday

    Eridel¡¯s ¡®heart¡¯ jumped, his random burst of anger vanishing in an instant.

    He was able to expend a greater amount of energy to heal the core and erase the Laws of Destruction but things were becoming a lot more dangerous and he was starting to feel sick.

    The kind of sick you feel, when a feeling of heavy regret dawns upon you.

    The kind of sick that made you wish you had a time machine.

    Eridel was feeling that right now.

    But he was already here, and at this point, he could not turn back. It was only with his Primordial Essence that his core was remaining slightly stable. If he took out his Primordial Essence, everything would collapse.

    That was like forcefully removing super glue that was keeping a construct together. Foolish.

    Another 20 days passed.

    At this point. His core was 90% filled with his essence, however¡­

    He was already unable to withstand the pain that occurred every crack. He had noticed it since the beginning. But if before, it was like a fly slamming into him. Now it was like being run down by a truck.

    Each wrack of pain wiped away all of his thoughts and nearly made him lose control.

    An extremely critical situation.

    If Eridel hadn¡¯t tempered his mind in those 2000 years of solitude. He would have been finished by now.

    Looking at the barely stable core that looked like it was vibrating. Eridel wondered if this was the end.

    Surprisingly, In that moment. His calmness was restored and his control over his core increased a notch.

    ¡®Either I die here, or I succeed and do something no one else in existence has ever been able to do.¡¯

    He realized that that was all there was to it.

    Being a 2000 year old soul. Deep down, Eridel wasn¡¯t really afraid of death. In fact, there were many times that he craved it.

    His current fear was only the instinctual fear that any ¡®body¡¯ had when facing fatality. Whether it was a human, beast, item spirit or an entire World. They all instinctually cowered from death. An instinct that ensured the continuation and function of the ¡®body¡¯.

    But Eridel himself? He didn¡¯t fear death in the slightest. He had already been through it once.

    A strangely freeing thought.

    It was akin to being scared of confronting a lion, then realizing you had already defeated a lion of the same calibre in the past and came out unscathed. Wasn¡¯t it now ludicrous to still be afraid?

    ¡®Hahahaha¡­ how silly of me.¡¯

    Without hesitation, Eridel shoved the rest of the needed Primordial Essence into his core.

    CSHHHHH!!!

    Eridel¡¯s core was instantly smashed apart.

    Horrifyingly dense amounts of destruction essence exploded out. When a core was destroyed, leaving nothing left. There was no need to wait for death to come. It was already here.

    The trapped ball of destruction essence that was previously docile seemed to be invigorated and also burst out of it¡¯s cage with vengeful wrath.

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    At this point, Eridel¡¯s consciousness was already fading.

    ¡®It seems that this is the end¡­¡¯

    Millions of thoughts passed through his mind, most of them about the residents of his planet that would soon be dead as well. A thought that brought him a tinge of sorrow. But nothing could be done.

    With the image of his accidental daughter in his mind, his mind faded to black.

    The Laws of Destruction seemed to be especially excited. It was as if their slave master had died and now they were free.

    With great vigor, they swept the many corners of the World, reaping lives as they went.

    It was an apocalyptic scene.

    Titania was terrified.

    Ciera was petrified.

    Dodo¡­ collapsed from fear.

    Even the snake clan hegemons were slithering around hysterically.

    The dragon family¡­ was still asleep. As a matter of fact. Calmilla and Aeshma seemed to be getting stronger. The Laws of Destruction being unconsciously absorbed by them.

    Gaia was also completely unaffected.

    But the humans and other beasts were running around like headless chicken, the weaker ones directly collapsing, breathing their last breaths.

    Seas raged, Lands cracked and Volcanoes erupted. Just like the time before Eridel took over this World.

    It was a heart-breaking event.

    It seemed that the fate of this World was to end here and now.

    But all of a sudden, in the deepest regions of the planet, where the shattered remains of Eridel¡¯s core lay.

    Something changed.

    For some reason, the golden light that used to be contained within the fragmented core pieces¡­ seemed to be fusing with them?

    The lights dimmed, but as they dimmed, the grey coloured core pieces started to change colour. They became¡­ gold!

    BOOOOOM!!!

    When the last piece of the core became golden. They all started to shine even more blindingly than before. A heavy and indomitable aura that was also gold in colour burst out of the fragmented core pieces like an avalanche!

    Shockingly, the fragmented core pieces began to float and gather together!

    Each piece seemed to know what place to go and they fused with each other like a jigsaw puzzle. And every time they fused... The aura they emitted doubled!

    This was a scene that could make anyone who watched petrified!

    In fact. At this moment, the Laws of Destruction that was arrogantly rampaging all over the place seemed to pause as if they sensed something wrong.

    All of a sudden¡­ THEY FLED!

    YES, the Laws of Destruction actually began to escape into the atmosphere like sheep running from a wolf!

    ¡°But how can I let you go so easily?¡±

    An ancient yet sonorous voice that sounded extremely pleasant to hear was heard across the entire World. It even caused the already ravaged lands to quake and fracture.

    But this¡­ WASN¡¯T THAT THE DEAD ERIDEL¡¯S VOICE? But why did he sound so¡­ cough. His voice seemed to have improved?

    Ten 100,000 metre long golden hands were formed in space, surrounding the entire World. Without a single pause, they grasped at every essence of destruction before fusing together to form a strangely familiar cage.

    This cage rapidly condensed until it looked like a golden glass ball, and inside¡­ was the condensed Laws of destruction. The exact same thing that happened 3 months ago. But this time, the caged essences of Destruction were hundreds of times denser.

    The caged destruction Laws floated down to the planet¡­ even sinking through the ground that seemed to strangely open up for them in expectation. It kept going down until¡­ it stopped.

    Looking at where it stopped¡­ Wasn¡¯t this¡­ wasn¡¯t this where the last caged destructions Laws were kept?

    So that means¡­

    !!!

    Where the previous World Core was shattered, a new core that was 3x bigger, completely golden and majestically luminous - was floating in its location!

    This¡­ Was this the new World Core?!

    ¡®I seem to have broken through? Excellent! But first¡­¡¯

    BOOOOOM!

    A new essence that was never before present on this planet actually began to erupt from the core! The very essence that Eridel risked his life to obtain!

    IT WAS MAGICAL ENERGY!

    !!!

 Ch.13 Worldwide Evolution

    When Eridel had woken up again, he was shocked! Not because of the fact that he was able to maintain his soul after death. He had already cheated death once, what¡¯s one more? But when he was able to see his planet and even feel the connection between body and soul, he knew he had somehow survived.

    Despite this joyous revelation, he didn¡¯t dare to waste time thinking. He could see that his World was still being ravaged. Although the amount of deaths weren¡¯t that high (because the life forms weren¡¯t the focus of the Laws of Destruction just yet), it still caused him to be uncontrollably livid!

    Subconsciously, Eridel had already developed a PTSD of being left alone. This was a result of his 2000 year long afterlife.

    And it was because of this trauma that it was so easy for him to subconsciously accept Ciera as his child.

    Humans were social creatures. Without social interaction, a human¡¯s mind will eventually deteriorate.

    Even a child brought up in the wild will have animals to fill their undetectable desire for social interaction. Pretending that the predatory animals were villains and the docile herbivores were his ¡®people¡¯.

    If there was ever a child that was born in a place surrounded by countless edible plant life, but not other life forms no matter where you looked, the child would die from solitude, even if the child was able to eat all it could eat.

    It was that terrifying.

    You could probably think of some people that could go into solitude for many years with no problem. But you have to understand that they subconsciously knew, if they stepped out of the room, there would be people to be seen.

    But for someone like Eridel, who didn¡¯t know how many thousands or millions of years he would have to go without being able to interact with another person¡­ How could he stay normal?

    It was only because of Eridel¡¯s continuous soul upgrades that he maintained sanity.

    So when he saw the residents of his planet dying one by one, he was filled with a literal world-shaking anger.

    He immediately locked onto every essence of Destruction and once more placed it beside his core.

    The Laws of Destruction weren¡¯t so easy to obtain like the Laws of Creation. Creation was everywhere and although it was just as hard to grasp, for a World like Eridel, as long as it was there, he could grasp it.

    But Destruction Laws only came with HEAVY amounts of destruction. Would Eridel be so dumb as to lay waste to things in his planet just to obtain the resulting Laws? Nay!

    Anyhow, he has those Laws now, there would be no need to be excessive.

    ¡®I seem to have broken through? Excellent! But first¡­¡¯

    Eridel noticed the changes in his soul. It was roughly 120 years since the last upgrade so it was quite satisfying to experience it once more.

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    If other geniuses had heard that Eridel considered a soul upgrade at THIS level merely ¡®satisfying¡¯, they would almost spit enough blood to die. It was just too abnormal!

    But Eridel didn¡¯t know that and even if he did, he wouldn¡¯t care. Would he be so shameless as to compete with residents? What a joke! What was more exhilarating was what was occurring within his core.

    He could finally feel something, something had changed and on an instinctive level, he could tell that this was what he wanted, this is what he risked his life for.

    When he began to prod that feeling, he felt the strange sensation of a nose on the verge of a sneeze. As he continued, the feeling became more prominent and uncomfortable. But all of a sudden-

    Click!

    He heard a peculiar click-type-of-sound that reverberated in his mind.

    Accompanying that weird sound was a flush of information containing¡­ The secrets of magical energy!!!

    BOOOOOM!

    Like the eruption of a grand volcano, magical energy exploded out of his core in great amounts and spread out to invade his planet.

    It¡¯s behaviour was just like the Laws of Destruction, but it was a lot more tyrannical, not discriminating against the residents at all and invading them too.

    But this result caused Eridel to mentally grin. As he watched, grand changes began to take place all over the World.

    When the magical energy infiltrated all of the lands of his planet, he noticed that they were rapidly healing. Cracks and fissures closed, overflowing lava was eradicated, the raging seas were quelled and even the dyinging nature was restored, thrumming with vitality.

    Some of the herbs around the planet even evolved into becoming magical herbs. A type of herb that was beneficial when eaten, but more useful when refined into a pill.

    Surprisingly, there were actually some magical trees that appeared, stepping into the first stage of tree cultivation. Something that shouldn¡¯t have taken up to 100 years was happening after 5 months¡­

    More and more benefits like this were sprouting out like mushrooms after the rain all over the World.

    And that was not all. All the life forms on the planet began to evolve!

    For the beasts, as they were all primordial life forms, the first of their species. Their first evolution was dependent on their will, location, adaptations, affinities and more. Meaning, anything can happen.

    Well, you wouldn¡¯t see a mouse becoming a canine or a sheep becoming a feline, but within their own possibilities, anything was possible.

    This would never happen to their descendents unless a mutation occurred. With each evolution a descendant has, they would take the same path as their ancestor. For example: [Snow Wolf] > [Ice Wolf] > [Glacial Wolf] > [Heavenly Blizzard Wolf].

    There would be no deviation. Whether you surpassed your ancestor and became a [Star Swallowing Icicle Wolf] or not - would not change the fact that you would forever remain a one headed ice affinity wolf.

    All sorts of strange evolutions started occurring in the beast species and not one of them were weak.

    Eridel noted down the ones with the more outstanding evolutions. What amused him was that there was another special talent within the snake clan.

    It was a snake with resplendent purple scales, cold purple eyes and ominous looking fangs that dripped with a terrifying purple coloured poison that actually caused the ground to dissolve. Oh and the snake also had 2 heads.

    Eridel actually remembered this guy.

    Some time ago, when this little guy was domineeringly slithering through the forest. He encountered a strange plant that contained some kind of ¡®essence''.

    The plant was one that had 1 stem but 2 violet flowerheads, a rather average looking flower to be honest but even so, for some reason, the snake could feel a sense of danger from it.

 Ch.14 Legendary Chicken

    The plant was one that had 1 stem but 2 violet flowerheads, a rather average looking flower to be honest but even so, for some reason, the snake could feel a sense of danger from it.

    Despite that, the snake still decided to eat it. Even if this ¡®thing¡¯ could fight, could it outmatch his speed? Hmph!

    He had eaten loads of things filled with energy that made him stronger and bigger so although this ¡®thing¡¯ seemed different, it should be the same.

    With a cold glint of anticipation in his eyes, he opened wide and swiftly devoured the flower in one gulp.

    With arrogance filling his heart, he thought something along the lines of

    ¡®This thing no fight, no run, weak!¡¯

    The snake had actually thought the ¡®thing¡¯ would fight back since it had felt a sense of danger, but there was no resistance at all. ¡®Maybe scared? Hahaha-¡¯

    That was the last thought he had before he started to rapidly lose vitality, shocking him greatly. It writhed and hissed but nothing stopped the horrendous pains that wracked it¡¯s body and soon he passed out.

    Eridel managed to notice him because he was in the process of creating poisonous plants and herbs, but who knew that literally minutes after he was done, there would already be a tester.

    As his first tester, Eridel decided to be generous and save the snake¡¯s life. Causing it to wake up immediately but run back to the main territory in fear.

    Unfortunately for the following testers, Eridel ignored them. Poisons were meant to kill and if he saved all of the victims then what was the point of creating it in the first place? Soon, they would all develop instincts to stay away from poison anyway.

    Now Eridel was seeing the Snake develop the same properties of the poisonous flower. It must have thought that it was the strongest thing in existence for it to influence it¡¯s psyche like that.

    2 heads¡­ purple poison¡­ I¡¯m sorry, young one.

    But it seemed that because of this encounter, the snake might evolve into becoming a hydra?

    Speaking of snakes, Drako had a small race evolution too.

    Lily and J?rma didn¡¯t have one because from birth, they already had their bloodline. They could now only improve it. The 2 of them only got bigger and more impactive auras. J?rma got more of the former and Lily got more of the latter.

    However, Drako didn¡¯t have a bloodline, he just had a perfect affinity with the Laws of Fire. So he was more than welcome to get one now. But the result¡­

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    Drako¡­ he actually developed a pair of antlers on his forehead¡­

    If that did not expose not only the fear, but the hidden reverence that he had for the Elk, Eridel didn¡¯t know what else did.

    All the other snakes were just terrified of Dodo, they didn¡¯t dare to have thoughts of being like him.

    Thinking about it, it wasn¡¯t too surprising. Drako seemed to have a prideful personality that hoped to be the most dazzling and powerful. So it was not a big surprise that the most amazing thing that he ever saw (Dodo) influenced his evolution.

    Besides that, there was another evolution that got Eridel excited. It was actually¡­ A Phoenix!

    It was a result of awe inspiring coincidences that even stunned Eridel. One that cemented his decision to let things progress naturally unless otherwise needed.

    There was an alpha chicken. A nice, plump, grain-eating chicken.

    The chicken was cool, he had subordinates that ran around doing errands for him and he had all the females he could ever want, life was bliss and everyone wanted to be like him.

    But one day, everything changed when the fire nation att- COUGH! Everything changed when the Laws of Destruction erupted.

    Being a weak race, most of his flock had died very swiftly. As an alpha, he was more resilient and strong but he was dying too. However, he was smart

    When he was thinking of how to survive, the memory of a miraculous lake that he used to live close to surfaced in his mind.

    It wasn¡¯t so great when he was living there. Amazing water but that was it. But when massive changes occurred in that area, he fled with his flock.

    Finding out how trash other sources of water were in comparison, he decided to return one month later. When he and his flock returned to the lake¡­ they were flabbergasted! Essence, so much essence!

    But before he could even get excited, a massive hoove blocked his vision. He remembered how he had stumbled back and even fell on his bum, resulting in him seeing the owner of that hoove¡­

    He still shivered even now just thinking about it. But that wasn¡¯t the point. The water! If he could absorb some of the essence in that water, he and his flock could survive!

    With haste, he made his way as fast as possible with his remaining 5 flock members at his tail.

    10 minutes later he rushed into the clearing, the lake in vision, but 2 more of his brothers had died, causing him grief. The only ones left were the 2 strong women that he doted on the most, hoping to make strong children with (essentially his wives), and his last brother.

    When he saw the lake he was ecstatic, he could instinctively tell that if he got into the lake he and his flock would survive. Although he could see the behemoth-like Elk and some other green coloured animal resting in the water, that only confirmed his suspicions.

    Filled with happiness he urged his flock to run the last distance which was roughly 30 metres. He couldn¡¯t care less about the Elk, if he stayed away, he would die anyway. At least, if he got in that lake, he could have a chance of survival.

    But when they were 20 metres away, lightning struck, nothing quite special, lighting had been striking everywhere ever since this whole thing began so he was used to it by now. But the problem was where the lightning struck. A tree that was in front of them was blasted and it was immediately lit on fire and started to fall.

    That in itself wasn¡¯t much of a problem, even if they couldn¡¯t fly, they were still birds, they were quite fast when they wanted to be.

    However, his brother, who was blinded by desperation and even dared to run in front of him, didn¡¯t notice.

 Ch.15 Birth Of The Phoenix

    The alpha was smart and could tell what was going to happen. If things kept going as it was, his brother would be killed by the falling tree even before it burned him.

    At first, he was almost satisfied. ¡®How dare you run in front of me, just go die¡¯ is what he was thinking. He had purposefully lowered his speed so that he could make sure no one was left behind. But it seemed that his brother didn''t hold the same sentiment.

    But when he thought of all those that had died, his anger fizzled out. Then it came back again with more fury. ¡®HOW CAN I LET MY LAST BROTHER DIE IN FRONT OF ME?! AM I SUCH A TRASHY KING?!¡¯ Is what could be interpreted from his primitive thoughts.

    He pushed his speed to the max and rushed to his last brother, who still didn¡¯t notice even him, irking him a little. At full speed, he bulldozed into him, sending him flying out of the path of the falling tree. ¡®Hehe, this king is great, let¡¯s see how you will still dare to ignore me¡¯.

    He was filled with pride at his great strength, although he wasn¡¯t a magic beast yet, most of the treasures filled with essence were eaten by him alone. He only shared with his close brothers and ¡®wives¡¯.

    But he didn¡¯t need to care about such things because he himself was now in a dangerous dilemma.

    The tree was definitely going to crush him. But he could at least minimize the damage. With all of his effort, he ran forwards, trying to exit the pa-

    BOOOM!

    Indeed, it made a booming sound. All the trees in this place were ridiculously large after all. They were much bigger than the time when he was first living here.

    The alpha felt his ribs crack and one of his legs snap. Even though he dodged the main danger, which was the trunk. A rather thick branch still struck him almost flat. Any other chicken would have died, but he was the strong alpha.

    Even though his feathers were already catching fire and pain pierced him all over, he wanted to survive! So with all his efforts he struggled and struggled.

    By the time he had wiggled his way out of the tree, he was half scorched black, one of his eyes even hung out, creating a gruesome image.

    With his remaining flock watching him with fear in their eyes, he trudged to the lake step by step. They were already there, waiting for him, he told himself. He was only 7 metres away.

    As he struggled with all his might, he burned and burned. But still, he didn¡¯t stop.

    ¡®I¡¯M GOING TO BE THE GREATEST KING! I WILL HAVE THE MOST GRAINS, THE MOST SUBORDINATES AND THE MOST WIVES!¡¯ Is what could be interpreted from his thoughts.

    It could be said that he was half-lucid and somewhat delusional. He was running on fumes so he tried to encourage himself to move just a few steps more.

    Even the Elk and the strange green animal were watching him with awe in their eyes.

    With great ambitions filling his soul, he trudged forward. He was only 3 metres away now, just a few-

    ¡®Huh?¡¯

    The world tilted. But it would be more accurate to say that the Alpha had fallen.

    The alpha couldn¡¯t believe what he was looking at. His leg that wasn¡¯t broken had actually been burned halfway off, signifying his death.

    He was absolutely devastated, he was so, so close! Just a few more steps and he would have survived. He had seen how his flock had been healed in those waters.

    The alpha didn¡¯t notice the excited glint in his brother¡¯s eyes. He was only looking at his two wives that looked at him with grief.

    He wanted them to be the last things he saw before he died.

    But just as he was about to close his eyes and wait for the rapidly approaching death.

    Something happened!

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    A strange essence that the Alpha had never felt before arose in his body. He didn¡¯t notice that this was happening all over the World.

    As this energy filled him, he could feel his muscles becoming stronger, and his wounds becoming lighter.

    EKURRRR! An ugly chicken croak sounded out

    ¡®THIS MUST BE HELP FROM THE HEAVENS!¡¯

    Utilizing the full extent of his remaining energy, he ran a few steps before diving into the lake.

    SPLASH!

    As he sunk deeper and deeper into the lake, the light from the surface gradually faded, silence overwhelming everything.

    He found himself in a rare moment of peace.

    As the pain in his body dissipated, 2 different kinds of energies continued to fill him. Magical Energy and the Laws of Life.

    His body enlarged, his strength soared and his bones toughened. He could tell that he was going through a grand change. But in all this time, the one thing that never left his mind was the image of fire.

    That domineering and unblockable power that almost cost him his life¡­

    He wanted that power!

    Feeling destiny call him to the surface, he lunged.

    BOOM!

    As he burst out of the water, with the night sky and moon in the air. As he flapped his now enlarged wings, he let out a domineering phoenix cry

    SHHEEEEER!

    A new unfamiliar yet familiar essence started to fill his body. These were the elements of Fire.

    As he noticed the flames all over his newly red coloured feathers, he let out another cry of happiness. He could tell that these flames were his power from memory inheritance that each beast gains when they evolve.

    For now, all it did was explain their powers. Later on, Beasts would be able to pass down memories in their blood and their descendants would obtain them when they evolved.

    When he was about to come down from his high, a light abruptly shot down from the heavens, enveloping his entire body.

    This caused grand changes to occur in his body.

    First, the elements of fire in his body had a stupendous upgrade that he couldn¡¯t really understand.

    Next the other energy that he could identify as magical energy was refined and converted into the new fire energy.

    The Laws of Life then formed some kind of imperceptible connection with this energy, making them united.

    And finally, these two energies filled up his entire body, completing his evolution.

    Finally, he heard a voice that would change his fate forever.

    ¡°As the first majestic and powerful Phoenix in existence, I name you¡­ Chad.¡±

    BOOOOM!

    SHEEEEEEEEER!!!

    Chad cried out one last time as flames burst out of its body.

    Soon after, he fell unconscious.

    ¡­

    It was obviously Eridel that affected the evolution in the last moment. He didn¡¯t really do much, just changed his fire element affinity into fire Laws affinity and used those fire Laws to establish his mana.

    He thought it was a shame for the first Phoenix on his planet to utilize trashy flames that anyone decent could use too.

    However, they were just fire Laws. If the Phoenix wanted to create the special phoenix flames. It would be through his own comprehension.

    As for his name¡­ Eridel thought it was just too suitable. He had seen his memories and deemed him worthy of the name: Chad.

    Eridel looked at the sleeping Phoenix that was slumped on the floor by the Lake. The others surrounded him with awe in their eyes, reminiscing the scene that had just happened, only the male chicken that had also evolved had a shockingly calculative look in his eyes.

    Eridel knew those eyes, and knew what was to come. Although he was a little surprised that such a lowly creature had such intelligence, it wasn¡¯t impossible.

    He also didn¡¯t care.

    He grabbed the Phoenix and all the chickens with his Primordial Essence, ignoring all the shocked expressions and sent them flying off to another continent. The Western Continent to be exact.

    The Central Continent was becoming a little packed with powerhouses, especially the Easten Forest, so he decided to relocate the Phoenix, sending him to the Grand Forest in the Western Continent.

    The Grand Forest was the biggest forest there with towering trees located in the very center of the continent.

    The name¡¯s of the continents and forests were up for the residents to decide so he just gave them simple names for now.

    After dropping the chicken, he returned his attention to the Tree of Life. The first generation would be born soon. Despite already knowing what was going to happen, he was a little excited.

    Mentally nodding in satisfaction, he changed the focus of his attention again.

    It was finally time¡­

    The Dragons can now wake up.

 Ch.16 The Dragons Awaken

    The reason that Eridel had left the Dragons on a forced hibernation till now was because the regular dragons still had remnant essences of destruction in their bodies. So he had 2 choices.

    He could remove the essences of destruction for free, although it would cause a bit of pain because of how attached it was.

    Or, he could leave it, and wait for the magical energy outburst to forcefully complete their dragon transformation. In that situation, they would gain resistance to the Laws of Destruction and gain better talents in the process.

    All they had to do was survive until the magical outburst, and it needn¡¯t be said which option Eridel chose.

    Just to clear things up, a magical outburst is when magical energy suddenly increases all around the planet while at the same time forcefully entering all the things that could accept it.

    The biggest magical outburst was always when a World upgraded, especially when magical energy was appearing for the first time, like now.

    That was why everyone was entering the first realm of cultivation. The more talented ones directly entered stage 2 or higher of the first realm.

    The ones who already had mana experience 1 or 2 breakthroughs. Even Dodo broke through to stage 2 of the Spiritual Beast realm.

    As a matter of fact, because of this crazy outburst, every Tree became a Magic Tree.

    This is a fact that would cause millennial monks to cough blood with shock. And the reason for this was that every other World would never have a magical outburst this generous.

    There was a big difference between the Eridel World magical energy and foreign World magical energy.

    Let¡¯s start off with the fact that magical energy is fundamentally blue in colour if you could see it. But this freak of nature Eridel had somehow influenced the magical energy released on his planet, causing it to be gold in colour.

    But the influence didn¡¯t stop at just colour. Now, the always unaffiliated and most impartial magical energy¡­ had an affinity with souls.

    This meant that everyone in Eridel¡¯s planet would passively have their soul nourished by magical energy and inanimate objects were more likely to birth a consciousness if they were strong enough.

    It would also passively increase intelligence. So who knew what would happen to the Trees in the Spirit stage, would they be dumb like the Trees in other Worlds?

    All this soul affinity was a result of the obvious cause of this magical energy mutation: Eridel¡¯s Primordial Essence, a soul energy that has been his biggest helper so far.

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    When Eridel noticed this, he was delighted, maybe this was the ticket to becoming a World that surpassed the Laws.

    The other difference in this outburst and the others was that in other Worlds, magical energy was too picky in who it benefited. It would only enter physically strong and talented bodies and it would do that each outburst.

    This caused a divide between geniuses and the commoners, causing their Worlds develop strength based hierarchies and ¡®big dog eat little dog¡¯ concepts. However, in Eridel¡¯s World, magical energy invaded everything.

    For now, everything that contained life already had mana. Though in future, when new Trees grew and beast bloodlines degenerated back to the level of ordinary wild beasts, it wouldn¡¯t be as perfect anymore.

    At least, unlike other Worlds, the foundation here was very, very, VERY strong. And only extremely unfortunate beasts would be so dumb as to let their bloodline degrade that low.

    Back on the Dragons, it would seem that they had all not missed out on the benefits of the magical outburst.

    Gaia didn¡¯t let down her stupendous talent and had actually broken through to Stage 3, this was even despite the fact that the magical energy had to convert into Creation Mana instead of ordinary Mana.

    This breakthrough increased her strength by leaps and bounds and increased her size to 5 metres long. Her horns and claws also grew while her golden scales shone a little brighter.

    Calmilla and Aeshma broke through to the 2nd stage. Their claws seemed to have copied their horns, becoming black and swirling with Destruction essence. They both grew to 4 metres long.

    Every other dragon also entered the 2nd stage, showcasing their talent with magical energy.

    On top of that, they were all full-on-dragons now with everyone gaining wings on their backs, horns that grew out the skull and a dragonoid body.

    This event naturally caused Eridel to be excited and he decided to wake everyone apart from Gaia and the Destruction Dragons up.

    At the moment, the Destruction Dragons were too ruthless, too strong and too talented. They would completely collapse the ecosystem if they were allowed to run wild. Especially with that prick Aeshma there.

    When a few beasts entered the late stage (stage 7-9), that¡¯s when he would release the destruction dragons. At that time, they wouldn¡¯t just dominate everything on sight and would actually have to work to get things.

    As for Gaia, it was better to leave her with the destruction dragons for now. If she reacted negatively to them, at least she wouldn¡¯t be able to kill their defenseless bodies.

    As the dragons began to wake up one by one. Eridel quickly created an underground cave with a concealed pathway to the surface and left the destruction dragons there along with Gaia.

    At first the Dragons were disorientated having slept so long, but they quickly discovered the changes in their bodies and the lack of pain, this caused them to roar with excitement.

    RAAA! RAAAAAAAAA!!!

    These roars¡­ Well, they tried their best. They¡¯re only newborns after all.

    Eridel looked at the dragon who started the first roar. There were a few alphas here but he was the biggest. Bigger horns, denser scales, broader wings, majestic golden eyes and a longer tail. Oh, the tail tip was even spiked.

    Actually, a few dragons here had augmentations like that, but they were quite crude. Spiked backs were seen and spiked wings too, but they were so poor and ugly that they couldn¡¯t be useful for anything and weren¡¯t worth mentioning.

    But this Alpha¡¯s tail had a spike at the tip that looked very sharp.

    ...Another Chad?

 Ch.17 The Surprise of The Human Race

    Eridel watched as the dragons began to expand their territory.

    When they realized that they were no longer dying, they decided to have more fun. They no longer needed to huddle together to survive.

    And as expected, they quickly conquered the surrounding areas, claiming a large territory.

    But unfortunately, they seemed to have discovered a desire to destroy. They would purposefully wreck the area when fighting, not caring about the resources in the area and causing the landscape to turn rather ugly.

    Eridel could deduce that this was a side-effect of absorbing the Laws of Destruction when they didn¡¯t have a strong enough mind to reject the instincts of those Laws.

    ¡®Sigh¡­ I can only hope they grow out of these habits when they evolve more and gain a greater intelligence.¡¯

    Eridel was disappointed with their actions. He could predict that things would be worse than the snake clan here and they were certain to be more tyrannical.

    Currently, the Humans were doing pretty well over in this Forest but that probably wouldn¡¯t last much longer.

    However, the humans had also evolved, developing a Mana Core in the center of their chest and Mana Circuits that ran through their entire body, gaining the ability to cultivate.

    This was a turning point for the humans, something that was not supposed to happen for millions of years - was already happening.

    But unfortunately for them, while they were able to gain a memory inheritance of basic mana maneuvering, courtesy of Eridel, they had no other cultivation techniques, a fatal weakness for the Humans.

    Eridel couldn¡¯t even help them with that even if he wanted to, and he didn¡¯t want to. This was because none of his own memory inheritances covered any type of cultivation technique to speak of. He just got Primordial Essence for free.

    So the Humans will have to trial and error, or... steal from a foreign World.

    But the Human race wasn¡¯t completely useless, in fact, some of them had greatly surprised Eridel.

    First were the Humans in the Central Eastern Forest, the most dangerous place in the World with the lowest Human survival rate. At the moment, there were only 2000 Humans left there.

    It seemed that it was certain that they would face extinction without resistance.

    But something changed.

    The magical outburst arrived and they evolved like everyone else. But unlike the other Humans, they didn¡¯t gain Mana Cores or Mana Circuits.

    Instead they gained bulking muscles filled with immense strength and vitality, they grew to a collective average height of 2.5 metres tall and the blood that flowed through their veins seemed to boil with some kind of essence.

    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    It was magical energy.

    Instead of them gaining mana circuits. Their own blood became the hosts of their magical energy. This was even more primal than the beasts that had gained beast cores.

    Ever since this evolution, they had become much, much more ferocious. They were no longer foraging for fruits like rabbits but viciously charging at others with the intent to kill and devour.

    They seemed to have learned from their previous tormentors, the Wolves and started to team up against their enemies, becoming war-like in nature and undaunting in front of adversity.

    They had clearly become barbarians.

    These barbarians were incredibly strong and only got stronger when they ate the meat of their prey, especially when that meat was saturated with magical energy.

    This evolution was a result of their leader.

    A leader that only had hatred and brutality in his mind. He hated that his people were always hunted, he hated that while his tormentors could always eat the meat of his people, he could only eat the plants in the surroundings like the other prey. He hated that he could not feast on his enemies as they feasted on his people. He hated that he was weak. He hated and hated and hated.

    So when the magical outburst came around, his evolution was influenced by the thoughts that plagued his mind 24/7.

    And the thing about evolutions is that if you were the uncontested leader or the alpha of a group, had a heart to heart connection with them and they followed you unconditionally, their evolutions would be influenced by yours without failure.

    This brung about the beginning of the Barbarian Race

    Currently, these ferocious Barbarians were in a war with the Nightmare wolves, the evolved race of the Wolves that had previously terrorized them.

    Eridel watched as they crudely battered at them with their giant fists. It couldn¡¯t be helped, they had no martial skill to speak of.

    But it didn¡¯t seem to matter, the Nightmare Wolves special ability to induce fear on their enemies was redundant on the barbarians that had only the thought of killing on their mind.

    Eridel turned his attention to another group of humans that had caught his attention.

    This was the group in the Southern Plains of the Eastern Continent.

    Here, an extremely intelligent human was born.

    Eridel actually remembered this girl. Her intelligence was actually somewhat of an accident. Have you ever been so bored and done something crazy for fun knowing you could delete it or get rid of it later?

    Well, Eridel didn¡¯t get rid of it.

    Deciding to test what would happen if he gave a human an extremely high intelligence to the point that it made AI look dumb.

    But the result was disappointing, other than a higher curiosity and cautiousness than her peers, she didn¡¯t do much. So Eridel lost interest.

    Somewhat of a mistake.

    2 weeks after her birth. This Woman had come to a conclusion.

    ¡®I am the supreme one!¡¯ is what could be interpreted from her thoughts.

    She could tell that everyone else apart from her was just too¡­ Lowly. They couldn¡¯t compare to her at all. She had to give them the answers to everything.

    From then on, she began to show ¡®shocking¡¯ miracles to her fellow humans, rallying them under one banner. Even if it was tedious, she didn¡¯t stop helping out her peers.

    ¡®Although they are stupid, they are my people¡¯ is what could be interpreted from her thoughts.

    1 month after her birth. She had come to a conclusion.

    ¡®My race is the supreme race!¡¯

    The woman had seen the other species. And only one thought came to her mind when she thought of them, whether they were weak or strong.

    ¡®Dumb, dumb, DUUUUUUMB! SO DUMB!¡¯

 Ch.18 Pride is My Birthright

    The Woman only had disdain for the other species that either hopped around like idiots, sat around like idiots or ate others like idiots.

    Looking at her people that had learned the concept of creation from her, she couldn¡¯t help but beam with pride.

    The only thing that she held a lick of respect for was the sun. When it shone bright and hung in the sky It overpowered everything, no one could even look at it without feeling pain in their eyes.

    That¡¯s what she wanted! A power that none dare to withstand!

    ¡®But I will not fall when the night comes, I will be supreme forever!¡¯ Is what could be interpreted from her thoughts.

    Hubris filled her heart and she was drunk with pride.

    This pride kept rising and rising and rising without stop.

    And eventually the magical outburst came¡­

    Similarly to the barbarian man, her psyche had influenced her evolution. But unlike the coarse and rough but powerfully built barbarians. Her evolution took on an opposite form, becoming a heavenly beauty.

    Growing to the height of 1.8 metres tall with high and proud breasts, a slim waist and wide hips. Her perky buttocks and thick thighs were not lacking in the slightest either. Yet despite this, she could be considered to be slender overall, giving a majestic and pure aura.

    Her hair had grown longer, reaching her waist and giving the impression of a golden sea, especially with the way it shimmered in the sun.

    Her eyes were of an even brighter gold, the unconcealed domineering and proud glint looking like it wanted to surpass the sun itself.

    She even shone with a golden light, a light that was clearly magical in nature. This was the result of the light affinity she gained with her evolution.

    Furthermore, her mana core was actually in her head and was shaped like a geometric sphere rather than the regular smooth sphere that every other ¡®human¡¯ had.

    It must also be mentioned that the mana circuits in her body were RIDICULOUS. Normal magical circuits were still innately biological and could be considered somewhat of an organ.

    However this was actually a flaw. Flesh would always interrupt with the workings of the ethereal magical energy, plus, just like any other part of the body, it could gain impurities.

    But what was the situation for this woman?

    Her mana circuits were actually made of solidified magical energy itself!

    This ensured that her affinity with any kind of essence would always be high! Mana would seamlessly pass through her circuits and they would never gain impurities.

    Even more terrifying was the fact that her intelligence increased! This was actually the by-product of the strange mana core she had in her head. It makes one shiver in fear wondering what she would do once she gained knowledge.

    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    And this blessing extended to all over her followers. Making the woman a progenitor just like the Barbarian chief.

    The thing about progenitors was that they were the origin of their bloodline or race. Those of the same affiliation could never disobey. It should also be mentioned that no one could reach the perfection that their progenitor obtained. They were just descendants or cheap copies after all.

    Even in this new race, the magical mana circuits they obtained were not as pure and the intelligence they gained while extremely high wasn¡¯t even 10% of what their progenitor obtained.

    But looking at their exaggeratedly handsome and beautiful visage¡¯s and apex physiques that had a collective average height of 1.8m with toned muscles primed for any kind of physical activity, their superior mana core and mana circuits, their intelligence¡­ All these things that made them human but amplified to stupid levels.

    They could only be called High Humans.

    The Woman immediately discovered the difference in her body, even memorizing the entire transformation process to later use that knowledge in a possible experiment or further research.

    She felt the power coursing through her body that she quickly found out was similar to the sun. Something that made her giddy with joy.

    Then she looked at her people who had also evolved. Instantly discovering the change in their appearance, alertness in eyes and the power in their bodies. They had all clearly become ¡®upgraded¡¯, filling her with pride.

    ¡®MY RACE IS REALLY THE SUPREME RACE! WE ARE BLESSED BY THE SUN!¡¯ is what could be interpreted from her thoughts.

    Although no one else was gifted with the light affinity, she still considered her entire race blessed by the sun. The pride in her eyes was so disgustingly prominent that it looked like it would soon start bleeding out.

    But for a moment she actually looked at the sun with respect, but that was soon swamped with disdain.

    It was clear that she was looking down on the sun. Looking down on the fact that it cowered from the night. She actually began to think that sooner or later she would surpass it.

    Hubris.

    But if you think about it, this also couldn¡¯t be helped. She had no elders or past history warnings or any kind of thing to warn her that too much arrogance could possibly lead to self destruction.

    So what could possibly happen to her when she was only becoming greater and greater, fuelling her pride that never stopped growing. To her, it was her birthright. Why should she stop it? That was like asking her to take away her intelligence. Foolish.

    Unfortunately, just like the barbarians took their chief¡¯s ferociousness and brutality. These High Humans took on their leader¡¯s superiority complex, but funnily enough, they were actually very harmonious with each other.

    But when they saw others of a different race, they became like kings and queens that saw a frog in their castle.

    ¡°Hahahaha!¡±

    They would point fingers at other animals as if the other species were circus clowns. They actually found the stupidity of other races so hilarious that they discovered how to laugh.

    Eridel watched these pompous high humans with amusement. Although they were annoying, he could definitely appreciate their use to the overall World¡¯s progression. In fact, they were already learning to fiddle and create things with spare parts they could grab.

    This was something he needed.

    With satisfaction coursing through his soul, Eridel turned to the last group of human irregulars.

    But this one actually put a damper on his excitement.

    Looking at their red eyes and sinister gazes, Eridel couldn¡¯t help but contemplate.

    ¡®Fiends... how interesting.¡¯

    ¡­

    It all started with a hungry man that was tired of being hungry.

 Ch.19 The Crying Ghost

    In this World, the strong were privileged. It sounded clich¨¦, but it was true. Those that could survive going out to gather food and resources were praised. Those that could only live on others like a leech were disdained.

    This man was a leech.

    He had no talent, he had no strength, he had no wisdom.

    He was weak.

    So just like the others, he was ignored. The food he was given was the bare minimum, eventually making him become malnourished. With no food, no magical herbs, no nothing. He became even weaker.

    Luckily, the concept of bullying didn¡¯t even exist yet. Otherwise you could imagine what would happen.

    But this man wasn¡¯t quite like the others.

    He was¡­

    INSATIABLE!

    ¡®FOOOOOOOD!¡¯

    His eyes were opened terrifyingly wide with desire and desperation, the burst blood vessels in his eyes making him look more horrifying.

    The way he bent his fingers to emulate claws, helplessly grabbing at the air. It was like a chained ghost that had suffered thousands of years full of starvation had possessed him.

    The unintelligible howls that he screeched didn¡¯t improve the image.

    ¡®STREEEEENGTH!¡¯

    Copious amounts of saliva spluttered out of his mouth.

    His peers only looked once before shuffling away.

    ¡®He¡¯s going crazy again¡¯ is what could be interpreted from their thoughts. They couldn¡¯t understand why ¡®this one¡¯ always got like this when he was denied more food. He was weak. Why does he have to be so angry?

    ¡°EEEEERRAAAAKIRAYEEEH!¡± The man let out an even more terrifying scream, venting his frustrations.

    He was very, very angry.

    Why did they deny him so? Was it wrong to eat until his belly no longer hurt? Was it wrong to seek strength? Wouldn¡¯t it only benefit them if he became strong? Why did they deny him? Why¡­ why, wHY, WHY?!

    ¡°EEERRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!¡± Screeching like a banshee and slamming his arms against the ground like a savage gorilla. It was quite petrifying.

    ¡®Do¡­ do they want me to die?!¡¯

    A normal person in his position would think ¡®do they hate me?'', But first of all he was obviously not normal, and 2, there were no levels of evil here apart from death.

    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    In his mind, such a thing as ¡®hate¡¯, ¡®bullying¡¯, ¡®just taking the piss out of you¡¯ - did not exist.

    Since they acted like this towards him. They-

    ¡®THEY WANT ME TO DIE!¡¯

    The man clawed at the dirt in his hands and repeatedly banged his head on the ground, his spine-chilling eyes becoming more red.

    But even as he knocked his head on the ground, his eyes never left the bodies of his peers.

    ¡®I WANT TO EAAAAATTTTT!¡¯

    An ugly emotion was born in his heart, consuming his mind like an all-encompassing black cloud.

    For the first time in the history of humanity. Hatred was directed at another of the same race. The desire that a predator had for prey, was directed towards those of the same race¡­

    The desire to kill¡­ no, it was the desire to murder - was born.

    Over the next few days. The death rate had somehow increased. Confusing and worrying the ignorant humans. They thought that made a new group of predators hand encroached on their territory.

    But that was not true.

    The reason was none other than the insatiable man - who we will call the ¡®crying ghost¡¯ for now.

    Crying Ghost was still weak, so it wasn¡¯t like he was killing people with his power.

    But what he did was far more sinister.

    He would tag along with the foragers when the went out looking for food, and when they were severely weakened by predator attacks¡­

    He would go for the kill!

    After separating them from the rest of the group, he would use a broken stalactite that the humans used as a weapon and sneak up on them, literally stabbing them in the back.

    He would then voraciously eat their remains, especially targeting the blood, claiming that the sense of revenge and victory made it sweet.

    Each time he did this, he became stronger. Even if it was human flesh, he was eating meat while others were eating plants. Not only was he getting the nutrients from the meat, but he was absorbing the essence in their blood that came from them eating essence-rich-herbs.

    Despite the fact that he returned home alone nearly every time. No one suspected him. This was because it was completely out of their imagination and what you can¡¯t imagine, you can¡¯t guess.

    That¡¯s like expecting someone to know what flying means even if they¡¯ve never seen a bird before.

    So they used their limited imagination to guess that he might have found a super herb that was making him stronger and stronger. After that they didn¡¯t think much, they only thought that there was now another expert to help them gather food.

    So the Crying Ghost kept on with his devious actions, becoming stronger and stronger.

    Soon enough, he became the strongest.

    This caused others to admire him. But if they had any decent knowledge. The would have suspected the red in his eyes that only ever kept in creasing, nearly touching his iris.

    At this point he was frighteningly addicted to blood. This wasn¡¯t the affect of the blood itself but the result of the rush he got each time he satisfied his vengeance. But he didn¡¯t know that and tied the existence of this rush to the blood and what the mind wholeheartedly believes, the body follows.

    Soon, he began to covet the blood of stronger beings. He wanted to drink the blood of those that used to frighten him in the past; the beasts!

    But he was pretty smart at this point. The blood he absorbed nourished his whole body including his brain so he knew that if he went out to attack those terrifying beast, his life would be in danger.

    So he hatched a hair-raising plan.

    In his clan of 8000 humans, he decided to start a competition.

    He forced everyone to pair up with a partner, causing great confusion, but they complied because he was the strongest.

    He naturally couldn¡¯t communicate so things were a bit of a struggle but he managed to eventually convey his intention to¡­

    Have them fight to the death!

 Ch.20 Rise Of The Blood Fiends

    _____

    [ ??????????????''?? ?????????????? ]

    ???????? ?????????????? ???? ???????????????? ????????????????, ???? ?????? ?????? ?????????????? ???? ?????????? ????????????; ????????????.

    _____

    Naturally, the humans were shocked. For a few seconds they couldn¡¯t even comprehend what they were being told.

    Kill one another?

    It didn¡¯t make sense. Why should they kill each other? Didn¡¯t you kill for food? Why¡­

    But the confusion passed and then they were soon angry. How could he possibly ask them to kill each other!

    The previous leader was the first to start growling, waving his arms in protest. Even baring his teeth and taking a threatening step forwards like he intended to fight. He was smart and knew that the others would back him up if he started a fight with this villain. He wasn¡¯t wrong. The others started to surround the Crying Ghost in preparation to take him down.

    Glee filled the old leader¡¯s heart. He had always been miffed about the fact that his position was taken but there was now an opportunity to take it back! With a wide grin on his mouth he-

    SHICK!

    ¡®???¡¯

    The old leader didn¡¯t even manage to think a final thought before his head rolled off his body, blood gushing out of his neck as his body collapsed.

    ¡°EEEEARRH!¡±

    The humans screamed in fear, running back from the corpse of their old leader and his killer.

    Crying Ghost flicked his weapon causing blood to fly out and stain the grass.

    With a sinister grin on his face, he bent down and began to feast on the corpse of the old leader, striking terror in the hearts of the viewers. Unfortunately, not all were disgusted. It suddenly occurred to them that if other predators can use them for food, why can¡¯t they eat each other if need be?

    Some of them actually had the light of greed shine in their eyes as they watched, but they didn¡¯t dare to act, the power of Crying Ghost terrified them far too much.

    But when Crying Ghost finished eating, licking the blood on his fingers and stood up in satisfaction, pointing towards them and signifying them to partner up and fight - the greedy ones suddenly understood and became excited.

    Just like that, the culture within this clan of humans was undergoing a massive shift.

    Under Crying Ghost¡¯s oppressive coercion. They all fought to the death, leaving only 4000 members alive.

    The ghastly sight of thousands of clansmen dying caused everyone to pale but Crying Ghost only watched with delight etching his face.

    He had discovered a new activity that pleased him very much, and that was to watch ¡®fools¡¯ kill each other like beasts. A desire that would cause the hearts of millions to quake with fear.

    Crying Ghost then indicated for victors to eat their fallen victims. A shocking but predictable action, taking his motives into consideration. He was trying to raise warriors after all.

    Unsurprisingly, there wasn¡¯t much resistance here. They were all hungry, they were all scared and there were no morals to keep them from completing this action. No one to tell them that what they were doing was cannibalism and therefore unethical.

    So they ate.

    And as they ate, they quickly discovered the rising power in their bodies. This caused them to moan with delight with the fear within them rapidly decreasing. They ate and sucked every last bit of essence from their own brethren.

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    Finally experiencing what it meant to be full and the new power in their body, they looked at their leader with reverence. Vowing to obey whatever he said.

    It was a pity but they were a primitive species at the moment. They lacked the mental capabilities to deny the instincts of their bodies, so when their instincts told them that following this new leader would grant them benefits, the idea of disobeying didn¡¯t even exist.

    A few hours later a new round took place. Leaving only 2000 clan members alive.

    Although there was fear in the beginning, that was only because of the fear of losing and consequently dying. They still ended up complying in the end, their minor sense of guilt being consumed by their rising strength.

    The next day, the process repeated.

    This time there was no hesitation and only 1000 fierce and vigorous ¡®humans¡¯ were left alive. At this point, all of them had a ring of red around their eyes causing them to look extremely terrifying.

    In this entire process, all of them had become strong. However, they had also become quite vicious. Viewing human life as nothing but potential resources.

    If they had morals, this could have been avoided even if they repeated the act 10 more times. But there were no morals here. Only instincts dictated their lifestyles, and their instincts had told them that their fellow clansmen were better off dead and in their belly.

    Even so, they didn¡¯t dare to covet their leader. They knew how strong he was and none of them believed that they had the ability to take him down. More importantly, he might have more tricks to help them get stronger.

    And he did.

    From then on, he boldly started to hunt on the other species of the forest along with his other clansmen, causing panic to spread out without restraint.

    In this process, the ¡®humans¡¯ became stronger and stronger, but at the same time, they became a lot more vicious. At this point, even if Crying Ghost didn¡¯t order them to kill anymore, they would still go out to perform mass genocides. The reason being the fact that their instincts told them so.

    At this stage of their primitive lives. Instincts developed and vanished like rain in a storm. So it was understandable for them to so easily forget their foraging lives and move on to the path of executioners.

    And this was extremely terrifying because instincts were a living being''s foundation. No matter what morals you developed in the future, it would always align with your instincts in some way. So when you have a sinister instinct like: kill anything, even your own family for power, lives are just resources - you can only turn out to be an evil person.

    Like this, life continued and terror spread across the entire forest.

    Soon, the magical outburst arrived, causing grand changes to the human marauders that seemed to make it their mission to destroy peace, and it went without saying that there was no way these fiends could end up remaining regular humans.

    Crying Ghost roared out in pain as massive changes occurred in his body.

    First, his skin peeled off, an eerie pale skin replacing the old. Next, his nails and teeth sharpened like that of a beast. His body started to grow, reaching a whopping 2 metres tall. His hair became the colour of crimson blood and last but certainly not least, his eyes became completely red. Not only were they red but they even shone like stars, causing any viewer to shiver with fear.

    This transformation repeated itself in all of his followers, only, they didn¡¯t grow like him, nor did they gain red hair. But they all gained the red eyes, pale skin, sharp claws and shark-like teeth of their progenitor.

    Behind him was the vague illusion of a blood-curdling red sea. This was the hair-raising result of Crying Ghost establishing mana using the blood element and entering body refining stage 1. (First realm of human cultivation)

    When their transformation was over, they all looked at one another, feeling the slight intimacy and affinity of blood that they each had, then they looked at their now extremely handsome progenitor that made this all happen.

    They then started to scream out loud in celebration, respect and reverence in their eyes.

    If they knew how, they would probably be prostrating themselves.

    After that, they continued to hunt. However this time, it wasn¡¯t just to become strong. It was for pleasure. Yes, they now found pleasure in the act of killing as if it were a game. Definitely the influence of Crying Ghost.

    All of them had sinister looks in their spine-chilling eyes as they cut down their prey and sucked out their blood and disregarded the flesh. Something they did after the taste of blood became like nectar to them, making the taste of flesh dogshit in comparison. Thanks to their new constitution, they didn¡¯t need solid food to survive anymore.

    As a matter of fact, not only could they live on blood. Their efficiency in absorbing essence from blood had become 90% (Only Crying Ghost had 100%). This was a dramatic increase from their earlier 5%, causing their strength to rise stupendously.

    Although other species could absorb the essence in blood, it was woefully inefficient and caused about 95% of it to be lost. No one with brains would do that. But this was how these fiends came to be and in the end, it paid off. They were now gifted with 90% efficiency in absorbing blood.

    What a terrifying thought.

    As these evil creatures ran around the forest causing most of it to be coloured red with blood, only one thought came to Eridel who watched the sequences of events from the World Archive.

    ¡®Blood Fiends...¡¯

 Ch.21 The Real Reason

    Eridel could wipe out the Blood Fiends right now and they would vanish without resistance. But he actually needed people like them. He had already started [ Secret Side Project: Demons ], so what were blood fiends on top of that?

    There was nothing in existence that could survive without both order and chaos.

    When there was no chaos, there was no drive or reason to improve. No need to overcome adversities because there were no adversities, no need to be creative because there was no need for your creation.

    But with chaos, people strived to nullify it, people desperately improved themselves so that they weren¡¯t destroyed by chaos in turn, people evolved because chaos would destroy them if they didn¡¯t rise to the challenge.

    True, a World without chaos could ¡®survive¡¯, but as a result, the quality of talent would vanish like smoke, unstoppable and uncontrollable.

    Here¡¯s an example: Let¡¯s say there was a war around 2000 years ago. Both sides had a few dozen immortals making it even, the war ends with your side winning and now there¡¯s peace. 2000 years later, there¡¯s not a single immortal in your country. After all there¡¯s no need to train so excessively. But what would happen if a power of that same caliber 2000 years ago comes for you now? That¡¯s right, only death is the outcome.

    That¡¯s why Eridel needed a stable amount of Chaos in his World. The strength and talent of his World would continue to increase and when his World inevitably clashed with others they could rise to the challenge.

    He was determined in becoming a World that surpassed the Laws after all. There was no way to escape conflict.

    On the flip side. Order was also needed, no need to thick too much, without it, a World would only self-destruct. The lack of order and the lack of chaos shared the same fate, but the lack of order was more vicious and swift.

    Just look at how self-destructive those blood fiends are. They don¡¯t know that by overhunting, they would eventually lose all prey. They would destroy the ecosystem of the forest and have to migrate or die.

    It couldn¡¯t be helped, they had no knowledge of these things. So what could Eridel do?

    Well¡­

    He was going to let things run its course.

    That¡¯s how Eridel was going to govern his World when it came to disasters. He would let his residents experience and fear them, using their all to prevent the same thing from occurring. Only when they had learned would Eridel step in for free.

    No need for anymore lessons now that the answer to the equation was engraved in their brains.

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    There was nothing important in that forest, so he would let it become a lesson for the fiends. It was for the greater good.

    Just like that, Eridel condemned hundreds of thousands of lives in that forest to death.

    This was a petrifying thought process but Eridel didn¡¯t seem to realize. In fact, it¡¯s like he couldn¡¯t really think too deeply when it came to things that were related to improving the World. Just like the time he was irrationally angry being denied the ability to awaken magic energy and made that dangerous decision.

    Even now, his mind just seemed to pass over the costs of whatever improvement he was implementing, causing him to regard any cost as irrelevant.

    Unfortunately, Eridel didn¡¯t quite realize this yet.

    ¡®Speaking of self-destruction, it¡¯s about time I look into the real reason this World was on the verge of destruction when I got here.¡¯

    Eridel had always been planning on doing this, but he had always been so busy. Or rather, his narrow-minded focus in improving could finally be at rest for a little while and he could look at other things.

    Afterwards he would look at the first generation Elves that he could tell were being born outside of the Archive. Being in the World Archive didn¡¯t stop time after all, but he could reverse time or fast forward (up to current time).

    And reverse time he did. To the time before Eridel Domicus.

    ¡­

    In a certain region of space in the Lolay Galaxy, a peerlessly handsome man with long blonde hair and unfathomable purple eyes was floating in front of an insignificant Low World.

    He was obviously an Immortal, only immortals had the ability to leave their World and survive in space, even travelling through it. But the stage of his immortality couldn¡¯t be determined.

    Regardless of his level, even the lowest of the low Immortal could destroy a defenseless World like this with ease.

    Rayas marveled at the World before him. A completely undiscovered World with no enlightened species, something that was so rare that an Immortal had better chances of aging to death (something impossible).

    But here he was. In front of a completely defenseless Low Word who¡¯s fate now lay in the palm of his hand.

    He then smiled so gently, looking angelic in coordination with his handsome visage. But his next words would cause anyone to be downright horrified.

    ¡°This World is the perfect material for comprehending the Laws of Destruction.¡±

    Yes¡­ he actually planned on breaking this World¡¯s Core in order to comprehend the resulting Laws of Destruction.

    Watching an entire World being ravaged by the Laws of Destruction alone, what could top that in the gains that a person watching would get in his comprehension of the Destruction Laws.

    Rayas easily slipped through the World¡¯s atmosphere and burrowed through to the center of the World.

    When he found the core, He struck out with his hand, only causing enough damage for a crack to appear. Still with that damn smile on his face.

    He nodded his head in satisfaction when the Laws of Destruction started to seep out.

    Afterwards, he sat down, closed his eyes and crossed his legs with both palms on their respective knees (Lotus Position). This was the optimum position when cultivating. It helps the mind enter a smooth state of meditation, slightly increasing the effect of comprehension.

    And just like that, months passed by as the entire World was ruthlessly ravaged.

 Ch.22 1st Generation Elves

    Rayas had spent 9 months there when he was interrupted by a sudden sound.

    Bip bip bip!

    Rayas¡¯s eyes dipped in frustration. He had already sent a message that he was going into seclusion and yet someone still dared to disturb him?

    Reaching into his pocket, he yanked out a strange rectangular device the size of a phone. But it was not quite a phone¡­ or was it?

    Sounds that were clearly a man speaking in a slightly frantic manner came out of the device. At this point, even if it wasn¡¯t a phone, it was definitely some kind of communicator.

    The look on Rayas¡¯ face changed as he finally understood the point of this message. His eyes turned cold with a barely hidden glint of anger. His face then turned into one of regret as he looked at the World Core.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be back soon.¡± He curtly said to the device.

    Resuming his look of tranquillity, he stood up and¡­ disappeared.

    ¡®The Laws of Space...¡¯ Eridel thought.

    Eridel didn¡¯t really know how he felt about this scene of events. He wasn¡¯t angry, but nor was he okay with anything that transpired here at all.

    Maybe it was because it happened before he became the World itself that he didn¡¯t entirely feel it happened to him. But whatever the case, it was a dangerous situation. There was actually an Immortal that knew where he was.

    On top of that, the event happened months ago so there was no way to track him at all. Otherwise, Eridel would have found a way to get rid of him once he was capable. It was too dangerous for other people to know of his existence. Well, his body¡¯s (World) existence. No one would find out his soul that inhabited this World.

    Well, even if he wanted to go after that fellow, he wasn¡¯t capable at all. He was an immobile planet, how could he chase anything. More than that. His ability to manipulate World¡¯s didn¡¯t extend outside of his territory.

    The reason he said territory was because he had been working on a hair-raising scheme that would allow him to extend his sphere of influence outside of just his mere 1 World. At that point, calling him a World wouldn¡¯t be satisfactory anymore, he would be something¡­ more.

    ¡®Haaah¡­ How troublesome, even if this guy thinks the World is destroyed by now, he might come back.¡¯

    Eridel felt like he was going to have another migraine like the time he was with Ciera, which didn¡¯t even make sense since he didn¡¯t even have a brain anymore¡­

    Speaking of Ciera, it was about time he checked on her and the Elves, they should have been born by now.

    With thousands of different schemes focused solely on countermeasures against Rayas, Eridel exited the World Archive, he¡¯d been here long enough. It was time to do something new.

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    ¡®But first, the Elves¡­¡¯

    ¡­

    [ Central Continent: Center of The Eastern Forest ]

    Surrounding the Spring of Life were roughly 200 figures clambering about carrying various materials to different locations; it was mostly wood but there was some stone to be found as well.

    When Eridel first saw this, he was slightly shocked. He didn¡¯t give the Elves any ability or supernatural intelligence that would help them discover how to create houses after mere days of existence.

    Even the High Human Queen of the East was only just discovering how to dig caves underground to use as shelter. While the thought of ¡®building¡¯ up occurred in her head. She hadn¡¯t yet thought of a way to stick parts together.

    So she had to content herself with living underground like the animals for now, something that really wounded her pride.

    But after peering into their souls, he found out that the Elves were actually obeying the instructions of their Queen to build basic dwellings.

    Now it was a lot more believable. The Queen had a lot of knowledge as a result of her contract with Ciera so something like this was nothing to her.

    Knowledge and Intelligence were two very different things.

    Knowledge is the collection of experiences someone may have. For example: knowing what a car is, knowing how to ride a bike, knowing how to eat. This is all knowledge. But just because you had knowledge doesn¡¯t mean you know how to do ANY of those things.

    And this is where intelligence comes in. Intelligence is the ability to comprehend something and use that understanding in action. Intelligence could also be considered an automatic calibration.

    For example: Without intelligence, even if you knew how to eat. Would you know how to hold the spoon so that the food doesn¡¯t fall out? Would you even know how to chew food in a way that you didn¡¯t choke yourself to death?

    No matter how easy it was to know of the concept ¡®chew your food with your teeth, taste with your tongue, blah blah blah, knowledge does not cover how to react in abstract situations that intelligence automatically helps you correct.

    For example: Let¡¯s say you learnt how to drink water but you drink the water and it goes down the wrong way, cutting off your breathing. It was intelligence that let you know that something had gone WRONG and you needed to rectify the situation.

    No amount of knowledge would help you if you had no intelligence.

    Intelligence was also the ability to come up with more ideas using the knowledge that you already have. For example: ¡®Now that I know how to use a spoon, I can guess how to use a fork.¡¯

    Even if the guess was wrong, you used intelligence to make a guess. Without intelligence, there would be NO guesses.

    On the flip side, with no knowledge, there was no way to apply intelligence. Even if you had an IQ over 9000, if you didn¡¯t even know what a house was, how can you think of a way to build one?

    { ??????????????''?? ????????: Apologies for the info dump but this could be information that could be useful for you guys, or maybe you found the excessive information annoying and for which, I apologize. }

    This was why the High Human Queen was at a disadvantage compared to the Elven Queen who had both knowledge and intelligence in quantitative amounts.

    Unfortunately for the Human, Eridel had naught a lick of desire to help her. She would have to go through trial and error like the Primordials on every other planet.

    Looking at the fairy-like Elves that had supernatural beauty and charisma, Eridel couldn¡¯t help but feel proud.

    But what got him the most excited was their potential!

 Ch.23 Creating A...

    The reason Eridel was excited about the potential of the Elves was because¡­ they had yet to experience a magical outburst!

    When they were in their cocoons, the magical energy was unable to breach through. This was because the cocoons had a protective mechanism that prevented all invaders even if it came with good intentions.

    But now that they were outside of their cocoons, as long as they didn¡¯t establish Mana and enter stage 1 of their cultivation, they could evolve into something greater.

    As it is now, all of these Elves were Origin Elves! They had no ancestors, they had no bloodline to follow and evolve, they themselves were the ancestors! This meant that before entering stage 1, they could augment their existence however they wished!

    Entering stage 1 was the same as setting your foundation, meaning, although you can continuously evolve in strength, you would never really break away from your species.

    Even with countless mutations, it wouldn¡¯t affect you THAT much. Unless¡­ well. We¡¯ll leave that for another time.

    It was even worse for descendants even if they were 2nd generation. They barely had any chance of changing or upgrading species even if they drank the blood of an entire race, at most, they could mutate.

    Of course, even as an origin lifeform, it still wasn¡¯t easy and numerous factors came into augmenting their species they way those 3 humans did, but at least it was doable

    Originally, Eridel didn¡¯t care too much about whatever happened after the first Elves came out but seeing what happened to the human race with the Barbarians, High Humans and Blood Fiends, Eridel couldn¡¯t help but have high expectations.

    Eridel watched as Ciera played with Dodo around her Lake. Well, at least he thinks they¡¯re playing. Looking at how she repeatedly slapped him around while he tried to escape with tears in his eyes¡­ He looks quite pitiful right?

    Eridel didn¡¯t know why Ciera couldn¡¯t sense him now, she did before when she was just born so he was a little confused. Was the time when she looked directly at his viewpoint a fluke? Or did something change?

    ...She couldn¡¯t be waiting for me to call her first, right?

    Nevertheless, he had seen that she was okay and he had no further intentions of interacting with her.

    It was finally time to start his second big plan.

    Eridel focused his attention on his core, preparing for-

    ¡°Wait! Daddy, come back!¡±

    Preparing for a long seclusion. With this plan, he would probably take a very long time (by mortal standards) to come back so he felt a little guilty for leaving Ciera without saying anything-

    ¡®You know what? I might as well say a quick bye.¡¯

    Thinking of the possibility that Ciera might come to resent him for his neglect in future, Eridel was slightly disturbed and decided to make things clear with her just in case.

    He was already somewhat attached to his self-proclaimed daughter and he didn¡¯t want to burn bridges with her if it could be avoided.

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    Eridel returned his attention to Ciera.

    As a matter of fact, he could constantly hear and see everything in his territory, but it was more like a mortal''s peripheral vision, he wouldn¡¯t see/hear clearly unless he focused on it.

    ¡°Ah! Daddy¡¯s back, hehehe!¡±

    Ciera squealed with tears in her eyes. It would seem that Eridel had made her cry.

    ¡°Mmn, I just wanted to say that I will be gone for a very long time so take care of everyone while I¡¯m gone, okay?¡±

    Eridel didn¡¯t actually expect her to take care of them, instead he wanted the reverse to happen. He only said that to give her a distraction while he was away.

    And the effect was immediate.

    Ciera cutely raided her hand in an army salute and said with a wide grin

    ¡°Oh, okay! You can leave them to me!¡± completely ignoring the part where he said he¡¯d be gone for a long time.

    Eridel couldn¡¯t help but marvel at her childishness despite having some of his memories... but thinking further about it, it was only right. Even if she had his memories, she was still a newborn with a childish mentality so it was natural that things and phrases from Eridel¡¯s memories that were tailored for children was what she liked.

    Just because she had his memories doesn¡¯t mean she wanted to be like him. That was like a human mortal gaining the memories of an arrogant ancient immortal and suddenly calling everyone ¡®Low lifeform trash¡¯.

    Eridel once again focused on his core.

    He could finally begin to focus on his second plan which was¡­

    Creating a System!

    Yes! Eridel actually wanted to steal the idea of many typical isekai anime to create a system!

    HOWEVER!

    The system he was making was different from that 3rd rate trash that he kept seeing over and over again.

    Okay, okay, those systems weren¡¯t actually that bad and in actuality, they would be a lot more ¡®helpful¡¯ for the residents than the system he was going to make.

    But that was the point. The main way of gaining strength was still to diligently cultivate and he would never change that. The system would be more of a super AI assistant that would be plugged in everyone¡¯s brain. Of course, there would be more benefits but that could be discussed later.

    The point was that Eridel would never change his World into one that was ¡®kill enemies for exp¡¯.

    Eridel was not a person that was so FOOOLISH as to turn his entire World into one filled with mass genociders.

    Nay, although he harboured suicidal thoughts in the past, that was no longer the case.

    Although it sounded all nice and dandy in those stories for a system that gives you exp for killing monsters to be possessed by all those World¡¯s ¡®adventurers¡¯. The only reason that kind of World works is because the author says so.

    But this World is not a game.

    It is reality and in reality, people possess insatiable greed and a desire to always want more. Eridel couldn¡¯t even remove this instinct from his own residents because of how needed this desire was at the same time.

    It was good for people to always want more otherwise they would face stagnation (a word that strangely made him shudder), being content at merely doing enough to get by, not bothering to find ways to improve.

    But on the flip side, when doing heinous or devious things got you that ¡®more¡¯, as long as you didn¡¯t stop on the 2nd or 3rd time, you were definitely going to face addiction.

    So Eridel couldn¡¯t have this ¡®kill for exp¡¯ no matter what.

    Even if he was to prevent killing from the same race giving you ¡®exp¡¯, that would just initiate countless racial wars, tipping the balance between Order and Chaos forever.

    Eridel could list a million more reasons on why conventional systems were self destructive, but he couldn¡¯t hold back his anticipation anymore.

    He wanted to make the system immediately, he had planned for a very long time, thinking of all the pros and cons of a system and how a TRUE system should be, doing calculations upon calculations, upon even more calculations.

    ...He was ready.

    It was time.

    Eridel began to harness EVERY single Law.

 Ch.24 True Perfection

    Eridel¡¯s design for his system was heavily focused on potential, something that would only grow and grow until it became a behemoth-like existence whose existence was extremely beneficial to those it hosted.

    His intent was for the system to be something that would be able to assimilate all knowledge it came across and take control of all subconscious events and complete them with the most suitable method and in the most perfect way with no mistakes.

    For example, when evolving, there was always a chance of failure resulting in death or in some cases becoming some kind of eldritch abomination.

    Eridel wasn¡¯t against the existence of these abominations, but most of the time they ended up being a glass cannon, a ravenous destroyer or completely useless. But no matter how they turned up, they would eternally suffer soul deep pain and a complete lack of intelligence.

    This ended up in them subconsciously seeking lives to alleviate their suffering, causing mass destruction if they were capable and being a complete menace to society. Nobody liked them and to be honest, neither did Eridel.

    It was a little unfair since they ended up that way by accident, but it is what it is, nobody would care if you were an Angel before becoming a demon, just look at lucifer.

    Eridel would at least tolerate the ones that had actual strength either to use them as whetstones or defenders, but the fact that they were always suffering just rubbed Eridel the wrong way so he got rid of them on sight.

    But with the system, there was no longer any need. There would no longer be mistakes in evolution unless Eridel was feeling a little experimentative, in fact each evolution and mutation would be the most prime for results, never becoming a case where someone evolved but they didn¡¯t really change much.

    Even when it came to cultivation, unless you did something stupid or your cultivation technique was trashy or you got sabotaged, you would never suffer cultivation deviation.

    A sinister phenomenon that occurred when something went wrong in someone''s cultivation to the point it affected their foundation, at that point if not corrected quickly (something that took herculean effort), your entire cultivation would be wasted OR¡­ you would gain a heart devil.

    Something infinitely more terrifying to the point Eridel didn¡¯t even want to think about it.

    The point was, with the System, everything that was done mostly subconsciously, could be calibrated and perfected, granting the entire population perfect foundations. The only difference between people would then become cultivation technique, hard work and talent.

    Yet despite all this, this automatic calibration feature that already set the potential of this World ahead of many others was only 1 minor aspect of the system.

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    One of the bigger aspects of the system was the [Domicus Records]. Sounds a little familiar?

    Well, if you combined the Domicus family name and the legendary Akashic Records, what would you get?

    Yes, The Domicus Records! Eridel actually dared to covet something like the Akashic Records! A compendium of all universal events, thoughts, words, emotions and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future in terms of all entities and life forms.

    This is something that Eridel wanted to obtain and he had inklings on how to do so. But¡­

    It was hard. It was going to be so hard.

    Even when the System was complete and released on to his World, the Domicus Records would be nothing like it should be, it would need a LOT of time and a LOT of nurturing.

    After all, the Akashic Records in it¡¯s beat down form is a collection of all knowledge and possibilities. Something that knows EVERYTHING. The ideology of the Akashic Record was¡­ true perfection.

    Something that Eridel was actually trying to steer away from.

    To an inventor like Eridel¡­ the most disgusting, heinous, FILTHY, REPULSIVE AND ?????????????????? ???????????????????? ?????????? -cough- in existence, was true perfection.

    True perfection meant that it could no longer be improved. There was no more need for ideas, hopes and dreams. No need for imagination. It is the ¡®perfect¡¯ outcome. An item, a result, the finished and FINAL product.

    How disgusting.

    Inventors always chased the idea of perfection because it was supposedly the greatest achievement possible. Flawless, peerless and inexplicable indeed but the true key point was the UNOBTAINABLE.

    Inventors could keep rising, keep creating and keep dreaming if they chased perfection because there was something they hadn¡¯t reached, something that was above them, something they didn¡¯t even know existed but just it¡¯s idea was so seductive to them.

    But they must never have it.

    Because if they did, that was the end.

    A dilemma, conundrum and paradox.

    To want yet not to want. That was perfection.

    And to be fair, a lot of people were okay with the idea of stopping there, ending their life¡¯s journey at ¡®perfection¡¯. It wasn¡¯t a bad thing to be honest. It was just the end and all good things came to an end right?

    But Eridel was not content.

    He didn¡¯t want ¡®perfect¡¯, he wanted¡­ GREATER!

    A HUNDRED TIMES GREATER, A THOUSAND TIMES GREATER, AN INFINITY TIMES GREATER!

    That was why Eridel did a little something to the Domicus Records. Just a little¡­ Tweak. Hehehe~

    Thinking this, Eridel began to arrange the Laws in a petrifyingly intricate manner. Just looking at these runes caused Eridel of all existences- a headache and that was why this was going to be slow, long and arduous.

    But it would be oh so worth it.

    Just like that, years began to trickle like water. But that didn¡¯t mean life outside did. The Dragons, Snakes, Elves, Humans, Fiends and other life forms were very much awake and very much free to do¡­ anything.

    What do you think could happen to these races in 127 years without Eridel¡¯s supervision?

 Ch.25 Status of The Central Eastern Forest

    In the first 30 years or so, things went as predicted but there were indeed some crazy events here and there.

    Many elves were born, their culture developed and their overall power rose. Unfortunately, all the 1st generation Elves of that time weren¡¯t able to experience the magical outburst and had already entered cultivation meaning no racial upgrades would happen like what happened in the Humans.

    But that was nothing to worry about, new 1st generation Elves were being pumped out every month, when the World upgraded and became a Mid World the newborn 1st generation Elves will experience the most benefits, that¡¯s of course if they met the criteria of a race upgrade, otherwise they would just experience the same thing as others.

    The Queen had reached the 5th Stage of Mana Refinement which was extremely shocking taking in the fact that her cultivation technique was of the most basic one in existence. Normally you couldn¡¯t even enter the Mana Reinement realm with a technique like that.

    The other core members weren¡¯t too bad either with the highest entering the 6th stage of Body Refinement. This Elf was a male named Alan.

    Besides their strength, the Elves had completely taken the center of the Eastern Forest as their territory and a large territory it was, roughly the size of the entire London and still expanding, it just goes to show how big the entire Forest is.

    Even though their territory was so big, only 72000 Elves were living there and only a tenth of their territory was used for living with the rest used as hunting grounds, but even with that they still didn¡¯t fully occupy the entire living space.

    The reason for the large territory was¡­ they were cultivators. Don¡¯t underestimate how powerful cultivators were even if they weren¡¯t killing each other. These guys moved around so quickly that even if most of them were in the body refinement stage- running to the end of their territory was only a 5 hour run.

    The untold truth about cultivators was that the more powerful they were, the more fucking annoying they were when they created craters, scorch marks and Dead Magic Zones all over the place.

    Real Worlds weren¡¯t like those in games and stories where every crack in the ground from a punch, every crater from a fireball and every half destroyed forest is ignored after the fight is over.

    The damage to the environment doesn''t disappear when the scene is over.

    When people with power outgrew the level of their World it wasn¡¯t rare for them to lay waste to everything each time they fought, this was why most of these Worlds had Rules that prevented people of that level from fighting each other unless necessary.

    Low Worlds can¡¯t withstand Cultivators at all, it was like planet Earth that Eridel came from.

    Mid Worlds could only withstand attacks from [Realm 1 - 3 Cultivators]. For Enlightened species that was Body Refinement, Mana Refinement and Core Refinement. For Beasts that was Magic Beast, Spirit Beast and Seeking Beast. For Monsters that was Beginner Monster, Intermediate Monster and Elite Monster.

    What are Monsters you say? Hehehe, wait and find out!

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    High Worlds could only withstand attacks from [Realm 1 - 6 Cultivators]. No need to go into the names of the realms 4 - 6 when they weren¡¯t even close.

    Law Worlds could withstand attacks from [Realm 1 - 9 Cultivators]. Again no need for names.

    The only reason that Eridel¡¯s planet wasn¡¯t ravaged with environmental damage was the fact that for all intents and purposes, he could be considered a Mid World already. In fact, he actually surpassed Mid Worlds in a few things. The only thing that was Lowly about him was his size (no joke plz), being roughly the same size as planet Earth.

    This was obviously because of the special magical energy on his planet.

    This was why Eridel was fine leaving the species on his planet to freely develop. Here, whether a cultivator punched a tree or a stone, if they used full force they better be prepared to lose that hand.

    Anything that could be considered the Nature of the planet, the earth, the trees, the stones. Anything that formed naturally would be hardened with the rest of the planet depending on its level. (Magic Trees are hardened even further based on their level)

    So a cultivator punching a wall was no different from a mortal punching a wall, except they had excessive force that couldn¡¯t go anywhere else other than returning back to sender. The result needn¡¯t be explained.

    Besides the Elves in the center of the Eastern Forest, the 4 corners of the Forest had also been claimed.

    The Barbarians fought valiantly all over the place, slaughtering their previous oppressors and taking the East of the Forest for themselves. Sadly, they were quite lacking in the intelligence department and still didn¡¯t have presentable homes, still living out in the open with the stronger of them living in caves.

    Despite the fact that their population couldn¡¯t compete with the cheating Elves, they weren¡¯t doing bad at all. Most of their behaviour was learnt from beasts so it was natural they discovered how to mate, something they had become very passionate about.

    If these muscleheads weren¡¯t training, eating or fighting, they were having sex.

    On a side note, their Chief had reached stage 1 of Mana Refinement.

    In the West of the Eastern Forest lay the Snake Clan. They had dominated the West and had even begun expanding out of the Forest since they had learnt from experience that competing for the rest of the Forest was too much hassle.

    The executioner in the North was too scary. The 2 legged people in the Center and East were equal in power to them with tactics to boot and the pretender in the South was a pussy, running from the strong but killing their weak when they couldn¡¯t help in time.

    They didn¡¯t really claim more territory outside of the West of the Eastern Forest, but they did leave nests here and there, introducing their clan to the rest of the continent.

    Their main mission was mainly to explore, an order from the intelligent J?rma who had become a stage 1 Spirit Beast and reached 36 metres long.

    Drako and Lily had both become 7th Stage Magic Beasts.

    Hiculu (the 2 headed Poison Snake) had become a 9th Stage Magic Beast.

    In the North was Dodo¡¯s territory, over there was the paradise for herbivores, only they were allowed access to the land there and any predators that intruded didn¡¯t leave with their lives.

    Dodo had yet to meet someone he could mate with because of his big size but he did have a few dozen female Elks, Deer''s and Moose that he was nurturing as concubines, he even slowed down his cultivation rate to wait for them to reach a size that could take him without much danger. Despite that, he still managed to become a 7th Stage Spirit Beast.

    In his harem, the Deer''s were suspiciously more prevalent. A horny Elk he was.

    In the South lay a Beast who had dominated the whole area, claiming himself to be the Beast King. But everyone else outside of the South called him the [Pussy of The South] or sometimes [Pretender of the South] if they were feeling kind.

    This was Tiger King Raiko.

 Ch.26 Anatomy Refinement

    Raiko was a Tiger created in the South of the Eastern Forest. He wasn¡¯t all that special in the beginning. In fact, his innate ability was quite lacking compared to his brothers and sisters which resulted in him being disregarded. Even then, it wasn¡¯t to the point where they outright ignored him or attacked him, they just didn¡¯t care about him either way.

    A very average Tiger.

    He could have just lived life like that, he didn¡¯t have any lofty goals and he wasn¡¯t in any way deranged like the Crying Ghost, it wouldn¡¯t be a terrible life, just a very mundane one.

    Unfortunately, he encountered Drako of the snake clan.

    After that near death encounter, Raiko seemed to have become a little wary about leaving his cave, even refusing to go and hunt. He lived in the outskirts of the tiger territory so no one ever looked for him.

    But this situation only lasted 3 days before he was actually visited.

    By Drako.

    With overbearing arrogance he would bully the tiger day after day, finding it amusing that there was actually a predator that didn¡¯t resist a beatdown. It¡¯s what happened the first time which is what got him intrigued and why he followed the tiger here.

    In truth, Raiko was just really, really afraid of pain, so he would always just focus on defence when being attacked but if he had the advantage he would shamelessly act like some kind of ferocious predator.

    Eventually 8 months passed and yet, each day he was left almost dead and unable to leave when Drako left for the day. If Drako didn¡¯t feed him essence rich herbs and carcasses, he would have long since left this World.

    But at this point Raiko was absolutely livid. He hated that fiery looking worm, he hated his resplendent scales, he hated his imposing size. Why couldn¡¯t he, Raiko- stand out like that and bully others?

    At the very least, when the essence nourished his body it would automatically target the injuries and in the process, granting endurance to those locations. And since there was no place that hadn¡¯t been assaulted, his entire body was fully remade tougher and tougher each day.

    But it was on his 251st torment day and having already suffered his 251st beating and being left to heal by the evil snake that a shocking event that would change his life and the lives of those around him forever took place.

    BOOM!

    An unfamiliar energy exploded out within him, enhancing the bones, nerves, tissues, organs and flesh all over his body, his muscles were especially upgraded. His body even began to grow, jumping a whole 3 metres in height leaving him at 5 metres tall.

    It didn¡¯t even feel uncomfortable, in fact, it felt so good that Raiko let out a dignified roar that actually shook up the surrounding mountains!

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    SIKE!

    A mere Magic Beast roar wasn¡¯t even qualified to shake a bush, talk less of a mountain. But it did sound domineering enough, making all the beasts that heard instinctively have the urge to submit. The shocking thing was that some of them had a higher cultivation and yet they still quivered with fear.

    Although they could sense the vibe from the roar only being on the level of a Stage 2 Magic Beast, the feeling they got from it wasn¡¯t inferior to those of the Stage 3 Magic Beasts at all.

    This mysterious phenomenon was both inexplicable and terrifying. All they knew about the correlation between cultivation rank and strength was becoming undone and it wasn¡¯t making sense.

    But anyone with basic knowledge from another experienced Mid World could easily tell you that what was currently happening with Raiko was¡­

    Entering the first stage of [Anatomy Refinement]!

    Anatomy Refinement was another method of cultivating strength, but this had nothing to do with harnessing magical energy, fire elements or lightning laws. Anatomy Refinement was the act of using energy to directly increase the strength of one''s physical body.

    Anatomy Refinement could actually be simultaneously used with Energy Refinement(Cultivation) but most people didn¡¯t even dare to refine their anatomy talk less of dual cultivating with Energy.

    It was just too dangerous and most Enlightened species couldn¡¯t handle it. It was a bit easier for beasts but even then most still withheld from it. This was because it was too dangerous, Magic Herbs weren¡¯t as common as grass like they were in Eridel¡¯s World. They were very rare so how could they continuously use them like Raiko was doing?

    Even more, splitting your attention between energy cultivating and anatomy cultivating was counterproductive most of the time. Only the most talented sons and daughters of prestigious families could afford to do so.

    But this was Eridel¡¯s World where it was easier to find a World Tree than it was to find a single regular herb so who knows?

    After all, that¡¯s exactly what was happening right now to some random Tiger in the wild.

    The process of repeatedly destroying and healing your body with essence. The crudest way of Anatomy Refinement but it is what it is. This was what happened to Raiko until he entered stage 1.

    But it was not over yet. The benefits of increasing your physical strength wasn¡¯t the only gift Anatomy Refinement had to offer, in fact, it was the second gift that had many people risking their lives to attempt it even if most gave up.

    Suddenly, Raiko started to feel an itchiness all over his body that made him choke on his roar and it soon became quite unbearable. He even began rolling and thrashing around in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort that was rapidly becoming pain.

    His screams were quite unlike the previous majestic roar, now it was like a squealing pig that was being butchered.

    But soon, the culprit of this change of events revealed itself.

    A black and viscous liquid began to leak out of the pores all over the Tiger¡¯s body like it was blood which was a horrifying sight to see. Also, the disgusting smell of it didn¡¯t help the situation at all, it had to be one of the most rankest smells in existence.

    But to tell the truth, it wasn¡¯t all that unfamiliar. This is what happens to all Enlightened Species in the Body Refinement realm but not on the level it was happening now.

    In fact, the stuff would only leave the body during excrement (making it especially smelly), not all over the pores like it was doing now and it would NEVER leave the body at the rate it was doing now, only doing so by small amounts (not even an 1000th of the current visible) in each of the 9 Body Refinement breakthroughs.

    It was all disgusting and horrendous but this is what all Cultivators dreamed about.

    The removal of impurities.

 Ch.27 Ambition

    Each time someone had a breakthrough in the Body Refinement Realm they expelled impurities out of their body in the form of excretion.

    As a result, the body was cleansed and the resistance in essence flow was reduced, increasing your ability to wield your Mana and enhancing your strength. A by-product of this was that you also became more attractive.

    Clear skin, muscular physiques (for males), soft bodies (for females) and symmetrical faces. There was no such thing as an ugly cultivator. This didn¡¯t mean that beauty suddenly lacked value, it just meant that the bars were raised.

    But despite the concept of Body Refinement, even the most talented of cultivators would only get rid of 25% of his impurities before being forced into the Mana Refinement realm.

    These were the benefits of the Body Refinement realm and they ended with the Body Refinement realm. Unless you took special treasures, you would never get further chances to remove the impurities in your body.

    Or at least that should be the case, but here¡¯s where Anatomy Refinement comes in. Anatomy Refinement did the same things Body Refinement did on a much more stupendous scale but just as a side effect.

    The point of Anatomy Refinement was to make the body tougher, stronger, faster¡­ in fact, the intent of Anatomy Refinement was bodily perfection. ANYTHING to do with the body was empowered each stage. Even things like Coordination, dexterity and cognitive abilities were improved, after all improving the body meant improving the brain.

    Not only did this increase your talent for Energy Refinement by making the flow of Mana in your body run ten times faster, it increased your appearance by manyfold. The 2 big reasons that Cultivators salivated at the concept of Anatomy Refinement.

    The scary thing that many people didn¡¯t know was that¡­ Anatomy Refinement had no limit.

    As long as you had the will and the resources, you could technically reach stage 1000 or more, gaining a body that would be unscathed even if you threw a condensed universe at it.

    But there were two things to note here. 1, while the term ¡®will¡¯ was used lightly. Just the refinement from Stage 9 to Stage 10 would require the will to withstand swimming in lava and that was having it easy. Typically, all the impurities in the body would be vanquished at stage 10 so Anatomy Refinement stopped wasting time with cleansing the body and put it¡¯s full attention on perfecting the body, increasing the effect and simultaneously the pain of Anatomy Refinement by multiple times.

    And 2, The resources required to enter something like stage 1000¡­ Wouldn¡¯t you need to empty out an entire universe or 2?

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    At this moment in time, Raiko didn¡¯t have to worry about things like that, the breakthrough was over and he had to first, get rid of all the trash on his body.

    After jumping in a nearby lake and cleansing his body, he came up to a clean side of the lake and finally got a good look at himself.

    The orange on Raiko¡¯s fur was turning gold with his black stripes looking more sleek and the under white looking as pure as snow. Even his facial structure and muscle ratio had changed, looking more handsome(for a tiger) and symmetrical. Raiko¡¯s change in appearance made him look majestic and imposing, giving off the impression of a divine Beast King.

    After striking different poses and tooting his horn for a little while, he decided to flee from his location.

    Raiko wasn¡¯t dumb before but now he was one of the smartest Beasts in the entire World and he knew that as long as he stayed here, the Rank 4 (at the time) Drako would be back tomorrow to make his life hell.

    He knew that to get his revenge, he had to increase his strength and challenge the evil snake at a later point and so now that his body was healthy and he actually had the capability to leave this time, how could he possibly be so foolish as to dilly dally?

    From then on, Raiko began to move smarter, he conquered the weak and escaped from the strong until he could come back and defeat them. With his power, he swiftly started an uprising in the Tiger Hierarchy and achieved dominance over all Tigers within 2 months. At that time, he had also become a 3rd stage Magic Beast with the power of a 4th stage Magic Beast.

    But he knew it wasn¡¯t enough to even hold his ground against the Snake with perfect affinity with the Laws of Fire (even if he didn¡¯t know the source of his strength). Despite Drako still being a 4th Stage Magic Beast, he could easily deal with a Stage 8 Magic Beast so if Raiko wanted to compete, he had to reach a power level of Stage 9 just to have an ¡®even¡¯ fight.

    How did Raiko know? Well, he had once encountered the evil snake again and almost died. Using all kinds of shameless and unconventional techniques, he escaped the Snake who was using his full power to chase, allowing Raiko to feel the powerful vibe.

    Even then, there was no way he could contest with the powerful Snake Clan even if he somehow obtained revenge, they would never let him go and if that was the case, he needed his own ¡®army¡¯.

    The tigers weren¡¯t enough, their population was roughly 12,000 (at this time) even though all of them throughout the Forest had migrated to the South side while the Snakes had roughly 50,000 (at this time). Snakes produced 10-30 eggs in one go after all. If not for them antagonizing Dodo, there would be a lot more.

    So how could Raiko get more subordinates? Well, how about other races?

    It was this thought that caused ambition to flood Raiko¡¯s heart, even causing his ravening desire for revenge to slightly diminish.

    Why must a powerful and handsome Beast like him have to be content leading one race? There was no one but him and that devilish snake (that he knew of) that was better than him and since taking care of that sinister snake was only a matter of time¡­

    He was the only one eligible to become the King of all beasts!

 Ch.28 Beast King Raiko

    Deciding that he was the chosen one, Raiko began to dominate throughout the Forest, subjugating other species and stealing their resources.

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: In a World where every herb and such were already a resource, the more powerful and essence rich herbs were considered the true resources, natives of this World looked at Low Grade herbs like they looked at grass, and truth be told, there wasn¡¯t much difference. }

    Raiko¡¯s actions finally caught the attention of the others in the Forest but they mostly took a wait and see approach, but some of them had greed and ambition control their thoughts.

    Whilst the concept of stealing and conquering existed, it wasn¡¯t really conquering, all they did was kill the original owners of the land and take the resources there. The thought of subjugation didn¡¯t occur to their primitive minds at all.

    The Elves were especially excited about this new concept of subjugation even if they would never admit to the fact that a ¡®mere beast¡¯ had come up with the idea first.

    They thought of themselves as the natural rulers of the Forest and ideas to completely rule over every inhabitant began. It couldn¡¯t be helped, every other race around them were completely lacking in comparison.

    All they did was eat and sleep, they didn¡¯t even have the ability to create proper homes. Even that other ¡®counterfeit race¡¯ that looked like them were barely different from the other beasts. On the other hand, the Elves had developed language, culture, arts and crafts, martial arts and more.

    As a result, this gave them a sense of superiority and entitlement to the entire Forest.

    But just as the idea of domination was brewing and they were beginning to get excited, Titanya put a stop to the idea completely, banning anyone from subjugating other races and threatening those that still harboured such thoughts with death.

    All the Elves were perplexed but they didn¡¯t dare to reject, they all knew that everything they obtained was a result of their Queen¡¯s continuous blessings so they didn¡¯t even feel upset. Whatever their Queen said was more than Law, it was the ¡®truths of the universe¡¯.

    So they could only watch as that upstart Tiger continued to run around the South conquering all the Beasts and hoarding all sorts of treasures that he divided amongst his upper echelons, namely the Tiger Clan, Wolf Clan, Bear Clan, Monkey Clan and Eagle clan.

    It was only after 2 years that he completed his goal. Subjugation over the entire South with all the inhabitants there hailing him as the Beast King!

    But of course it wasn¡¯t smooth sailing, there were numerous times that he got jumped by either the Barbarians or the Snake clan. Neither of them wanted to see him become a threat in future so they repeatedly tried to kill him¡­ only to regret it.

    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    Every time they attacked the South, that shameless Tiger would always escape before sneaking into their respective territories and killing whoever he could, causing both the Barbarians and the Snake Clan to feel both wrathful and helpless.

    Eventually, they all turned a blind eye to him and pretended he didn¡¯t exist. They couldn¡¯t afford for him to keep killing their younger generations so they could only ignore him and wait for an opportune time.

    This allowed for Raiko to smoothly take over the rest of the South and become a 6th Stage Magic Beast, becoming the first Beast King in history. He lorded over various species and possessed boundless treasures¡­ but it wasn¡¯t enough.

    That sinister Snake could still easily kill him and he couldn¡¯t obtain his revenge yet. There was something about that Snake that set him different from other Beasts. But even if the difference was incomparable, wasn¡¯t he the same?

    Thinking back on what changed his life, Raiko made a firm decision. He needed to improve his secret source of strength, it was the only way. He had been pondering over it over the years but thinking of the pain always frightened him away from making a decision.

    But he had already become the Beast King and he was nowhere near strong enough to challenge a single Drako talk less of the Snake clan. If he wanted his revenge, he needed more power.

    Raiko travelled to a location he had found on one of his adventures. It was a barren mountain that towered 15km high but one of the strange things about it was that there was no life here at all, no nature and no animals. It was completely empty of life.

    Even more strange was the lightning that repeatedly struck the peak with an interval of 5 - 30 minutes. A strange phenomenon that perplexed the Tiger but he didn¡¯t think too much. It was the lightning that was his goal.

    He intended to use it as a means to refine his body. He had already brought numerous essence-rich treasures for a long stay here because he wouldn¡¯t leave until his power upgraded.

    And like this, Raiko¡¯s Anatomy Refinement once more took place. The tiger was struck over and over again, only managing to survive because of the resources that he brought. But what didn¡¯t know was that each time he was struck by lightning, the remnant lightning essence would be absorbed into his body along with the herbs that he devoured.

    Time was fleeting and eventually 10 months passed. It was at this time when Raiko was contemplating giving up, thinking that his secret strength was a one time upgrade that there was a sudden change.

    A familiar burst of energy exploded out all over his body, bringing an exquisite feeling of comfort that felt even better than the last time. The previously whimpering Raiko stretched out and let out a tyrannical roar that seemed to demand that all those that didn¡¯t submit must die!

    As his body healed, charred black fur fell off his body with new fur that was even more golden and silkier than before replaced the old. His claws and fangs became sharper and more menacing and even his previously green eyes changed, gaining a hint of gold and a king¡¯s dignity.

    The Tiger grew another metre and gained denser muscles that made him look like a fledgling behemoth. The final change on the Tiger was the ¡®KING¡¯ character on his forehead becoming more pronounced, no longer looking like accidental markings.

    Looking at the now twitching Tiger that was undergoing the impurity cleansing part of the breakthrough. One couldn¡¯t help but anticipate his future.

 Ch.29 Sorry Death, Youâ€™re Not My Type

    BOOM!

    A ball of fire crashed into the ground near the dancing Tiger, nearly charring his fur despite it¡¯s resilience.

    At this moment in time, Raiko and Drako were fighting again. God knows how many times they had been fighting ever since Raiko¡¯s last breakthrough that made him a Rank 7 Magic Beast with the fighting prowess of a Rank 9.

    Although he had the ability to go head on with Drako, he never won. He wasn¡¯t even able to gain an advantage despite the fact that his martial ability was stronger and Drako was still only Rank 4. Something that caused the prideful Tiger great humiliation.

    This result could only be explained by Drako¡¯s Law of Fire foundation. Since his Mana was formed from the Laws of Fire, each breakthrough in the Magic Beast realm (Body Refinement realm) refined his body with the best flames available, making his body extremely powerful.

    And if he had the capability to actually use the essence of those Fire Laws to attack instead of having to convert it into regular Fire Elements, talk less of Magic Beasts, even a Spirit Beast would vanish from a single ball of fire whether it hit or not.

    But as it stands now, Draco didn¡¯t have that ability to summon forth a lick of Fire Laws at all, he and his future generations would die first! Henceforth, he had to dilute the Laws of Fire into the Fire Elements but as a result of this, he had endless flames to use.

    1 Essence of Fire Law = 10,000 Elements of Fire, so you can imagine.

    However, this didn¡¯t mean you could recklessly use large amounts of energy just because you had it in your core. For energy to leave your core, it had to pass through your mana circuits or whatever you had as substitution, so you had to be careful you didn¡¯t destroy them by being reckless.

    The fight between Raiko and Drako could be considered one of their biggest ones yet and

    things were getting intense as they tussled through the Forest without being aware of where they were going.

    Something they would come to regret.

    As heads butted, claws flashed and fangs snapped, the smell of the surroundings began to change, indicating that they had entered someone¡¯s territory. When someone claimed territory, the longer they lived there, the longer the territory was affected by them depending on their strength. Minor things like a minute change in smell that any Beast could sense was one of them.

    Unfortunately, the 2 fighters were too busy to notice.

    ¡­

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    [ Somewhere in the Central Eastern Forest, Northern Territory ]

    The location was dark because of the towering trees that covered the skies but 2 things could faintly be seen.

    First was the decently sized pond that twinkled from the few rays of sunlight that made it through the canopy. The second thing¡­ The second thing was a colossal-sized silhouette that towered over 10 metres and emitted a daunting aura that would cause the hearts of anyone watching to skip a couple beats. Strangely, there were 2 objects that faintly resembled tree branches standing erect at the top of it¡¯s head but it didn¡¯t take away from the impact of the scene in the slightest.

    The colossal being suddenly twitched as if it noticed something and swung its head in a certain direction.

    Where a pair of eyes should be, 2 white menacing lights that could cause some of the most vigorous youths to suffer from heart attacks slowly appeared.

    ¡°Those 2 stinking rats actually dare¡­¡±

    ¡­

    Raiko leapt to the left, narrowly dodging Drako¡¯s bite before lunging at the Snake¡¯s neck and pinning him to the ground.

    Raiko grinned with glee, this was the first time he obtained the upper hand. As he brandished his claws in preparation to strike, flames suddenly erupted, covering the entirety of Drako¡¯s body like a protective cloak.

    Raiko grunted with frustration before jumping off. Death wasn¡¯t his type so he mostly refrained from actions that suggested he was trying to court it. Burning seemed to be one of the things that got death''s attention so he had no qualms retreating.

    Draco majestically raised his head akin to a proud Dragon, his blazing eyes and fiery mane making him look supernaturally beautiful, the disdain in his eyes making him look like a king in front of a slave and the roll of his tongue as he hissed making him look menacing. All of these features fused to create a heart stopping image that would make onlookers pause with awe as a feeling of submission rose in their hearts.

    But Raiko didn¡¯t appreciate the view at all. He roared with dignity, easily negating the charming effect that Drako emitted. His golden fur sparkled and his claws/fangs gleaned threateningly. His looks didn¡¯t lose out to Drako¡¯s in the slightest and as a king of beasts, the aura he had was more oppressive and charming, surpassing Drako¡¯s, who had his big sister J?rma as a role model in his heart, preventing him from having thoughts of being King.

    Just as they were about to clash again, Raiko finally noticed something, causing him to sniff tentatively.

    ¡®!!!¡¯

    The hairs on Raiko¡¯s body slightly raised in mild alarm, causing Drako to realise that something was wrong. Raiko had finally realised that they were in an unknown territory and he didn¡¯t know the owner¡¯s strength, causing him to be wary.

    On the other hand, Draco suddenly choked on his hiss and started coughing. His eyes bulged and his pupils narrowed to pinpricks. His scales suddenly lost its lustre and the flames around his body were immediately doused, even his half-flame half-hair Mane lost it¡¯s magnificence, looking rough, dry and tangled as if he had become an old man.

    Without hesitation, he sped away at full speed, the picture of despair clearly visible on his face.

    Raiko wasn¡¯t dumb at all and realized that the the evil snake must have recognized the owner of this territory and the owner must have been a terrifying one for the sinister snake to have run like that.

    Anything that could cause that snake to look like death had feelings for him wasn¡¯t something Raiko had ANY interest in meeting, so he turned and ran.

 Ch.30 Despair

    2 Beasts could be seen running to the boundary of the Central Eastern Forest, Northern Territory seemingly trying to escape from something.

    At first glance, it looked like the Snake in the front was being chased by the Tiger at the back, but this notion was broken when the Tiger started to overtake the Snake and wasn¡¯t slowing down at all. These 2 haggard looking Beasts were actually running from something else! But what was it?

    ¡®That shameless cat, how dare he!¡¯ is what could be interpreted from Drako¡¯s thoughts.

    His mind was completely gripped by fear and as a result his thinking abilities were severely diminished, so when he saw that Raiko was surpassing him, unjustified rage started to occupy his thoughts. He was completely blaming his dilemma on the Tiger and wanted nothing more than for Raiko to be used as bait to aid in his escape.

    But how could that be possible? At this moment, Raiko could feel an ominous presence in the air that was constantly looming over them but he had zero interest in staying to find out it¡¯s origin so he left Drako in the dust without a second thought and focused all his efforts on escaping.

    Soon, he could finally see the boundary of this accursed territory and hope flooded his heart. At this point all distractful desires like ambition and vengeance were washed clean, he only hoped to escape without issue and live to see another day.

    But it seemed fate had something else in store for him.

    SSSHH!

    Just as Raiko was about to reach the edge of the territory a loud sound of rustling leaves was heard. Raiko quickly stopped running and turned his head to the left, looking for the source of the sound. But nothing was there.

    Just as he was about to turn back, a sudden smell that caused his hairs to stand on end entered his nose. Raiko slowly looked back to his front.

    Standing just in front of the edge of the territory was an enormous beast that surpassed 10 metres tall standing on four legs. The behemoth-like creature had pristine white fur that gave off a holy glow, eyes that were completely pale blue with no other colour that shone like stars, hooves carved from ice that released a cold mist and 2 antlers in the same nature but replaced the mist with swirling blue lights.

    It was the Guardian of the Eastern Forest, Dodo.

    Raiko couldn¡¯t help being petrified by the colossal Beast in front him that was brimming with a celestial¡¯s disposition. Looking at the menacing antlers that resembled Tree branches because of the Elk¡¯s ridiculous size, Raiko couldn¡¯t but begin to shake violently. This was not an existence he could compete with at all.

    Draco shared the same sentiment, mhm, but he was not so foolish as to remain in place, shaking in fear like a certain pussycat. He turned around and fled immediately after recovering from shock.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    As someone who also contained a Law in his body, Dodo¡¯s presence wasn¡¯t so brain-crippling to him even if the Elk had 3 Laws. Unlike the so-called Beast King, Draco still retained some ability to act upon his thoughts, something the Tiger was unable to do no matter how much he screamed at himself to run.

    So Drako didn¡¯t hesitate to run, he wanted nothing more than to escape this calamitous Beast and never meet it again. Just look at those antlers! They radiated a shocking amount of energy that Drako was unable to identify but he could feel the terrifying coldness all the way here, a strange feeling that he only felt once before because of his Fire Laws.

    And the first time he ever felt cold was naturally when he met Dodo for the first time. That was a devastating experience for the Snake Clan that they would never forget, half of them died after all.

    But unfortunately for Drako, even if he didn¡¯t want to experience the might of the Guardian Of The Forest, he wasn¡¯t the one making decisions here.

    Dodo softly tapped his hoof.

    ccccCCCCRRR!

    Ice began to explosively spread out from the point Dodo¡¯s hoof made contact with the ground, quickly reaching both Raiko and Drako and freezing them up to their necks, leaving their heads free.

    Clack, clack, clack!

    Dodo began to slowly walk up to the 2 beasts, causing them shiver even more than what the frigid ice was doing to them. At this point it looked like they were vibrating. Well, their bodies from the neck down were frozen completely, but their heads¡­

    One couldn¡¯t help but wonder if their heads were going to snap off.

    As Dodo got closer to Raiko, he manipulated the ice to bring Drako right beside his former enemy, lining them up like 2 naughty school kids in front of the teachers desk. Their rapidly shaking heads made the scene more comical than it was.

    But for Raiko and Drako, this situation was more like¡­

    ¡®??????????????????????????????????????????????????????!!!!!¡¯

    Neither of them could think coherently anymore, their minds on the verge of collapsing. Dodo¡¯s indomitable and ¡®world threatening¡¯ aura, the blood-freezing cold, the futility to resist, the inability to comprehend and the presumption of certain death¡­

    It was utter despair.

    Gradually, Raiko and Drako¡¯s eyes began to rise up with froth beginning to leak out of their mouths.

    Dodo stiffened, he didn¡¯t mean for things to go this far. He had only meant to scare them a little bit but he didn¡¯t know the effect his killing intent had on people. Most of the time, he killed his enemies before they could even feel anything talk less of despair on this level, either that or they ran away.

    He never held them captive like he was doing now and the results were as shown.

    Dodo sighed in lament, he had only wanted to have a conversation as fellow rulers of this Forest, they made his job of protecting the Forest and more importantly Ciera easier after all. But he couldn¡¯t just let them go unpunished could he? Otherwise they would take him for a joke and come to mess around in his territory again.

    But look at the result.

    Dodo sighed one more time before a sudden ice storm formed around him, quickly hiding him from view. However, It didn¡¯t last long and it soon disappeared, but when it did Dodo was nowhere to be seen.

    The ice that he had left in this place also shattered, leaving the 2 remaining beasts to slump down, finally free.

    But the damage had been done. All that could be seen of their eyes was white sclera and burst blood cells as they continuously twitched.

 Ch.31 Brotherhood Formed From Adversity

    A whole month had passed before the 2 Beasts did something other than twitching with their eyes rolled up and saliva dribbling freely.

    KAHK!

    Raiko was the first to snap awake and choke on the saliva and unsuspecting inhabitants that was no doubt filling his throat. He began to shiver as he briefly reminisced the never-ending nightmare that he had to undergo this entire time.

    Fortunately, he managed to break out when he had finally built up resistance, an unforeseen benefit that would aid him in future.

    KOOOHK TUH!

    Draco suddenly spat out a glob of spit containing a few bugs onto the floor indicating his revival but creating a nauseating sight.

    But Drako was in no shape or form to care about such trivial things. He looked around wildly, like a cornered beast looking for it''s predator. To see such a mighty figure like Drako now act like a helpless prey was just too regrettable, if anyone from the Snake clan was to see him now, his reputation would vanish like smoke.

    Fortunately, Drako soon calmed down when he saw there was no one else here apart from Raiko who was currently getting up and preparing to leave.

    Hisssss!

    Drako hissed at him to grab his attention, successfully making the Tiger turn around in slight shock and more confusion.

    To be honest, Raiko had completely forgotten that Drako was here. He had more pressing things in mind like the condition of his mind and body, moreover, he had been away for an undetermined amount of time so he needed to check in his territory as soon as possible.

    ''Does he seriously still want to fight?'' Raiko thought warily, he was honestly tired of fighting right now and didn¡¯t want to go head to head with the snake knowing things could get out of hand.

    But against Raiko¡¯s expectations, Drako dipped his head, briefly flashing the suspiciously familiar antlers attached to his forehead before raising his head and looking into Raiko¡¯s eyes intently.

    This action was a complete shock to the Tiger because the meaning of this gesture wasn¡¯t light at all. Since there were many Beasts with different types of vocal abilities, there was no way to achieve conversation yet, so the 2 leading Beasts -at the time- (Dodo and J?rma) came up with a set of gestures as a temporary substitute.

    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: Spirit Beasts can communicate mentally. }

    There were 2 common gestures that everyone used, 1 was to completely lay on your belly with your head touching the ground, indicating surrender or submission. The other was to slowly nod your head to the other whilst maintaining eye contact, this action meant that you considered the other an equal and that you respected them, more importantly, it meant that you were seeking friendship with the other. If the other was to reciprocate the gesture, it meant that they were accepting the offer of friendship.

    Raiko was completely stunned. Was this still the same evil Snake that chased him all the time? At first he was angry, how dare he still seek friendship with him after all they had done? Was his desire for revenge something that could be disregarded so easily just because the other finally acknowledged him?

    Complex thoughts like that flipped through his brain, agitating him further and further until he almost began growling. Any other Beast wouldn¡¯t be so pressured, it would be a yes let¡¯s be friends or no how dare you, let¡¯s fight. Magic Beasts had both a low IQ and EQ after all.

    But Raiko wasn¡¯t stupid in the slightest, he was someone who had entered the 2nd stage of Anatomy Refinement which had granted him greater cognitive abilities. So he was able to assess how he felt about things and what was the smarter decision to make.

    Just as Raiko was deciding to walk away, ignoring the Snake and letting their feud continue, he thought about all the things he had experienced. Anatomy Refinement, Conquering Territory and becoming a Beast King, all of these things happened because of the Snake that had entered his life.

    If it wasn¡¯t for that harrowing event, he would still be a nobody. Which, to be honest wasn¡¯t all that bad because even if he was a nobody, he had no ambition and his life was never in jeopardy as a great Tiger, this thought made him feel like turning away from the Snake again.

    But the key word ambition suddenly grabbed his attention (of course, it wasn¡¯t actually that word, but it is what could be interpreted from his thoughts), he realized that ever since he began subjugating other species, this is the emotion that had occupied his thoughts! Thoughts of revenge? They would only come back whenever he encountered the Snake and a fight was immediately started.

    Raiko was beginning to realize the immense LACK of care he had for this so-called revenge. He never had time to think of such things and he always had fun everyday when he increased his strength along with those in his territory.

    Raiko sighed. To think that an intelligent Beast like him was being ridden by reflex ghost emotions¡­ such a disgrace.

    It was this thought that enabled him to think of the other things both he and Drako had gone through, especially with the recent bout with the Guardian of The Forest. Thinking about how both he and Drako, two apex predators being put into such a critical condition because of the mere presence of a herbivore of all things, Raiko felt a slight sense of companionship, the kind you feel when you and another overcome something dangerous together, especially with the situation as crazy as it was now.

    Raiko sighed one more time before reciprocating Drako¡¯s gesture and accepting his offer of friendship.

    Drako paused for a moment, seemingly stunned before turning around and slithering away. Looking at the view of his back, Raiko felt that the Snake seemed to have become more mature, making him chuckle.

    He too turned away, walking back to his territory with a slow gait.

 Ch.32 The Dragon Clan

    Over on the other side of the Central Continent, the Dragons had achieved complete domination over the Western Forest. Not only had they subordinated a few of the powerful Beast clans but they had taken it a step further to enslave or kill the rest.

    It was extremely brutal but it couldn¡¯t be helped. Dragons were innately arrogant and they were very dominating, this led to them being very territorial. Add on the fact that no one else could contest with them then you get a group of apathetically ruthless individuals.

    Fortunately, the Humans in this Forest had been taken as subordinates because of their great control over their bodies and ¡®minor¡¯ ability to create things.

    Although the Dragons had conquered the entire Forest, they were mainly seen flying around a shockingly huge mountain that had managed to actually bypass the clouds like it was nothing.

    On this mountain there were 15 peaks with a built in cave and ledge on each one as if they were designed for some kind of flying Beast to inhabit them.

    This was obviously not a naturally formed mountain, in fact, there was no such thing left after the World was almost destroyed prior to Eridel¡¯s appearance. This was something Eridel made when he knew he was going to be housing Dragons. Eridel wasn¡¯t exactly sure but he guessed that Dragons loved high places so he decided to give them this minor gift.

    And he wasn¡¯t wrong in doing so.

    Unsurprisingly, the Dragons had been rallied under their very own Beast King, or to be more specific, the Dragon King. It was the largest Alpha Dragon who had been bestowed with the razor sharp spike at the tip of its tail as soon as it had evolved in the Magical Outburst. And it was this Dragon who was housed in the cave at the highest peak.

    But what ?????? surprising was the aura of Metal that this particular Dragon radiated as he sat upon his proud peak.

    It was extremely rare for ANYTHING to have affinity with the Metal Element since there were barely any Metals in the entire World, so how could someone gain enlightenment? There should be no one with Metal Affinity for thousands of years unless Eridel chose to speed up the process.

    But here was one lucky Dragon who had managed to make a fortunate encounter.

    The truth was that when this Dragon was proudly exploring his cave, he had encountered a bunch of glowing purple ¡®rocks¡¯ that were emitting a lot of essence. Thinking that they would make him stronger just like Magic Herbs, he decided to eat them.

    To no avail of course.

    Beasts were only capable of absorbing essence from flesh and Herbs. In fact, that was the only way they could become stronger. There were very, very few cultivation techniques that Beasts could use and more often than not, they weren''t that great anyway. Nevertheless, you would rarely see such things outside of a Law World.

    As compensation, Beasts had an outstanding efficiency in absorbing the essence from Flesh and Herbs. Only someone with J?rma with her Earth Devouring Bloodline could absorb a percentage of essence from whatever she ate. This ability only grew stronger as her bloodline evolved but that¡¯s besides the point.

    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    Enlightened Species and others could absorb energy from the air through techniques, but their ability to absorb the essence from flesh and herbs was just too low. Fortunately, they could make pills with Alchemy, saving a lot of essence from a herb, but there was nothing they could do about the meat.

    The only reason the Blood Fiends had such a shockingly high efficiency in absorbing blood was because the amount of essence in blood was incomparable to what was in the flesh. So although it was still unfairly high, it wasn¡¯t so balance-breaking. But if they ever encountered a species that contained their essence in their blood...

    As for the Monster Species, they grew stronger by¡­ K???????i???????l?????????o????????i???????n?????????g???????

    Of course, Eridel could have changed things but he was fine with how they were. He liked how all the different factions had different ways of cultivation.

    What? You want to know about the Monsters? Hehehe~ more on that later!

    Back on the Dragon King, he decided to eat these so-called stones that were actually Magic Crystals intending to absorb the essence inside of them. But these were Crystals that had evolved when the magical outburst had occurred.

    Not only were they products of the World, meaning anything under Realm 4 was incapable of damaging them, they were also magic metals, making them even harder.

    As a result, the all-mighty Dragon King lost a good amount of teeth.

    After howling in pain for a few minutes, the Dragon King finally calmed down. But instead of being resentful, the King was actually ecstatic. He could sense that other than magic energy, there was some other kind of essence.

    And it was of course the Metal Essence.

    His brethren had already decided to comprehend other elements like Water, Wood and Air but most commonly fire. How could they comprehend fire you say? Well, the Dragons had discovered a mysterious never ending violet-coloured flame in the Dragon Mountain¡¯s biggest cave.

    The flame was extremely hot and not something they could come close to without suffering severe consequences. But more on the truth of this flame later.

    The Dragon King was also one of those that studied these flames and eventually gained the qualifications to absorb the smallest of residues from the flame, gaining a fire affinity just like the others who had done the same thing.

    But unlike others, he felt that he could comprehend another element. This was not something that was normally possible. When you gained an elemental affinity, the truths of other elements were forever barred until you gained the mental capacity.

    Only the genius amongst the geniuses could gain another affinity whenever they wanted. Keep in mind that being born with 2 elemental affinities wasn¡¯t the same as being born with 1 and comprehending another.

    The latter was just too rare and way too hard to accomplish.

    Yet here we were, discussing another of this Dragon King¡¯s ridiculous talents.

    The Dragon King could have chosen something else to study like water or earth but his pride prevented him from doing so. Such things were so common and their capabilities were so ¡®low¡¯ so how could he content himself with that?

    Discovering this hidden Metal element was like a godsend to him and he refused to waste this opportunity.

    So a situation where a Dragon held a glowing crystal in his hand and stared at it as if it contained the truths of the World occurred for 5 years.

 Ch.33 The Crystal Dragon King

    5 years passed before the Dragon King had successfully comprehended the Metal affinity, now all he had to do was absorb the Metal Essence from the crystals, something he could now do.

    Whether it was Metals, Flames or Water etc, it was impossible to absorb their respective elemental essences without having the corresponding comprehension or affinity. If you only had the comprehension, you gained the affinity, if you had the affinity, you gained more power.

    It was that simple.

    And now, the Dragon King was gifted with the opportunity to gain a second affinity. Naturally he accepted it with open arms, absorbing the Metal Essence with no hesitation. As for the magical energy inside the crystals? It was impossible to obtain without special methods.

    After that, a few years passed where the Dragon King sparred with his fellow brethren and tempered his killing intent using the lives of other species, mostly the slaves. It was cruel but such was the law of the Beasts.

    Eventually, the Dragon King broke through and became a Stage 1 Spirit Beast. But when he did so, grand changes took place.

    The goal of the Spirit Beast stage was to enhance your soul or to the best of your ability. All... Well, most living things had souls, but the souls of beasts before the Spirit Beast stage were just so useless that you might as well ignore it completely.

    Their souls were just so incapable of capability that thoughts eluded them and their instincts controlled their every action. Of course, there were special cases and talented races but the majority of Beasts were like this.

    But everything changed when you became a Spirit Beast. You gained the same soul power that the Enlightened had (Gaining the average ¡®enlightened species¡¯ intelligence at Stage 9), you gained the spirit sense ability and you gained the ability to converse telepathically.

    These were all great boons that the Enlightened Species were denied when they entered realm 2 (Mana Refinement).

    More importantly, in every Realm breakthrough that a Beast went through, they gained the chance to¡­

    Evolve!

    If they were talented enough, they had the ability to encode their comprehensions and affinities that they gained throughout their lives into their very DNA. This not only made their skills as smooth as breathing, it made those skills stronger and more engineered for them. For example, for a Dragon that became a Fire Dragon, his flames were no longer just flames. They were now ¡®Dragon Flames¡¯.

    But Most importantly, their offspring would be born with their abilities with the more powerful ones being locked until they had the power to use them.

    As it stands, races like the Dragons would always evolve each realm breakthrough, they were just that talented, it is what it is.

    And that is exactly what the Dragon King was going through.

    Black scales were shed as the Dragon King roared in agony, his teeth and claws shattered like glass and his horns along with his tail-spike were reduced to powder, his eyes bled and gallons of blood leaked out of his mouth. Cleary, something had gone wrong with his organs.

    When the reverse scale was suddenly but ruthlessly torn from the Dragon King, his roaring stopped and his shaking stilled, he seemed to have calmed down?

    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    But if you looked closer, the King¡­ seemed a little strange?

    He was crazily twitching like a fish out of water and his eyes were extremely unfocused, rapidly looking in every direction like a deranged mental patient.

    Just as it seemed that it couldn¡¯t get any worse, disgusting amounts of impurities started to slowly seep out of his pores, indicating that¡­ he was undergoing Anatomy Refinement?!

    .

    .

    .

    Mmm¡­ it looked quite painful...

    And indeed it was. The reverse scale of a Dragon was simultaneously their toughness defence and biggest weak point. Whenever this defence was breached, it would cause unholy amounts of pain.

    But soon, things began to look up for the Dragon King. I mean~ could it still be called an evolution if all it did was bully you?

    The Dragon King began to grow and suddenly roared with rage as he looked up at the skies. What? Did he want to ¡®burn the heavens¡¯ or ¡®go against fate if fate goes against him¡¯? Maybe he was thinking of ¡®breaking through the firmament and covering the World with his wings¡¯?

    Who knew what this lizard was thinking.

    But soon, as the ???????????? ???????? continued to roar, the most beautiful of scales began to develop all over his body. They were an alluring magenta colour that tantalized the eyes, their faint transparency akin to that of Crystals and their twinkling lights reminiscent of the stars.

    It was like his scales had been forged from the Magic Crystals that he had been studying for the past 5 years.

    His claws, horns and tail-spike regrew and they were also crystal-like, but these a deep violet colour with a strangely enchanting but menacing light that periodically pulsed like a beating heart. The pressure they emitted was as if it was threatening to cause laceration just by looking at it.

    Naturally, his teeth were not left out, thankfully they weren¡¯t also purple but the regular white, but the reflective lustre they had were not normal at all. Each and every tooth was like that of a blade''s edge.

    Looking at all these features, one would almost think that his eyes would take on the same appearance, but they did not.

    His eyes were fairly normal, a white sclera and whatnot, but that¡¯s where the normality of it ended. His iris was actually a ridiculous purple that seemed to be made from blazing flames and the fact that there were no pupils made them look like 2 purples suns, making anyone that looked into them feel intimidated.

    ¡°ROOOOAARRRRRR!!!¡±

    Orange flames erupted around the Dragon King¡¯s body, burning all the impurities as he simultaneously roared with flames erupting from his mouth, there was obvious excitement and pride on his face, filled with glee at his accomplishments and you couldn¡¯t blame him.

    Looking at the crystal-like scales that covered the Dragon from head to toe, one couldn¡¯t help but be awed.

    It seems that his 5 year seclusion was not in vain, he did not comprehend the Metal Element per say, but the more elusive Crystal Element. This was a branch element of Metal that was extremely hard to understand and something that was rare to see even in Law Worlds.

    It was much rarer than comprehending the element of Ice which was the branch element of Water so the fact that this Dragon King could obtain it was the best indicator of his seemingly rising talent.

    As for why he had obviously entered the Anatomy Refinement. This wasn¡¯t actually unexpected, in fact, if he didn¡¯t enter Anatomy Refinement, that meant that something had definitely gone wrong.

    Most races that had something like the Earth element or the Metal element would undergo Anatomy Refinement when they evolved for the first time. This was because the severe damage that they suffered and (sometimes) recovered from when reforging their bodies with that element as a base was just too savage.

    Especially those of the scaled races like Dragons. Their entire scales were shredded including their reverse scale just so that they could become Earth or Metal etc scales.

    They would naturally benefit from surviving such an ordeal.

    ¡°ROOAAAARRRRRR!!!¡± ¡°ROOAAAARRRRRR!!!¡± ¡°ROOAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!¡±

    A sudden pandemonium of noises erupted as each Dragon rose into the air, flying around their King as they roared their zealous praises and congratulations.

    ¡®HAIL! HAIL! ALL HAIL THE KING!!!¡¯

 Ch.34 What An â€˜Honourableâ€™ Brother

    In the Central Continent, nothing else worth mentioning happened within the first 30 years of Eridel¡¯s seclusion, however, the World was much bigger than just the Central Continent. Over in the Western Continent, Chad, the only Phoenix and most powerful being in the continent should have had the easiest time out of all the powerhouses in this World.

    He had power, status and women, what more could a Beast want? His future was bright and unbarricaded so there should have been no problems.

    But unfortunately, that couldn¡¯t be further from the truth.

    While he was powerful and had all he could want, he wasn¡¯t prepared at all for things to go oooh~ so wrong.

    ...

    Unlike the other powerhouses, Chad had decided to have children fairly quickly. The thing about having children as a Beast is that you would ALWAYS be weakened as a result of it. Most of the time it was negligible, but the stronger your race, the more weakened you would be when trying to create more of this race. This is the reason why the other Beast powerhouses had refrained from bearing children, waiting on the time for everything to be perfectly safe.

    But Chad is the most powerful person in his vicinity so how could he have such misgivings? Plus, he had already had Children before but they were killed in the Magical Outburst, something that always weighed heavily on his mind so he decided that he was ready to repopulate his clan once more.

    Unfortunately, Chad had failed to detect the threat that had been waiting patiently right under his nose.

    Chad had many subordinates, including Humans, but there were 3 people that would always be closest to him. His 2 wives and his last surviving brother whom we will call ¡®Honourable Brother¡¯ for now. It¡¯s how Chad had been addressing him, not knowing the concept of names.

    All 3 of them were strange animals that looked like 2 metre tall dodo birds, the next evolution after Chicken. They were also lucky enough to have obtained the Ice Affinity, a result of a special treasure that Chad had provided them with after his adventure across the continent.

    They had already had Water Affinity thanks to being in the Spring of Life when they evolved so upgrading that Affinity to the Ice Affinity wasn¡¯t too hard for 1st generation beasts like them no matter how untalented their race was.

    Obviously, for Chad who was a fire aligned Beast, there was no longer any compatibility between him and his wives. But despite this, he still decided to impregnate them. With his life energy and the fact that they were previously the same species, it was enough to smooth over the edges.

    Plus, he was the one that would be providing all the energy for the eggs, saving his wives from being drained just to support his children. Unfortunately, this meant that he would be the one weakened.

    Providing the perfect chance that good old Honourable Brother had been waiting for all this time.

    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

    ¡­

    A few days after Chad had gone into seclusion to recover his Mana, Honorable Brother finally struck.

    With his Stage 9 Magic Beast strength, he easily invaded the cave where the 2 wives had laid an egg each, ruthlessly killing the stationed guards on his way.

    When he entered and saw the 2 wives, he looked at them with an obvious lascivious desire in his eyes but quickly focused his attention on his true goal. The eggs of a Phoenix. But more accurately, the essence and bloodline within!

    Yes! This Honourable Brother was actually coveting the bloodline of a Phoenix in hopes that when he evolved at the Spirit Beast Stage, he would overcome his limits and become a Phoenix himself! This was the true reason why he had stopped cultivating when he became a peak Stage 9 Magic Beast.

    With haste, he quickly kicked the 2 wives out of the way and grabbed the 2 eggs under his wings. Without hesitating, he quickly fled, knowing that he didn¡¯t have much time to glorify his easy success just yet.

    All the beast started to squawk, roar or howl, when they heard the grievous news from 2 royal wives, enraged by the betrayal of their 2nd in command. The stronger ones all began to rush out, intent on saving the King¡¯s children, but at this point the Honourable Brother had fled quite far.

    He was a Stage 9 Beast on the cusp of becoming a Spirit Beast after all, how could they catch him? Soon, he wasn¡¯t even in sight and eventually, they lost him completely.

    A few hours later, Chad had finally been informed.

    ¡°SHEEEEEERR!!!¡±

    A heavenly phoenix cry filled with righteous wrath filled the air, scaring every living being that heard and even causing the weaker beings to bleed through their ears and faint.

    Alas, Chad could barely even move right now. For a female Beast to provide the energy to rear a powerful baby, it¡¯s extremely exhausting and they would definitely be bedridden, and for a father to provide that energy it was even worse. So imagine the situation Chad would be in when he did it twice in one go?

    ¡­

    1 Week Later

    At this moment, the Honourable Brother was attempting to use the technique that Eridel had left as an inheritance for every Beast. The [Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique].

    This was a power technique that Eridel had inherited from the golden orb who¡¯s name and origin he still didn¡¯t know. It was supposed to be used on the off-chance that when he finally collided with a core, it was a Beast core, he would have the best technique to overcome his racial limits.

    This technique allowed one to use the blood of another Beast to evolve, either taking aspects of that Beast or becoming that Beast and taking aspects of your previous race if your previous race was that trash in comparison.

    Of course, the technique that Eridel had passed on to the Beasts of his World was heavily revised and had many limitations.

    <ol>

    <li> The technique could only be used once in your entire life.</li>

    </ol>

    <ol start="2">

    <li> You could only use the bloodline of a Beast similar to yourself. For example, a Bird should not use a Wolf bloodline. If you ignored this, death is your only future.</li>

    </ol>

    <ol start="3">

    <li> There had to be at least 70% compatibility. If not, death is your only future.</li>

    </ol>

    <ol start="4">

    <li> The technique could only be used when you were evolving into a Spirit Beast, if you used it before then, death is your only future.</li>

    </ol>

    <ol start="5">

    <li> Using the technique would take your entire cultivation base as compensation.</li>

    </ol>

    There were other limitations but those 5 were the ones that prevented the Beasts from being hasty the most. With countless Beasts dying everyday from failure to meet the requirements, the more intelligent Beasts were hesitant to try.

    And it was this technique that our great ¡®Honourable¡¯ Brother was currently using.

 Ch.35 Ice Phoenix

    The Honourable Brother was currently hiding in a secret location that he had found many years ago, since then, he had always been planning for this very moment.

    With mixed excitement and fear, he gathered the 3 materials he needed to complete the procedure and maximize his success. 2 Phoenix Eggs and a 20 year old Magic Icicle.

    The 20 year old Magic Icicle is a natural treasure, an Icicle that had managed to survive a year without melting, henceforth obtaining the foundation to cultivate by absorbing Magical Energy and the Ice Essence in the area.

    The longer a Magical Icicle has ¡®lived¡¯ for, the more essence it has managed to absorb, granting Ice Affinity cultivators and Water Affinity cultivators hoping to gain comprehension massive benefits if they were to obtain it.

    Of course, like with all things there were mutative cases here and there. In rare situations, the Magic Icicle absorbed more than just Magical Energy and Ice Essence causing a change in the Icicle, but that¡¯s for another time.

    The Magic Icicle in the ¡®Honourable¡¯ Brother¡¯s possession was a gift from Chad in his journey up North. The Phoenix had managed to find a few of such things and guessed they would be of benefit to his Wives and Brother when he identified the similarity in essences between the Icicle and Dodo the Guardian of the Forest, someone he had never forgotten.

    So he took them back to his brethren, extremely pleased with the subsequent results. He was glad that his few remaining clan members would be able to prosper with him.

    As a matter of fact, he focused most of his resources on his Honourable Brother because even though he could have chosen someone else with more talent, he wanted this Brother of his that had been with him for such a long time to be his powerful right-hand man.

    But this is the result of his faithful dedication.

    A traitorous bird that was currently¡­

    CRACK!

    Cracking open the eggs of his Children and swallowing the contents.

    When the ¡®Honourable¡¯ Brother had swallowed both Eggs, he quickly huddled closer to the Magic Icicle before initiating his breakthrough to Spirit Beast Realm and activating the [Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique] at the same time.

    WHUUM!

    A terrifying pressure was released from the Honourable Brother¡¯s body that sent the rocks and random debris around him flying against the walls of the cave that he was currently hiding in.

    The Honourable Brother squawked in pain as the hot Phoenix bloodline ferociously infiltrated his veins, causing harrowing amounts of damage all over his body. This was a result of the titanic difference in bloodline levels, causing a situation where the Phoenix bloodline was domineeringly erasing the inferior bloodline.

    On top of that, even if Chad was still a Magic Beast and as a result had not imprinted his Fire and Life Laws into his DNA, he was still a Fire Elemental Beast when he evolved in the Magical Outburst. This went against the nature of the Honourable Brother who had the Ice Affinity.

    With all these things against the Honourable Brother¡¯s favour, this normally would have resulted in his death.

    But 4 things were currently helping him.

    First was the Magical Energy being absorbed into him as a result of his breakthrough to the Spirit Beast stage, this along with the Magical Energy in his Beast Core was being used to nurture his body, preventing it from breaking down. But that alone was not nearly enough.

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    Second was the fact that he was also evolving and becoming an Ice Elemental Beast, this along with the fact that he was desperately absorbing the Ice Essence from the 20 year old Magic Icicle, helped him to offset the excessive heat from the bloodline.

    Third, the Bloodline of the Phoenix contained the Life Element, inadvertently healing him as he absorbed it, creating a cycle of destruction and restoration.

    And fourth was that both Chad and the Honourable Brother were both originally Chicken, previously having the same bloodline and henceforth having some compatibility. This was actually the most important point, without this miniscule bloodline connection, the result would have been complete failure.

    As an extension of the 4th reason, the Phoenix bloodline he was absorbing was from a child between Chad and his 2 wives who were the exact same race as him, increasing the compatibility drastically.

    Now don¡¯t get things twisted, the Phoenix bloodline was completely 100% Phoenix, this was a result of how powerful the bloodline was, causing it to use the other bloodline as fuel instead of mixing.

    But nevertheless, the Egg was nurtured in those Wives so there was still compatibility. All of these things contributed to saving his life and¡­ securing his success.

    Without pause, the Honourable Brother began to change. His height didn¡¯t grow but his Wings became larger and larger as his skeletomuscular system began to rearrange itself. His head and beak shape changed, becoming smaller but more angular, projecting a beautiful and noble visage.

    His feet also changed, becoming bigger with the individual claws becoming more spaced out, giving it more room for any kind of use. Each claw was also very curved and extremely sharp, making them an entire weapon on it¡¯s own.

    Honourable Brother flapped his wings twice in excitement as the feathers on his body began to glow brightly as shockingly- light blue flames danced around them. This was a frightening phenomenon that showcased the Honourable Brother¡¯s new capabilities.

    The evolution had actually forced the equilibrium between the Ice and Fire Essences to undergo a terrifying fusion, causing the 2 opposing elements to fuse and create something new; Frost Flames!

    The Honourable Brother didn¡¯t know this but the scythe of death had just skimmed over his head.

    Without the fact that the Honourable Brother also obtained the Life Elemental Essence from the Bloodline (whilst also gaining Life Affinity) that nurtured the process, even though the [Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique] worked and he would have managed to live, he would have become an abomination.

    Unless he had a technique to fuse the 2 essences, it would cause the evolution to fail, and he would become an abomination. Though it would have belonged to the extremely powerful kind with the Fire and Ice Essence fighting against each other, refining themselves as the Life Essence restored the damage.

    Come to think of it, this would have been an EXTREMELY dangerous abomination, but fortunately (for the residents of the World), the ¡®opportunity¡¯ was missed.

    The previously mentioned compatibility had caused Ice and Fire Essences to be very slightly hesitant to harm each other, since they were tied to the 2 bloodlines at the time. This hesitation gave the Life Element enough time to ¡®mediate¡¯ the differences between the 2 and narrowly escape a terrifying result.

    Soon, the process was complete. All the Magical Energy in the Honourable Brother¡¯s body had vanished but he had accomplished his goal. He had become a Phoenix, but not only that, he had become something different to his brother, an Ice Phoenix.

    If Eridel was watching, he would have been mentally clapping his hands with excitement whilst contemplating throwing a Divine Tribulation at the so-called ¡®Honourable¡¯ Brother. He really hated betrayal but it is what it is.

    On a side-note, the only reason this Honourable Brother was still 2 metres tall was because he had lost all of his cultivation, becoming a ¡®regular¡¯ animal that wasn¡¯t even a Stage 1 Magic Beast, he should be glad he didn¡¯t become smaller instead.

    And yet, in spite of all his gains, a greedy and cunning expression etched itself on the Phoenix¡¯s face as the image of 2 dodo-looking-birds entered his mind.

    He wasn¡¯t done quite yet.

    ¡®Oh deer brother~ How are you doing now? Are you taking good care of yourself? Oh please be well when I see you again~¡¯

    A look of disdain flashed on the Phoenix¡¯s face as he flapped his wings and flew out of the cave with shocking speed.

    As he rose into the air, he gave out an ear piercing Phoenix cry, not unlike that of his brother.

    ¡®Haha, I always wanted to do that~¡¯

 Ch.36 Unknown Creatures

    Whilst the Western Continent experienced turbulent changes, the High Humans in the Eastern Continent continued to prosper under the rule of their Queen.

    Despite the Queen¡¯s lack of knowledge, she was just way too smart. She had been able to steer her fellow High Humans onto the path of supremacy fairly quickly and not only that, their ability to create wasn¡¯t lacking in the least.

    Not only had they managed to build primitive homes made out of wood and thatch, but they had even had even learned how to make a few pieces of furniture, for example a bed made from the hides of various Beasts.

    Normally it was very hard to harvest the materials of Nature such as wood, you would only be able to grab things like broken off twigs and sometimes branches and that was if you were lucky. But the Queen was smart enough to realize that she could use these rarely found branches and such as tools to obtain more materials.

    The High Humans would crudely slam their branches onto harder objects like stones with the purpose of getting it to snap. When they accomplished this, a sharp edge was created and many possibilities were now open.

    This is how they dug holes all those years ago but now they used them for many different purposes. In fact, one of the activities they used them for was fighting. Indeed, they used broken wood branches as weapons.

    Now, this couldn¡¯t be compared to the Blood Fiends who were using the much more dangerous stalactites, but that was something they had found due to luck. Unlike the High Humans who were swiftly developing the idea of crafting. Soon they would make better tools than broken branches.

    In fact, it was these broken branches that allowed them to subjugate various Beast Clans and rapidly expand their territory that consisted of half the Southern region of the Eastern Continent.

    But it wasn¡¯t only their tools that made up their strength. Because of their great intelligence, not only did they discover how to use tactics in battle, but they had something that most of the World was missing¡­ martial arts!

    They weren¡¯t like the Barbarians who only know how to clobber with their fists nor were they like the Blood Fiends that would only know how to stab with their stalactites. The High Humans had actually discovered how to make specific maneuvers with their weapon to inflict the most damage!

    And naturally, the Queen was the greatest in this regard. For her, calculating the distance, angle and velocity in order to create the most perfect strike at the most opportune time was as easy as blinking. The Queen was a terrifying and unrivaled existence that would definitely take a main seat at the summit of the World.

    On that note, the Queen had managed to break through to the 3rd Stage of the Mana Refinement Realm, almost catching up to the Queen of the Elves, Titania. This was a result of her very own personalized cultivation technique that she was currently developing and improving every day.

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    For now she called it [Path of the Sun] even though it had nothing to do with the sun. But it was indeed suitable for people with Light Elemental Mana (Mana formed from Light Essence instead of Magical Energy).

    She was also able to revise the cultivation technique that all Enlightened Beings were given and create an improved version that was more compatible with the High Human race that even children could use. This caused their average cultivation to be at level Stage 5 of Body Refinement Stage with the most talented being at Stage 8.

    Speaking of children, the High Human offspring were so talented and smart that they were able to begin cultivating at the average age of 4. Five being the latest and three the quickest.

    On a side-note, the Queen was currently creating a language after gaining inspiration from the Monkeys. The way they made different kinds of sounds consisting of screeches and howls as they looked at each other before performing certain actions made her think they were communicating somehow, something that embarrassed her greatly when she thought of her own race¡¯s inability to converse.

    But that naturally didn¡¯t last long, she was soon able to form words that had specific meanings, plus, they sounded much nicer than the crude sounds that the Beasts made.

    The Queen is indeed intelligent.

    ¡­

    [Southern Continent, Central Forest]

    In an unknown location of the forest was a pond surrounded by verdure. A black scaled Rhino entered the scene through a bush seemingly intent on taking a drink. It was a powerful Stage 6 Magic Beast.

    The Rhino calmly ducked it¡¯s head and lapped up the water in big gulps. Beautiful trees and bushes, a bright sun and a clear spring. It created a wonderful scene of nature.

    But that was only how it looked.

    Anyone actually here would be able to notice the tension that was so thick that it was almost tangible. Something was seriously wrong with this place.

    For starters, it was completely quiet. No chirps of birds, no sounds of insects, no sounds of squirrels running through trees and bushes. It was completely silent save for the sound of the Rhino drinking water.

    Second was the faintly noticeable blood stains that could be seen here and there. In fact, in every direction you looked, you would be able to see blood stains if you focused. Even more suspicious was the random piles of¡­ ash? But it was so fine-grained and dust-like. What could burn to this extent?

    Something was clearly wr-

    RSHSHSHHSSHSH!

    The sound of rustling leaves suddenly broke out, destroying the fragile image of peace. The Rhino was no longer alone and there were now 5 strange creatures surrounding it.

    They looked like tiny yet humanoid beings with green skin and large wrinkly heads, they had black beady eyes, jagged teeth and sharp claws. Out of the 5, 4 of them were at the 4th stage of the first realm with the last one being at the 5th stage. He was also the tallest standing at 80 centimetres tall. Clearly, he was the leader.

    The Rhino snapped up it¡¯s head in fear but when it saw their low cultivation levels, it snorted in anger. A group of trash dared to confront it? But although the Rhino was full of rage, it didn¡¯t make a peep. It knew better than to make a commotion and draw unwanted attention to itself in this god-forsaken forest.

    As the Rhino contemplated on which ¡®insect¡¯ to attack first, the 5 creatures suddenly sprang at him.

    Clearly, they weren¡¯t afraid to make the first move.

 Ch.37 The Horrifying Southern Continent

    These hideous creatures had a spine-chilling red aura around them that was filled with killing intent. If there was someone from another World here to see this scene they would be shocked! Since when was killing intent visible?!

    The Rhino was startled at first but snorted once more in disdain. He was a Stage 6 Magic Beast with defence as his primary ability. Could these little rats even harm him?

    The Rhino lowered his head so that his horn was poised to deal fatal damage and charged at the closest opponent.

    Unfortunately, the Rhino was too heavy and slow whilst the strange creature was extremely nimble. He easily dodged to the side before jumping towards the Rhino¡¯s flank with outstretched claws.

    SWIP!

    Shockingly enough, the strike was able to breach the tough defence of the Rhino¡¯s tough scales, inflicting sharp pain on the Beast. But strangely enough the Rhino only grimaced. He was still unwilling to make any sounds that could draw attention to himself so he suppressed his desire to roar.

    Moreover, he was secretly terrified! How could such weak creatures harm him?! Should he run...?

    But before he could make a decision, all 5 creatures leapt to him at once with perfect synergy and it was at this moment the Rhino knew that he was done for¡­ But he will make them pay a severe price!

    And so a silent battle of life and death continued like this.

    Claws flashing and jagged teeth snapping, a fatal horn puncturing and massive feet stomping. Soon the Rhino was on its last legs and covered in blood as it heaved heavily. On the other side there were only 2 of those strange creatures remaining. The leader and one of it¡¯s henchmen.

    Those 2 were also covered in bruises from the times they got rammed into, but there was no blood on them unlike their 3 fallen brethren that now looked like mashed up meat. Despite this, they sported hideous grins as they looked at their prey that seemed like it was going to collapse at any moment.

    As they limped forward-

    ¡°EUUUURRRRGH!¡±

    The Rhino suddenly let out a thunderous roar that resounded throughout the forest and used the last of his strength to charge at the creature closest to him which happened to be the leader. Obviously he had no more qualms about arousing attention to himself anymore, in fact, the thought of what would happen filled him with savage glee.

    The leader of the 2 remaining creatures was flabbergasted by the turn of events, he hadn¡¯t expected the Beast to still possess so much energy, causing him to be unable to react. Clearly, the Rhino had been pretending. On top of that, the roar had a slight stunning effect which almost cost him his life.

    Luckily, he was able to break out of the effect and safely dive to the side. Unfortunately, the same couldn¡¯t be said about his last remaining follower. Although his follower leapt to the other side he was too slow and as a result his shoulder was pierced.

    A green arm was sent flying into the air.

    The creature was shocked, whose arm was that? Was it the leader¡¯s? But a sudden devastating pain assaulted his senses causing him to look at the origin of the pain. But what he saw nearly shocked him to death!

    ¡°EIYAAAAAAAH!¡±

    The creature screamed in agony as it looked at it¡¯s remaining stump that began to bleed profusely with terrified eyes. He was finished, he knew it!

    Actually, he would be able to survive that kind of injury, beings of its kind wouldn¡¯t die from something like that. But¡­

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    It was not the injury that concerned him.

    His eyes filled with terror quickly looked towards his leader.

    At this point, the Rhino had finally collapsed dead. It had used the rest of its energy and no longer had the ability to preserve it¡¯s life. Today, a mighty Stage 6 Magic Beast that could be amongst the upper elite in any other part of the World had fallen prey to the law of the jungle like a common beast.

    What¡¯s worse is that it was defeated by strange creatures that only had 1 being at Stage 5. What a grand humiliation.

    But the leader of these creatures didn¡¯t care in the slightest, although a look of extreme glee covered it¡¯s face, it knew it didn¡¯t have much time. That last roar of the Rhino had definitely revealed their location and he needed to escape.

    But it stubbornly waited for something. What could it-

    SSsssssss¡­

    The Rhino started to deflate like a balloon.

    10 seconds later, it had turned into a big pile of ash that wasn¡¯t any different to the other random piles of ash, only, this pile was quite large. Now, it was obvious how they came to be-

    A hair-raising red coloured mass of essence suddenly coalesced itself above the pile of ash before splitting into 2 portions, the much bigger portion flying to the leader whilst the other flew towards the scrub.

    The strange essence was filled with all sorts of resentment, grievance, vengeance and other negative emotions including killing intent. If this was absorbed by anyone there was a very high chance of it affecting their psyche.

    But the leader wasn''t worried at all, it watched his portion come with obvious excitement and the reason became obvious when the strange energy fused with his body. Like clockwork, his own peculiar aura from before burst out of him once more, but this time it was much bigger and denser.

    He¡­ had broken through.

    The leader had now entered stage 6 and likewise, the same process repeated itself in the other creature and it entered stage 5 even though the portion it obtained was much smaller. But for some reason, there was no happiness on its face at all unlike the leader that was cackling loudly.

    It only looked wary.

    When it saw its leader snap it¡¯s attention toward him it didn''t hesitate to run away.

    Unfortunately, the leader was much stronger and caught up in no time. With an evil grin on its face it plunged its hand through its comrade¡¯s back with a heart appearing in it¡¯s hand when it went through the other side.

    There was no guilt or remorse on its face, only deranged exhilaration.

    The same thing that happened to the Rhino repeated itself with the creature and it was soon reduced to ash. The resulting killing essence that was released was quickly absorbed by the leader making its own aura rise again but clearly it wasn¡¯t enough for it to breakthrough.

    Drunk on it¡¯s rising power, it began to laugh wildly as ambitious and cruel thoughts circulated in its head.

    ¡®I, A MONSTER OF THE GOBLIN RACE, WILL-¡¯

    CRACK!

    The creature that was now revealed to be a Goblin and a Monster was now... missing it¡¯s head.

    DUM¡­

    An enormous 3 metre tall monster that was also humanoid but pink skinned with a literal pig head and giant fangs appeared behind the deteriorating corpse of the Goblin. It too was able to absorb the resulting killing essence from the Goblin when it was reduced to ash.

    The killing intent aura that was exclusive to the Monster Species burst out of its body revealing the strength of a Stage 8 Beginner Monster.

    Looking at it¡¯s appearance¡­ wasn¡¯t this an Orc?

    ¡°Meh¡­¡±

    The Orc was obviously disappointed in it¡¯s gains. A stage 6 Beginner Monster probably wasn''t much to him.

    Suddenly, it¡¯s head snapped up, the picture of alertness and fear on its face. Without hesitation, it dashed into the bushes, fully intent on deserting this place.

    ¡°OEEIIIIIIIIIII-¡±

    Half a minute later, the sound of a pig screaming rang out before it was cut off.

    A red light filled with killing intent appeared in the direction the Orc had run off. Clearly, it had been killed by another Monster and by the look of things it was a Stage 1 Intermediate Monster.

    Monsters were another type of species altogether different from the Beasts and Enlightened Races, killing was the only way they gained strength and killing was the only way they survived. Numerous scenes like this appeared throughout the entire Continent filled with Monsters and the even more terrifying Blood Fiends.

    Welcome to the Southern Continent where there¡¯s only 1 rule.

    KILL OR BE KILLED!

 Ch.38 Divine Demon Physique

    [Southern Continent, at the very center of the Central Forest]

    Sitting on top a large boulder was a creature that looked like a 4 armed, grey-skinned ogre. It was 3 metres tall, extremely muscular and had 2 tusks reaching out from its mouth. It also had long black hair, pointed ears and abyssal black eyes. Last but not least were the jagged black horns on the sides of his head.

    This was Asura; chief of the [Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe] and a rank 9 Intermediate Monster. A strength that far surpassed both the Queen of the Elves and the Queen of the High Humans.

    The Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe was a clan of Ogres that had mutated when the Magical Outburst had arrived. They used to be like every other Ogre with the regular characteristics of: Muscular, 2 metres tall, green skin, pointed ears and sharp tusks.

    But the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe was clearly different with their height that averaged 2.5 metres tall, their grey skin and their perfect affinity with the Earth Element.

    Given the fact that Asura has a name, it was obvious that he was either someone Eridel had tampered with or someone Eridel had acknowledged before his seclusion. Actually his story was quite interesting.

    The truth was that this Tribe was actually quite special considering the fact that they had 3 people that Eridel had blessed in here. Asura, Babunda and their Chief; Krysos. Eridel had constructed a Mutated Earth Grade Physique that was tailored for Monsters and bestowed it to them and a few others.

    A Physique is the genetic makeup of the physical body but when people speak of the term ¡®Physique¡¯ in a World of Cultivation they are normally talking about a special body that was bestowed by Fate and sometimes came with powers. Physiques could be split into 5 grades: Mortal, Earth, Heaven, Ageless and Void.

    Mortal Grade was what everyone else currently had and it could also be considered nothing, but people from High Worlds would call it talentless while people from Law Worlds would call it trash. As for the people above? They would look at you with pity, as if you were a cripple that lacked all your limbs.

    They had absolutely ZERO innate talent.

    But don¡¯t let the term ¡®innate talent¡¯ confuse you. When it came to Physiques, innate talent was something like a guarantee. For example, someone with an Earth Grade Physique was guaranteed to make it to the 4th Realm of Cultivation with no bottlenecks and as long as you didn¡¯t suffer extensive damage then you would make it. There would never be a need to worry about stabilizing your cultivation because it was permanently stable before the 4th Realm. After that would be your own hard work.

    On top of that, if you somehow decided that you wanted to enter cultivation when you were already an old man, as long as you didn¡¯t die you would still make it to the 4th realm eventually. Unlike other old men who were barred from cultivation completely.

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    Heaven Grade guaranteed the 7th Realm

    Ageless Grade guaranteed the 9th Realm

    Void Grade guaranteed the ???

    So no, having zero ¡®innate talent¡¯ didn¡¯t mean you wouldn¡¯t make it to the top, it just meant that you would have to work many times harder than people who had ¡®innate talent¡¯ on top of having to face bottlenecks.

    As for Asura and the others? They had Mutated Earth Grade Physiques. And don¡¯t you dare let the term ¡®Mutated¡¯ fly over your head. A mutated Physique was one that could upgrade to the next level if you met the requirements.

    This was something extremely rare to see but even harder to accomplish. Most people didn¡¯t even know if they had Mutated Physiques and even if they did, how could they know the requirements? Was their own body supposed to instruct them? As a result, unless you had someone akin to a seer, you would need extreme luck to find and consume the needed ingredients.

    That being said, a System aka ¡®the best guide in existence¡¯ would soon bless this World¡¯s residents, unless they were retarded they would never be lost.

    Sometimes a Physique comes with extra powers, traits or perks. For example the Physique that Asura and a few other Monsters had named the Divine Demon Physique; This Physique granted them the following:

    1) Divine IQ: Above mortal intelligence from birth.

    2) Divine Monster: Purifying Killing Essence when you absorb it.

    3) Divine Presence: Everyone facing you would feel like you were an existence that came from above. Monsters would especially revere you and enemies will instinctively fear you causing them to be unable to fight against you with their full power.

    4) Divine Ruler: All those that follow you will be influenced by your thoughts and decisions. If you want to be a good ruler you will have good subordinates, if you want to be an evil ruler you will have evil subordinates.

    5) Divine Demon: The stronger you are the more attractive you become. You obtain 2 curved horns on the sides of your head that are extremely attractive to monsters of the opposite gender and intimidating to those of the same gender.

    The horns will always be on the side of your head and will always curl upwards but the design of those horns will match your personality. As a result, if you experience any grand changes in personality, so will your horns.

    You will also obtain personalised Killing Essence, no longer will your Killing Essence and Killing Intent be red in colour like other Monsters unless red is your personal favourite colour.

    6) Divine Damnation: Shoot a condensed beam of Pure Killing Essence.

    7) Free from Fate: ???

    As you can see, the Divine Demon Physique only had one attack ability but had many perks/traits. Physique powers are generally balanced out like this but it should also be mentioned the Divine Demon Physique was extremely powerful for its Earth Grade, it is definitely amongst the best of it¡¯s kind.

    Asura, Babunda and Krysos all had this Physique.

    But as Eridel willed it... Only 1 was meant to remain.

 Ch.39 Demon King Armaments

    Before this Tribe had experienced the Magical Outburst the Tribe was led by the Ogre named Krysos. Krysos was a charismatic and intelligent Ogre that led his clan to reign supreme in the Central Forest and even the indomitable Asura and ferocious Babunda were fiercely loyal to him.

    The other Tribes could only fend off this Ogre Tribe if they teamed up with each other because their power alone was insufficient and without forming alliances they would be decimated.

    The reason for the Tribal Leader¡¯s strength was not only because of special Physique, but all because of the unique gift that Eridel had given him. In fact, every Monster that was bestowed the Divine Demon Physique was also gifted with a unique item which would later on become to be known as a ¡®Demon King¡¯s Armament¡¯.

    Krysos was gifted with¡­ A stone mountain.

    Indeed it was a stone mountain but the size, weight and position could be freely adjusted by the user depending on their cultivation level. On top of that, the stone mountain emitted endless Earth Killing Essence that was beneficial to all Monsters with Earth Affinity. This Armament was called the [Heavenly Demon Mountain].

    With the power of this Armament, Krysos along with the talented Asura and Babunda were able to mutate their Killing Essence into Earth Killing Essence. This was the same as someone forming their Mana from an element, for example: The High Human Queen¡¯s Light Elemental Mana.

    A Mutated Killing Essence would still be red in colour but it would have an extremely different feeling from the rest. Killing intent normally feels like feeling like someone was going to just kill you but Earth Killing Intent felt like someone wanted to crush you into pieces. On top of that there was an added gravity effect that prevented you from using full power.

    Moreover, when using Earth Killing Essence in attacks like what those Goblins did, each attack would be especially heavy. You could also circulate around your body to have a mountain-like defence.

    A Mutated Killing Essence was 5X stronger than the Elemental Mana¡¯s counterpart but just as hard to obtain. Consequently, the other Ogre¡¯s in the clan weren¡¯t talented enough to absorb the Mutated Killing Essence and could only be like everyone else.

    Or that should have been the case¡­

    However the Magical Outburst came around and just like with the Barbarian Chief, an unknown criteria was met and Krysos evolved into a High Ogre with perfect Earth Affinity. He reached 2.7 metres tall, gained grey skin akin to the Heavenly Demon Mountain, horns that looked like they were carved from a rock and silver eyes.

    But Krysos was not the only one to evolve.

    As Krysos loyal followers, his entire Tribe including Asura and Babunda evolved, becoming the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe of today with all members wielding the Earth Killing Essence. This was definitely something terrifying and even otherworlders would think 3 times before fighting this Tribe that they had seen nothing alike before.

    After all, Monsters were something that only existed in this World.

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    They were already horrifying and for some mutated existences like the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe to exist as well? Wasn¡¯t Eridel cheating too much?!

    But that was not all.

    If Krysos could meet the requirements to evolve... How can Asura and Babunda fail to do so?

    Let¡¯s rewind a bit.

    A Greatsword

    A Halberd

    A Battleaxe

    A Warhammer

    These are 4 different red coloured weapons that radiated Killing Essence were placed in front of Asura.

    The first ever weapons in the World and Asura was given the right to pick one. And not only that - These weapons were made from a special metal that was almost impossible to create and could never be formed naturally. It was Killing Metal.

    Killing Metal was similar to Magic Metal in that it could absorb Killing Essence to cultivate itself. When this Metal was used to kill it would absorb some of the Killing Essence to empower itself meaning that this was a Weapon that could grow with the user. Obviously, the best users were Monsters but it wasn¡¯t impossible for others to use it.

    But for four of such weapons to be placed in front of one person¡­ Even Immortals would become envious.

    Eridel gifted Asura 4 weapons because he knew that these weapons were too heavy to be dual wielded so you could only choose 1 and discard the rest. Giving them to someone else wasn¡¯t feasible either as it would be like someone other than Thor trying to pick up Mjolnir so the goal was that Asura chose one of the four weapons that he was most compatible with and when he accomplished that he would gain a permanent connection with it.

    It would no longer be too heavy for him and he would gain martial art techniques specific to that weapon. The rest of the weapons would be destroyed.

    ¡®Unfortunately¡¯ Asura flipped the script.

    Eridel was too used to dealing with the primitive minds of the residents of his World and forgot that as a Monster with the Divine Demon Physique, Asura¡¯s intelligence was definitely not low.

    SIKE!

    Who was Eridel? He was a 2000 year old WORLD that had an unknown soul level. He was definitely up there with the top 10 smartest existences in the Universe. How could something that he GAVE the ogre escape his calculations?

    That being the case, even though he knew that he had left a loophole, Eridel wanted to leave it up to fate. If Asura could grab this opportunity then so be it.

    ¡­

    Asura studied each weapon carefully. He knew they were very powerful and if he could grasp the power of just one of them then his strength would be below the chiefs and above the rest. Even Babunda shouldn¡¯t be able to match him.

    Asura picked up the Sword and examined it closer. As he did so he could feel a familiar prompt that seemed to want to form a contract with him.

    Asura exerted all his power into both hands to swing with an overhead strike.

    CRAAAACK!

    The ground exploded as a 2 metre long fissure was created when the Sword connected with the ground.

    If Eridel was here to watch this - his Core would probably crack from anger.

    After practicing with the Sword for a few minutes he let it drop heavily to the ground before collapsing himself with sweat drenching his body.

    ¡°Wheew~¡±

    Asura looked at the surroundings that were even more destroyed than before and couldn¡¯t help but marvel at his power even though the weapons were currently in a sealed state.

    He didn¡¯t know he was courting deletion

 Ch.40 Asura

    Asura quite liked the Sword because of how versatile and easy it was to use. Out of all the weapons he currently had, this was the one that appealed to him the most and if he had to choose he would definitely go with the Sword.

    But he didn¡¯t want to choose.

    He had spent quite a lot of time with each weapon by now and each of them had their own uses that he couldn¡¯t think of going without anymore. The destructive lethality of the Battleaxe, the speed and dexterity of the Sword, the long reach and power of the Halberd and last but not least the unblockable strength of the Warhammer that could also double as a shield.

    Asura looked at all 4 weapons before sighing.

    ¡®What should I do?¡¯ Is what could be interpreted from his thoughts.

    Asura dragged the Sword to the rest of the weapons before picking up the Halberd. It was customary for him to practice with each weapon everyday. Although the weapons were too heavy to take into battle they at least served to train his muscles. He could feel his body becoming stronger each day and it had nothing to do with his daily killings.

    Gaining power was his primary focus and if there was any way to increase it then he wouldn¡¯t hesitate. This World was too chaotic and everywhere you looked people died. So if he didn¡¯t want to end up as someone else''s nourishment, he needed to obtain more power.

    A power that would allow him to be invincible, a power that would allow him to control his fate and break out of the cycle of endless killing, a power that would allow him to set order to this ravaged World! Yes! That was his purpose!

    Asura¡¯s eyes glowed with passion as he began to think of what he should do with his power that was only matched by Krysos and Babunda.

    He knew the 3 of them were different. Ever since he first came to be, he knew there was something seriously wrong with the others including his own Tribe members. They always killed and killed and killed and there was never any reason for it. Even if it was exhilarating to gain strength¡­ must they kill so excessively? Why should they so mindlessly take the lives of others?

    Asura didn¡¯t have any knowledge about good and evil but his heart still skipped a beat when he thought of how those that had been Ashed were never seen again. Was that really it for them? Did a mere claw in their heart or slice to the neck really forever banish them from seeing the next day? Wasn¡¯t that too harsh? What if that happened to him or his brothers one day?

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: ¡®Ashed¡¯ is the term used when someone is killed by a Monster.}

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    Most importantly¡­ Why was he not like the others? Why did the light of insanity that he saw in so many others not appear on him or Krysos and Babunda? Why did he hesitate when the life of his enemies was in his grasp and he only needed to take one more step?

    Asura shook his head as doubts of the past tried to resurrect themselves.

    He knew his purpose now.

    Asura hefted the Halberd high above his head before swinging back down with ferocious might.

    BOOM!

    Looking at the new crater that joined the ones that decorated his surroundings, Asura smiled with content as shockwaves blew his hair and debris rained around him.

    ¡®Bringing order to this accursed World¡­ That is my purpose!¡¯

    ¡­

    A couple months had passed and Asura had made tremendous progress. Thanks to his daily vigorous training he was now able to dual wield 2 of his weapons as long as the Warhammer wasn¡¯t included.

    He was also now able to fight effectively with a weapon in battle as long as he only used one. This caused Krysos and Babunda who were always supporting to congratulate him. They knew of his plight and were happy to see him return to the battlefield.

    It always confused them when they saw how Asura¡¯s Armaments were inferior to theirs even though he had more?

    Even Babunda with his pair of green glowing cuffs and dangling chains that didn¡¯t connect to each other was stronger than Asura. Babunda¡¯s cuffs were called the [Shackles of the Juggernaut] and they augmented his body to make it tremendously powerful, especially his arms. If his arms or the chains themselves hit you, you were most likely going to die. On top of that, his vitality was also enhanced to terrifying levels that made the Ogre almost undying.

    The reason the cuffs were green instead of red despite it being made of the same Killing Metal was because they had made a connection with Babunda and they took on the colour of his Killing Essence which was green.

    Maybe the more weapons you had the weaker they were? This was the only theory that Krysos and Babunda could come up with. Who knows.

    Time continued to flow as Asura continued to grow stronger each day multiple times faster than before now that he returned to the battlefield and could now cultivate more Killing Essence.

    Soon, he was able to dual wield in battle even when he used the Warhammer. His only lament was that he didn¡¯t have more arms to wield his other weapons. He was still very much unwilling to discard any of his weapons.

    Asura thought of Babunda¡¯s near death experience in his fight against someone who was shockingly just like them. He knew that even if he chose one of his weapons and unlocked it¡¯s full power, it still wasn¡¯t enough. He needed to find a way to unlock the power of ALL of them.

    So Asura continued to ferociously train with single-minded focus. At this point he had not slept normally for months. Now¡­

    Swinging his weapons till he fainted each night was his night-night routine

 Ch.41 Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe Vs Wraith Clan

    Eventually the magical outburst arrived, changing things within the Ogre Clan forever.

    Asura had achieved the woefully rare double evolution, experiencing his own evolution whilst obtaining the blessings of Krysos¡¯ evolution.

    When he evolved, his growing desire to wield all the Armaments had actually manifested by giving him an extra pair of arms that enabled him to wield 2 more weapons. On top of that, he obtained a monstrous muscular strength that enabled him to wield each weapon with ease making him an unblockable calamity to all of his enemies.

    But that was without the connection with any of his weapons.

    The day Asura made his connections with his weapons... The whole continent felt it.

    ¡­

    Asura was in a jubilant mood as he swung all four of his weapons through the bodies of his enemies with little resistance. The bodies of wraiths would either be split in half before dissipating into ash or they would directly explode when they made contact with his Warhammer.

    Just 7 days ago the whole World had experienced a great change that he couldn¡¯t comprehend, even now his heart still palpitated when he thought of the series of events before his evolution. He really thought all life would end that day.

    But look at him now!

    SHICK, BOOOM! Asura¡¯s axe crashed through 3 wraiths and the boulder behind them.

    Asura raised his head to the sky and roared as if he was an abomination from the abyss causing both Ogres and Wraith alike to flee from fear. Soon, there was a 20 metre radius around him that lacked all life apart from plants.

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: The abyss actually exists, more on that later. }

    Anyone could hear the unparalleled pride and fury in that voice. Whether they saw the origin of this voice or not, they knew that this was not and would never be a normal person, this was a Monster to the Monsters.

    The battlefield even quieted for a few seconds as everyone looked at him with various emotions.

    The Wraith King looked at him with displeasure with something else hidden deeper before cutting off the heads of 2 Ogres with an ominous looking scythe.

    Babunda¡¯s 2 heads looked at him with respect and pride before leaping into a crowd of wraiths with his 4 metre tall body.

    Krysos looked at him with a strange emotion on his face before it quickly faded to indifference. He waved his hand causing the flying mountain-shaped boulder in the sky to come crashing down on 3 unsuspecting wraiths.

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    The rest of the Ogres had mixing looks of fear and reverence. Whilst the Wraiths¡­ Well there were no emotions to be seen on a faceless entity but the smoke-like substance that made up their bodies began to flicker erratically in an agitated motion.

    Wraiths were Monsters that were¡­ well, Wraiths.

    They looked like grim reapers; A cloak made from a red smoke-like substance with the only other colour being the black mist where the heads should have been. Each one had a solid red lantern that contained a skull in their left hand.

    As they resumed the battle, red mist-like skulls were shot out of the lanterns like fireworks. This was a Wraith¡¯s main way of attacking and as they flew, the sound of a flying missile was heard as the mouths repeatedly bit the air. When they connected with a target, they exploded with a loud bang.

    Really and truly, they weren¡¯t unlike fireworks.

    As for the Wraith King¡­

    Asura looked at him a little warily. Even with his adrenaline rush, he still knew to pay close attention to this being at all times.

    Wraiths were typically around 1.5 metres tall, but the Wraith King was a whole 2 metres tall. Instead of being red like the others, he was a dark grey. Only the black mist where a head should be was the same. Even the lantern in his hand was different, being a little bigger than the others and black in colour.

    Most eye-catching was the sinister onyx black Scythe wrapped in dark bandages that the Wraith King carried in his right hand and the ghost-like horns on each side of its head.

    Asura could tell that the scythe wasn¡¯t much different from the weapons that he owned and the shackles that Babunda wielded. It was 2.5 metres tall with the serrated and razor-sharp blade being 1.2 metres long.

    Such a sight would cause anyone''s heart to skip beats but that wasn¡¯t the cause of Asura¡¯s concern.

    As Asura watched, the Wraith would disappear in a puff of black smoke before reappearing in a different location. He would then swing the terrifying scythe with both hands or lift up the lantern in his left hand to shoot out a multitude of black skulls. (He had the ability to summon and unsummon the lantern)

    Each time he appeared, death would follow. He was a very strong and very terrifying individual.

    He was the one that nearly killed Babunda after all.

    2 weeks ago, the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe (but just a powerful ogre tribe back then) had encountered the Wraith Clan, they didn¡¯t have the lanterns back then nor were they even wraiths. They were Phantoms, ghost-like figures with terrifying faces.

    Naturally like any meeting between different Monster factions, it was an instant war. And normally the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe would have won, but not this time.

    In this battle, they met a Phantom King that was black in colour with 2 horns on its head that curled to the sky and a terrifying scythe.

    All Monsters with the Divine Demon Physique were smart and quick-witted, hence the 4 beings could easily recognize each other for what they were.

    But Asura didn¡¯t care too much, although they were intelligent, the idea of communication barely existed in the same race, talk less of talking with other Monsters so the immediate thought was something along the line of:

    ¡®There are 3 of us and 1 on the other side. There is no way we could lose.¡¯

    Haah...~

 Ch.42 Heart Drop

    ¡®There are 3 of us and 1 on the other side. There is no way we could lose.¡¯

    Haah¡­~

    They were definitely not prepared for the Wraith to appear right behind Babunda and cut half way into his neck, nearly sending his head flying. On top of that, a spine-chilling corrosion began to spread from that wound and it never stopped. If Babunda didn¡¯t have the [Shackles of the Juggernaut]''s enhanced vitality to suppress it and the recent Evolution to completely remove it, he would probably be dead.

    The big guy really had a close look at death that day.

    Asura speculated that that was probably the reason that Babunda gained another head and that disgusting amount of defence. His defence was already terrifying before as a result of his enhanced vitality from his Armament, but now it was just sad.

    So sad.

    With the doubled defence from a tough body and extreme vitality, he was basically unkillable within the same realm. Even if you managed to break through his tough skin, tough muscles and even tougher bones, he would just heal it back very quickly. It was just¡­

    So sad.

    Asura took a quick look at Babunda as he wreaked havoc on the Wraiths. Mhm, this was his brother.

    But he couldn¡¯t for the life of him understand what made the previous phantoms change so much. Those lanterns were seriously annoying and the speed that the Wraiths had when they moved was even more annoying. What was four times more annoying was the fact the other Ogres couldn¡¯t use their weapons against the Wraiths.

    The 3 Ogre leaders were smart and quickly discovered the merits of using Worldly objects as weapons when given inspiration from their own Armaments. But unfortunately, it looked like only Killing Essence worked on the Phantoms and even stronger Wraiths so since it was impossible for them to imbue Killing Essence into anything other than their own bodies or special items like weapons made from Killing Metal, they had to work with their fists.

    Even then, the Ogres were still winning. This was a result of their special Earth Killing Essence that made their attacks and defence quite daunting.

    But Asura knew that they weren¡¯t the only ones with a Mutated Killing Essence. He could sense something multiple times more dangerous from the Wraith Kings Killing Essence.

    Every time the Wraith King exposed his Killing Intent it was always a terrifying experience. Asura felt like was looking at death itself each time and it never got old. Looking at how each strike containing his Killing Essene would leave a terrifying corrosion that rapidly sucked all life from the victim, Asura knew that there was something seriously wrong about it.

    Luckily, the Wraith King spent most of his time hiding and sneak attacking so at the very least his Killing Intent wasn¡¯t there to disturb everyone.

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    Nevertheless, as Asura continued to cut down more Wraiths, he made sure to keep track of the Wraith¡¯s location at all times. He wasn¡¯t like Babunda, if he got struck by the Wraith King¡¯s he would most likely die regardless if the attack was fatal or not. Such an ability was quite unfair.

    BVVVT!

    The Wraith King had disappeared again. Asura had half a mind to wonder where he would appear next, scanning the battlefield for his next location. But when he didn¡¯t see him again all the hairs on his body rose in alarm.

    Without hesitation he thrusted his body forwards whilst simultaneously turning around to look at what was behind him.

    Right in his previous location stood¡­

    Nothing.

    Could his instincts be wrong? Then where was-

    BVVVT!

    A brief and deep static-like sound that Asura knew all too well was heard right behind. He leapt forward with all his might as if a gate to the Abyss had opened behind him, for if he didn¡¯t, only death awaited him.

    ¡®Why is this guy so-¡¯

    THUD

    ¡®Huh?¡¯

    CSHHHHHHH!

    Blood was abruptly splattered into the air.

    ¡®What just¡­?¡¯

    ¡°Aah¡­ aaAH...AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!¡±

    Asura screamed like a banshee as he desperately tried to reach his back with all 4 arms, dropping his weapons in the process. Fear gripped his heart as his eyes looked in every direction in a terrified manner. He knew he had been hit and he could already feel the terrifying corrosion that Babunda previously faced making an attempt for his life.

    ¡®But how? I escap- something bloc- what blo- who bl... WHO BLOCKED ME?!¡¯ Is what could be interpreted from his erratic thoughts.

    But he didn¡¯t have much time to think, even in his half crazed mind, he could feel the threat of fatality rising above his head. With all the effort he could muster, he leapt to the left. Something was clearly in front of him so-

    THUD

    ¡®Oh shi-¡¯

    CSHHHH!

    Blood splattered once more.

    ¡°NNNGH?!¡±

    This time, the scythe that was way too determined to kill him dug in deep into his shoulder before ripping itself out, almost taking one of his arms with it. At this point, the corrosion was already causing black veins to bulge against his skin, even making the blood that freely leaked from his body turn black in colour.

    It was a very bad situation.

    But still, Asura bit down hard on his lip not intending to waste energy screaming. He needed to focus on finding out what was sabotaging him. He knew that someone must have been clocking his escape somehow because he was very sure his surroundings weren¡¯t treacherous like this before.

    Mustering all his mental power, Asura ignored the sharp pain from his wounds and the ice cold corrosion that was slowly seeping into his body, focusing solely on the space around him. He needed to identify the cause of this clusterfuck!

    ¡°ARRRGH!¡±

    Asura ferociously dragged 2 of his hands to the object in front of him whilst opening his droopy eyes to the max to make sure he got a good look. But when he eventually managed to focus his eyesight onto the heinous object that was dead set on making sure he didn¡¯t leave with his life.

    His heart dropped.

    ¡®Impossible... K-Krysos?!¡¯

 Ch.43 Fractured and Awakened

    ¡®Impossible... K-Krysos?!¡®

    In front of Asura was a mountain-shaped boulder that he was VERY familiar with.

    It was the very treasure that made the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe what they were today after all. The Armament owned by the chief of the Tribe, Krysos.

    The one and only Heavenly Demon Mountain.

    Asura could not believe his eyes. The mountain could only be controlled by Krysos, so if it was indeed the same Heavenly Demon Mountain and not some replica¡­ didn¡¯t that mean that Krysos had set it up to be that way?

    Asura was so shocked that he wasn¡¯t able to register the incoming threat.

    ¡°KUHK!¡±

    Asura spat out blood before looking down to see the blade of a scythe poking out of his stomach. As he watched, a much deeper corrosion than before began to spread out from the fatal wound.

    He was finished.

    He could feel it down to his soul, this was his end. Honestly, it wasn¡¯t so bad. At this point he couldn¡¯t feel very much and to die in battle knowing that he had furthered the advancement of his race was a relief.

    ¡®But¡­¡¯

    Asura slipped to his knees as all strength failed him. The corrosion not only attacked his life force, it had weakening effects that he was completely unable to fight against. So he could only shamefully land on his knees.

    The scythe was slowly dragged out of his body but he didn¡¯t pay it any mind. He was already ready to die.

    ¡®But¡­¡¯

    2 hands grabbed his shoulders and forcibly but slowly turned him around. What were they doing now? Did they intend to sully the little honour he had left? Just as he was about to close his eyes and accept his death. He saw the identity of the person who had turned him around and his heart fractured.

    Standing in front of him was Krysos who took 3 steps back to stand just a little behind the Wraith King. Like he was some kind of servant. Talk less of Asura, even the spectating Ogres and Wraiths were watching with shock and confusion.

    Various thoughts raged their way around Asura¡¯s head but he still could not comprehend. Did Krysos seriously help the Wraith King to kill him? Before if it was only speculation, now it is certain. He had been killed by a member of his own race, which to be fair wasn¡¯t that abnormal. But this wasn¡¯t the same, Krysos should not be driven by the lust of power, in fact, he didn¡¯t even seem to want to finish him off. The Wraith King would eat all the benefits from his death.

    So what was the meaning of this¡­?

    Asura was too damaged to think too much, he was already going to die so what could it possibly matter?

    Htu!

    Asura spat out the blood that had been accumulating in his mouth.

    ¡®Aaah¡­ I am only embarrassing myself further¡¯.

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    Asura¡¯s eyes drooped as his consciousness began to cede. He was going to die.

    ¡®But...¡¯

    Thinking of Krysos¡¯ face twisted with disdain.

    ¡®BUT I AM NOT WILLING!¡¯

    ¡°HNNNG!¡±

    Asura¡¯s eyes flipped open as he exerted his muscles to do SOMETHING! His upper body dropped down as he began to slowly inch towards one direction.

    His weapons.

    Krysos looked at Asura with disdain. Truly he didn¡¯t want to see something like this but it couldn¡¯t be helped. Asura was becoming too strong and he couldn¡¯t have that, Krysos was aware of an Armament Bond and knew once you formed the connection, you would gain immeasurable benefits. He would never let Asura achieve such a feat with 4 of them, what a joke! Where would his face as chief go then?

    Besides, now with his secret deal with the Wraith King, he was promised that he wouldn¡¯t be assasinated. Of course, he was smart and he didn¡¯t believe such a deal would last long, but it would give him enough time to kill Babunda and rise in strength. After killing the Wraith King, the Tribe would only need him, the chief!

    But damn, this guy has lost all face for the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe. Must he crawl like such a piece of trash? What a disgrace, just die with your little dignity!

    In his anger, he took the necessary steps forward to reach the dying Asura and kicked him hard.

    DU!

    Asura was suddenly sent flying but in the process he passed out. It would seem that it was the end for-

    CLANG!

    His body landed on the pile of weapons that he dropped before but as his body began to twitch, the blood that never stopped flowing out of his body soaked each of the weapons.

    Causing a very terrifying change in events.

    ...iiiiIIIIIIIIINNN!!!

    All four weapons began to illuminate with a bone-chilling red colour that wasn¡¯t dissimilar from Asura¡¯s horns.

    Indeed, it was this red colour that Asura had as his personal Killing Essence colour, different from the Killing Essence of others, it was a striking crimson that was comparable to a rose.

    But that didn¡¯t last very long.

    Slowly, Asura¡¯s horns began to turn black as they twisted in nature, developing chinks and cracks that portrayed an image of desolation and disaster. Correspondingly, the same process repeated itself in all 4 of Asura¡¯s weapons.

    The red light emitted by the 4 weapons was also converted into a dark colour that reeked of despair.

    Soon, each weapon began to right itself as they floated into the air. Simultaneously, Asura¡¯s body began to float up with all his arms stretched out. Strangely, he was still unconscious.

    But the others weren¡¯t and they were TERRIFIED!

    They could feel the ¡®world-destroying¡¯ aura that all 4 weapons put together released and they wanted nothing to do with it! So they fled with no hesitation, completely forgetting their respective leaders. The only ones who remained were the Wraith King, Krysos and Babunda who had long since been trapped under the Heavenly Demon Mountain.

    But when both Krysos and the Wraith King failed their best attempts to interrupt Asura they too made the decision to flee.

    At this point, more shocking changes had been made to Asura¡¯s body. His previously 2.5 metre 2.7 metre height had reached 3 metres and his bulky muscles had transformed, becoming narrower yet extremely prominent. His entire body had become streamlined which was neither too big and neither too little, the epitome of male muscular perfection.

    Such a constitution was PERFECT for wielding all sorts of weapons.

    And naturally that was the point.

    Suddenly, all 4 weapons attached themselves to each of Asura¡¯s hands, causing a violent reaction to occur.

    BOOOOOOM!!!

    A dark and sinister aura that erupted into the sky was released from Asura¡¯s body that every life form in the continent could feel. At the same time, a soul-shaking roar that promised vengeance and death caused the hearts of its residents to shiver with fear.

    ...Including the Crying Ghost.

    No one would ever forget what happened that bloody day.

 Ch.44 WAR!

    [Roughly 100 years later]

    A lot had happened in this time but 1 word could be used to summarize the entire century that would later on be named as the [Lifeless Century]. And that word is¡­

    WAR!

    All across the World, all types of factions waged war against each other for authority over the territories and treasures.

    The time for banding together with your species and allying with others had passed. There were Kings, Chiefs and Clan Head¡¯s everywhere. Now was the time to monopolize territories and increase their strength.

    The neighbouring territory was already occupied by others? No matter, kill them all!

    And so they charged.

    But how could the other side just patiently wait for death with smiles on their face? Were they sheep? NO! Even the sheep would run you down if you dared to cross them, talk less of the vast majority of predating species.

    And so they fought back with no hesitation!

    Both sides would ferociously attack each other with zero regards for life, not letting the other side go unless they ran far away. After all what they wanted was territory, they weren¡¯t specifically targeting lives, just the obstacles to their goals¡­ which just so happened to be lives.

    Unfortunately, most of the species on the planet had no understanding of morals and as a result, they had no qualms about reckless murder. In fact, they considered it a glory to kill for their respective factions, most even being rewarded for it.

    The rewards were mainly things like food and essence-rich treasures. Unlike other Worlds, Women were not treated like objects to be gifted or used by the leader anyhow he wanted (If the leader was even a male in the first place).

    Although females were indeed weaker physically, cultivation existed and so the difference in strength was vanquished.

    Every other World was naturally a Low World once upon a time and that¡¯s when the residents developed customs of objectifying or being overprotective of Women. No matter how much a World evolved after that, the instincts of Man to Woman were already there and they would not change. Only the way in which they achieved their goals changed. For example, it was now impossible to demand a Woman to serve you or carry your babies, you would just get a hot slap. You would have to go through the process of ¡®courting¡¯ and sometimes marriage.

    But things would be different in Eridel¡¯s World which could be considered to have been a Mid World from the beginning. There was true equality and it was interesting to see how mannerisms in a Man to Woman relationship would progress.

    Well, there was actually one race that still had the Male hegemony mindset and it was the Dragon race, the last race on the Planet before Eridel¡¯s arrival.

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    Speaking of the Dragon Race¡­

    There were now 2 of them. The Western Dragons (aka True Dragons) and the Eastern Dragons (aka Divine Dragons). And you would do well not to get them mixed up.

    This was something that happened around 90 years ago.

    As previously mentioned, the Snake Clan had been exploring the rest of the continent, sometimes occupying a territory to make a Branch Clan.

    Eventually, they found the Western Forest.

    The leader of the voyage into the Western Forest was naturally Drako. Only he would be dumb enough to run up on a Forest that was as big as the one he came from and fail to understand that it could similarly be of the same level in terms of strength.

    As a result, he got his ass whooped and nearly killed, only living to see another day because Lily came and helped him escape.

    This was the first clash between the Snake and the Dragon clan and the dawn of a war that would last many, many years.

    As a matter of fact, Drako did a lot of damage in that encounter by killing a few Dragons. He was a Law Beast after all so killing any kind of life form was lightwork to him. But when they grouped up to deal with him, Drako could only flee.

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: A Law Beast is a Beast who had formed his Mana from Laws.}

    Obviously, the Dragons became vigilant and informed their King. Ruining the best chance the Snake Clan ever had in making a sneak attack.

    On the other hand, Drako and Lily made sure to inform J?rma and the rest of the snakes of the dangers of the Dragons.

    Lily¡¯s message was focused on preventing the Snakes from having any interactions with Dragons in the future. In contrast, Drako¡¯s message was more on rallying the Snake Clan for revenge, maintaining the dignity of the Snake Clan, blah blah blah.

    Unfortunately for him, J?rma¡¯s verdict was for the Snake Clan to never enter the Western Forest and not antagonize the Dragons unless attacked first. At the time, J?rma was way more interested in something she had found in the center of the Continent so she didn¡¯t have time for some whatever ¡®giant flying lizards¡¯.

    But Drako was too angry. This was the 1st time he had suffered such a big loss and it was eating at his soul. He didn¡¯t count his encounters with Dodo because the Elk had 3 Laws and a higher cultivation, it was only right that he lost. But losing to scum like these? He couldn¡¯t take it!

    So he used the techniques that he had learnt from his good old friend Raiko, sneak attacks!

    He would frequently sneak into the Western Forest and kill any lone Dragon that he could find. When the 11th Dragon died, it caused a panic that finally caught the King¡¯s attention.

    As the Dragon King, what kind of face would he have left if he allowed his race to suffer such injustice? Did those pesky Snakes think that the Dragons were prey? Did the Snakes think of them as herbivores with no fangs?! NAY! They were the apex predators, the Dragons!

    So he rallied all the Dragons and attacked!

    The look on Drako¡¯s face when he saw a sky full of thousands of Dragons descending on his territory outside the forest was quite comedic.

    He honestly thought he wouldn¡¯t be caught. But the dumb snake failed to realize that whether he was caught or not, the Snakes were the only possible enemy. This wasn¡¯t like the Eastern Forest where there were 3 other equally powerful forces to guess from.

    In the Western Forest, the Dragons had no enemies. So only the newcomer Snake Clan was the culprit. Whether the fiery Snake from earlier was the actual culprit or not, they would hold the whole Snake Clan accountable!

    That day, the Snake Clan suffered a devastating loss.

 Ch.45 A New Race

    The whole Branch Clan owned by Drako was exterminated and he had to flee with Lily to their nearest territory.

    The Dragon King was quite satisfied with exterminating the ¡®entire¡¯ Snake Race and didn¡¯t mind letting them go, trying to kill the 2 would be too much work anyways so he rallied the rest of the Dragons and flew back home. A job well done he had thought.

    But he certainly wasn¡¯t prepared for tens of thousands of high level snakes led by a ferocious 50 metre long Stage 8 Spirit Beast to storm his territory.

    It was obviously J?rma and the rest, this also included the now-3-headed Snake Hiculu who was a Stage 4 Spirit Beast.

    Although J?rma was busy, she couldn¡¯t just let the Snake Clan suffer such a big loss with no profit. So what¡¯s a Beast Overlord to do? She ran up on their territory of course! She wanted some compensation and she wouldn¡¯t leave until she was satisfied.

    And so a full-blown war took place in the Western Forest.

    3 days later the War was over and the losses were tallied. The result of the war was pretty much a tie, both sides suffering heavy casualties but making a massive profit too.

    But first let¡¯s assess the losses on the Snake side.

    26,000 Elite Snakes were slaughtered with 5000 more being crippled. Hiculu had one of his heads chopped off, reducing the total number to 2. He wasn¡¯t a true Hydra so there would be no regrowth unless something special happened. Drako had both of his antlers snapped off. Lily had nearly half of her face cut off and J?rma¡­ had a couple scales cut off.

    It was only natural, even though she faced the Dragon King and 3 Supremes by herself, she was a good 4 stages above the Dragon King who was a stage 4 Spirit Beast. On top of that, she had a bloodline. if she wanted to, she could use the Dragon King as a toy to casually play with. Only the Supreme Dragons prevented that terrifying fate.

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: Elder Dragons are 1st generation Dragons. Supreme Dragons are powerful Dragons that own 1 of the 14 peaks on the Dragon Mountain, the 15th Peak or rather the 1st of the 15 belongs to the Dragon King. }

    Over on the Dragon¡¯s side there were a total of 2000 deaths. 7 Elders and 3 Supremes were killed with 1 Supreme being kidnapped, leaving only 60 1st generations left (That includes the Dragon King, the 9 Destruction Dragons and Gaia, the Creation Dragon). The Dragon King was also heavily injured.

    As for the gains that the 2 sides made in the war.

    First with the Snakes was the high quality food that they gained from the Dragon Carcasses that they dragged back home. As a result, there were a lot of breakthroughs when they settled down. J?rma broke through the 9th stage which could only be explained by her bloodline''s excellent ability to devour essence from organic objects. Hiculu (who was extremely agitated at the loss of a head) broke through to the 5th stage. Lily entered the 3rd stage and Drako finally entered the 1st Stage as a Spirit Beast.

    But that was not all. Their biggest gain was when Drako evolved. Using the [Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique] on the Supreme Dragon they had captured, he had managed to obtain the bloodline of a Supreme Wind Dragon.

    But he did not become an overgrown lizard with wings and a horn. Nay, his foundations were too strong to change that much.

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    However, he did get the best he could out of the bloodline. Sacrificing wings, he managed to obtain 4 legs, extremely hard scales, menacingly sharp claws, a Dragon head complete with a full set of fangs and finally a weird mix of Antler and Horns. They were still antlers, but they didn¡¯t spread out as much as before and each ¡®branch¡¯ was very profoundly sharp.

    His amber scales now contained a majestic glow with a small illusive effect that gave the scales a faint lava-like appearance. His lustrous mane now looked like it was fully made from dark red flames and his golden eyes were now very bright. If he didn¡¯t control them they were fully capable of replacing torchlights, lighting up the path wherever he looked.

    A terrifying curse for any closet pervert no doubt.

    All jokes aside, those effects were a result of Drako¡¯s Fire Laws being encoded into his DNA when he evolved. This evolution that normally would have made him something like a [Fire Law Snake] is what fused with the Supreme [Wind Dragon] bloodline to make him what he is now.

    A long serpentine Dragon with sharp antlers instead of horns and a lack of wings. The only thing that set him apart from the Eastern Dragons back on Earth was the lack of whiskers.

    When J?rma witnessed these changes of events she was very pleased but sad at the same time. Since her brother was no longer a Snake, sooner or later he wouldn¡¯t be able to fit in with the other Snakes.

    Hiculu had already faced a slight issue because of his abnormal multiple heads but because of his strength, no one dared to have any discontent. But Drako was completely different, his head wasn¡¯t like that of a Snake at all and he even had legs. The Snakes would respect him but never accept him.

    Hmm... It could be considered racism.

    J?rma didn¡¯t care too much about such things but she knew that her feelings alone wouldn¡¯t change much, Drako would still be ostracized.

    Knowing nothing could be done, she decided to have Drako separate from the Clan with bountiful gifts.

    She gave him ownership of their entire territory in the Eastern Forest, 100 powerful wives from the 1st generation of Snakes, 10,000 Elite Guards and the rest of the Dragon carcasses so that he could regain his strength quickly.

    This crazy turn of events definitely caused some discontent in the Snakes but none of them showed it. J?rma was their almighty leader and everything they aspired to be, they would rather die than cause her to be upset. If she wanted to ¡®waste¡¯ their hard earned resources then so be it.

    But the wives and guards that were sent to go with Drako were ecstatic, especially the wives. They were the ones that would enjoy the resources with him after all. On top of that, they were curious about the babies that Drako would grant them.

    As for the territory in the Eastern Forest, J?rma gave it up because it was furthest away from the Dragons. She wanted Drako to recuperate in safety, she also knew that he had friends there.

    Naturally, the happiest of them all was Drako, who¡¯s reverence in his big sister actually increased. Something that was now very hard to accomplish because of his powerful bloodline and innate arrogance.

    Never in his life would he forget this gesture. In his heart, J?rma was number 1.

    90 years full of bloody wars passed and Drako had become a Stage 1 Seeking Beast.

    ...

    An enormous serpentine body with 4 legs and antlers on its head could be seen flying above the clouds of the Eastern Forest.

    It was the Divine Dragon, Drako.

    And behind Drako was the many children that he had sired over the years. Beautiful Divine Dragons of different colours and sizes. They all obediently followed their progenitor with visible excitement in their eyes.

    This was the first time they would be leaving the Eastern Forest after all.

    As Drako crossed the border of the Eastern Forest, he too could no longer contain his excitement.

    ¡®I wonder how big sis J?rma is doing now? Would she be happy when she sees me?¡¯

 Ch.46 Another New Race...

    Besides the war between the Dragons and the Snakes, there were 3 other major wars that occurred on Eridel¡¯s World.

    The first was the war between Monsters, Beasts and Fiends on the Southern Continent. That was a chaotic event that completely altered the fate of the continent.

    Why? Well it¡¯s because there are no longer any Humans or Beasts there anymore.

    Roughly 50 years ago, Asura had united every Monster under his banner with 87 Demon Kings at the helm, becoming the first Emperor in the World¡­ or at least, above the lands¡­

    The Demon Kings were all people like him, people who were ¡®blessed by the heavens¡¯, obtaining the Divine Demon Physique and wielding the Demon King Armaments. There were originally 100 of such beings but the number dwindled overtime for numerous reasons.

    Krysos was obviously killed by Emperor Asura that dreadful day, the Wraith King escaped and was never seen again while the other Demon Kings were killed by either Asura in his path of supremacy, or killed by Fiends and Beasts that they shouldn¡¯t have offended.

    As for the humans? They could only become the nourishment for other races.

    Besides the Wraith King who disappeared, there was another Demon King who didn¡¯t want to bow down to Emperor Asura and had the means to escape, she could be addressed as the The 9 Flame Queen.

    The 9 Flame Queen was the leader of the Elemental Race, a humanoid race that is completely made from a specific element. Other than their human shape, they had no other features.

    As beings made from an element, every single one of them had a Mutated Killing Essence. Such terrifying beings should have been the rightful rulers of the Monsters but unfortunately for them, a freak existence like Asura exists.

    The 9 Flame Queen refused to bow to any other life form and fled the continent entirely.

    All Elementals had the ability to fly so it wasn¡¯t impossible. But the surprise lay with her decision to leave the continent. There was not a single life form with the knowledge of other continents apart from Ciera. Even Titania could only guess but not confirm the existence of other continents. The fear of the unknown prevailed and most people never left their continent even if they could.

    But the 9 Flame Queen did and she successfully left the reach of Emperor Asura.

    But Asura didn¡¯t care in the slightest, he didn¡¯t need such an unpredictable subordinate so he turned a blind eye to it.

    Asura was more concerned about the rising fights between the Monsters, the Beasts and the Fiends.

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    The Wolf King was the Beast who had united all the Beasts and rallied them to attack the other 2 factions. On the other hand, the Crying Ghost kept kidnapping Humans to r*pe them and increase the number of Fiends, he too didn¡¯t let a single Monster go if he saw them.

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: The only reason why someone like the Wolf King and Chad aren¡¯t Emperors is because they don¡¯t have any subordinate Kings. }

    As tensions rose, the 3 leaders were eventually unable to endure the existence of each other and a 3 way continental war that lasted 10 years took place.

    The result was the complete annihilation of the Beasts and Humans.

    The only reason the Blood Fiends managed to survive was because of their deep innate cunning and smarts when it came to killing. Asura was very capable of killing the Crying Ghost with a single strike but when the Fiends began to suddenly kill all of his underlings without leaving a trace, he decided to come to a truce.

    It wasn¡¯t worth it to kill the shepherd only for the sheep to start causing chaos everywhere.

    The Beasts were exterminated because of their lack of teamwork outside of those of the same race. On top of that, they didn¡¯t have the cunning or smarts of the Fiends, they were incapable of causing much trouble to Asura or the other Demon Kings and hence, they were massacred.

    The Humans were... collateral damage. Asura wanted to stop the Fiends'' seemingly supernatural ability to reproduce so he decided to kill off every Human to slow it down. Such was the fate of a weak race that barely even knew how to cultivate. They were unable to defend against the hostile intentions of the strong and were consequently destroyed.

    Besides the immense casualties that the war had caused, a strange ¡®experiment¡¯ that both the Monster races and the Blood Fiends conducted had resulted in a new race.

    The Devil Race.

    This occurred when both races decided to start enslaving each other to either find out each others weak point or to simply use the enemy as sex slaves.

    The Monsters didn¡¯t think it would result in a child because no child came from the copulation between Monsters and Beasts.

    On the other hand, the Blood Fiends didn¡¯t care either way. It would just be another Blood Fiend with impure blood. To the Blood Fiends, blood was obviously regarded very seriously so they looked down on Blood Fiends who were born from foreign races.

    Neither of them were prepared for the appearance of a new race entirely.

    The Devils were beings that took on the characteristics of both races. When they killed a life form that contained blood, the body of the corpse decomposed until all that was left was blood that was quickly absorbed. The more blood they absorbed, the more powerful and perfect their bodies became. They didn¡¯t have the ability to wield any kind of essence, but their ridiculously strong bodies were able to make that a mere triviality.

    They had excellent fighting ability and by being both cunning and ruthless they were able to become the perfect war machines, but¡­

    They were very, very

    Evil.

    ¡­

    The second major war was another 3 way war on the Western Continent. The war that would later on be named as the [War of the Legendary Birds] was a war that no one would forget. What was initially a fateful war between 2 arch enemies was now a 3 way war for domination over the continent.

    This was a war between Chad, the Honourable Brother and¡­

    The 9 Flame Queen.

 Ch.47 The New â€˜9 Flame Queenâ€™

    When the 9 Flame Queen had escaped the South Continent she had spent a considerable amount of time at the sea before encountering a small island.

    This was a cause of joy for her who had spent a month of aimless flying. As a sapient being, being lonely for so long was beginning to feel depressing.

    Despite the fact that residents of the Island were all Beasts, she decided to stay here to live with the intention of ruling the entire island. The Beasts would never accept her but she had a trick to overcome that.

    After a full day of scouting, she had identified the most talented Beast on the island and it was a Peacock with lava affinity. The beast had black feathers with red lava-like streaks running along its body and beautiful tail-train. It¡¯s red blazing eyes were also a sight to behold.

    It was most probably a Beast that was next to the Volcano in the center of the island when the Magical Outburst occurred, achieving an Evolution into the Lava Peacock that it was now.

    Although It wasn¡¯t perfect for the 9 Flame Queen¡¯s plans, it would do.

    Swooping down from the air, she headed straight for the Peacock as if she was going to dive-bomb it.

    The Peacock had looked up in astonishment but it was too late, it did not even have the time to feel fear before the 9 Flame Queen and the 9 slightly dark red fireballs that had been constantly surrounding her since her birth- collided with the Peacock.

    But mysteriously, there was no explosion or even any sound. In fact, the 9 Flame Queen along with 9 fireballs that were clearly her Demon King Armament had actually disappeared into the Peacock.

    Shortly after, the Peacock began to rapidly shake all over the place as if it was having a seizure. Dark red flames also erupted from all of its orifices, creating a terrifying scene. It was as if the Peacock was being possessed.

    And indeed it was.

    This was one of the skills that the 9 Flame Queen¡¯s Demon King Armament came with. It was a skill that allowed the wielder (9 Flame Queen) to possess any living being she wanted to so long as the target met the requirements.

    It was unnecessary to do such a thing back in the South Continent and even if there was someone worth possessing like Emperor Asura, such people could easily resist the technique and she could possibly die as a consequence.

    A Rank 6 Magic Beast peacock that was around 80 years old like this was extremely easy to possess. It¡¯s not that the talent of the Beast was low, as a matter of fact it could be considered profoundly talented even compared to the rest of the World, but in a backwater environment like this with barely any resources, it¡¯s growth was heavily stunted.

    The fact that it even reached Rank 6 of the Magic Beast Stage was already impressive.

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    Soon, the Peacock began to self-destruct before being reformed with a more perfect body and in all that time, the 9 Flame Queen ¡®watched¡¯ with confusion.

    She had never used this skill before and had no idea of what possession should be like, but she was sure something was wrong.

    She could tell that her body was assimilating with the Peacock, twisting its nature and becoming something completely different. If that happened¡­ How was she supposed to leave the Beast when she was done with it?

    But soon¡­ the answer came to her.

    As the body of the Peacock finished changing and the surrounding dark red flames that blocked prying eyes dispersed, a flabbergasting sight was revealed.

    The Peacock¡¯s feathers had changed colour, becoming a startling crimson colour that caught the eyes whilst also being intimidating. The same lava-like streaks running down its body were still there but this time they were glowing with a hot red colour as if they contained untold fire-power.

    The Peacock¡¯s body structure had also changed, it¡¯s head, torso and wings becoming bigger. In fact, it¡¯s bodily structure was somewhat similar to Chad the Phoenix. But different to Chad, this new entity that could no longer be called a Peacock had a majestic tuft of feathers on its head that was split into 2 portions on each side of its head.

    On top of that, the Bird¡¯s tail-train had actually split into 9 tails. Each tail ending off in a familiar dark red fireball.

    And its vermillion red eyes now look extremely daunting as they glowed with no pupil in sight.

    The Bird looked like an absolute weapon of mass carnage with divine beauty, giving off extremely dense killing intent vibes that caused the residents of the entire island to freeze in fear.

    This was the new 9 Flame Queen.

    She was sure of it now, she had lost the ability to possess any other life form, even leaving this body was now impossible, this was the new her, there was no longer 9 Flame Queen of the Elementals. Now she was 9 Flame Queen¡­ the Bird.

    With the superior intelligence that she gained from the Divine Demon Physique, she now understood that her possession skill was somewhat of a sham.

    The skill did not allow her to possess other life forms as she liked, no, it was a life-saving skill that she was supposed to use to assimilate with another life form if her life was ever in peril.

    Half an hour ago when she was still assimilating, such a thought would have terrified her. It meant that she would forever have to live with a trashy Beast body and never leave. Such a future was as good as being crippled. Not because the Beast¡¯s was actually trash but because it¡¯s foundations were already wrecked.

    Being a 77 year old Stage 6 Magic Beast was atrocious, and now it was way past the golden age of cultivation, cultivation would now be very arduous. This wasn¡¯t the same for a 77 year old Stage 2 Elite Monster because their lifespan was incredibly long. If they had human forms, their 77 year old body wouldn¡¯t look much different from a 16 year old Mortal human.

    But now¡­

    Things were very different. Not only was her new body¡¯s age reset completely. She had kept the same cultivation as before. In fact she had even levelled up once, becoming a Stage 3 Elite Monster. That was the result of absorbing all the essence of a Stage 6 Magic Beast. To an Elite Monster it wasn¡¯t much but it helped push her over the edge.

    But that wasn¡¯t it.

    She could feel the power within her that far surpassed what a Stage 3 Elite Monster cultivation base should give her.

    And¡­ She wasn¡¯t quite fully Monster anymore.

 Ch.48 The West Continent

    The Mutated Killing Essence in her body felt somehow different. She could feel the new affinity with lava but that wasn¡¯t it. It was as if the entire nature of its essence had changed. It was no longer geared towards the sole intent of ¡®Killing¡¯.

    It was now¡­ other.

    The 9 Flame Queen released the essence out of her body just to test it out, she wanted to know what changed.

    SSSSSSHH!

    Unexpectedly, unlike the usual dark red light, dark red flames erupted out of her body. It must be known that even if someone had Mutated Killing Essence, it¡¯s appearance would not be any different from regular Killing Essence, only it¡¯s effect would change.

    Divine Demon Physiques were the only thing that could change its appearance but even then, all that changed was its colour.

    But the 9 Flame Queens so-called Killing Essene was absolutely abnormal. And as if it were sentient, it emitted a blood curdling killing intent that seemed to want all life to burn. Even more peculiar was the bestial majesty that was being radiated. That was because this was the kind of aura only seen on Beast Kings.

    What kind of creature did the 9 Flame Queen become?

    She didn¡¯t know, but she didn¡¯t care. She was very powerful right now and she quite liked that.

    However¡­

    She could now notice the gazes of fear trained on her body. Joining into this habitat was now impossible. They would never accept her. She COULD rule them with fear but now, her potential was limitless and she had higher ambitions. This little island wasn¡¯t enough to satisfy her. But their lives weren¡¯t something she was ready to waste.

    Despite her new form, she was still a monster.

    Or at least half¡­

    ¡­

    The 9 Flame Queen spent the next 3 months flying above the seas once again. In this time she had passed many islands but none of them entered her eyes. She didn¡¯t consider any of them worthy and she continued to fly.

    In her new body, the rate at which she flew was a good 20x faster than before so it wasn¡¯t a wonder why she had passed so many islands in this time.

    But what was beginning to get on the 9 Flame Queens nerves was the growing disappointment. She had been expecting to find a landmass on the same level of her homeland but up till now, there was nothing in comparison.

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    But she refused to settle for anything less.

    So another week of constant flying passed.

    Even though her new body retained its ability of not needing food, she still needed energy. Monsters regularly slept to recover their energy, even the higher level ones still slept at least once a week.

    But the last time the 9 Flame Queen had seen an island was 3 weeks ago meaning that was also the last time she had a good sleep. And it was beginning to take its toll on her.

    Unlike the area around the South Continent, there were no rocky peaks poking above the sea for her to rest on.

    Her energy was running dangerously low and if she didn¡¯t change that fact soon, it would be over for her. How humiliating would it be for a life form of her level to die from over exerting herself? Ludicrous!

    Just as the 9 Flame Queen was beginning to panic, a grand stretch of land began to peak over the horizon.

    At first, the Queen was sceptical, but soon she could see what was similar to the sea bed of the South Continent and she was ecstatic!

    Using the rest of her energy, she headed straight for land.

    ¡­

    A few months had passed when the 2 hegemons Chad and Honourable Brother had realized something was seriously wrong.

    A lot had changed since the so-called ¡®Honourable¡¯ Brother¡¯s betrayal. Using the grace period which was Chad¡¯s weakened status, he had managed to voraciously consume all kinds or resources to power level himself.

    Since he had already broken through all the bottlenecks to reach the Spirit Beast Realm, he didn¡¯t need to repeat the process so it was extremely smooth sailing.

    In this time frame (3 weeks), not only did he forcefully subjugate more and more of Chad¡¯s forces in the North, but he had also forcefully impregnated all sorts of compatible bird Beasts to rear his children.

    Not one of these females obtained a lick of energy from him so they all died without fail when the eggs were laid.

    And like this, a clan of Ice Phoenixes began to brew.

    When Chad had fully recovered, the whole North had been taken. At this point, the Honourable Brother had become a Stage 1 Spirit Beast and was able to barely fend off the furious Phoenix who was still a Stage 9 Magic Beast when he had come for his life.

    But he wasn¡¯t able to prevent Chad from catching sight of all the Phoenix Eggs that were near the point of hatching already.

    This infuriated Chad when he understood what had been going on during the time he was bedridden. But it wasn¡¯t the fact that he was taking innocent lives that angered him. It was the fact that the Honourable Brother dared to have children after eating his own.

    Not even the fact that the Honourable Brother had somehow become a Phoenix like himself on top of wielding strangely ice cold flames had angered him that much. He would never let himself suffer such an injustice!

    But Chad could not bring himself to destroy the Phoenix Eggs that looked so much like his own but with different colours and patterns. So he returned to his territory.

    Unfortunately for the residents of his territory, they weren''t prepared for their righteous leader to start using the same heinous tricks that the Honourable Brother had used to create children.

    Chad had actually begun to forcefully impregnate a multitude of suitable Bird Beasts to rear Phoenix Eggs the same way the Honourable Brother did.

 Ch.49 War Of The Legendary Birds

    A few decades later the continent had been divided in 2 by the constant fighting between 2 Legendary Phoenix Clans; The [Ice Phoenix Clan] and the [Pure Phoenix Clan]. The Northern side was obviously inhabited by the Honourable Brother and his clan which leaves Chad in the South.

    On each side you can see beautiful majestic Phoenixes that were giving orders to the other species in their respective territories.

    For a while, they had discovered that their subordinates, including a few Phoenixes, had been disappearing unnaturally. Such a reality was incomprehensible to the 2 forces but nothing could be done, so they decided to put it in the back of their mind.

    Somewhat of a mistake.

    It was when a colossal Bird Beast that was even more domineering than both Chad and the Honourable Brother appeared with soul-shaking killing intent that the 2 Clan Leaders knew they were in serious trouble.

    The 9 Flame Queen appeared in the Southern region with blazing might, her killing intent striking primordial fear into the hearts of all life forms and her ¡®beauty¡¯ tantalizing the 2 hegemons.

    The Honourable Brother even breached into the Southern Region just so that he could get a closer look. Like a moth to a¡­ flame.

    Both Clan Leaders were equal parts enamoured and fearful of the newcomer but nothing other than righteous rage appeared on their faces, it was like they were looking at a the murderer of their children. Mmh, they indeed knew the experience.

    The Honourable Brother was obviously good at hiding his feelings and on the other hand, Chad was Chad.

    Hmm? Were they also squinting their eyes? Light-skin face?

    Noticing that the situation was dire and a perfect opportunity had been presented to him, the Honourable Brother was the first to flee back to his territory in the North.

    Unfortunately, with Chad already being in his territory, he wouldn¡¯t have that opportunity.

    Unless he wanted to follow the Honourable Brother; a foolish idea, he would have to somehow fend off this newcomer by himself. But he knew the odds of winning were heavily against him. Even though he was a Law Beast, he could still feel the hopeless difference in strength and he couldn¡¯t comprehend why.

    The 9 Flame Queen opened her magnificent beak as a dark red fireball formed inside.

    Just as Chad was thinking he was done for. A chorus of melodious but mighty Phoenix cries swam through the sky with indomitable spirit. Beautiful amber coloured Phoenixes broke through the tall tree tops and soared into the sky with fury stained on their faces as they glared at the 9 Flame Queen.

    Seeing his family ready to die for him, the turbulent emotions in Chad¡¯s heart slowly dissipated. How could he cower in front of family? As the Clan Leader, he wouldn¡¯t leave until death accepted his courtship!

    The glare he then gave to the 9 Flame Queen even having a hint of provocation.

    The 9 Flame Queen paused. She knew things could become very annoying and it grated on her nerves. She knew she could take the leader of the Phoenixes by herself with ease, but with the hundreds of phoenixes there to help him, it was almost certain that she would suffer major damage.

    On top of that, a nagging feeling of jealousy was seeping into her heart. Seeing the tight relationship between the Phoenix race and their Ancestor was bringing up memories of herself with the Elementals. But even the Elementals weren¡¯t as closely knitted with her compared to the sight before her eyes.

    Monsters weren¡¯t built to be all that cosey with each other after all. Their main priority was killing. Tribal systems just helped in efficiency, nothing more, nothing less.

    Just as Chad was about to begin the battle of certain death, the 9 Flame Queen made a few motions towards him.

    The Beast ¡®Language¡¯.

    The Beasts all around the World had already formed their own signals and signs to achieve cross-species communication. How could the Beasts in the West Continent be lacking?

    The main reason the 9 Flame Queen had been laying low ever since she had arrived on this continent before now was because she was learning these very signs.

    When Chad deciphered the messages performed by the 9 Flame Queen, he was shocked.

    The 9 Flame Queen wanted to split the territory of the West Continent once again!

    Chad was shocked but he quickly made the motion for ¡®agree¡¯, he couldn¡¯t waste this opportunity!

    ¡­

    40 years later (Year 90)

    The West Continent was in the middle of a dreadful war that had blood spill all over the continent like a liquid plague. Where blood was shed, more blood was shed.

    It¡¯s area of influence would always increase and nobody was safe.

    Why was there another war despite the equilibrium that should have been maintained between the now 3 legendary races?

    Well¡­

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    This was the result of the Honourable Brother finally accomplishing his nearly a century long goal.

    Taking his former leader¡¯s wives.

    Obviously this didn¡¯t go well with Chad. With blinding fury, Chad made a path of corpses towards the North with only the idea of slaughter on his mind.

    At this moment in time, the West Continent had been split in 3 sections. It was the Honourable Brother in the North aka [Frozen Territory]. Chad in the South-East aka [Pure Society] and the 9 Flame Queen in the South-West aka [Purgatory Forest].

    Chad had already become a Seeking Beast, enabling him to summon forth the bare minimum of the Fire Laws, but just that was enough to strike fear in the heart of the 9 Flame Queen who was Stage 9 Elite Monster, not to mention that she was several times stronger than any other Monster of the same level. It should also be mentioned that a regular Monster was stronger than a regular Beast of the same level.

    The point is, his newfound strength on top of the presence of the Honourable Brother enabled them to keep the 9 Flame Queen in check despite her fully developed clan of her own.

    However, this changed when the Honour- Nay, the Despicable Brother had successfully kidnapped the 2 wives of the Pure Phoenix King, causing Chad to throw all caution to the wind in his path of vengeance.

    Naturally, the 9 Flame Queen wasn¡¯t going to let this wonderful opportunity waste. Although she didn¡¯t need to kill like before to become stronger (She had found out long ago that she could absorb essence from eating essence-rich resources after she became the legendary bird she is today), killing was still very resourceful and she could use this war to break through to the Greater Demon realm.

    And like this, there was no location on the continent that carnage¡¯s revolting legs didn¡¯t reach.

    ¡­

    2 years later (Year 92)

    One of Chad¡¯s claws was wrapped tightly around the Despicable Brother¡¯s neck, the rage in his eyes even more ferocious and malevolent than the hate that had consumed him 2 years ago.

    That was because a few minutes ago, he had finally located the Despicable Brother who had disappeared a year ago along with his 2 wives.

    But they were no longer the wives he knew.

    They were still, calm and unreactive to his presence.

    Silent, dull and¡­ lifeless.

    They were dead.

    And right between their legs was a Phoenix Egg that thrummed with life.

    ¡­

    That was the moment the Phoenix who had specialised in the Laws of Fire and Life had nearly become an abomination.

    Luckily, the Law Body that he gained when he evolved at the Spirit Beast Breakthrough allowed those 2 Laws to encode itself in his DNA. Such a powerful body was obviously resistant to all forms of ailments including Abomination conversion, but even then it was a close call.

    BOOOOOM!

    When Chad came to, the literal flames of rage that exploded outside of him almost consumed everything.

    The Despicable Brother who was only a few inches away from him with his icy flame wielding claws stretching forth was blasted away, almost dead in a single blow.

    His plan had failed and he was finished.

    He knew it.

    The Despicable Brother had planned for this very moment since he laid his sight on Chad¡¯s 2 wives many decades ago. He knew that there was no other scenario that allowed him to kill his previous leader unless he obtained a supernatural power. Becoming an Ice Phoenix wasn¡¯t enough.

    So he plotted and plotted. Revised, refined and polished his schemes until he got to this point.

    But even that was not enough.

    At this point, he was simply tired.

    He was done contending with monstrous existences. He was done with having to withstand the grating envy that would never leave him alone. Just let him die.

    The Despicable Brother slumped even further down the cave wall. The very same cave that he had hid in when he evolved, becoming the Ice Phoenix.

    The very same cave that was in Chad¡¯s territory even now.

    The Despicable Brother watched as Chad grabbed the bodies of his 2 dead wives and the only remaining egg that wasn¡¯t destroyed in his anger before flying off into the distance.

    The Despicable Brother was a little confused, killing him wouldn¡¯t take much effort so why clear out the area? He didn¡¯t have illusions that Chad was sparing him, he knew that his previous leader would never let him go.

    And indeed, Chad returned a few minutes later only to grab the unresisting Despicable Brother by the neck and fly off once more.

    Now the Despicable Brother was beginning to panic, he didn¡¯t like things that he couldn¡¯t predict, it was rare and oftentimes very deadly. Even if he had already accepted death, he was still afraid.

    They passed many sceneries before delving deep underground and arriving at an underground cavern.

    Chad carried the limp Despicable Brother to the floor of the cave before abruptly biting into his chest with his beak, reaching deep and tearing the Beast Core right out of his body.

    This was a procedure that directly crippled the prone recipient, causing them to lose all their cultivation for the rest of their lives, unable to make a comeback ever again.

    This normally happened to Beasts before they were banished from their territory, but now it was happening to the Despicable Brother and he was not happy.

    Before he could even process thoughts. Chains made from golden flames appeared and wrapped around his neck and limbs, including his wings before plunging into the ground.

    ¡°SHEEEEERR!¡±

    The flames burned him so viciously that he thought his very sense of self (soul) would be erased, causing him to shriek out in agony.

    But then the effect of the flames changed, they started to heal all the damage around his body in a purposefully crude manner, causing the healing process to also hurt. Just when he was about to gather his thoughts

    ¡°Eeeh¡­~¡±

    The destructive element of the Phoenix Flames returned with soul-stirring force that caused him to wheeze, already unable to summon the energy to scream.

    The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the pair of sinister eyes that promised nothing but suffering.

    And he was very, very terrified.

    ¡­

    This brings us to the last and final major war. No, that was not right, nobody would call it a war.

    It was¡­

    Devastation at it¡¯s finest.

    A calamity that was so abominable that it wiped away almost all life in the North Continent. And it was the result of a single being.

    [The Abomination Of The North].

 Ch.50 Abomination Transformation

    (Year 125)

    The land of all Monsters could be considered the South Continent. But that¡¯s not to say that they were restricted to that area alone.

    In every other main continent (Central, West, East and North), there were a few Monsters that could be found if you were unlucky. But at this point in time, most if not all were dead. With their crazy murderous mentalities that caused them to rarely ever shy away from a fight, it left little to wonder on why their already abysmal numbers began to dwindle.

    But they were not all dead. Oh no, but I bet you the whole North Continent would wish they were. Unfortunately, they no longer have the qualifications to wish for anything.

    The beginning of the North¡¯s end began with a¡­ Slime.

    A Monster Slime.

    The lvl 1 jelly Monsters you fight when you first play an RPG game. Yes, that Slime.

    Slimes were a common Monster with very little power, their only saving grace was their incredible ability to reproduce. Taking all this into consideration, nobody could have predicted a Slime would be the doom of their lives.

    Nobody would have thought that a lowly Slime would be the first to find a Domicus Treasure.

    A Domicus Treasure. An inimitable treasure created by Eridel himself for the residents of his World. But do not compare them to just any odd treasure that Eridel had made because not even the Demon King Armament could be considered a Domicus Treasure.

    Each of the Domicus Treasures were so powerful that anyone lucky enough to wield one was destined for supremacy.

    But that was just one of the things that made the lowly Slime the continental calamity that it was now.

    When the blue slime had ventured into an underground desert cave, it had found 2 orbs held upon pedestals. One was green and the other was a dark grey.

    The green orb pulsed with a ridiculous amount of the Laws of Life whilst the dark grey orb pulsed with Laws of Death of the same quantity. Each of them were so potent that they could cause anyone who wielded one to obtain boundless power of its respective element.

    Wielding the green orb, you and your allies were most likely to never die. All injuries, ailments, deformities and irregularities would become a nonentity.

    Wielding the dark grey orb, you were most likely to be one of the most feared damage dealers in the World with none of your enemies being able to escape.

    Indeed, both of these treasures were Domicus Treasures. 2 of them in 1 spot.

    But that¡¯s not to say it was possible for 1 person to own them both. How could such conflictive elements be contained in one body? When someone grabbed an orb, it would immediately bind with the person and the other orb would forever be out of that person''s reach. It was absolutely impossible.

    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    Or it should have been.

    But when the slime took advantage of his special constitution to stretch out and grab both at the same time, a shocking situation occurred.

    Both orbs initiated the bind with their host, causing their respective essences to flood the inside of the Slime¡¯s body.

    Accordingly, they began to react violently when they made contact with each other.

    Meanwhile, the Slime¡¯s body began to convulse as pain wracked it¡¯s very soul. But even then, untold chaotic power began to rise in its body and its killing essence changed in nature.

    Beginner Monster Stage 4

    Beginner Monster Stage 5

    Beginner Monster Stage 6

    ¡­

    Beginner Monster Stage 9

    As a slime, let¡¯s not talk about the fact that it¡¯s a 125 year old Realm 1 being, but the fact that it had managed to raise itself to stage 3 was quite the feat. Most slimes don¡¯t even have the power to kill anyone, consequently never rising in strength.

    But in a heartbeat, the Slime¡¯s cultivation rose to the brink of it¡¯s realm and it didn¡¯t show any signs of slowing down.

    Intermediate Monster Stage 1

    And here¡¯s where things went wrong.

    Just like Beasts, Monsters have the chance of evolving when they break through to the next realm.

    And just like any other life form going through such a delicate transformation, there is a chance of becoming an Abomination.

    The convulsions in the Slime¡¯s body increased as it began to balloon in size. A mucus-like substance was constantly leaking out of the body as if it was melting and when they made contact with the ground, it began to dissolve.

    Before now, the 2 orbs had still been ¡®fighting¡¯ for dominance inside the Slime¡¯s body. But when its Abomination transformation began, they too began to dissolve as they¡­ assimilated with the host.

    This was something that never should have happened but Abominations were just that strange. They were completely unpredictable and while it was easy to predict what could initiate an abomination transformation, what happened after that was impossible to guess.

    Even Eridel with his numerous calculations couldn¡¯t predict what made Abominations the fuck-ups that they were.

    As a result, Eridel was completely blind-sided to the situation.

    As the assimilation progressed, the essences began to corrupt each other, becoming something else entirely.

    It wasn¡¯t an unknown essence in other Worlds, but if they found it anywhere near them they would run with no hesitation.

    As the new Essence assimilated with the Slime¡¯s Killing Essence, the changes in the Slime¡¯s body increased.

    First, its cultivation skyrocketed even faster than before, already at the Elite Monster Realm and still climbing.

    Second, was the change in colour the Slime was experiencing as its whole body turned a deathly grey, but not quite as dark as the essence of Death.

    And third was the grotesque change in form it was undergoing. Its body had lost its transparency and its smooth composition had twisted into an unrecognizable state that never stayed the same.

    To be honest, it looked like a 50 metre tall piece of grey coloured shit that didn¡¯t stop twisting and wiggling.

    It was very, very ugly.

    But it was also very, very powerful.

 Ch.51 â€¦What?

    In an unknown Oasis of the Southern Desert lay a family of Flame Horned Oryxes that stood erect by a lake. In that lake were a few eternally warring species consisting of Electric Squid, Stone Scaled Alligators and Dual Headed Tortoises could be seen thrashing about.

    They were all different species that often battled for supremacy but there was one thing that they shared at this fatal moment.

    Bone-shaking terror!

    They couldn¡¯t see it, but they knew it! Something terrible was after their life!

    The family of Oryxes didn¡¯t dare to wait anymore and they made a mad dash to the edges of the oasis, not waiting to see the cause of their fear.

    Unfortunately, the cause of their fear was very interesting in making its acquaintance.

    A thick grey mucus-like substance rose up from the ground and gathered together again in the appearance of the Slime Abomination.

    Driven by its new voracious need to absorb lives, the Abomination returned to the surface. With its ¡®Peak 9th Stage of the 3rd Realm¡¯ capabilities on top of its Abomination perks and Domicus Treasure effects, finding lives was extremely easy.

    It just so happened that the Beasts in the Oasis were the closest.

    What happened next need not be explained, the Abomination massacred every single Beast with none of them being able to escape.

    But what happened next spelled the tale of the Abomination amongst Abominations. Not only did the Beasts not dissipate into ash (product of becoming an Abomination), but the corpses were consumed and absorbed into the Slime, gaining the skills and certain body parts of the victims.

    Sure, all Abominations consume other Life Forms for the Vital Essence (Life Force/Vitality) that alleviate their pain, but none of them should have the ability to assimilate other Life Forms into themselves in its entirety. It could never be certain but this was most likely the result of the 2 conflicting Domicus Treasures.

    And what was the result?

    Wiggling tentacles that stuck out of the Slime¡¯s body, multiple eyes that seemed to belong to different races and a few horns here and there. Sometimes, a leg or claw would even pop out, showing the Abomination¡¯s instinctive control over the abilities and body parts that it gained from its victims.

    At the very least, the Abomination didn¡¯t look like some amalgamation of different creatures because of the fact that each additional body part looked like they were a natural part of it. They were made out of grey slime with some of them being of a lighter or darker shade. For example the multiple eyes that were of a lighter shade of grey.

    This could have been slightly bearable, after all like every other Abomination, the Slime had suffered a massive blow to its intelligence when it went through its Abomination Transformation with only 3 things occupying its thoughts.

    Murder, massacre and genocide.

    Such a thing would have prevented this menace from being truly great, sooner or later it would have been felled by an innovative trick and that would be the end.

    But unfortunately, when the Slime absorbed the strength, defence, agility and other such things from its victims. Intelligence was not lacking.

    It couldn¡¯t be seen because of the lack of transparency, but there were multiple brains inside the Slime with all of them complimenting each other. Not only was this Abomination not the slightest bit dumb, but it was already smarter than someone like Raiko the Beast King and all it had to do was consume more more victims to become even smarter, stronger and faster.

    This Abomination was certainly not the useless kind that could only suffer till death in-vain and was not even the glass cannon kind that had all the power but no defence.

    This was a 1/1,000,000,000 Calamity Grade Abomination.

    The Abomination of Abominations and Destroyer of Worlds.

    If something wasn¡¯t done¡­ the World was finished.

    ¡­

    (1 Year Later)

    A third of the life on the Continent had been eradicated by the Abomination and the plant life was included.

    At this point, the Abomination was a lot stronger than its cultivation portrayed and it already had the strength of a 4th Realm being.

    The only reason it had not broken through yet was because of the suppression that Eridel had placed on all Life Forms, preventing them from breaking through to the 4th Realm without his supervision and doing the ¡®stupid shit¡¯ that the Abomination was doing now.

    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    The only reading it was still getting stronger was because of the powers and abilities that it directly absorbed from its victims.

    Even now, it was still killing and becoming stronger with seemingly no limit. Grey coloured fire balls, icicles and lightning bolts struck panicking Humans with pinpoint-precision.

    The Abomination was currently in a Human settlement that it had found and was doing what it did best; killing.

    In mere seconds, the population of over 12,000 Humans was reduced to 10. But for some reason, it did not kill the remaining Humans. Instead it watched them with an eerily calculative gaze.

    It was much more harrowing when you considered the multiple eyes.

    Suddenly, a minute chunk of slime the size of a head was split off from the Abomination. Strangely, it started bouncing and looking around with curiosity as if it was a separate being from the Abomination.

    A few of the Abomination¡¯s eyes were trained onto it with laser focus and zero emotions. This was the first time that it was using this technique. A technique that it could have used before even before it became the Abomination that it was now.

    [Reproduction]

    A technique that enabled a Slime to split a part of itself to form a new Slime with its own consciousness.

    The fact that the Abomination was ¡®giving birth¡¯ was already worrying but in quick succession, 9 more newborn Slimes were produced like it was nothing.

    Making a decision, the Abomination used its progenitor bloodline to exert complete control over the newborn Slimes.

    The slimes wiggled or hopped to a Human each. It truthfully wasn¡¯t hard when all 10 of the Humans had passed out from fear, or more accurately the terrifying aura that the Abomination was emitting.

    When the 10 Slimes had made contact with a Human, the Abomination forced them to use the same skill that he had been using all this time.

    [Assimilation]

    For a moment, nothing happened. The newborn slimes only wiggled intensely as if suffering in pain.

    But suddenly, the slimes deformed before slowly dissolving into the Human bodies. Now it was their turn to start violently twitching. It was quite the terrifying sight and all the while the Abomination watched.

    Soon, the ¡®Humans¡¯ had their skin turn grey and their irises disappear until all that was left was an empty white. It should also be mentioned that all the life in their bodies was gone. They were dead.

    It would seem that whatever experiment that the Abomination was trying had failed¡­

    Well.

    It should have failed, but the Humans had actually managed to stand up once again. Empty gaze, amateurish movements and all but did it.

    From each of the ¡®Humans¡¯, the same essence was being emitted. It was the same peculiar essence that the Abomination had before it started assimilating with all sorts of beings, turning it into the monstrosity that it was now.

    It was Undead Essence. The essence of Life when it was severely corrupted but not destroyed by Death Essence. This was a type of essence that struck fear in the heart of many because of how difficult it was to deal with.

    But this of course didn¡¯t faze the Abomination. In fact it even summoned multiple mouths just to grin.

    ¡­The audacity.

    ¡­

    The following year was a nightmare for all Life Forms on the North Continent. Undead beings ran everywhere taking lives or converting others into more undead.

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: The difference between the undead that the Abomination created and the Undead formed from excess exposure to Undead Essence isn¡¯t to be ignored, don¡¯t let if fly over your head. }

    Everyday lives were taken and the toll only increased. Even the mighty Trees (which were all Magic Trees) were destroyed and consumed. In the end only the 3 overlords of the continent were left.

    The [Stone Armoured Bull King] that was in the 7th Stage of the Seeking Beast Realm and 1st Stage in Anatomy Refinement.

    The [Lightning Roc] that was in the 9th Stage of the Seeking Beast Realm.

    And finally the [3 Tailed Glacial Fox] that was also in the 9th Stage of the Seeking Beast Realm.

    All of these terrifying Beasts released their powerful auras as they prepared to go all out with the terrifying existence known as the Abomination of the North.

    But before they could even react, 3 claws from 3 different species burst out of the Slime Abomination and grabbed them, dragging them back to the main body before disappearing.

    .

    .

    .

    f????????????????u????????c??????????????????????k??????????????????

    The Abomination wiggled in glee when it felt the succulent powers and abilities that it had absorbed. Now, it could move on to the next phase of its plans.

    The same Roc Wings that it had just obtained extend out of its body in a size that was proportionate to his own.

    Whoosh!

    With a flap of its wings, it disappeared into the air before shortly arriving at the shore of the Sea.

    ¡®Now¡­ What does the-¡¯

    DING!

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <All Residents have received the Eridius System as a gift from the gods.>

    <The Eridius System has been designed to help you in your everyday life. Please check ¡®Status''.>

    ¡®...What?¡¯

    Before the Abomination could even react, a divine light exploded out of the sky. It wasn¡¯t even able to think before it was struck and darkness consumed its vision.

    ¡­The Abomination. The Terror of the Continent had be knocked out in a single blow.

    ¡°Aiii¡­ What a mess~¡±

    A powerful and archaic yet seductive voice resounded throughout the North Continent.

 Ch.52 The Seas

    Eridel watched as the Abomination slumped over, or more like semi-melted.

    Golden chains materialised from his Primordial Essence wrapped and around its body with some of them puncturing through the Slime. The chains served the effect of restricting the Abominations cultivation completely and made sure it could do no further harm.

    Although what it did to the North Continent was a little aggravating, it was a small price to pay. Such a wonderful existence like this, how could Eridel have the heart to destroy it?

    That being said, it would be a waste to just store it away. No, this Abomination wasn¡¯t going to be a trophy, it had another thing coming. He had BIG plans for this thing. But on a side note, a part of him couldn¡¯t help but be more intrigued than he should in the fact that he couldn¡¯t predict what the Abomination would do.

    As the creator of most if not all the residents in his World, as long as he was looking at them he could read them like a book. Nothing they could do would surprise him if he was consciously looking.

    Multiple schemes flashed through his head before his attention was dragged back to his Planet.

    He had to say he was impressed, very impressed with the way things had progressed. Many notable key figures that he had kept his eye on were now thriving more than he ever thought they could.

    For example the Crystal Dragon King, Asura, Honourable Brother, Drako, 9 Flame Queen and more.

    Having already looked through the World Archive, Eridel had not missed out on a single event during his seclusion. He had witnessed the amazing Evolution of the Crystal Dragon King, the Mutation of Drako and the Honourable Brother and the assimilation that the 9 Flame Queen went through with the Peacock.

    That was for sure one of the more surprising ones, in fact, the whole situation of the South Continent went way above his expectations.

    Eridel¡¯s prediction was that the Elementals would dominate the Monsters with the final face off being between the 9 Flame Queen and the Wraith King. In the end, the 9 Flame Queen was meant to assimilate with the Wraith King, obtaining the [Flames of Death] and even more incomprehensible and untouchable body.

    She would then become the Demon Empress and a monumental figure set in place to spread terror across the World until she was defeated. The World would learn a valuable lesson after that.

    But obviously, what Eridel envisioned hadn¡¯t come to fruition, but it was fine like this too. The Legendary Bird that the 9 Flame Queen had become resembled the Vermillion Bird from the myths of his home-World, such a fusion between Monster and Beast was unprecedented and would definitely be something worth replacing his original plot, but she probably wouldn¡¯t be some kind of World Villain anymore.

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    This was all the result of the existence of a single entity.

    Emperor Asura!

    A Monster in more ways than one, even Eridel was flabbergasted at the series of events that allowed Asura to become the absolute Behemoth that he was today. He would definitely become a valuable asset in the long run.

    Eridel marvelled over the progress that his World had made in the 127 years that he was gone. All in all, almost everything was perfect.

    Almost.

    Naturally, there were bad situations too. By now, Eridel had expected there to be 4 Emperors of the Sea. He had actually left the Sea alone and there was no one there that had been given a gift of any kind. He wanted to know what would happen to the Seas if he didn¡¯t influence it in the slightest.

    The result was¡­ disappointing.

    Don¡¯t be confused, the average strength of those in the Seas was above that of the dwellers of the lands, but¡­

    WHY ARE THEY SO GOTDAMN TREACHEROUS?!

    People say that Foxes are trickery, Wolves are cunning and Humans are devious. But clearly they¡¯ve never seen Fish with substantial intelligence.

    There had been rulers in the seas before but each and every time, they were betrayed, killed and eaten.

    It was like they were all possessed by Envy, Greed and Gluttony. They were never content, they liked to steal and they were very, very ravenous.

    Instead of fearing and reverencing their betters, they schemed against them in hopes of taking their position. Not becoming like them, not surpassing them, BUT TAKING FROM THEM!

    In Eridel¡¯s eyes they were even more ¡®demon-like¡¯ than the Monster Races. It was honestly disappointing.

    However, Eridel could acknowledge that they had their reasons.

    It started with the vast emptiness of the sea. When the marine life had entered cultivation they naturally gained superior intelligence, this prompted them into being more curious in things other than eating just to survive. But unfortunately for them, in the depths of the sea there was nothing to see.

    Everything was dark, bleak, silent and desolate. It was especially daunting on these Life Forms who had been affected by the special Magical Energy in Eridel¡¯s World. As a result of the strange Magical Energy that had a strange connection with Soul Essence, all life on Eridel¡¯s planet had much more receptive and sensitive souls. And not only that, each soul was also influenced by Eridel¡¯s soul and it was very slightly hive-mind in nature.

    That was the biggest reason that some of the words and terms used in Eridel¡¯s World were very familiar.

    This didn¡¯t sit well with the dwellers of the sea.

    Despite being born in this place, it felt very unnatural. The lack of light, the silence, the emptiness. All of these things that would cause Eridel agitation because of his 2000 years of isolation, were causing these Sea dwellers to feel HATE but they didn¡¯t even know why.

    An unjustified hate that constantly gnawed at their minds with no other target than their peers.

    Things became ugly.

    The other reason for the viciousness of the sea was because of the severe dog eat dog or rather fish eat fish rules that they had. There was nothing like politics or weapons that they could carry to ward off invaders. All that preserved their lives in the seas was their own personal strength.

    So strength they must gain, by any means necessary.

 Ch.53 4th Realm Tribulation

    ¡®Haah¡­ At the very least, they will be excellent resources for my next plan¡¯

    Eridel lamented over the fate of Sea Beasts before thinking about the gains.

    Eridel was a millennial old monster. When you get to that age, instincts and emotions barely have any sway left that could affect your actions.

    Eridel was not going to take into consideration the emotions of his residents if there were long-term gains to be made. And in these seas, Eridel found a valuable resource; Emotions.

    Envy, Greed and Gluttony.

    All of these emotions were boiling hot in the seas and Eridel was not going to waste it.

    Eridel made a few mental notes and calculations before returning his attention to the World, more specifically, the 2nd brightest star on the planet; Emperor Asura.

    As soon as Eridel had returned from his seclusion, he had lifted the restriction that was preventing his residents from breaking through into the 4th realm. Now, all those that were eligible for the breakthrough were undergoing shocking transformations at the same time.

    The 4th Realm was very interesting, but as a matter of fact the number 3 was even more interesting. For some reason, there was a qualitative upgrade that a cultivator experienced after surpassing 3 levels. This was called the [Rule of 3 Upgrade].

    Whether it was an entire realm or just a stage; If you passed 3 of them, the strength you would gain would be much more extensive than what you gained in previous breakthroughs. Furthermore, not only did these ¡®Rule of 3 Upgrades¡¯ increase your strength, but they actually allowed you to unlock the hidden or restricted potential in your body.

    For example, it was possible to undergo a bloodline or constitution evolution when experiencing a ¡®Rule of 3 Upgrade¡¯.

    Of course, such great benefits were not given for free; the universe did not and would never work like that. In truth, the amount of essence needed to break through on a ¡®Rule of 3 Upgrade¡¯ was enormous and that was just for stages. Trying to achieve a ¡®Rule of 3 Upgrade¡¯ for a realm was simply put, depressing. This was why you would see people that were forever limited at the 3rd, 6th or 9th Realm if they didn¡¯t have what it takes to surpass it.

    Obviously, the first Realm ¡®Rule of 3 Upgrade¡¯ was the breakthrough to the 4th Realm, this was the breakthrough that a few of Eridel¡¯s residents were currently undergoing.

    But something very, very strange was going on. Normally¡­

    Normally, a bloodline evolution or even a constitution evolution should have been the most dazzling thing that could have happened to a cultivator, and even people in a Law World would be extremely satisfied with such a thing, however¡­

    What¡­

    What was that?

    ¡®It is time.¡¯ Eridel mentally grinned with glee.

    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

    ¡­

    (A little back in time)

    Emperor Asura was looking at the strange clouds that were ominously swirling above him.

    He couldn¡¯t for the life of him understand what the hell was going on. One moment, he could feel the frustrating insurmountable barrier that was preventing him from breaking through to the 4th Realm abruptly disappear.

    This had surprised him so much that he had leapt to his feet in astonishment. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, he sent the Killing Essence in his body to the barrier of the 4th Realm without thinking.

    Before he knew it an enormous cloud that went on for thousands of metres was formed in the sky above his head. On top of that, the cloud was such a pure white colour that if compared to snow, the snow would look like ash.

    It was the most ethereal cloud that Asura had ever seen. But he did not for a single second think it was innocent because for some reason, the cloud was instilling such a profound primal fear in him that he wondered if his next breath would be his last.

    He could only watch with terror as the space at the center of the cloud was suddenly cleared with what looked like a Magic Circle occupying its space. (Of course, Asura couldn¡¯t comprehend the strange ¡®symbols¡¯).

    The Magic Circle was gold in colour and glowed with a peerless light that only grew brighter as the aura of solemnity and danger rose in correspondence.

    Once the Magic Circle seemingly reached its peak, Asura gained a ¡®sudden understanding¡¯ of what was happening to him now. The ¡®Heavens¡¯ were giving him a Tribulation, a test so to speak.

    A Tribulation was an event that truly barred the way to the 4th Realm. He would have to defend against 3 attacks and if he wasn¡¯t worthy, his life was forfeit, simple as that.

    Each Tribulation was based on the receiver¡¯s entire strength along with a few other taboo factors that he had no privy to but at the very least, he understood what he must do and prepared to unleash the full might of all of his Armaments which also included¡­

    The Heavenly Demon Mountain!

    Something that he was actually able to establish a connection with when he had killed Krysos. He couldn¡¯t achieve the same effect with the Armaments from the dead Demon Kings so he could only suspect that it was because Krysos and he were essentially ¡®brothers¡¯ and the same blood that was used to make a connection with the Mountain also flowed in him. But who knows.

    He pushed aside idle thoughts as he shoved all of his focus onto the strange Tribulation ¡®weapon¡¯. Now was the time to fight for his very life.

    ¡°CYARRRRRRRR!¡±

    Asura roared to the Heavens as he bared all four Armaments with the Heavenly Demon Mountain looming behind him supplying him with dense Earth Killing Essence.

    The magic circle within the cloud pulsed as if in acknowledgement.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

    A golden divine light that looked like its sole purpose was to punish all evil-doers slammed right into his body.

    ¡°CyeeAAARGHH!¡±

    Asura screamed out as blood burst out of the holes that were torn open all over his body and it was so harrowing that the thought of just letting death claim him flicked to life in his head. But just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.

    Pain wracked him to the depths of his soul but he wouldn¡¯t give up. He had come too far to just let things be and he hadn¡¯t even gotten revenge on the Wraith King yet.

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <All Residents have received the Eridius System as a gift from the gods.>

    <The Eridius System has been designed to help you in your everyday life. Please check ¡®Status''.>

    ¡®...Hm?¡¯

 Ch.54 The Truth of The Tribulations

    Asura was shocked by the strange sounds that had been spoken from inside his own head. No, not sounds¡­ words. What was that? And why did he know what most of those words were? The only word that confused him was ¡®gods¡¯.

    He knew what Eridius meant, for some reason he knew that word ¡®Eridius¡¯ was the name- Name? What is that? Either way, he somehow knew that the name of this very World was ¡®Eridius¡¯. But what was a World¡­?

    <I advise that the Host focuses on his Tribulation. There are 2 more Tribulation Lights to absorb. All of your questions can be answered afterwards.>

    ¡®Absorb? ABSORB?!?! My th- thoughts? What are these wor-¡¯

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

    A Tribulation Light that was even stronger than the first smote his body once more, ravishing his insides and charring his flesh till it turned black.

    ¡°KUHK!¡±

    Asura couldn¡¯t even scream out properly as he spat out blood with his knees collapsing and his eyes rolling up. It had appeared that he had lost consciousness.

    But once again, he failed to detect the strange essence that wreaked havoc on the inside of his body, causing grand but hidden changes.

    Smoke billowed out of the horrendously burnt Emperor showing how extensive the damage done to his body was. Even 5 minutes later he was still on his knees with his eyes rolled all the way up.

    It was quite terrifying to think of how the behemoth-like body of the now 5 metre tall Emperor Asura, Lord of all Monsters- was reduced to such a terrifying state. If even he could barely retain his life after the 2nd strike, how could others survive the same ordeal?

    It was quite clear by now that this was a feature that Eridel had added to the ¡®Rule of 3 Upgrade¡¯ that all Life Forms eventually face, but why? Was Eridel trying to destroy the fate of all of his residents?

    ¡°KAHK! Kuh! Kuh!¡±

    Asura suddenly spat out a glob of saliva mixed with blood before descending into a coughing fit. The Emperor had woken up.

    Asura could not believe the reality that was presented before him. Just the second strike was enough to reduce him to such a state! Granted, he wasn¡¯t able to properly defend in time but still, there was absolutely no way that he would survive the next strike. He would die!

    This Tribulation was impossible!

    But how could this be? The information granted to him let him know that as long as he was strong in spirit and dauntless before the Tribulation Lights, he should prevail! No matter how powerful a Tribulation, it was always tailored for the receiver.

    ¡°So WHY?!¡±

    Asura was so dishevelled that he failed to realise that he was actually speaking in an actual language.

    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

    <Since the Host has resisted Fate. Fate must take its payment.>

    The abnormal voice once again resounded in his head saying incomprehensible things, but this time it didn¡¯t bother him. What was bothering him~ WAS THE TRIBULATION LIGHT THAT HAD ONCE AGAIN RECHARGED TO ITS MAXIMUM CAPACITY!

    HE WAS FINISHED!

    Asura watched with despair as the golden Magic Circle pulsed with a sacred light. Every cell in his body was screaming with pain and fear.

    Asura was very sure he had met his end. There was a limit to how much perseverance can take you and Asura was pretty sure he was bankrupt. Just as he was preparing to accept his fatality, the female voice spoke out once more.

    <The System recommends that the Host sacrifices the Heavenly Demon Mountain.>

    Asura felt like he had heard the most sanctified voice in all existence. If this voice that had been pestering him all this while was telling the truth; he should be able to survive at the expense of the Heavenly Demon Mountain.

    He had no qualms about sacrificing the last relic of Krysos but numerous dealings with the Blood Fiends had taught him of the difference between truth, lies and deceit. He wasn¡¯t so foolish as to believe that the actions and intentions of other people would always be the same. Not anymore.

    But he didn¡¯t have any other choice and the Tribulation was about to strike!

    ¡°AAAARRRGH!¡±

    Asura exerted the last of his strength to move the mountain above his head at its largest size. The Heavenly Demon Mountain shone with a profound grey aura as the Earth Killing Essence erupted to its full potential.

    And for a moment, Asura felt that the Mountain had changed. Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t have a single brain cell that wasn¡¯t occupied so investigating was impossible.

    Here and now, his life in its entirety was being judged.

    He had used his own strength to crawl and crawl to where he was now and had never looked back.

    He had crossed the corpses of his enemies time and time again and the skies above knew that he did not slow.

    He had watched as his brothers and sisters had fallen one by one and even then, he still never stopped.

    He had shed so much blood, sweat and tears to reach this pinnacle. And yet¡­

    Some ridiculous faceless entity still dared to test him?!

    Asura gritted his teeth with rage and exertion.

    ¡°I AM NOT CONTENT! AAAAAARRRGH!¡±

    Asura raised all of his Armaments above his head as he formed a shield of essence around himself. He refused to die!

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

    CRRRRRRRAAAA-

    Asura shrieked with pain as the last Tribulation Light that was actually white in colour instead of the usual gold struck straight through all of his defences and straight to his very soul.

    Darkness consumed his vision as his consciousness fled without resistance.

    ¡­

    ¡®Wow.¡¯

    Eridel watched as the Lord of all Monsters passed out in a heap, his body in terrible condition but still alive.

    He was impressed.

    He had been watching roughly the same process repeat itself all over the World but Emperor Asura¡¯s Tribulation was by far one of the most impressive.

    ¡®The guy even received a Soul Tribulation, how scary.¡¯

    Of course, Eridel was referring to the potential of the Emperor Asura rather than the so-called ¡®Soul Tribulation¡¯, how could he call something that he created himself scary?

    Indeed. The whole concept of the ¡®Rule of 3 Tribulation¡¯ and the Tribulation Lights was created by Eridel himself.

    There¡­ was no such thing as a ¡®Tribulation¡¯ in other Worlds.

 Ch.55 Fate And Fortune + Humanoid Form

    Eridel was not a bully¡­ Correction, Eridel was not a bully to his own residents. He didn¡¯t create a Tribulation because it was fancy and certainly not because he was scared of them causing some kind of ¡®uprising¡¯. Nay, it was much deeper than that.

    In the wide universe there existed a Law that was always overlooked but caused one of the highest death rates out of all the Laws. This was the Law of Fortune.

    When Fortune looked upon you with grace, you were destined for success. When Fortune looked upon you with disdain, you were destined for doom.

    Obviously, a lot of people knew that but rarely did anyone truly believe it. But it was true and Eridel knew it. He also had a small understanding of the mechanisms of the Law of Fortune and its ties with the Law of Fate.

    This enabled him to see the dark path that all the champions of his World would have had if he didn¡¯t put a stop to it.

    What many people didn¡¯t know was that every Time a Life Form twisted its fate and overcame its life-changing obstacles, their Fortune was used up. Every time they survived their calamities that normally would have killed them¡­ They stole from Fate.

    Of course, there were many ways for Fortune to go up and down but that didn¡¯t take away from the fact that ALL heroes eventually faced a miserable ruination. There was a reason why the quote ¡®Die a Hero or live long enough to see yourself become a Villain¡¯ existed. The people thought that it was just a funny phrase but¡­ little did they know.

    Heroes don¡¯t just become Villains for entertainment, they became villains because of the boundless sorrow that pushed them over the edge.

    Someone like Asura who was initially a lowly Ogre but went on to become the Lord of all Monsters had unknowingly sold buckets of Fortune in exchange for Fate. But it was actually more accurate to say that he stole from Fate and Fate took away his Fortune in retaliation.

    If things went as it is¡­ Asura was finished. It was actually quite bad, maybe his wife would be r*ped and his children devoured before his eyes after being betrayed by his own subordinates who then decided to burn his soul for a hundred years whilst showing him the enslavement of his few remaining descendants. If Asura by some miracle (which by the way would steal more Fate) managed to escape, how could his soul not be twisted beyond recognition, how could unlimited hatred not consume his thoughts? How could he not¡­ become the villain?

    That was how petty and savage Fortune could be when it lost all of its favour for you.

    But fear not for Eridel had already cracked the cheat code.

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    This is where the Tribulations come in. Eridel had set the Tribulations in place as a means for Fate to set in place a proper punishment for those who take from it. In exchange, it would give the Fortune back and all would be well¡­ if they survived.

    The white coloured Soul Tribulation that Asura had received at the end was a manifestation of the gallons of Fate that he had absorbed and what he must properly pay for.

    But taking your Fortune back was not all there was to the Tribulations. Not in the slightest.

    Not only did the Tribulations give you your Fortune back, but the Tribulation Lights themselves actually benefited the body. They vaporised impurities and purified the Mana (or other substitute) inside the body. They also altered the body to make it more perfect for cultivation, becoming more sensitive and receptive to essence of all kinds.

    Just the fact that the Tribulations would give you back your Fortune was enough to cause a ruckus in the Law Worlds. But now they can also help to grant you a body that¡¯s more perfect for cultivation too?! Madness!

    Any yet.

    That was not all.

    Eridel watched as the bodies of the Beasts and Monsters that had entered the 4th Realm began to change.

    ¡­

    Asura¡¯s body began to softly float as sudden wind currents gathered around him and the Magic Energy in the vicinity rose like a tsunami before flooding straight into his body.

    After 5 minutes of soaking up untold amounts of Magic Energy, Asura¡¯s 5 metre tall body began to shrink as the wounds on his body began to simultaneously heal.

    After his body was reduced to 2 metres tall, his body started experiencing grand alterations. First, his second pair of arms receded into his body as if they were illusions.

    Next was the colour of his skin; the colour had changed into a very light grey that was much paler in comparison to his original skin colour but still remained healthy looking. In fact, it actually looked slightly luminous. On top of that the skin was very, very smooth. There were no imperfections or scars to hide its strangely alien beauty.

    After that was the change in his skeletomuscular system. Asura¡¯s body seemed to have been¡­ refined? His muscles were shorter, less bulky and instead more streamlined. His body looked like it was directly configured for combat, making him look like an apex humanoid male. His face had changed, looking much more handsome and containing a devilish charm that would prove to be fatal to females of any humanoid species.

    Even his hair had changed; Elongating until it reached the middle of his back and becoming more lustrous and voluminous as if he had never lived in the wild for nearly 130 years.

    Last but not least were the extra pair of horns that had appeared on each side of his forehead. Now, Asura had a total of four black, jagged horns that pierced towards the sky with the original ones on the sides of his head being more curled.

    Asura had become a Greater Demon. The 4th Realm that all Monsters must reach or die trying.

    Asura¡¯s body gracefully floated back to the ground with one foot stepping first as his eyes slowly opened, portraying the elegance of a Greater Demon that his previous form completely lacked.

    ¡°Well then¡­ This is interesting. Come out Babunda, let me see your face.¡±

    RUSTLE

 Ch.56 Celestial Beast

    ¡®They have achieved communication, they all have achieved communication.¡¯ Eridel thought impassively as he turned his attention to the other magisterial transformations that took place all over the World.

    This was actually the result of the common language that Eridel had installed into the System. A language that all Enlightened Species could speak and a language that all Beasts and Monsters at the 4th Realm gained.

    This was bound to cause temporary confusion but there was no other way. The System spoke directly into the mind and when the status and other such things were in view, there were words to be read.

    Thoughts of intent wouldn¡¯t cut it.

    ¡®Oh?¡¯

    Eridel¡¯s attention was attracted to another phenomenon that occurred in the Southern Desert of the Central Continent.

    In the boundless lands filled with sand and dunes stood the biggest Life Form that the Planet had ever seen since the dawn of its birth.

    And it was still in the middle of growing.

    The Beast was actually an Elephant, one that had been there since from the beginning meaning it was approximately 127 years old which by itself was already an achievement for a prey Beast like that. Prey Beasts tended to die a lot, go figure.

    It was an even bigger achievement for a herbivore to actually reach the zenith of the 3rd Realm which allowed it to experience the ¡®Rule of 3 Tribulation¡¯ and the corresponding transformation.

    But something was different.

    Instead of decreasing in size before taking a humanoid shape, it was actually increasing in size at a colossal rate.

    ¡®A Celestial Beast! How wonderful~¡¯

    Eridel knew what was going on and he was alight with glee.

    ¡­

    How long had he walked these Sands¡­

    He did not know¡­

    Since the time he first drew breath he was privileged to have seen all kinds of things. Some he wished would fade away from the depths of his memory, and some that desperately wished would forever exist within his soul.

    His family¡­ Oh, his precious family. Why did they have to die?

    But he knew the answer. In the everlasting cycle of life and death there would always be those that are ¡®predators¡¯ and those that are ¡®prey¡¯. Those that take lives to better their own and those that remained passive until life seeped out of their veins and abandoned them.

    Unfortunately, he and his family were ¡®prey¡¯ and such things tended to die a lot.

    He had even seen the fall of his mightier and hairier cousins and he would never forget the despair of that time, the time that he had thought he had found peace in the protection of the Mammoths, only for it to be SNATCHED.

    But despite all the times that death had brushed his soul..

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    Life had yet to abandon him and he continued to draw breath.

    And now¡­ he had once again come close to death. 3 golden strikes from the sky that seemed to beseech for his destruction. Were the clouds above predators too? It matters not. He had survived once again and it wasn¡¯t even the worst of his experiences. He still remembered another time when his flesh and skin were lacerated from his bones, blood soaked the earth beneath him with the screeching of abominable Beasts resounded in his soul even now.

    He was so very tired.

    Ah but once again he had been given a boon for his troubles. The other time, it had been a whole body upgrade that had made him extremely tough and quite handsome if he must say so himself.

    This time, he had been given 2 choices to choose from.

    <Congratulations Host. You have met the requirements for the Celestial Beast and now have 2 evolutions to pick from.>

    <Enlightened Beast: Gain a humanoid transformation with the ability to absorb Essence and utilise Runes.>

    <Celestial Beast: Unfortunately, the Host is unqualified for this information.>

    <The host has 10 seconds to choose before a forced evolution as an Enlightened Beast.>

    ¡­What? It was that voice again that had been somewhat helpful when he was being attacked by the sky, but now it was talking nonsense.

    He didn¡¯t quite understand but¡­ he met the requirements for the evolution but not the requirements for its information?

    Well¡­ going by the series of events, the Celestial Beast should be more impressive?

    <Does the Host wish to evolve into a Celestial Beast?>

    ¡®...Yes?¡¯

    <Congratulations>

    ¡®Oh? Why thank y- hnngh?!¡¯

    All thoughts fled as pain wracked him to the depths of his soul.

    Never in his entire life had he suffered such an utter devastation like this and it was actually increasing.

    He tried and failed to scream. Even sight and sound had fled him at this point and all he could feel was a soul-dissipating agony.

    More senses soon began failing him. Taste¡­ Touch¡­ When was it that he stopped feeling his body? And why oh why did pain still sing the loudest?

    In fact, how much time had he spent in this state? It was beginning to feel like he had already spent a whole lifetime but maybe it was more?

    Just as his mind was beginning to disintegrate, the pain abruptly vanished and his senses were shoved back into him. Not that he could make use of them, he was terribly disorientated.

    But¡­

    ¡°Once again¡­ I have survived¡­¡±

    <Congratulations Host. You have been gifted with the following name: Apis>

    Apis¡¯ 500 metre tall body crumpled to the ground with a boom before he passed out.

    ¡­

    ¡®Absolutely wonderful~ I didn¡¯t expect to see a Celestial Beast so soon!¡¯

    Eridel looked upon the Apis¡¯ behemoth-like body that was definitely the biggest one on the planet.

    The skin of the Elephant was a stone grey that looked as ancient and majestic as the World itself instead of the mere 127 years that it has spent in existence.

    They contained strange but exquisite markings of a darker colour that attracted the eye but Eridel knew that if any mortal even attempted to comprehend them it would cause them immense pain.

    The Elephant wore thick ankle bands made from gold that were adorned with different jewels and they were certainly not there before. Obviously, they were a result of the Evolution. Looking at the way they pulsed with a faint light each time Apis took a breath, one would wonder if the jewellery were actually organic.

    On top of that, there were 2 gigantic dangling earrings attached to each ear that carried a strange aura of intimidation and unstoppable might. They were definitely not normal.

    Neither were the tusks that jutted out of the Elephants face. They were completely gold and radiated a terrifying aura that threatened to slice you apart just by looking at it.

    And last but certainly not least was the tremendous size that the Beast had reached.

    A whole whopping 500+ metres tall.

 Ch.57 The Lesser Undead

    _____

    [ ??????????????''?? ?????????????? ]

    ???????? ?????????????? ???? ???????????????? ????????????????, ???? ?????? ?????? ?????????????? ???? ?????????? ????????????; ????????????.

    _____

    A Celestial Beast. A Beast that had met specific and yet ambiguous requirements in order to unlock the evolution.

    A Celestial Beast didn¡¯t obtain a human form nor the ability to absorb essence freely from the air. However, they obtained the most tyrannical and divine bodies possible that allowed them to be multiple times stronger than other Beasts of the same level.

    In fact, some of the more talented Celestial Beasts would be able to fight other Beasts that were a whole realm above them (e.g Realm 4 Stage 5 Celestial Beast fighting against a Realm 5 Stage 5 Regular Beast). It got even more stupendous when such Celestial Beasts were Laws Beasts at the same time.

    But that was for another time.

    Right now, Eridel had much more pressing issues. Somewhat unexpected but at the same time it was to be expected.

    HUMANITY WAS FAILING!

    In a regular World, there shouldn¡¯t be a situation where an Enlightened Race was at the bottom of the food chain but here it was!

    Ants and rats were casually bullying humans, lower-mid level life forms like wolves were enforcing humans as servants and higher level life forms like the Dragons and Snakes were straight up enslaving them or using them as cattle! A DISGRACE!

    As an ex-human and current elite Planetary Engineer, Eridel could not let such an imbalance persist!

    Eridel zoomed his attention to the North Continent and a group of Human teenagers that were running frantically through a forest.

    The picture of desperation and despair could be found on each of their faces, clearly something was chasing them. And alas, the sound of a rustling bush was heard and an indistinguishable shadow appeared with a shocking speed that the children were unprepared for.

    The shadow latched onto one of the younger children that was lagging behind and promptly bit down on his nape as the child screamed with terror.

    ¡°NOOOOO!¡± screamed one of the girls that was running in the front. She faltered in her running as she watched as her 12 year old brother was devoured.

    Unfortunately for her, she was already lacking in energy and screaming out loud and splitting her attention like that wasn¡¯t really conducive to escaping.

    The girl tripped and didn¡¯t have the energy to right herself and she wasn¡¯t even sure if she was willing. That was her brother right there, the one she promised to protect till her death so was there even a point in escaping anymore? She briefly caught the image of the despair in her brother''s eyes as more of those strange creatures appeared and surrounded him. Dismay gripped her heart before the disorientation of falling scattered the image.

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    The girl collapsed to the ground, but she didn¡¯t even have the time to blink before her arm was grabbed and she was dragged in the same direction that she had been running again.

    A boy had actually grabbed the girl and continued running. He had seen the situation and had seen the little boy die but there was nothing he could do about that, he could however save the boy¡¯s sister so that was what he would do.

    Though, now they were both in danger and he didn¡¯t know how they could possibly survive.

    He forcefully dragged the girl in front of him before straightening her posture and pushing her forward, all in one movement.

    It was such a beautiful manoeuvre that one would think that he had experience in pushing reluctant runners.

    The girl took one more glance at her brother before cringing in horror and turning back to run. A ferocious expression began to grow on her face and her running started to look more like stomping as if she wanted to punish the ground for whatever sight she had just seen.

    The boy felt like sighing but he was already huffing and puffing. At this point he was already familiar with this scenario and he had seen many of his people die. But this time it was worse.

    Some strange system had arrived and they were able to somehow communicate with each other using the strange sounds that the system itself had used. Words¡­ that¡¯s what it was, sometimes he forgot.

    But ever since then they had achieved a much closer relationship, everyone including him had felt much more like family since they were able to share their experiences and it was so fun.

    Alas, they had forgotten the reality of their situation and the cannibals had found them and made them pay savagely in price.

    ¡­That little boy wasn¡¯t even the 3rd death today.

    He shook his head from such depressing thoughts and continued running. He was good at that, if you wanted to live in this World you need to know how to run. His father had always taught him how to run even before the appearance of the cannibals, too bad he was dead now.

    Besides the girl who was running a couple metres in front of him there were 3 other people much further ahead, they were 2 boys and 1 girl and part of the new family they were forming.

    His heart warmed when the 3 in the front turned around and started making gestures for them to run faster.

    He took a quick glance back and was pleased with the distance they had made, the cannibals always took time to eat before resuming chase.

    They should be able to ma-

    CSSSSSHH!

    Huh?

    Neither the boy or girl could comprehend the image of their 3 companions suddenly becoming headless as their heads soared into the sky in a trail of blood.

    What was even more jarring was the fact the bodies still kept running for a few more seconds as blood was ejected in copious amounts.

    Soon, humanoid figures started appearing over the bodies with some getting straight to business and some of them eyeing the boy and his last living friend.

    These humanoids actually looked exactly like humans but neither of them was actually whole. They either had a large amount of flesh missing from their bodies or were complete skeletons. Some were more complete than others but some you would NEVER confuse for a living being.

    They were cannibals.

    But Eridel would prefer to call them lesser undead.

    The girl dropped to her knees with a look of horror as her companions were devoured whilst the boy completely stopped running. He didn¡¯t even bother to look at the scene and merely gazed at the ground with soulless eyes as his body passively tried to regather oxygen.

    The picture of defeat.

    ¡°Um¡­ would you guys like some help?¡±

 Ch.58 Eridelâ€™s Manifestation

    Everyone froze. The undead were incapable of speech and the only 2 people alive were currently¡­ indisposed. So who, who was it that was speaking in such a jovial tone?

    And what was it they said? They were offering help?

    The boy that had previously given up hope snapped his head to the place that the voice had come from, seeking for hope, seeking for anything that would save him and his final remaining friend. And he found-

    ¡°Wow¡­¡±

    His brain actually stuttered like a glitch in a code and needed a moment to comprehend the ethereal image before him.

    A¡­ Man? Nay, not a Man. A Man could not accomplish this. Although the figure was undoubtedly masculine, there was not a doubt in his heart that this being was above mortality and maybe even life itself.

    Far, far above Humanity.

    The entity was roughly 7ft tall with a musculature and visage that was so perfect that it was as if every curvature and every colour tone was set in place for the sole purpose of intoxication. One look was not enough, one look would NEVER be enough.

    And yet, the boy felt like he would die if he looked a second longer.

    A deep unrelenting wave of primordial fear assailed his senses, prompting him to flee and never look back. In fact even the memory of the very scene that was playing out before him was threatening to evaporate. But even then, he was almost willing to risk the certain death that his instincts were warning him of for just 1 more look. Just 1 more look at the beyond. Almost.

    But reason prevailed and he looked to the ground before his very existence vanished.

    However 2 things took place when he did so. First was the notion that he was being unbelievably silly. Just looking at someone shouldn¡¯t be as dangerous as the fate that his body was seemingly promising. He even wanted to take that oh so desperate look that he had just forsaken himself when the second fact hit him.

    He could not for the life of him remember a single detail other than 2 gloriously golden eyes.

    A gold who¡¯s beauty disgraced the sun. A grace so vast that it encompassed the World. And the effortless power to enthral that was oh, so dangerous. And yet¡­

    How was it possible that he couldn¡¯t remember a single other thing?

    It was that thought that made him panic. His repeated desperate attempts for a memory that his mind was fighting to delete or at least seal was actually started to cause him damage.

    Blood spurted out of his nose and welled up in his eyes as his body started twitching. Only the feminine groan of pain and a quick glance enlightened him to the fact that his friend was suffering the same fate.

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    Their bodies were rejecting ANYTHING that had to do with the entity including memory and he was completely terrified.

    ¡°Relax.¡±

    A sonorous voice that was filled with honey and power sounded out, swimming through the air and caressing the ears of those who had the capability to hear.

    He didn¡¯t realise it before in the heat or rather diminishing heat of the situation but that voice was not normal.

    The boy absolutely refused to believe that the sounds that he could make and the sounds that the entity were making originated from the same plane of existence. And with the lack of memory he couldn¡¯t even confirm that the sound that was literally touching him had come from a Human¡¯s mouth even if they were ¡®Human¡¯ words.

    What kind of Human spoke in words that felt like the warm hug of his father? This entity was absolutely not within his ability to understand and most certainly had the power to make him vanish like his instincts had been badgering him about.

    And yet, just that 1 word was enough to make his apprehensions and qualms dissipate.

    ¡®I¡¯m finished¡¯

    A small remaining part of him managed to think the thought before that too was scattered into nothingness.

    A smile of adoration and comfort crept onto his face.

    ¡­

    ¡®Well fuck.¡¯

    Eridel¡¯s right eye twitched as he fought to keep the frustration off his face. It had been so long since he had fitted the body of a Humanoid or any kind for that matter and the lack of practice assaulted his patience.

    Indeed. The entity that was causing the minds of those around him to go through such pandemonium was the humanoid manifestation of Eridel himself, but at the same time not quite.

    The body had most of the functions that an enlightened species should contain and obviously a bit more but it was a sham. The body was not a life form at all.

    It was like an illusive amalgamation of Laws that formed together to give the image of a body. The only thing that made it more than what it was was the piece of Eridel¡¯s soul that it had been forcefully fused with.

    This allowed Eridel to completely embody the manifestation and gain the full body experience but even then, his situation was a lot more volatile than what he would wish for.

    On a happier note, the body he made was pretty handsome if he had to say so himself. It couldn¡¯t be helped, his pride as an entire planet and phenomenal existence with the power to wield all laws would NEVER allow him to make anything less than exemplary for his manifestation on the planet.

    The body was roughly 7ft tall with long flowing white hair, golden eyes reminiscent of his primordial essence and pure white robes that slowly undulated with an unseen force.

    In reality, a true manifestation or whatever it was called required him to do a pseudo reincarnation on a part of his soul into a soulless embryo. That would truly make the body he gained organic and less than likely to break apart along with that part of his soul.

    For now, this current form would do. Or so he thought.

    Even if he wasn¡¯t rusty when it came to using the body, he was a complete novice when it came to wielding this amount of power and it was causing serious effects to the environment.

    Talk less of its less than visible effects on reality, just its effects on the 2 children before him were causing him a headache.

 Ch.59 Genes

    Eridel sighed before pushing aside all distracting thoughts. It was better to get this over with before the 2 kids in front of him had a mental breakdown for real.

    The boy was 16 whilst the girl was 14. No need to guess when he could see it like a splotch of red paint on a blank sheet of paper.

    As for their appearance¡­

    ¡®They are ugly.¡¯

    There was no ¡®mmm, the more you look at them the better the look¡¯, nay, they were simply unattractive, dirty too.

    Even if they had entered the Body Refinement Realm (Realm 1) by virtue of the essence filled food they had eaten and had become cultivators, who were all supposed to be beautiful and handsome; They were quite unsightly.

    There was no other way around it, Humans did not even have a history of 200 years and they simply had no need for beauty in this era.

    Back on Eridel¡¯s home planet, beauty was used as a trait that the weaker females used to attract mates and that was AFTER the amount of bloodbaths were diminished and Humans actually had the time to start admiring and acknowledging the concept of beauty. It probably started with the sun followed by nature and whatnot. When beauty within female Humans became a thing and the ugly ones were neglected and left to die out, it was much more needed for them to go through a genetic change. Only much, much later did Men need to care about beauty within themselves, just being strong used to be all that was needed to attract mates and that to some extent still persists till this day since instincts that last thousands of years don¡¯t just delete themselves. However, the mind is a powerful thing and if generations of females were going to be taught from young that their ideal ¡®mate¡¯ was the prince charming, or at the very least a gentleman who would treat them with delicate care, that was what they would seek. Being powerful was no longer enough and Men now needed sophistication, charisma and to some degree, good looks. 1 of the 3 at least.

    In the Eridius World there was no such thing as a weaker gender, in fact, female lions also had manes (even if they were quite different) that enabled them to attract mates just the same way the males did and that was just 1 of the ¡®slight¡¯ differences between the Eridius World and others.

    The only thing you needed in this World was power. You want a harem? Power¡¯s your key. You want resources? Power is your employer. You want to be a ruler? Power is your backer. Power, power, power.

    There was NO need for beauty.

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    Humans were unlike the Elves that Eridel had forcefully encoded beauty upon or even the High Humans whose beauty was founded by the Queen herself.

    However, there will be a day that the Humans will encounter these beautiful people and it will be interesting to see what happens.

    Going back to the 2 Humans in front of Eridel, they were indeed cultivators of the body refinement realm meaning that they had good bodies, symmetrical faces and clear skin, barely any of that skin could be seen thanks to the clumps of dirt and waste that clung to them so it need not be said that there was no concept of hygiene. And even if they had symmetrical features, the features were terribly bland and completely unflattering.

    But for the sake of things, the boy had brown hair and black eyes with the girl having black hair and the same black eyes. To top that off, her hair was just as short as the boys which meant that it stopped by her ears. After all, what was the need for long hair? Beauty? HAH! It gets in the way of fighting, NO NEED! They didn¡¯t even need to cut it, they just didn¡¯t have a single chromosome that thought long hair was useful.

    In reality they weren''t ACTUALLY ugly, not in the truest sense. Cultivators can never have odd features that constitute being ugly so they weren''t ugly. But if you look at people like Asura, Raiko, Drako and all those other beastly studs in their humanoid forms, not to mention the even more peerlessly attractive Elven and High Human Queens, these 2 kids were woefully ugly in comparison.

    Whatever the case, they were both smiling towards the ground like the fact that the Undead were literally vibrating with terror with some of them even passing out right beside them didn''t mean anything. Clearly, Eridel''s ''simple message'' to tell the relax was doing a lot more than making sound.

    To be honest, it wasn¡¯t intentional. None of their reactions were intentional. The fear came as a result of his [Quality of Being], not even his aura because that was thankfully not leaking. Eridel feared that they would simply drop dead if it did.

    But anyways, a Quality of Being could be summarised as the quality or rank of someone''s existence, kind of like the difference between a Dragon and a Mouse even if they were in the same cultivation realm and stage, they were still Worlds apart.

    Someone with a high Quality of Being often had the effect of making weaker beings unable to resist or even think of a single thought beyond fear.

    Now that you know that, it was obvious that Eridel¡¯s Quality of Being was very, very high.

    As for his voice that had forcefully calmed the 2 children, that was something that Eridel had ever since he became a World, each time he became stronger the voice became more attractive and more powerful. Deceive, Seduce or Manipulate, he could do it with a single sound.

    Even if it was unfair to others and he didn¡¯t even plan for it, he wasn¡¯t one to throw away power even if he could. Was he, a 2000 year old being, supposed to care about the ethics of others? Nay.

    Fear or revere him, it matters not.

    ¡®Now, for these little chosen ones, heroes chosen by the World itself to save the continent from the ooooh~ so scary undead, what powers shall I gift them?¡¯

    A condescending grin etched itself on his face as millions of thoughts flickered through his mind.

 Ch.60 Trees of Death

    ¡°My name is Jonas¡±

    Eridel`s voice billowed out like a pleasurable mist that coursed through the bodies of those that heard.

    The 2 Humans shivered from the feeling as elation and peace grew in their hearts. They were still looking at the ground, not daring to look up. But they were extremely comfortable and felt utterly satisfied. So long as they heard this voice, they yearned for nothing.

    *Thud*

    Another undead collapsed.

    Footsteps were heard before the end of cloth entered their vision, not that they knew what it was. In fact they were thinking that it must have been part of his actual body, like fur to a wolf.

    They had seen many strange creatures and it could be said that their minds were broad.

    ¡°Come, let me show you something.¡±

    A hand on their shoulders and everything in sight disappeared before a different scenery appeared.

    A small cloud beneath their feet and boundless lands just below. They had been¡­ teleported?

    Shock flashed on their faces as they looked at each other. They were seriously out of their element now and things were appearing like a dream. How had they appeared up in the clouds?

    Back on Eridel¡¯s home planet, any Human in this position would have asked the additional question: ¡®How were they standing on clouds?¡¯ But here in the Eridius World there was no science that said that clouds were condensed water vapour and therefore intangible, so of course, why should they question its solidity? Why should clouds fail to serve as a platform?

    The boy looked in awe at the other bigger clouds slightly higher up in the sky whilst the girl looked below, marvelling at the vastness of the World.

    ¡°Look closer, look at what has become of your continent.¡±

    It was the ethereal voice of ¡®Jonas¡¯ that broke them out of their amazement, remembering that there was another being with them that was many times more interesting. It couldn¡¯t be helped, their body and soul simply refused anything to do with something so dangerous and kept trying to delete the memory.

    But the words were spoken and they were impossible to disobey, not that they had the intention.

    Both of them looked more closely at the grand expanse of land below them as they briefly mulled over the word ¡®continent¡¯ when a surprising definition from the system resounded in their heads.

    <A continent is a continuous expanse of land that contain many kinds of life forms just like the one below you. In this World there are currently 5 continents.>

    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    The girl could never get quite used to the system¡¯s strange voice that was only ever heard in her head but she appreciated its help.

    It was then that they noticed something odd.

    ¡°What¡­ what is that?¡± the girl muttered as horror began to creep in her heart. The boy also stumbled with fear as his eyes discovered the source of his friend`s distress.

    Eridel watched them patiently as he mentally patted himself on the back.

    ¡®They¡¯re actually a lot calmer than I thought they would be despite the series of events of the past 10 minutes. Mmh, it must be because of my divine presence~ Indeed, indeed, I am just simply too- ah¡­ They have forgotten me again.¡¯

    Eridel wasn¡¯t actually surprised, everything apart from his lack of control and the increasing effects of his voice had been within his expectations. So much so that he was beginning to feel bored and decided to entertain himself with hubris. But what a blow to his heart it was each time they treated him like air.

    He turned his golden eyes to the ravaged continent below.

    Unlike other continents, what used to be green was now mostly grey. Tormented by the reign of the Abomination, the continent had fallen to a state where the essence of undeath had soaked deep and that¡­ was not quite healthy. For any kind of life.

    This was most noticeably shown by the effect on the trees. The status of trees went something like 70% dead and wasted, 20% barely living and 10%... Undead.

    Indeed, when the essence of undeath had infiltrated the trees, there were a few special ones that had actually managed to adapt to the essence and even use it to evolve. These special Trees had actually broken through to the Spirit Tree stage and developed souls, something that should have taken 873 more years.

    On top of that, their souls were actually stronger than what a normal Spirit Tree¡¯s soul should have been, and that was even after taking the special soul-flavoured Magical Energy of this World into consideration.

    Unfortunately, these trees had developed a new craving for the taste of life and would attack anything containing it. The residents in the surroundings had learnt that lesson quite firmly and they would never forget it.

    The wood of these trees were black in colour whilst the leaves were grey. The branches of these trees were viciously crooked and finally, the total height of the trees ranged from 70-110 metres tall.

    These were the Undead Trees, or as the few remaining residents on the continent liked to call them: Trees of Death.

    However, there was something much more special at the center of these trees and even Eridel was impressed. But the 2 Humans were¡­ not so welcoming.

    In the west was where the Trees of Death were mainly concentrated and when you saw the 300 metre tall Tree of Death at the very heart of it, it didn¡¯t take much to guess why.

    This tree was obviously much different to the other Trees of Death and it was more than just height. The wood was grey in colour, the exact same shade as the essence of undeath and the leaves were actually a pure white. They even had a slight glow to them and would surely look lovely in the night.

    But there were 1, no 2 things that kept it from becoming a tourist spot or even an idol of worship.

    First, was the revolting aura of malevolence that radiated out of the tree. Not only did this tree have a high Quality of Being, but its cultivation that was surprisingly a 20th of the way to becoming a Fate Tree (which by the way should have taken a few thousand years) was not helping the tree stay lowkey. Clearly, the Tree has soaked up a lot of essence.

    Second¡­ Well, second was the fact that it was a TREE OF DEATH! There would be no researchers holding hands and circling the trunk of the tree each year.

    How unfortunate.

 Ch.61 Transformation

    The 2 Children shivered in fright as they looked at the baleful aura released by the giant Tree of Death. It was so oppressively invasive that thoughts of retreat began to propagate in their minds. ¡®RUN! ESCAPE! FLEE!¡¯. The many miles of distance between their location and the Tree apparently meant nothing.

    Sweat seeped out of their pores as their skins paled. Chests heaved up and down with hyperventilation with darkness creeping into their vision. They were about to pass out.

    ¡°Be calm.¡±

    And like the words of an angel, all of their fears and anxieties fled as peace was once more restored in their hearts. Eridel`s voice blanketed them in an atmosphere of tranquillity and invincibility. Nobody would be able to hurt them here.

    Quite the good trick.

    They quickly turned to the source of their growing obsessions only for their heads to be forcefully grabbed and made to bow.

    ¡®It would be bad if their minds started glitching again. There¡¯s only so much that their minds can take.¡¯ Eridel thought, keeping his hands on their heads to prevent them from laying eyes on him.

    The boy gave a sigh of relief. He was only now remembering the time he had almost imploded from the sight of the mighty entity and his repetitive failure in memory was beginning to annoy him.

    ¡®Why do I keep forgetting?'' He thought in frustration. However the thought didn¡¯t last long and his attention was quickly absorbed by the entity before him.

    ¡°Look once more~¡± Eridel whispered.

    And they did. This time with Eridel purposefully blocking the tree¡¯s presence.

    ¡°Look at the destruction that has been wrought upon your lands. Hundreds of thousands of your people have already perished and more continue to die~¡±

    Eridel spread his arms out like the Christ the Redeemer statue.

    ¡°Can you see the claws of death that have grasped your fate? Your people are a doomed race.¡±

    Eridel¡¯s words no longer invoked the enchanting waves of tranquillity, but instead the bone scraping wrath of animosity. An uncomfortable heat smothered them as rage painted itself on their faces.

    ¡°If nothing is done, Humanity will go extinct and all the people you love will crumble away. Is this what you want¡­?¡± Eridel egged them further.

    ¡°N-No! I don¡¯t want that to happen, I hate it! I HATE THEM!¡± the girl shrieked as she clenched her fists to the point that blood spilled.

    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Eridel gave a small smile.

    ¡°Really? But what can you do? You are weak~¡± Eridel whispered in her ear.

    ¡°I¡­ I-¡± The girl was stumped with what to say when the boy interjected.

    ¡°Save us!¡±

    Eridel wasn¡¯t surprised with the directness of their words. Human beings had yet to learn the art of discretion and had barely scraped on the concept of lying.

    ¡°But I can not do that¡­¡± Eridel`s voice sounded like it was full of regret, it was as if it was his biggest shame that he couldn¡¯t personally help them.

    That was obviously a lie.

    But the effects of his voice were indeed marvellous. The whole atmosphere seemed to be dampened with sorrow. You would almost believe that rain would start pouring.

    ¡°Wh-¡±

    ¡°However¡­¡± and just like that the atmosphere shifted again. ¡°I can grant you the power to change your fate. The power to wrestle survival from extinction and the power¡­ to save your people with your own 2 hands.¡±

    BOOM!

    Lightning crackled against the sky with a shocking intensity. Being in such proximity with the sky caused fear to pulse within the 2 Humans, but that was soon drowned by the reality of what the entity that loomed over their backs was presenting.

    Power? The power to save humanity by themselves?

    ¡°H-How?¡± The boy''s eyes widened with utter confusion and surprise.

    ¡°Like this~¡±

    The 2 children felt a hand rest on their heads which caused them to jump but they didn¡¯t even have time to think before waves and waves of unknown Essences began to pour down into their bodies.

    ¡°AAAAAAAAAH!¡±

    Shrieking like banshees as their heads snapped back to the sky with their eyes rolled back. It was to the point that their irises had disappeared and anyone looking at the scene would think they were experiencing the worst torture imaginable.

    However, the reality of the situation couldn¡¯t be further from the truth.

    As the essence that Eridel had shoved into them began to do their work, unprecedented changes began to take place all over their body. Everything down to their very DNA was affected and it quickly began to show.

    With the boy, his height steadily grew until he reached 6ft which was an impressive height for a 16 year old in this era and his skin developed a sun-kissed tan that carried a masculine air. His hair rapidly lengthened until it reached his shoulders and the colour was a lustrous amber that wasn¡¯t unlike fire when it moved in the wind. His eyes were a lighter orange and they complimented his hair. On top of that, his musculature had drastically improved and was especially primed for mortal combat.

    On the other hand the girl had reached a height of 5 ''8, gained clear white skin that was absent of any blemishes and a musculature that whilst defined did not lose a single drop of femininity. In fact it could be said to have increased with the improvement of her figure, especially when you took in her new lavender coloured hair that reached her thighs and her crystal-like blue eyes.

    Gallons of impurities were released out of their bodies but they quickly vaporised along with any remaining dirt on their bodies, leaving them clean and visible for Eridel to see.

    Both of them had experienced shocking transformations and were completely different to their previous forms. It was to the point that nobody would ever recognize them as the same person if they were to make a comparison.

    Clearly. The essence that had entered their bodies hadn¡¯t been normal in the slightest.

    And obviously, it didn¡¯t stop at just looks.

 Ch.62 The Twin Stars of Hope

    The girl trembled as she felt abnormal strength coursing through her body. She had even forgotten about the pain that had been replaced with the soothing self-nourishing effects of her inner Mana. All that she could focus on was the shocking power contained in her small body along with the inherited memories.

    As a matter of fact, she was still in the 2nd Stage of Body Refinement, but the difference in strength between her-now and her-before was like the difference between day and night. There was no comparison. She even felt like she had ascended to the heavens in a single step and unrestrained ambitions began to soar through her heart.

    ¡®With this power I can definitely save all Humans! After that¡­ I will be the new chief? No, with all the Humans under my rule, I can be the new Queen or even Empress¡­! But what are these strange titles?¡¯

    She didn''t actually know the difference between the 3 titles, but when she tried thinking of a word that was above chief (which was the word she got when thinking of the ruler of her small group before), she got the word Queen and then Empress afterwards.

    The common language translation was a magical thing and it would indeed be confusing for the 1st year or so, but soon it would completely assimilate with the steadily growing society.

    Similar thoughts were also running through the boy¡¯s mind and nothing was escaping Eridel¡¯s attention.

    ¡®Good, be ambitious. Take your strength and use it to set the path of humanity forwards. However¡­ With this kind thought process there¡¯s a good chance that they¡¯ll end up killing each other after completing what needs to be done. Personally I don¡¯t care, but when I introduce my new update to the World they¡¯ll probably be unable to stay far from each other, unable to even fathom the thought of the other being harmed. Hehehe~¡¯

    Eridel wasn¡¯t even going to inform them that their current power wasn¡¯t as much as they were thinking it was.

    The quick increase in power along with the sharp contrast made them think what they had was unfathomable and the fact that they didn¡¯t know that Eridel was blocking the special Tree of Deaths aura from them wasn¡¯t helping that.

    In reality, all they had was the power of a Stage 6 Body Refiner.

    Extremely impressive for being at a mere Stage 2, but not nearly enough for the power houses that were 3 whole realms above them.

    The 2 children druggily turned away from the tree to look at the almighty figure who had saved them from death and provided them with power to change their fate. They had no more problems remembering his existence now that Eridel had left a pseudo imprint on their souls, but what was lost was forever lost to them and they could only remember his remarkable eyes.

    Now they could finally see him in all his glory!

    And yet they were disappointed.

    All they could see was a strange orange stick with a pointy end and a much smaller stick that was black in colour with a sharp golden tip, this smaller stick was also paired with a¡­ flat rock? All of them hovered over the cloud like magic and it was more than a little strange. However, they had completely different identities to the 2 Children.

    The boy knew that what they would have called a ¡®stick¡¯ in the past was actually a Spear. 1 of many weapons that he had gained the knowledge of in his inherited memories.

    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    The Spear was 2 metres tall and looked like it was carved directly from an Amber gemstone, meaning it carried the same transparency and was just as smooth. Faint rune inscriptions rested all over the weapon including the brighter coloured Christmas-tree-shaped blade but they were inactive.

    On the other hand, the girl recognized the small ¡®stick¡¯ as a Rune Inscription Pen and the flat ¡®rock¡¯ as a grimoire.

    The Rune Inscription pen looked like an Ink Pen that was black in colour with intricate golden patterns and a tip of the same colour. It was 10 centimetres long.

    As for the Grimoire, it was a rather nice looking book that was 5 centimetres thick with a black cover made from leather. The same patterns that adorned the pen were also designed into the book around the edges. There was even a book lock with the actual lock part being made out of gold and if you looked closely, an inscription shaped like a Lion¡¯s head laid on the lock.

    Surprise and confusion was all over their faces before they came to the sudden conclusion that these were gifts from their benefactor. With glee practically shining from their skin, they rushed forward to grab their respective gifts.

    The boy grabbed the Spear and the girl grabbed the Pen and Grimoire. They were so giddy that in the process of collecting their gifts, they came close to falling off the cloud.

    This along with the fact that Eridel wasn¡¯t there to take them down made them pale, killing the excitement out of their veins. This was not yet the time to celebrate.

    They paused to see if they would be teleported back but seeing that nothing was happening they were starting to get anxious. Would they be left there forever? Was their bright and colourful future a lie? Was-

    Nay. The cloud soon started moving down and it was clear that it was going to take them back itself. The boy sighed with relief before turning back to the girl who noticed and looked back at him.

    What they saw left them shocked.

    ¡°What!¡±

    ¡°How?!¡±

    This was actually the first time they had taken note of each other ever since they had gained their new powers and they were flabbergasted by their changes in appearance.

    They both looked at each other with awe and their minds were addled. Each of them considered the other the most ¡®aesthetically pleasing¡¯ Humans that they had ever seen and it was causing them certain reactions. Especially in that of the boy. He was 16 years old already and hormones had well and truly embedded itself within him.

    His reaction was quite visible to the girl who looked on with an obvious curiosity. There was no such thing as sexual embarrassment for the Humans that didn¡¯t even know what clothes were in this era.

    ¡®It¡¯s getting bigger?¡¯ she thought.

    However before anything could happen a voice they would never forget resound throughout the air.

    ¡°This is my last message to you children before I next see you¡­ As of right now you are both terribly weak. Do not be conceited and challenge those above your capabilities, for if you die, Humanity and the rest of the continent will follow you to hell. And it is to them that you will have to atone.¡±

    Both of them paled but looked forward with a new found determination.

    ¡°Be brave and do not give up. Fight and never look back! If you succeed, I will be awaiting you my [Twin Stars of Hope]. Gabriel and Seraqiel. May the gods be with you.¡±

    The boy Gabriel, and the girl Seraqiel felt a certain energy rush through their bodies when their names were called, letting them know who was who. It felt so comfortable that they nearly shivered and yet¡­. tears began to slip out of their eyes.

    ¡­

    Above the lands a figure garbed in white robes floated in the sky. It was Eridel and he was staring quite intently at a certain grey coloured cloud that stretched far and wide. Looking closely, a faint flickering of remnant lightning could be seen.

    ¡°What the fuck is that?¡±

 Ch.63 Another Anomaly

    Eridel thought back to his short conversation with the 2 children Gabriel and Seraqiel, but more accurately the effects of his voice.

    With intent, his voice was able to play with the emotions of those around him and even had extra effects that could cause pleasure or pain. However¡­

    The lightning that flashed through the air when he finished the sentence: ¡®the power to save your people with your own 2 hands¡¯- Was absolutely not normal. If Eridel wanted he could indeed achieve the same effect, but that would be him forcefully calling down lightning rather than his voice actually affecting nature itself.

    So at first, for a millisecond, Eridel thought it was a coincidence! And indeed it was. But when Eridel focused on the cloud that the lightning bolt had originated from, he realised that not only was the lightning bolt abnormal, but the cloud too wasn¡¯t it appeared to be either!

    It was alive!

    He almost abandoned the Twin Stars of Hope then and there when he found out, only managing to restrain himself until he passed on their inheritances before vanishing like smoke.

    And now here he was, eyeing the Cloud just above him.

    ¡°What the fuck is that?¡± he muttered, but as he said it, almost all there was to know about the cloud entered his brain as if he were reading a book.

    ¡°Unbeli- No, actually¡­ This is good- Perfect! What a good system indeed~ Hahahaha!¡±

    Eridel spread his arms out with joy as his body tilted until he was parallel with the ground. It was almost as if he had flopped down onto an invisible bed with glee. Rambunctious laughter filled the air as Eridel cuddled his stomach with his arms, there were even unshed tears that twinkled at the corner of his eyes.

    ¡°Hu¡­ hu¡­ Dayum, when was the last time I laughed like that?¡±

    That one question almost brought back unsavoury memories but Eridel¡¯s joy slapped it away. He righted himself and looked at the cloud like he was looking at a priceless treasure.

    The reason Eridel was so excited was because the cloud before his very eyes was actually the same kind of existence that Ciera was! An Anomaly! At least, that¡¯s what he had decided to call them.

    In truth, they were entities that were even more aberrant than Abominations. Anomalies were formed when extremely rare and coincidental phenomena occurred at the same time in the same location, creating an abnormal Lifeform that was formed from the most primary Element that took part in it¡¯s creation.

    In this case, the Anomaly was formed when a Cloud had come into contact with multiple substances and essences along with a vast amount of the Eridius World¡¯s soul-flavoured Magical Energy.

    Now¡­ It was a living Cloud.

    A cloud that contained sentience that could later on develop into sapience and the ability to cultivate, just as Ciera and other Lifeforms could. From the gist of things, the Cloud¡¯s primary affinities were Water, Wind and Lightning which were all powerful in their own right.

    However, unlike Ciera, this cloud did not inherit Eridel¡¯s memories nor the Avatar that the little girl had gained straight from the jump. It¡¯s mind was as empty and pure as a newborn baby and this baby was currently looking back at Eridel with curiosity by using its innate Spirit Sense that the Beast Races gained at Realm 2 and Enlightened Races gained at Realm 4.

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    Just like Ciera, the Cloud had inherited the ability to create Contracts which it would eventually be able to do when it unlocked it¡¯s inheritance that the¡­ System had given it. Eridel could most certainly feel it because it came from him. The System only ensured that the Cloud reached a certain level of cultivation before it could use it¡¯s most essential ability as an Anomaly of the Eridius World.

    It was also the System that made the creation of the Anomalies more concrete and the one that prevented it from getting Eridel¡¯s memories.

    Ciera¡¯s creation was an accident on Eridel¡¯s part, but the Cloud¡¯s creation was a coincidental natural process that the System had encoded onto the World. Kind of like the difference between Eridel giving energy to plants and the System encoding plants the ability to syphon energy from the sun.

    { ??????????????¡¯?? ????????: Of course Plants already have photosynthesis and the System has nothing to do with it. Just take it as an example. }

    Eridel had ¡®programmed¡¯ the System in a way that made it somewhat independent, so unless he was purposefully looking, he wasn¡¯t aware of everything it did. However, it was impossible for the System to truly go against his plans for the World, it had no ego and no wishes, only work.

    Eridel smiled as the Cloud twisted around with both excitement and confusion.

    ¡°Hello little one, I¡¯m quite busy now so I¡¯ll have to go now, but I¡¯ll make sure to come back and visit later. For now, take this name as a gift: Cleo.¡±

    Cleo flashed with bright Lightning as a strange but comforting energy briefly coursed through it''s intangible body along with a system announcement that rang out in its head, congratulating it on gaining a true name.

    Everybody that Eridel had named was given the same announcement, an announcement that they had gained or the name that they already had, was a True Name. A name given by the World itself.

    And there was power in a True Name.

    Eridel¡¯s body disintegrated into sparks of light as he deactivated his Avatar.

    ¡­

    Eridel sighed with relief as he gave a cursory glance over the rest of the World. Some crazy things were going on but nothing on the level of the Abomination Of The North.

    Perfect.

    Now that there were many figures at the 4th Realm, the World would soon ¡®level up¡¯ and enter the Mid World Realm, so he wanted nothing to go wrong.

    As mentioned before, Residents are a World¡¯s lifeblood and the greater they are, the better the World. In correspondence to the amazing achievements of the Eridius World¡¯s residents, The Mid World Realm Evolution was just around the corner. But despite the joyous news, Eridel was having complex feelings.

    Eridel wasn¡¯t blind to the fact that he and consequently the Eridius World¡­ were abnormal. The strange Magical Energy and complex lifeforms never seen before in any other part of the Universe, were just a few of the things that could affect how the World¡¯s Evolution changed.

    The more concerning fact was that the group of 4th Realm Lifeforms that were pushing the World into a Mid World were actually meant to push the World into a High World. Never forget that Low Worlds were barren of Magic and were just like any other small planet that didn¡¯t even know of the existence of cultivation.

    Only the Eridius World had mechanisms that behaved like a Mid World, in fact, if you didn¡¯t take its size into consideration, you could say that the Eridius World was much greater than any other Mid World despite being a Low World.

    Who knew what the World¡¯s Evolution would cause.

    On top of that, Eridel had never seen a World evolve before, these things were just far too rare and took too long to happen for the mere Eridel (who had only lived for 2 millennia) to ever see.

    Even the strange artifact that had changed Eridel¡¯s ¡®life¡¯ all those years ago refused to provide any knowledge on the event.

    Eridel decided to put these thoughts at the back of his head before turning attention to a special group of Dragons that had been sleeping for over a hundred years.

    ¡®What will come will come¡­¡¯

 Ch.64 Earth Rank Flame

    [Central Continent, Dragon Mountain, Heavenly Dragon Flame Cave]

    Within the Heavenly Dragon Flame Cave sat many spectacular figures that would be able to single-handedly wreak havoc across entire tribes and clans, with a few even wielding the power to eradicate entire species. However, they all sat like docile lambs behind the biggest and most beautiful Dragon in front of them, the one and only Crystal Dragon King.

    The Dragon King didn¡¯t pay them a lick of attention and focused on the task at hand, he was already used to being surrounded with such reverent gazes and didn¡¯t bother to acknowledge them. Right now, he was at probably the most important moment in his life and wanted zero distractions to disturb him because if he failed¡­ his life was forfeit.

    The Dragon King looked at the grand violet coloured flame in front of him with a solemn resolution.

    Even if he could go outside and cause carnage across entire races, he was right to be wary now in the face of this flame. Because what he was actually planning on doing was something that no sane Lifeform would ever even dream to do or even think about¡­ He wanted to devour and assimilate the whole Heavenly Dragon Flame!

    Right now he was focusing on raising his affinity with the flame to the max, something which despite his world-class talent and constant dedication, had taken him over a hundred years. But it wouldn¡¯t be long now and in any moment he would be ready.

    ¡°Haaah¡­~ ¡±

    The Crystal Dragon King let out a long sigh as he deepened his comprehensions on the Earth Flame before him. The lowest level of a natural flame produced by the Planet, nothing in existence could create these and they could only be formed naturally¡­ or that would be the case if Eridel, the World itself didn¡¯t have the ability to create them whenever he wanted.

    The Flame before the Dragon King was just an Earth Rank Flame and even then, it was a continental treasure that would cause the whole World to go crazy with desire to possess it. It was also because of this flame that the Dragon King was having to fend off the attacks of Drako and the rest of his ¡®abnormal flying snakes¡¯.

    The reason he had decided to actually go forth with this dangerous endeavour was because even though he was stronger than Drako, he didn¡¯t dare to kill him at all. He still remembered the ridiculously large Snake who had tormented him for a few years before leaving and even if that was many decades ago, he didn¡¯t dare to provoke her ire. Naturally, the giant Snake was J?rma and she had left him with a serious mental scar.

    His hope was that with the full power of the Earth Rank Flame that the Dragon Clan called the [Heavenly Dragon Flame], he would be able to finally get rid of the shadow in his heart; Defeat J?rma, kill Drako and slaughter the rest of their divergent Snake races for good.

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    He didn¡¯t consider those ¡®abnormal flying snakes¡¯ as Dragons at all even if they had the feeling and slight physical traits of one.

    The Dragon King shook his head before closing his eyes to amplify his concentration. This was not the time for idle thoughts, especially not such terrifying ones.

    ¡­

    (2 Days Later)

    ¡°Haaah¡­~ ¡±

    The Crystal Dragon King opened his eyes to reveal one of the most beautiful pair irises on the Planet.

    ¡®It is time¡­¡¯

    He gave a telepathic message to all the Dragons behind him to leave the premises. He had seen a few of the other Supreme Dragons become Realm 4 Enlightened Beasts and he was sure that if he survived the consumption of the Heavenly Dragon Flame, it would push him over that edge and he would also become an Enlightened Beast, in which case it would much, much better if the other Dragons escaped.

    Just thinking back on those wrathful strikes from the sky still gave him chills to this day.

    The Dragon King softly closed his eyes before opening them again with a ruthless look in his eyes. The glare that he had given to many foes, he was now giving to¡­ himself? Well, considering the circumstances, he was indeed about to be viciously ruthless to himself.

    The Dragon King stretched to his full height with his wings spread out and roared with all the dignity of an almighty Dragon King that had colonised entire races, before charging straight at the Violet coloured Flame.

    ¡­

    In a mysterious underground cave that wasn''t too far away from the Dragon Mountain, a mysterious and flabbergasting scene was taking place.

    10 breathtakingly gorgeous Dragons could be seen making their way up a set of steps that led to the outside World.

    Of the 10 Dragons, 9 were dark red in colour with the last and biggest one being a luminous gold. 7 of those dark red Dragons were roughly 1.7 metres long with an aura of brutality that seemed to want to attack anything around them.

    The other 2 dark red Dragons were much larger in size being 4 metres long with their horns and claws being black in colour and swirling with Destruction Laws that looked like neon-red fireflies, but they had 2 contrasting auras that somehow wanted to achieve the same thing. Destruction.

    The female one had an aura that was actually quite mellow and calm like a lake, and yet, there was an undeniable promise of fatality from this ¡®lake¡¯ that made it look like it wanted to drown you until even your soul dissolved.

    On the other hand, the male had a fiery and volatile aura that seemed to want to extinguish EVERYTHING in existence. And yet¡­ just like the other 8 dark red Dragons, they followed the golden Dragon in front without quarrel.

    The golden Dragon was female and had beautiful resplendent scales that lacked any of the blemishes that the dusty environment were promising. The Dragon¡¯s horns and claws were crystal-like and a much lighter yellow in colour than the scales, they were also similarly surrounded by the Essences of Creation that looked like golden fireflies and gave a feeling of impervious might.

    The Golden Dragon was bigger than the rest of them being 5 metres long and on top of that had a much more abnormal aura that whilst gave a calm feeling, seemed to change around a lot like an illusive aurora in the sky. It was extremely ethereal.

    They were obviously the 9 Destruction Dragons including Calmilla and Aeshma alongside the only Creation Dragon in the World, Gaia.

 Ch.65 The Mysterious Dragon of Creation

    For some reason, Gaia had achieved dominance over the rest of the group and no one seemed to dispute it.

    Their cultivations were still the same as before, all the Destruction Dragons being Stage 2 Magic Beasts with Gaia being at Stage 3. But surely she wouldn¡¯t be able to resist if they all ganged up on her right?

    ...What happened back there?

    Soon, they made it up the last step and re-entered the Forest they were born in and left the Dark underground behind. With each breath, the fresh smell of earth, plants, dew and.. other Beasts entered their noses and they shivered with glee.

    Only Gaia and Calmilla remained indifferent to the new sensation. Aeshma however, started growling with murderous intent and even started to make his way over to the closest Beast¡­ only for his head to be slapped to the ground by the impatient Gaia.

    THOCK!

    His head smacked against the ground with a moderate impact that actually made him dizzy. When he eventually got up he shook his head to regain his senses before roaring with anger. Eyes blazing, nostrils flaring and everything.

    ¡°RAAAAA-¡±

    BANG!

    Only to be slapped much harder than before. In fact, if the floor wasn¡¯t so hard his head would be buried.

    Only then did the most wrathful Dragon of Destruction forcefully restrain himself which in itself was simply remarkable. His nature was just so volatile that trying to calm down would always be a herculean effort, but he did it now.

    He glared at the resplendent golden Dragon before him who¡­ looked right back.

    BOOM!

    An avalanche of primordial fear swamped his entire senses like a waterfall of dread, it was to the point that darkness crept up his vision and prevented him from seeing anything other than himself and Gaia¡¯s golden eyes.

    There was something in those eyes that terrified him so fatally that he trembled with fear without daring to move. Only when he quickly lowered his head in absolute submission did the fear start to subside.

    Even then, he still couldn¡¯t stop shaking and he was finding air was harder than ever to inhale. Even though nothing happened, he felt like he had just overcome a great calamity.

    In Gaia¡¯s gaze, there was a certain¡­ indifference, an indifference that was so HEAVY that it created some kind of new unidentifiable emotion that could only be likewise found in Eridel¡¯s eyes. It was the gaze of someone who knew EXACTLY what you were, what you were capable of doing, and how woefully, terribly and absolutely INSIGNIFICANT you were in comparison.

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    If a god were to ever look at a microorganism that hadn¡¯t even achieved a proper body yet, it would probably have this kind of face.

    Gaia turned to look at the rest of her Dragon siblings one by one with all of them avoiding her gaze, before looking back at Aeshma who was still trembling. She shook her head and let out a very human sigh before walking forward again. None of them dared to disobey the silent order to follow and unhesitatingly followed closely.

    In the silence of their palpable fear, only the sound of Aeshma¡¯s low whimpers could be heard.

    ¡®What a bother¡­¡¯

    Gaia shook her head once more. She didn¡¯t really want her siblings to be afraid of her but she knew the effects of the Laws of Destruction. Those who had affinity with those Laws would always be crazy and would only listen to absolute might. If she didn¡¯t do anything, that foolish brother of hers would have charged right into Stage 8 Magic Beast.

    Unlike the others who were completely unaware of Magic Energy, she already knew what cultivation was¡­

    RUUUUUMBLE!

    Every Dragon turned their head back to see the entrance to the cave that they had just left collapse in on itself, sending a cloud of dust and debris into the air.

    Gaia bobbed her head to the side and dodged a small rock that would have hit her before narrowing her eyes.

    ¡®Was that a god? Is there a god watching me? But how can that be¡­? My bone age is 127 and there was certainly no Magic Energy 127 years ago, that was why I had to resort to almost killing myself¡­ Even if the World evolved right after I was forcefully put to sleep and gained Magic Energy, 127 years is not enough for even a Realm 2 cultivator to appear. Talk less of a god.¡¯

    The Dragon roughly shook her head in frustration.

    ¡®Aaargh, my thoughts are too slow. I need to increase my soul cultivation as soon as possible¡­ Wait, who¡¯s Primordial Essence did I absorb back then? This- this World is too weird! Was there a god back there?! Wait¡­ it might have been an immortal from another World... Could he still be here?¡¯

    Wariness flickered through the Dragon¡¯s eyes before she gathered herself and focused back on her path. She needed to find a shelter as soon as possible.

    It was then that she noticed the status of the plant life around her.

    ¡®Am I in a Sacred Land? But even for a sacred land this is way too much. How can every tree, herb and plant already possess Magic Energy? The World has not possessed Magic Energy for more than 127 years!¡¯

    Even though her face remained the same the entire time, her mind was in absolute turmoil. This World was just way too st-

    BOOOOOOOM!

    Gaia almost didn¡¯t want to look up.

    She had honestly seen enough. She was already flabbergasted and she could confidently say that she hadn¡¯t felt this way in a very, very long time. But the shockingly familiar aura that she could sense was simply just provoking her!

    Gaia looked up and what she saw made her freeze so abruptly that it looked like she had been petrified.

    Atop gigantic Mountain that reached into the skies, a glorious Dragon covered in purple crystal scales soared into the air with majestic might. However, even from here you could see the terrible burn injuries that covered its whole body.

    However, its cultivation was rising exponentially and Stage 1 of the Enlightened Beast Ream (4th Realm for Beasts) seemed to be just around the corner. On top of that, the Beast seemed to have also reached the 2nd Stage in Anatomy Refinement.

    Even then, both while extremely shocking to the mysterious Golden Dragon, wasn¡¯t the main source of her shocked attention.

    Gaia gulped with disbelief before arranging her disordered thoughts into coherent words.

    ¡®An Earth Flame?!¡¯

 Ch.66 The Crystal Dragon Kingâ€™s Tribulation

    Gaia watched with astonishment as the majestic Crystal Dragon wreathed in Violet coloured flames soared into the air.

    She couldn¡¯t understand how a World who had not seen Magic Energy for more than 127 years could possibly produce an Earth Flame. Such things normally took at least 1000 years to form and yet here she was, witnessing an Enlightened Beast successfully assimilate with the precious flames in a World like this.

    ¡®Could this Dragon be a foreign invader as well?¡¯

    Gaia just couldn¡¯t believe that such a low level World could keep producing such results! It didn¡¯t make sense!

    The Crystal Dragon maintained its position in the air with its wings whilst looking to the sky with intense focus. As the burn injuries began to fade thanks to the obviously recent upgrade in Anatomy Refinement, new scales replaced the tarnished ones and the true beauty of the Crystal Dragon began to reveal itself.

    ¡®A Crystal Dragon¡­ indeed impressive, especially so for this World. At the very least, even if this World is so abnormal; there is nothing here that I haven¡¯t seen before and I should be okay.¡¯

    Gaia sighed in relief.

    Even before she arrived in this World she had already had her future goals planned out and she didn¡¯t want any deviations. However, even though the World she had arrived in was way out of her expectations, it actually turned out to work in her favour!

    She wasn¡¯t a Beast in her past life so when she first opened her eyes she was disappointed. In truth, her most primary dissatisfaction was the fact that almost all the cultivation techniques and skills in her memory were now redundant and on top of that, she could no longer absorb Magic Energy from the air but now had to eat it from essence rich foods such as meats and herbs.

    That in itself was fine, but where would she find such coveted treasures? Moreover, as a newborn could she even fight to possess them if she was even lucky?

    Alas, reality seemed to paint a different picture and fate seemed to favour her, apparently every Herb in sight was a Magic one and unless she was lazy there shouldn¡¯t be a situation where she found herself unable to gather strength.

    As a Beast, this entire World, or at least this Forest (because she hadn¡¯t seen outside of it), was an absolute paradise!

    Gaia began to think back on her plans to calibrate the ones that needed to be adjusted to the new reality presented before her. And she found herself¡­

    Troubled.

    Like trying to look at a ridiculous maths equation. Her soul was not the same as before and it was extremely hard to connect with the vast amount of intricate thoughts that went into creating a single step of a plan.

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    It was very confusing.

    ¡®I¡¯ll just have to adjust as I go¡­ just like back then when I was Mortal. At the very least, I am still able to cultivate my soul-¡¯

    !!!

    Shock ran through Gaia¡¯s senses as she found herself suddenly at risk of sudden doom. Every muscle in her body tightened with tension as she forced herself to look up at the sky where she sensed the danger coming from.

    Above the awaiting Crystal Dragon King, a cloud of the purest white swirled into existence. In the middle of the cloud there was a large hole that was filled with a golden Magic Circle. However Gaia was unfamiliar with that term and thought-

    ¡®A Rune Formation?! What is going on!¡¯

    Gaia was once more dumbfounded as she peered at the ominous yet heavenly looking cloud that seemed to be preparing something. And from the solemn expression on the Crystal Dragon¡¯s face, she could decipher that whatever was coming was not going to be a dance in the wind.

    ¡­

    The Crystal Dragon King couldn''t help but let a trace of fear creep into his heart. He had flown up here with so much confidence after overcoming the ordeal with the Heavenly Dragon Flame, thinking that if he could tame that flame then the Tribulation that was sure to come would be nothing in comparison.

    But fate decided to give him a tight slap to the face.

    The Crystal Dragon King could only watch with helplessness as the Tribulation Cloud that was already bigger than any other Tribulation Cloud he had ever seen just kept on growing.

    He had actually forgotten that depending on the being who received the Tribulation, the size and power of it was increased or decreased. Obviously, gaining the untried power of the Heavenly Dragon Flame along with the breakthrough in his Anatomy Refinement was what was causing his perilous situation.

    Right now, he was really beginning to dread the close distance that he himself had made with the Cloud and wished that he was on a hard stable ground where he could increase his safety. Alas, he was already here and it would be asinine to turn his back to the obvious danger above him.

    Resigning to his fate he gritted his teeth and glared at the Tribulation Cloud above him, more specifically the golden Magic Circle in the centre.

    ¡®I¡¯m sure I can withstand the first strike. With that I can use the force to once again reach the ground and regather myself. As for the second and third¡­ Hopefully the Heavenly Dragon Flames can fix the problems that they have caused.¡¯

    The Magic Circle pulsed.

    ¡®Here it comes!¡¯

    ¡°ROOOOOOA-¡±

    The Crystal Dragon King roared towards the Tribulation to rev himself up only to be cut off by a flash of golden light that filled his entire vision.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

    ¡°NNNGGH!¡±

    The Crystal Dragon King groaned in agony as the essence from the Tribulation wracked itself through his body. It felt like being burned all over again and he was really beginning to feel tired of all this pain.

    However, it wasn¡¯t over yet and when his senses were restored he found himself plummeting to the ground at a speed that would turn him into paste if he made contact.

 Ch.67 DONâ€™T MESS WITH FATE!

    Spreading out his wings, the Crystal Dragon King managed to slow down his descent before crashing through the canopy of trees and straight into the ground.

    THOCK!

    CRACK!

    The sound of meat slapping a hard surface and cracking bones was heard as the Dragon King made contact with the earth. There were even a few cracks on the floor which was a testament to the Dragon¡¯s growing strength.

    However, he had obviously taken quite a bit of damage and it was unknown how that would affect the success of his Tribulation.

    ¡°...-nNNGH¡± The Crystal Dragon King let out a groan of pain in a strangely awkward manner.

    The impact of the collision was so bad that it left him winded and incapable of voice, preventing him from making a single peep during the painful crash. It was only now that he was able to freely groan in pain.

    ¡°HUUUUH¡­ KAAHK!¡±

    The Crystal Dragon King took in lungfuls of air, trying to regain his bearing before he felt a wave of discomfort which prompted him into letting out a huge cough.

    SPLAT!

    Blood and what seemed to be small globs of¡­ flesh? Or organs? Splattered onto the ground as the Dragon King emptied his gullet.

    ¡®Look at me, the King of fools! I¡¯m so foolish that I would even fly straight into a Tribulation! None can surpass me! When it comes to stupidity, I have no predecessors and I¡¯ll never have successors. Aye aye, THE KING OF BLOODY FOOLS!¡¯

    ¡°ROOOAARRRRR!¡± The Crystal Dragon King roared with anger as disappointment and frustration vibrated its way through his body.

    The Dragon King took in a large gulp of air, preparing to let out his growing age with a Dragon Breath when-

    *Flash*

    The world around him brightened for a brief second and the Dragon King froze like a deer caught in headlights. It was as if someone had flicked only a light and then turned it off again a second later. However, the Crystal Dragon King knew without a doubt that the Tribulation Magic Circle had just pulsed.

    2 more of such things and he was going to have a very unhappy experience.

    Again.

    Each time he had watched someone undergo a Tribulation, he had noticed that before each of the 3 strikes, there would be 3 pulses that looked like they were either threatening you or warning you. Well¡­ It was all the same.

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    The Crystal Dragon King had also wondered if each pulse could be some kind of energy gathering tactic, something that allowed the Tribulation to make those 3 consecutive beams of light. Alas, it was impossible to confirm and he was running out of time for idle thoughts.

    The Dragon King released the energy he gathered for the Dragon Breath and dispersed it around his body, fortifying his natural defence and recovering his injuries.

    For some reason, the speed in which his injuries healed was faster than before. Not by a lot but it was enough for him to notice.

    The Crystal Dragon King didn¡¯t think too much and attributed the effect to the strange essence that had been seeping into his body ever since he was struck by the Tribulation Light, and he was right.

    Regaining a majority of his strength, the Crystal King sat up on his hind legs in preparation for the incoming Tribulation Light.

    *Flash*

    ¡®There it goes again¡¯ The Crystal Dragon King thought as he glared up at the Tribulation Cloud.

    ¡­

    Gaia looked towards the savage Cloud with her jaw almost hanging.

    She had already rounded up her siblings and found shelter by the time the Crystal Dragon King had taken his first Tribulation Light¡­ But that did not stop fear from soaking her body when she witnessed it.

    At first, she thought for certain that there was still an Immortal being here and for some reason it was attacking the Crystal Dragon. However the notion immediately evaporated when she felt the aura of the Tribulation Strike.

    It was like nothing she had ever had the ability to sense before. Part of it felt Ancient, a lot of it felt Divine, some of it like punishment and even more like retribution. But without a doubt, the most important and attention-grabbing ¡®parts¡¯ there was the feeling of¡­ Fate and Fortune.

    As an ex-Immortal Gaia knew that although Immortals were all-powerful and were able to do pretty much whatever they pleased; there were a few rules that even they never dared to skate around.

    One of them was: No matter what the situation, no matter how damned your future, no matter how powerful you were; DON¡¯T MESS WITH FATE! AND DON¡¯T MESS WITH FORTUNE!

    Of course, there were a few exceptions to the rules like the legendary seers, beings that had the ability to look into the future and make decisions that changed fate based on whatever they saw, but there were like what, 1 or 2 of them in the entire Galaxy?

    How could any 1 of such distinguished individuals be in a World like this no matter how strange it was. It was ludicrous.

    On the other hand, there were actually numerous techniques and even items that could affect one''s Fortune. But unless you wanted to suffer a fate worse than 1000 years of fun with the devil; You better not touch them.

    And yet here she was, witnessing the manipulation of Fate AND Fortune right before her very eyes.

    ¡®How did this even happen? That cloud does not possess the Aura of an Immortal at all. All attacks whether ejected or not will always possess the aura of their creator, so how can this be? And why these Intents? Punishment and Retribution?¡¯

    Gaia was so terrified that a faint rickety sound of her bones shaking could be heard. In fact, because of her knowledge on how serious the situation was, she was more scared of the Tribulation than anyone else!

    So what does one do when they reach their breaking point with no help in sight?

    Gaia interlocked her claws and tightly shut her eyes in prayer.

    ¡®gods above Sigothia, please save this lost little lamb!¡¯

 Ch.68 Faith Energy and a Dodged Calamity

    As Gaia gave a brief prayer, she couldn¡¯t help but think of the gods she was praying to and the World that they originated from; Planet Sigothia.

    Ever since she had become an Immortal she had stopped praying. Although her respect for the gods remained, it was just so awkward to pray so devoted to someone on her level so she decided to stop completely.

    Naturally, the gods weren¡¯t affected by the loss, such a thing was a pittance. They were more interested in allying with the new Immortal who, like the others, had the ability to leave the World any time they wanted and gather otherworldly treasures.

    The mutually beneficial alliance between gods and Immortals was a practice that occurred in many Worlds and the Sigothia World wasn¡¯t any different.

    When Gaia finished her prayer, a formless and invisible energy departed from her body and shot into the distance.

    ¡®I wonder if they can receive my faith all the way from here.¡® Gaia thought as she stared up at the Tribulation Cloud that pulsed for the 3rd time.

    Although Gaia couldn¡¯t feel or see the peculiar energy since she was a Mortal now, she knew exactly what would happen when she had decided to pray.

    In truth, she was one of the few individuals that knew that gods actually got stronger the more faith they gathered and knew they could feel it when-

    BOOOOOOOOOOM!

    W-when you prayed to them¡­

    Some of the more powerful gods had the ability to retain their loftiness when immortals ascended and employed such individuals to act as their Apostles in foreign Worlds, gathering faith for their god who continued to grow stronger and stronger.

    It was a joyous occasion for a god when they started gaining faith from a new World because it generally meant that their power plateau was going to experience a big jump.

    ¡­

    But how could Eridel allow such a thing?

    Eridel sent out his Primordial Essence outside the planet¡¯s atmosphere where it gathered around the formless energy created from Gaia¡¯s prayer. With a single thought, the energy was dissipated and forever unable to complete its journey.

    Eridel couldn¡¯t help feeling a little annoyed.

    Ever since the Creation Dragon had woken he had witnessed each and every peculiarity it performed. It didn¡¯t take much for him to guess her true identity as a reincarnator and even an ex-immortal at that, and it made him a little wary.

    Now, there were 2 people on his planet whose thoughts and intentions he couldn¡¯t read like a book.

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    Gaia¡­ and The Abomination Of The North.

    Actually, he couldn¡¯t read the thoughts of the other regular shmegular Abominations either but it was clear as day that they were insane and only had destruction on their minds.

    The Abomination Of The North was very much sane and very much capable of scheming whatever it wanted.

    How many brains that were functional and sometimes powerful did it assimilate into itself? The Abomination was not normal at all! It was to the point that it had become one of the most intelligent residents on the Planet. And on top of that, it did not have the side-effect of a multiple personality disorder that its powers might have implied. It was truly a bizarre existence.

    But Eridel¡¯s inability to read their thoughts was not what was causing him agitation at all. In fact it actually pleased him that there were at least 2 people on his planet that he could have honest conversations with.

    What WAS disturbing him was the early introduction of Faith Energy, the energy that Gaia had created when she had prayed to her gods.

    For obvious reasons, Eridel didn¡¯t want to be discovered by outside forces.

    His World was too young and his residents too weak. Although his Planet could be considered a strong Mid World, it was nothing in comparison to what would arrive if that piece of Faith Energy arrived at its destination.

    Any World that could provide the Magic Energy needed for a resident to rise to Immortality was without a doubt a Law World. So you could imagine the situation.

    Eridel was very aware of the calamity that had just flown over his head and it was for this reason that he was peeved.

    The only reason that Gaia¡¯s head was still attached to the rest of her body was because¡­

    Eridel had plans¡­ Again. He always had plans! But these plans were without a doubt the most dangerous ones he had ever dared to formulate. Plans that could end up with him losing everything. Or¡­ they could end up with him taking possession over an entire Law World.

    But as he always liked to say:

    ¡®With great peril comes great gifts. Hahahaha~¡¯

    ¡­

    Gaia was currently looking at the wretched body of the Crystal Dragon with sympathy.

    His entire body was charred black with thick smoke billowing into the air. It was as if he had slept a whole 24 hours on a bonfire. But in reality, it had taken a whole 3 strikes from that strange cloud and with each of them being more terrifying than the last.

    It was only after the 3rd strike did the cloud disappear but Gaia wasn¡¯t sure if he would survive whether a 4th one came or not.

    She had already realised that the talented Dragon was probably one of her brothers and it caused her heartache to see such a scene.

    Her entire family was massacred in her previous life when she was still a Mortal and it always jabbed at her soul. In her next life, she had sworn that she would embrace and protect her new family but the situation was already like this. Who knew what they faced in the many years she was asleep?

    The thought caused frustration to swell in her heart which only multiplied when she realised how out of control her emotions have been since she had awoken.

    Ever since she had become an Immortal, the number of times her emotions had been swayed like this could be counted with one hand.

    Very, very few things could affect her emotions but in just one day she seemed to come across a plethora of them.

    ¡®How aggravating!¡¯

    Gaia roughly shook her head before forcefully quelling her emotions. She wanted to see if her brother was still alive and it was best to keep a calm mind, preparing for the worst.

    ¡®I hope he¡¯s okay¡­ I don¡¯t wan- Eh? Did his body just- EEEEEEEEH?!¡¯

 Ch.69 The Crystal Dragon Kingâ€™s 4th Realm Evolution

    Gaia watched with astonished eyes as the body of the Crystal Dragon began to float. It was clear that the Dragon was still unconscious because of the limp manner he hung in the air, so how was he moving?

    Numerous scenarios such as ¡®the attacker confiscating the body¡¯ and perhaps ¡®a hidden treasure on the Crystal Dragon¡¯s body activating in self-defence¡¯ flickered through Gaia¡¯s mind like a tornado, but she was unable to confirm anything.

    Just as she was wondering if she could find a way to help the Magical Energy in the area began to behave erratically.

    ¡®Wha-¡¯

    WHOOOM!

    A spontaneous air pressure flatten the grass and shoved at the bushes and trees as the winds howled. And even more shocking than that was ridiculous amounts of Magical Energy that began surging towards the Crystal Dragons body.

    Gaia¡¯s heart jumped as she envisioned her brother dying from an over inflation of Magical Energy, or becoming an Abomination which was just as bad, when she witnessed with her own 2 naked eyes the scene of her brother soaking up untold amounts of Magical Energy like it was nothing.

    The jaw of the Creation Dragon was once again left hanging as she watched her brother absorb absurd amounts of Magical Energy for a whole 5 minutes.

    This Magical Energy wasn¡¯t generated out of thin air so that left thousands of metres around the Crystal Dragon King completely barren of Magical Energy. Areas like this were called [Dead Magic Zones] and to Gaia¡¯s bewilderment, she happened to be close enough to be encompassed by it.

    ¡®Could there truly be a Magic or Divine Treasure on his body? Brother¡¯s body is way too weak to attract and absorb such a crazy amount of Magical Energy so it has to be.¡¯

    Alas, simply drawing in Magical Energy in vain wasn¡¯t the purpose of the Tribulation and the Crystal Dragon¡¯s body began to change as the barrier to the 4th Realm collapsed.

    He was evolving.

    His body grew, rising from 40 metres tall and 60 metres long to a whopping 100 metres tall and 150 metres long which was definitely a daunting size for an Enlightened Beast in the 1st Stage.

    Every piece of burnt flesh and every single scale including the reverse one were forcefully peeled from his body before disintegrating into ashes that flew along with the wind currents.

    But not even 10 seconds later did new flesh and scales regenerate in a form that was many times more grandiose than before. They were purple as usual, crystal-like as well, but each scale had a certain thickness to it that lacked the illusion of brittleness that ordinary crystals had. There was also a lava-like glow to them that made them look like they somehow had an unbearable heat trapped within, which was definitely different to before.

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    His horns, claws and tail-spike were shattered and replaced anew in a similar form, being a darker purple than the scales and releasing a periodic pulse, however, they were bigger than before and definitely had visible violet coloured flames that swished around within. It was the transparent nature of the crystals that enabled them to be visible and threatening to all who looked.

    In fact, they released both a sharp and searing aura that threatened to cause laceration to any that got close.

    The reborn Crystal Dragon King opened his eyes and that alone would have caused heart attacks in weaker beings.

    2 purple blazing eyes that lacked pupils revealed themselves as good contenders of the sun. Other than the white sclera, they were like 2 boiling balls of fire that wanted everything in creation to burn.

    The Crystal Dragon King flapped his mighty wings and soared into the air, opening his maw filled with razor-like teeth and roaring into the air with the majesty and elation of a Beast King that had just risen.

    The violet coloured flames of the Heavenly Dragon Flame were ejected out of his mouth as he flexed his new Dragon Breath.

    Clearly, the Heavenly Dragon Flames had¡­ assimilated into the DNA of the Crystal Dragon King.

    The Crystal Dragon King was ecstatic! The risk that he bargained for had come back in full! The reason why he waited till reaching the 9th Stage of the Seeking Beast Realm other than to reach a level that would prevent his implosion, was so that if he had the chance to evolve¡­ he would assimilate the Flames into his very DNA!

    He was very aware of the difference between newborn Dragons born from parents that had evolved with strange perks and parents that didn¡¯t. That was why he waited till this very day.

    Forgoing the advances of the female Dragons and waiting until he conquered the Heavenly Dragon Flames before he indulged in such¡­ activities, it was all so that his future children that would be the princes and princesses of the Royal Dragon Family would have unlimited potential!

    He honestly felt like crying tears of joy but it was a devious glint that showed in his eyes instead. He very clearly remembered the gossip of the females that were beginning to think he was ¡®incapable¡¯. It was the most embarrassing moment of his life but now¡­ no more!

    ¡®Hmph. I¡¯ll show those little girls just how CAPABLE I am! Hmph!¡¯

    Just as he was going to swoop down he felt a change within his Mana and he froze. If one could see the skin beneath the scales on his face they would laugh at how quickly it was paling.

    The Crystal Dragon King noticed the familiar essence in his body that for some reason had yet to fully assimilate with the rest of his Mana.

    ¡®Is the Tribulation not done with me?!¡¯

    No. It was not.

    ¡®Wait! That absurd form that the second (Supreme Dragon on the 2nd peak) and the rest gained, could it be?¡¯

    Indeed.

    The evolution just now was the experience that any Beast crossing into a new Realm could go through if they were lucky enough.

    But this was not the effect of the Tribulation.

    WHOOSH!

    The Crystal Dragon King¡¯s body rapidly shrank as a multitude of changes took place all over his body.

 Ch.70 The Crystal Dragon Kingâ€™s Enlightened Form

    The bones and flesh in the Crystal Dragon King¡¯s body began rearranging themselves to take on a strange form. On top of that, most of his scales were receding into his body and eventually pale pearl-like skin was revealed.

    ¡®I knew it¡­ I¡¯m gaining a form similar to the Humans.¡¯ the Crystal Dragon King thought with a scrunched up face.

    The pain of his body forcefully doing things that it hadn¡¯t done before was indeed immense, but what had he just come out of? That¡¯s right, a battle with the Heavenly Dragon Flame followed by a battle with the Tribulation Lights. He was so over reacting to pain and he just wanted to get this over with.

    At the very least, he knew from the experience of the other Supremes that he would only feel pain twice. Once when he was transforming into a ¡®Human¡¯, and once more when he transformed back into a Dragon. It should be relatively smooth after that.

    Purple-coloured shoulder-length hair gushed out of his skull along with eyebrows and eyelashes which caused the Crystal Dragon King surprise even if he knew it was coming. Hairs and furs were the quality of mammals and didn¡¯t show the same love to the reptiles so it was quite interesting to suddenly gain them.

    The Crystal Dragon King wobbled his head causing his hair to swish around to his amusement as his body transformation finished its last touches.

    ¡®Hmm¡­ Just as the others said, I have indeed lost quite a bit of strength in this form. However I find it quite nice, I can do a lot of things with this.¡¯

    The Crystal Dragon King held his hands out in front of them before closing and opening them.

    For all intents and purposes, the Crystal Dragon King now looked like a Human. 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 dexterous hands, a relatively short neck and an oval head. Delicate feet and finally unlike his previous hemipenes, he now only had 1 penis and it was¡­ freely hanging out.

    That was what worried him the most¡­ What- what if it got cut off! NEVER! He would never let that happen! But¡­ but on the off-chance that it did get cut off¡­He would have to kindly ask the culprit to cut off his head too.

    No way to create life equals no way to continue life. That was his new motto.

    ¡­

    Gaia was as still as a statue, eyes watching the new form of her brother with soulless eyes..

    Never in her entire life had she ever seen something so bizzare. When the Crystal Dragon King evolved and fused the Heavenly Dragon Flame into his DNA, she had been very impressed. It was extremely rare to come across an Earth Flame and even rarer to tame it. As for the amount of people who could assimilate such a thing into their DNA?

    Even if she recalled all the Worlds she had visited, she only needed 1 hand to count the number of such beings that she had merely heard about, talk less of seen with her own 2 eyes.

    Now her brother wasn¡¯t just a Crystal Dragon, but something more of a Crystal Flame Dragon, or if you wanted to be fancy a Heavenly Flame Crystal Dragon. Although he wasn¡¯t quite as special as her, a Creation Dragon (something she was still giddy about), he was still an extremely talented being and if he wasn¡¯t killed prematurely he would definitely become a Galaxy-renowned elite.

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    But this¡­

    What is the meaning of this?

    Gaia gazed at the figure of her brother''s new form. Although he had a completely humanoid figure, no one would ever mistake him for being a human. He had scales that reached down from his elbows to his wrists with a little more extending to the back of his hands but leaving his palms and fingers free, quite a lot like ranger bracers. The same pattern repeated itself in his legs from his knees to his ankles like greaves.

    Both his fingernails and his toenails were long and sharp like claws and carried the same dark purple colour along with an aura of sharpness and fatality that his previous claws had.

    Scales also patterned the sides of his waist, his entire back till the back of his neck and peaking to the sides as well but that was it. Clearly, they were more focused on covering his most vulnerable areas, there weren¡¯t any scales on his chest because that was one of the easiest areas to defend along with his head.

    On top of that, the Dragon still retained his glorious wings that were folded behind his back. With a thought they could cover the front of his body and the hard protective crystal scales would protect him.

    He also retained his horns which pierced towards the sky with unwavering might along with his daunting tail that could cause heart-palpitations in anybody. Anyone could tell that the tail-spike at the end was one of if not THE most dangerous thing on the entire Dragon King¡¯s body.

    The heavy looking crystal looked so sharp that it felt like it could puncture right through the fabric of space.

    Other than those spine-chilling features were the more regular ones. A musculature that would give Adonis a run for his money, pearl-like skin and shoulder-length silky hair. His eyes were also the same as before, looking like 2 orbs of fire that looked like it would start shooting lasers at any moment.

    And last but not least were his genitals. Clearly the same penis that any Human male could have, but Gaia struggled to believe that any of the Humans she had seen in the past could reach the same size¡­

    But that of course was not what was causing Gaia so much surprise.

    The truth was¡­

    BEASTS JUST DIDN¡¯T TRANSFORM LIKE THIS! Gaia could not believe her EYES! Never in her entire life had she ever seen or even heard of a Beast that could gain a humanoid form. Beasts were Beasts and they would remain that way for the rest of their lives. But what was the situation before her eyes?

    MADNESS!

    Gaia was losing her mind and she felt like she was in a dream, this World was too much!

    Sure, beings like beast-kin and such existed. But those were actually Humans who had taken the blood or something similar of a powerful Beast and not only managed to survive the consummation, but also manage to mutate as well.

    But even then, let¡¯s say for example that some Human drank the Blood of the Dragon King and mutated as a result. At most, other than the strength and talent, they would at most gain horns and a handful of scales, most of the time not even that and only got a full-house of sharp nails.

    It depended on how compatible they were with the bloodline but it would never reach this state. Wings, tails, horns and Scales nearly covering the whole body. Gaia could not for the life of her believe what she was seeing!

    ¡®How could this possibly be? WHO CAN TELL ME WHAT¡¯S GOING ON!¡¯

    Ding!

    <The Dragon King has overcome the Tribulation Lights and successfully ascended to the 4th Realm. This has given him the access of an Enlightened Form.>

    Gaia¡¯s body seized up.

 Ch.71 The â€˜Friendly Boutâ€™

    Fear assailed her and her fight or flight instincts immediately kicked in.

    ¡®Who was that! GET OUT OF MY MIND!¡¯

    Somebody had somehow managed to invade her mind without her knowing and she was extremely afraid. As an ex-immortal, she knew how dangerous or even fatal it could be when someone had access to your mind so she never played when it came to her mind!

    <All Residents have received the Eridius System as a gift from the gods.>

    <The Eridius System has been designed to help you in your everyday life. Please check ¡®Status''.>

    Gaia didn¡¯t know that was the same message that everyone was first given when the system first arrived.

    ¡®WHO ARE YOU!¡¯ clearly, she wasn¡¯t in the state to listen.

    <The Eridius System has been designed to help you in your everyday life. Please check ¡®Status''.>

    ¡®I DON¡¯T CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY! TELL ME WHO YOU ARE!!!¡¯

    <The Eridius System has been designed to help you in your everyday life. Please check ¡®Status''.>

    ¡®What the fuck?!¡¯

    By now Gaia could tell that something here was clearly not normal so she tried to calm down and think. But it felt like trying to forcefully calm yourself down when a gun was touching the back of your skull. She tried one more time.

    ¡®Who-¡¯

    <All Residents have received the Eridius System as a gift from the gods.>

    Only to be ignored once more.

    <The Eridius System has been designed to help you in your everyday life. Please check ¡®Status''.>

    ¡®What is that-¡¯ Gaia¡¯s frantic thoughts were temporarily interrupted by the sight of the Dragon King flapping the wings of his back and soaring into the sky, most likely returning to his peak at the top of the Dragon Mountain.

    ¡®What is a Status?¡¯

    DING!

    [Status]

    [Name: Gaia {TRUE NAME}]

    [Titles: None]

    [Race: Creation Dragon]

    [Cultivation: 3rd Stage Magic Beast]

    [Anatomy Refinement: None]

    [Combat Strength: Unknown]

    [Bloodline: Dragon of Creation]

    [Physique: None]

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    [Affinities: Creation(100%)]

    [Elements: None]

    [Laws: Creation(1%)]

    ¡®...What?¡¯

    Gaia was shocked. Again.

    Some kind of strange screen (and yes she knew what a screen was, she had seen multiple Worlds) had appeared before her eyes and had a somewhat detailed description of her entire makeup.

    ¡®Gaia? Is that me?¡¯

    !!!

    She felt an exhilarating rush of energy course through her veins when she said the name which only served to confuse her.

    ¡®What was-¡¯

    <Congratulations. You have been gifted the true name: Gaia.>

    Gaia was somewhat peeved at being interrupted again but the emotion was washed away when she heard the full sentence of the female albeit stoic voice.

    ¡®What is a true name?¡¯ Gaia asked.

    She was beginning to get a grasp of the situation and now she was hungry for information. There was no need for stupid questions like when she was named, she needed vital information and for some reason the voice in her head was more than willing to answer.

    Gaia¡¯s eyes shone bright.

    <A true name is¡­>

    ¡­

    Above the centre of the Central Continent was a strangely small cloud that didn¡¯t move at all. Sat upon the cloud was a man that possessed transcendent beauty, or rather handsomeness. The attraction of his appearance was so heavy that one would think that it was impossible for such a being to be born by a Mother even if she were the Holy Mother of Beauty. Surely a god must have crafted him from the ground up.

    Obviously, this was Eridel¡¯s avatar.

    ¡°Hehe~¡± Eridel laughed, he had an odd feeling that someone was praising him.

    ¡°Oh, some people have begun praising the lands thinking they¡¯ll get some more resources¡­ The fuck? Do they know about worship or is this just a coincidence¡­ Ah, looking at the state of their situation¡­ they are indeed in need of the help of the supernatural.¡±

    Even in his avatar Eridel still possessed the omniscience of a World¡¯s Consciousness and he was currently looking deep into the South Continent where a bunch of Monsters were kissing the ground or doing silly dances.

    Even without context or his all-seeing gaze, it didn¡¯t take much to understand that they were crying over the state of their absolutely BARREN territory.

    Their land was dry and all the Magic Herbs were nowhere to be seen, the Trees too were obviously dead and even the air was brittle. On top of that, all the Magic Energy in the area was GONE.This was quite a ¡®little bit¡¯ beyond a Dead Magic Zone.

    ¡°Well fuck them, next time they¡¯ll be more careful.¡±

    Eridel remembered what happened to that place. That ravenous Blood Fiend; Crying Ghost had thought he was slick when he broke through to the 9th Stage of the Core Refinement Ream (Realm 3 for the Enlightened Races) and entered the 1st Stage of the Soul Refinement Realm (Realm 4 for the Enlightened Races). He tried to run up on the Emperor of Monsters, breaking their treaty, only to be clapped right back.

    It was quite funny now that he looked back on it, the Crying Ghost had had to pretend that it was just a friendly spar and that the treaty was still valid. Eridel remembered the veins almost popping on Asura¡¯s face as he struggled to hold himself back, giving a forced laughter and saying something like ¡®Ah, no worries good-neighbour Crying Ghost, it was just a friendly bout!¡¯

    It was then the Crying Ghost¡¯s turn to have a forced smile and twitchy eyes. He hated it when people addressed him by the strange Title that he found on his Status Page so he enforced that people only called him Ghost. Any Blood Fiend that called him the full Crying Ghost was ruthlessly murdered whilst anyone from a foreign race was tortured then murdered. It was apparently his way of showing care to his race and they actually believed it.

    Unfortunately for him, he couldn¡¯t do a single thing to the Emperor of Monsters and had to swallow his pride.

    Unlike the Humans, the denizens of the South Continent were quite experienced in the art of deceit. They had to be if they wanted to survive in such a place where evil and chaos was just as common as oxygen.

    Alas, even if they had come to a truce once again, that wasn¡¯t going to get rid of the damage they had caused to the area. They were both 4th Realm Cultivators and that meant that they actually had the ability to do damage to the planet now.

    It needn¡¯t be said why the Monsters in that territory were so desperate.

    Eridel could laugh at the situation now, but he wasn¡¯t laughing back then! He¡¯d almost smited the fools when they destroyed his beautiful scenery. It was almost like being scarred by 2 rebellious cells!

    Just kidding, but he was indeed peeved back then.

    Now¡­

    ¡°Fuck y¡¯all, find a way yourselves!¡±

    He was still annoyed.

 Ch.72 Centre of The Central Continent

    Eridel turned his attention back to the land below him.

    The land was absolutely overflowing with essence, it was to the point that certain objects and items had a golden glow. (Colour of the Eridius Worlds Magic Energy, other World Magical Energy is blue). Magical Herbs were so abundant that the grass looked like it had been completely replaced, even the Lifeforms in the area casually walked over them or slowly grazed like they were really just common grass.

    Golden Magic Stones were also casually left around as if they were a bunch of pebbles and the surrounding trees towered into the sky like mountains. Clearly, the abundant Magical Energy in the area was creating astonishing effects that the rest of the World was missing out on.

    What kind of wonderland was this?

    ¡°A Sacred Land¡­ Even if this area was already good before her arrival, I didn¡¯t really expect one to form so soon. Well, considering the number of 4th Realm Cultivators a few more of these should form before I evolve.¡± Eridel¡¯s honeyed voice sounded out as he casually twisted his hair.

    To be honest, he didn¡¯t need to be in his Avatar at all. But he wanted to have a nice feel of things before he went back into his upcoming seclusion. He had quite a few things that he wanted to implement into the World before he evolved and became a Mid-World so the seclusion was a must if he wanted to finish in time.

    Eridel gazed at a particular group of Beasts below that were radiating powerful Auras. There were 3 species in this place and the one that Eridel was looking at was a group of Snakes. Every single one of the Snakes here could be considered an Elite in this World and the weakest one here was actually a Stage 9 Spirit Beast¡­

    If Eridel didn¡¯t know better he¡¯d definitely say that they were the strongest group of Lifeforms in the entire World. But weren¡¯t quite there yet. Places like the depths of the Sea and the North Continent were kind of hard to top.

    The second strongest group here was actually a bunch of Dragons. Divine Dragons to be exact. The new mutative race that was originated by Drako and the close cousins of the Snake Clan.

    Eridel could see the said Drako messing around with Lily and and the now 4-headed Hiculu as their big sister J?rma (fuck, she¡¯s super big now) casually watched. Eridel stared at her for a few seconds because of something that he noticed and the Beast actually tensed.

    She looked around warily as if scouting for danger but Eridel knew he was the cause and he was thoroughly impressed. Most Residents didn''t sense him unless he did something that was impossible to ignore, like speaking out loud or directly appearing in front of them. It wasn¡¯t that he was hiding his presence, nay, it was in fact the result of the Residents subconsciously protecting themselves.

    Just like with the 2 Twin Stars before they received Eridel¡¯s gifts, most Resident¡¯s completely deleted his existence from their memory. So for J?rma to

    ¡®It must be because of that thing on her head. Hmm¡­ As expected, she fully tamed it.¡¯

    In the middle of the majestic Snake''s forehead was¡­ a vertical 3rd Eye! The eye was previously closed but now opened to reveal an eerie red iris that shined ominously with murderous intent, it was also looking right at him.

    The eye shined brighter and Eridel knew things were about to go left.

    ¡°Whoops~¡±

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    Eridel giggled and dissipated his avatar at the same time the Cloud beneath him turned to stone and shattered.

    J?rma glared at the debris and ignored the startled looks of her siblings. She could have sworn she sensed something more than a mere cloud, even if the cloud was clearly strange, that was not what she felt at all.

    She¡­ couldn''t even remember what she felt, but she knew that the cloud was not it!

    ¡®What is going on¡­?¡¯ She thought. She couldn¡¯t help but feel that something was seriously wrong. However, when she saw the slightly panicky looks of her siblings she decided to forget it. She was the role model of everybody here and when she appeared distressed, everyone else started to feel wary. Because they knew that if there was something that she could not deal with, it was something that could eradicate their entire race!

    Unfortunately, she didn¡¯t realise that she was forgetting permanently.

    ¡®Whew~ she¡¯s quite a big girl now.¡¯

    Eridel remembered when she was merely 10 or so metres long. Now, she was over 300 metres long and she wasn¡¯t even a Celestial Beast! Just like Apis, all Celestial Beasts were innately large and anyone with knowledge of them would think that J?rma was part of the same group. But she was not!

    She was a normal Enlightened Beast with an Enlightened Form (Humanoid Transformation) and everything.

    The only reason she was so big was because of her special bloodline that had benefited from the Tribulation and managed to evolve, no longer was it the Earth Devouring Bloodline, but now it was the Sky Devouring Bloodline!

    This new bloodline not only allowed her to absorb more essence from whatever she ate, but now¡­ She could directly eat Magical Energy from the air too! She could just open her large maw and whoosh, free Magical Energy incoming. It was simply too crazy.

    As for J?rma¡¯s siblings, they were pretty amazing too. Despite the fact that Drako was extremely lacking in terms of cultivation when compared to the other 2, his potential and talent were not in any way inferior!

    Even though he was a 1st Stage Seeking Beast, his strength could compare to Lily who was 1st Stage Enlightened Beast. Despite the fact that this was because Lily was not really that good of a fighter, this did not take away from the fact that he could fight against someone a whole Realm above him!

    The reason for this was because of the various things that boosted his strength. First was obviously the Laws of Fire, then came the bloodline that he gained from the Wind Supreme Dragon, and finally was the Anatomy Refinement that Raiko had taught him. Both of the 2 sworn brothers had been undergoing Anatomy Refinement on the mountain that never stopped getting struck by lightning all this time

    Unfortunately for Drako, all these things that boosted his strength also stalled the speed of his cultivation.

    As mentioned before, it was much harder to enrich Mana that was formed from Laws with regular Magical Energy. On top of that, when absorbing Magical Energy, a portion of it was passively absorbed into the flesh, but with beings with powerful bloodlines, the portion of the Magical Energy that was absorbed into the flesh was drastically increased and not enough went into the Beast Core or otherwise replacement (e.g Mana Core). Last but not least was the Anatomy Refinement, the thing about Anatomy Refinement was that you had to get hurt badly and wrestle your life from the grip of death to ¡®level up¡¯. But for a Beast to cultivate their Mana, it needed to eat essence-rich foods.

    It was kind of hard to eat and get struck by lightning at the same time¡­

    Despite all of that, Drako was doing pretty well for himself.

    As for Lily and Hiculu, they were 1st Stage Enlightened Beasts and were naturally powerful. Lily¡¯s face had been completely healed without any blemishes and only continued to become more beautiful. Her illusion abilities had also become very powerful and she was a terrible foe to have to go against.

    Hiculu had regrown the head that had chopped off when he became a Seeking Beast but unfortunately, he didn¡¯t get the total of 4 heads that the Seeking Beast Realm promised him. Because of the fact that one head was already chopped off, the 4th head he would have gained went into replacing the lost one. Only when he became an Enlightened Beast did he get a 4th head. Besides that, his poison had become extremely terrifying and it was to the point that even J?rma was wary of it.

    Eridel¡¯s Planet Core pulsed as he grew excited. With such figures in his planet, he was destined for a magisterial future!

 Ch.73 Sacred Lands

    Eridel finally looked at the 3rd species that was allowed access to this Sacred Land. And unsurprisingly, they were a group of Humans. In this World, due to the great amount of dexterity, agility and gracefulness that a Human was able to employ, they were used as valuable Servants that all the Beast Lords tried to obtain.

    It got to a point that the more powerful Beast Kings used them as a show of authority, some conversation amongst the more shameless Beast Kings went something like:

    ¡®You see my servants? They¡¯re great right?... No I¡¯m not boasting, I just wanted to talk to you about the effort I spent in obtaining them!... No, not I¡¯m actually helping you! One day you might find a group of Humans like I did and I can show you how to capture them. I mean, even though it was quite easy for me, it might be hard for¡­ hey, where are you going?!¡¯

    Eridel wasn¡¯t surprised that the Humans were treated like this because they were essentially powerless. Their only good ability was the ability to escape but even then they still ended up being enslaved on a daily basis. However, things will not always be like this¡­

    Eridel briefly thought about 2 special individuals in the North Continent before refocusing back on the Sacred Land.

    A Sacred Land was a Land blessed by Essence and always affected the area around it based on the primary Essence in the territory. For example, if the majority of the Essence here was Fire Energy, then many of the Herbs and maybe even some of the Trees would gain Fire Affinities. On top of that, the Magic Stones produced in this area would also be packed with Fire Energy instead of Magical Energy and would have at least 10 times the effect on individuals with the corresponding Mana Affinity.

    Normally, such spectacular locations like this would be very, very hard to form and even rarer to see. You certainly would never see one in a World that had only had Magical Energy for 127 years but here it was; A complete and undeniable Sacred Land.

    However, Eridel was not delusional. He knew it wasn¡¯t because of anything special on his part and he wasn¡¯t about to get pompous. The true benefactor of this Sacred Land was actually J?rma, the territory owner herself.

    As previously mentioned, when an Owner of a territory was strong enough, his presence would begin to permeate into the territory. When this happened, the territory would give off an almost imperceptible aura and faint smell that was reminiscent of the Owner, usually acting as a deterrent to predators with keener instincts.

    But it was deeper than that.

    When the owner gained power that was finally capable of affecting the World (For now, Realm 4 Power), the faint Magical Energy that they released during cultivation no longer dissipated into the atmosphere. Now, it would assimilate and ¡®corrupt¡¯ the Magical Energy in the environment. Slowly yes, but surely.

    The longer they stayed, the bigger the effect on their domain. Magic Stones, Magic Herbs and even the weaker Magic Trees would gain the affinities of the new Magical Energy in the environment.

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    On top of that, the density, quality and quantity of the Magical Energy would all rise exponentially, regardless of whether the Magical Energy gained a new affinity or not. And this is what we call a Sacred Land.

    Unfortunately for J?rma¡¯s Sacred Land, there was no special affinity to be found. This was because even though J?rma was amazingly talented, she herself didn¡¯t have any special affinity at all. Even with the [Evil Eye of Petrification] and the [Sky Devouring Bloodline], Her Mana was formed from regular Magical Energy and not much would change that.

    But despite a lack of an affinity she was still very powerful. Back when she had to help Drako in the war with the Dragons, it was the acquisition of the Evil Eye that she found in this very land that was keeping her so busy. The land was already high in Magical Energy so when she broke through to the 4th Realm, her presence was able to quickly turn it into a Sacred Land.

    Eridel could think of a few more Sacred Lands that would probably start popping up soon and one of the more interesting ones was the Western Forest owned by the Dragon Clan. Despite the Crystal Dragon King being the newest Enlightened Beast there, he was definitely the strongest and could be considered the owner of the territory.

    However, there were other Enlightened Beasts in the territory and just because they weren¡¯t the main owners didn¡¯t mean they didn¡¯t have any effect. The amalgamation of their individual affinities would make the Sacred Land even more precious than others and the products produced would be various and amazing.

    But the Crystal Dragon King was the main Owner in the end so his Crystal and Fire Affinities would be a lot more prevalent.

    Eridel was filled with glee at such prospects, but he soon thought of one particular individual and his mind almost lagged.

    ¡®The Abomination Of The North¡­¡¯

    Eridel felt like facepalming.

    The Abomination Of The North whilst sealed was still very much alive, or as alive as something harbouring Undeath Essence could be at least. He should be more than capable of making his own Sacred Land and the thought caused Eridel to feel¡­ fear.

    Never in his entire 2 lives had something he had created caused him fear but apparently there really was a first time for everything. Even when he was a mere mortal back on Earth and he was up close and personal with all manners of dangerous things he created, he had never felt like this.

    ¡®Damn¡­ This Abomination is really amazing. Hahaha~¡¯

    Eridel laughed but he was still worried. What¡­ What the hell would happen if an Abomination like that was able to form a Sacred Land? It terrified him because if things went out of control it might end up being too late, but it also excited him at the same time. He really, really wanted to know.

    Eridel focused on a certain area in the Western Region of the North Continent where all those Undead Trees were and zoomed in a little bit to find the sealed Abomination laying flaccid in an underground cavern.

    And it was awake.

    But of course Eridel knew that, he sealed its powers and mobility, not its consciousness. But yes, the Abomination¡¯s presence was freely pervading a large expanse of land, prompting unknown changes that Eridel had no clue about.

    ¡®Wow¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as he gazed at the Abomination with a hint of awe.

    Eridel backed up his point of focus and found his attention on the Forest of Death, or rather, the Forest filled with the Trees of Death.

 Ch.74 The Original Undead and Soul Mates Project

    Countless Trees of Death littered the Forest but Eridel knew that this wasn¡¯t because of the Abomination itself, but actually that ridiculously large Tree in the centre. In truth, that particular Tree was the result of the Slime Abomination using the Reproduction skill and fusing the new slime with a Tree just like how he did with the Humans to create the Original Undead.

    Fortunately, the success rate of a Tree fusing with such a thing was completely abysmal and only 1 managed to survive, becoming the giant Spirit Tree that it was today.

    This very tree however, was definitely the cause of the rising amount of the Trees of Death. It¡¯s presence had seeped into the Forest long ago and continuously caused the Trees in the vicinity to either die or mutate.

    Most of them died.

    But because of this, the Forest had become a haven for the Original Undead that had been released from their mind control.

    No longer could their ancestor force them to do what it wanted like puppets using the Bloodline Domination skill, their minds and wills were completely free. Now, they could do whatever they wanted and a lot of them were even able to gain the memories of their lives before their mutation.

    But unfortunately, this didn¡¯t cause them to turn over a new leaf in the slightest. They were still cruel and cannibalistic and their memories only made this worse. Now, they had gained the wittiness of those that were once prey and the ambition to gather power that ensured they were never again put in the same situation. Never having to run from predators from day to day and never having to cater to their superiors like SLAVES!

    So not only did they increase the amount of times they left the Forest of Death to go and hunt, but now, they even devoured each other! Since they had gained a washed down version of the assimilation skill that the Slime Abomination had from their bloodline, they were able to steal power from those that they ate and sometimes on rare occasions, even skills!

    These guys had absolutely no sense of camaraderie and would even devour their own ancestor if they could, so it was only natural that they would frequently devour each other for more power whenever they could.

    Eventually, only 37 Original Undead were left ¡®alive¡¯. Well, technically there were 38 if you included the giant Tree of Death but it¡¯s better to consider it in a class of its own. So yeah, there were 37 Original Undead left now, but each and every one of them were very, very powerful.

    Having survived till now they had all gone through all kinds of life and death situations and they gained power from every win. They were also very cunning and highly intelligent, at this point they knew that to kill each other now would be too difficult, a fight between them would be extremely dangerous and would leave the winner on his last legs, free for someone else to take all the benefits.

    They obviously didn¡¯t want that so they had decided to establish a truce, forming an alliance or to be more accurate a council. Each of them had hordes of undead under their control by now and they could be said to be the ultimate leaders of all the Undead on the Continent.

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    It was quite similar to the Demon Kings and the Monsters on the South Continent but Eridel knew that if there was a confrontation between the 2 forces, the Monsters would be finished.

    Apart from Asura the Emperor of Monsters himself, the 37 Original Undead Lords were much stronger than the 87 Demon Kings. And on top of that, the Original Undead were¡­ well, undead. Very hard to kill.

    With these kinds of beings along with the giant Tree of Death and the Abomination of The North himself, it was safe to say that their territory would become a Sacred Land very, very quickly.

    But Eridel found it somewhat of a struggle to address something like THAT as a ¡®Sacred¡¯ Land.

    ¡®If you asked me, it¡¯s more of a Cursed Land~¡¯ Eridel chuckled at his little joke before turning serious again. He had a job to complete and he was on a clock. Thankfully, the few things that he wanted to implement were either nothing too crazy or he had already started them a while ago.

    His [Manifestations of 7 Deadly Sins] project for example¡­He had been working on this project ever since he grasped the concept of Anomalies and it was going to be wild.

    His [4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse] project was also a work in progress. Nothing much needed to be said about this, he was planning on invading other Worlds. Although Eridel had been content with his World, his position was still fallible and he wanted, no, NEEDED more power. He wouldn¡¯t be able to hide for very long and sooner or later, his Planet would be revealed to the galaxy.

    ¡®Hopefully, I¡¯ll be ready by then.¡¯

    If only he knew.

    Although the other projects were cool, Eridel was currently excited about another one that would cause ground-breaking changes that would shoot his World light-years ahead of others. The others were still going to take a bit more time but this one wouldn¡¯t and Eridel was absolutely ecstatic.

    This project was none other than the [Soul Mates] project.

    The Soul Mates project was exactly what it sounded like, 2 individuals with such a deep chemistry that it was as if they were made for each other. But Eridel¡¯s plan had much more layers to it than that.

    First of all, this almost completely removed the issue of romantic and sexual relationships on his Planet. In some other Worlds, the relationships between Man and Woman were almost like a fight of who can manipulate who or who could best appease their instincts in the relationship. Would it be the Woman who could find the best Man that she most admires and loves and ¡®confine¡¯ him into a monogamous relationship. Or the Man who could find the most supportive and lovely Woman who would be completely loyal to him whilst at the same time letting him smash hoes on the side.

    There were deeper biological reasons as for why the 2 genders had such desires but there was no need to go into that.

    Because of the 2 contradicting desires, a lot of relationships crumbles and in the worst case scenario, a child is involved.

    When Husbands and Wives fought all the time, unattended Children raised as degenerates and the desire for love was in such shambles; One''s hope in life itself tended to collapse over time.

    A man¡¯s age-old instinct was to protect his Woman or Women along with his children whilst it was a Woman¡¯s age-old instinct to submit to the most powerful Man that was willing to impregnate them and then raise the resulting Children to adulthood. Most people knew it but they refused to acknowledge it when the indoctrination of society preached otherwise.

    But the result was a terrifying fate that most wouldn¡¯t expect.

    As a broken King once said: ¡®In a World without love, death means NOTHING.¡¯

    But that was actually the 2nd most important reason for Eridel¡¯s Soul Mate Project.

 Ch.75 Hybrids

    Other than vastly reducing the problem of romantic relationships, Eridel planned for the Soul Mates project to get rid of a problem that he considered far more troublesome. The Hybrid stillbirths.

    It was a universal problem that a child created from parents of 2 different species had a high likelihood of meeting fatality before birth. And even if the child was born successfully, there was a good chance that they were going to be either disabled, crippled, disfigured or mentally inept. Very, very rarely were they ever born complete. But when they were¡­

    Knowing this, it was obvious that the situation with the Devils born from the Blood Fiends and Monsters was abnormal. How could it be possible that whilst the other races were experiencing endless issues when crossbreeding, the ¡®union¡¯ between the Monsters and Blood Fiends was experiencing countless successes?

    Were the gods looking upon the Devils with loving smiles?

    Obviously not.

    In truth, only a select few Monster Races were actually capable of giving birth to those Devils. These Monsters had a very high libido, a 100% child-birth success rate and it was not restricted to inbreeding. If these Monsters could find someone that was compatible, they could certainly create a Hybrid¡­ but at a cost.

    Taking the Devils for example, even though they had immaculate physical strength and even greater potential; They were completely incapable of utilising Mana.

    It couldn¡¯t be helped. Even though they were born successfully, the defaults of a Hybrid could not be completely avoided. But it caused one to wonder¡­ What would happen if a Devil was born as part of the 1% that was born perfectly whole? Born with the benefits of both races and weaknesses of neither.

    In any case, the Monsters that were capable of creating such feats were the experiments of Eridel that he called [Breeders]. Quite some time ago, he had been pondering over the Hybrid problems and had decided to start a few experiments.

    The Breeders were the only success.

    But make no mistake, the title of Breeders was not limited to a single Monster Race but rather a group of them. One of these Breeders was the Goblin Race. They, along with others like the Ogres and Orcs were able to create Hybrids with other races and with almost zero still-births. Eridel had considered it a success.

    If only he could understand the full depths of the Menaces he had created. Life was not something to be played with so easily¡­

    ¡­

    ¡®Not only would Soul Mates achieve the most perfect chemistry in any way possible¡­ they would be able to give birth to perfect Hybrids if they were from different races!¡¯

    This was Eridel¡¯s most important goal when it came to the Soul Mates project. But there was a problem.

    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!

    Eridel could not guarantee that Soul Mates would be able to find each other.

    If they were born in separate Continents and were unable to travel the World, there was nothing that could be done and Eridel didn¡¯t dare to help. He had previously thought of utilising Fate to make them ¡®somehow¡¯ find each other if one of them didn¡¯t die first, but he vanquished the idea as if it were an evil spirit trying to possess him.

    Just thinking of the Tribulations that they would have to endure had made Eridel¡¯s core dim.

    ¡®Haah¡­~¡¯

    However, although it was not a certainty that Soul Mates would find each other, the closer they were to each other the more they would feel the bond. That was the best he could do.

    After achieving contact and sealing the pact though? Hmph, even if one of them had entered an alternate dimension the other would still be able to track them. Soul Mates were almost inseparable.

    ¡®Thinking about it, they should also be able to compliment each other''s strength when close to each other. Even automatic dual cultivating when performing the deed is possible. Aaah¡­~ Soul Mates are indeed amazing. If I¡¯m successful, they should be one of the biggest backbones of this World!¡¯ Eridel thought with glee.

    ¡®Alas, I have planned for far too long and it is time to finally put everything in motion.¡¯

    Eridel gave a cursory glance around the whole World and only planned to give a quick glance at the situation, but he couldn¡¯t stop himself from pausing at 3 specific locations.

    The underground cavern of the Slime Abomination.

    The ever-turbulent depths of the Sea.

    And finally¡­ the centre of the Central Eastern Forest where Ciera¡¯s Lake lay.

    ¡®I¡¯ll see you soon I suppose¡­¡¯

    ¡­

    (1 Week Later)

    Even though Eridel was in seclusion, the rest of the World was still very much active.

    Over on the Dragon Mountain, The Crystal Dragon had begun mating with other females, dead set on spreading his royal genes. Unfortunately, he was only able to mate with other female Supremes because of his ridiculous size. Even the female Supremes were unable to cope with his size unless they transformed into their Enlightened bodies along with the King, evening out the playing field. Hopefully, this wouldn¡¯t affect the birth of the children.

    In the North Continent, the Twin Stars of Hope were trekking across the lands like nomads as they gathered supporters and preached of overcoming the threat of the Undead, killing their oppressors, retaking their Continent and blah blah blah. On a more interesting note, both Stars had been teaching their techniques to their subordinates that were willing to fight. But what was more exciting was the actual cultivation techniques and martial skills that they had been passing down.

    Gabriel taught hand to hand combat to the majority and weapon arts to the rare few who found their own sticks to substitute as weapons. Seraqiel on the other hand wasn¡¯t yet able to teach her mind-blowing skills because of the lack of necessary tools, but she was able to teach the cultivation technique that she had learned from ¡®Jonas¡¯. Allowing the Humans to show the true might of Enlightened Beings.

    Over in the East Continent¨C The High Human Queen commanded her brethren as they constructed buildings with tools never seen before. But hold on, looking at the layout of the territory¡­ Could this be the beginning of a city? ¡­Nay?! it was more than that! With the smaller village looking areas in the far distance this could well add up to being the first ever true Kingdom.

    Marvellous!

 Ch.76 Happenings of The Whole World

    Although the High Human Queen and her followers had been making big moves since the beginning, the other 2 deviant Human races weren¡¯t doing as good when it came to the industry.

    The Blood Fiends for example, lived in a rocky valley that contained numerous caves suitable for living. Since they were relatively comfortable, the thought of looking for a better home didn''t even cross their primitive minds, talk less of building one.

    The Barbarians on the other hand were simply atrocious. There were barely any caves in their territory and only the strongest Warriors were allowed to occupy them. The rest of the Barbarians slept out on the floor or on soft non-poisonous bushes that had not already been taken into the caves. Sometimes, you could even catch someone sleeping on a tree.

    At least their powers were making progress and both sides had even started forming battle styles and tactics. However, the Barbarian Chief was in the 2nd Stage of the Core Refinement Realm (Realm 3 for Enlightened Beings) and could in no way compare to the Crying Ghost who was in the 1st Stage of the Soul Refinement Realm (Realm 4 for Enlightened Beings).

    It couldn¡¯t be helped. Although the Barbarians didn¡¯t need to absorb Essence from the atmosphere like Humans (In fact they couldn¡¯t. They were more like human shaped Beasts and gained strength the same way Beasts do), the competition around them was way too high and they were unable to secure the majority of the resources. They couldn¡¯t even go after the weaker Herbivores because they were all protected by Dodo, the Guardian of the Eastern Forest.

    The Blood Fiends on the other hand shared half of the South Continent and had plenty of resources to go around. Acquiring blood to absorb was extremely easy for the Crying Ghost and he was one of the rare few that immediately entered the 4th Realm when the barrier was released.

    Haah¡­ The Barbarians had quite a ways to go.

    On a tangent, the Elves that were not too far away from them were doing extremely well. Using their Queen''s knowledge, they had been able to create all sorts of things that people from Eridel¡¯s Homeworld would have recognized. A city that had somehow incorporated the giant Trees in the vicinity was being built and there was even the beginnings of a Palace. Surprisingly, there was also a building that looked like a Shrine and it was surrounded by many guards and beautiful maidens dressed in pure white cloth that went in and out, no doubt a product that the Elf Queen had plagiarised from the memories she gained. The Shrine had many carvings and images that seemed to depict water and a giant Tree and it soon became clear what this whole Shrine was about.

    The Elves, including their Queen, had taken Ciera Domicus as some kind of Guardian god.

    Moving on, the other 2 Hegemons of the Central Eastern Forest were also doing well. Raiko had long since cemented his rule as Beast King of the Southern Region and had even gone outside of the Forest to claim more territories. Nobody dared call him the Pussy of The South now. Other than that, the guy seemed to be¡­ looking for love.

    He didn¡¯t even know he was, his whole thought process was to find another Tigress that would make him feel happy and wouldn¡¯t be a burden in his life. He was apparently different from other Beasts who only looked for powerful partners that could provide them the most talented children. But thinking about it, he was in the 6th Stage of Anatomy Refinement and his brain was correspondingly very developed, so maybe that was part of the reason.

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    In the Northern Region of the Forest, Dodo had been living quite lavishly. With his Stage 1 Seeking Beast strength no one could compete with him and he had all the food and beautiful females that he could ever want. Reindeer, Roe Deer, White-tailed Deer, Chital, Barasingha¡­ They had all experienced his rod! None of them could escape his divine speer (not that they wanted to) and one by one they had all been felled, unable to last more than 1 exchange they had admitted defeat. The guy had even managed to impregnate other female Elks (he hadn¡¯t succeeded with crossbreeding), creating one of the first Divine Beast Families that would enter the records of History as the [Glacial Saint Deer Clan].

    Although his name was simple and even moronic, he was one of the most qualified philanderers in the entire World!

    But since the topic of philanders had been brought up, the South Continent must once again be brought up! But first let¡¯s talk about Greater Demons. Greater Demons are Monsters who had reached the 4th Realm and had gained Enlightened Forms, enabling them to absorb Magical Energy or whatever Essence from the air to supplement their Killing Essence. But wait, that was not quite true. Because when a Greater Demon came to be; all the Killing Essence within them coalesced into the centre of their chests and formed something called a Demon Nucleus. They also gained Mana Circuits that circulated round their entire bodies no matter what form they were in.

    But here¡¯s where it got interesting.

    All the Magical Energy that they would begin to absorb and all the Killing Essence that was priorly in their bodies would be converted into something called Demonic Energy. When any kind of Essence was refined in their Demon Nucleus, this was the energy that was formed. It behaved like Mana, yes, but it was not the same Mana that other Lifeforms had at all. It was much more dangerous.

    On top of that, Demonic Energy was very corruptive. It had the tendency to convert anything that could withstand it into something more suitable for its purposes. So when a whole bunch of Demon Kings around the Continent enter the 4th Realm, it¡¯s not hard to think of what would happen to the Magical Energy in the vicinity.

    Sooner or later, the whole Continents Magical Energy was going to be replaced with Demonic Energy, making the Continent the absolute paradise for Monsters. It could also be said that it might even become one giant Sacred Land.

    But back to the topic of Philanderers! Most Greater Demons were sensual and were very enticing to the majority of Enlightened Races and those with Enlightened Forms. Demon Kings and especially the Emperor himself were even more exceptional in this regard and it was very easy for them to seduce people with their looks and charm. On top of that, they had higher libidos than regular Monsters of the first 3 Realms so it wasn¡¯t rare to see orgies taking place out in the open.

    On a day to day basis, Greater Demons were either committing bloodbaths or¡­ you know¡­~ Hahahahaha!

    But thinking of all this open sexuality. It would be very interesting to see what would happen when the Monsters met with the Legendary Birds on the West Continent who valued purity more than anyone else.

    The Pure Phoenix Clan, the Ice Phoenix Clan and the Purgatory Clan (Purgatory Vermillion Birds). All of them were doing well even though the dynamics of their equality had broken. Although Chad still possessed bottomless hatred for the ¡®Honourable Brother¡¯, he had always been kind hearted so he didn¡¯t extend his vengeful claws to the Ice Phoenixes. Instead, he took them under his wing as something of a subsidiary clan, forgiving them for the countless losses that the War has caused. And although they were occasionally bullied by the Pure Phoenixes, they still lived in a state of peace that they had never seen before. They had always been involved in minor Wars before the major one since the day they were born but now it was finally over.

    Both Clans combined together were able to achieve enough power to rival the dangerous Purgatory Clan so a ceasefire had been formed once again. It even looked like friendly relations were beyond the horizon.

    Everyone around the whole World was making big moves¡­ but there was something that could absolutely not be left out. Something that was more active than anyone else. Something that should never be forgotten.

    The System itself.

 Ch.77 The Moon and The Blood Tree

    Roughly 400,000 km from the Planet, an entity that had been forced into existence heard the very first words of its life.

    DING!

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <You have received the Eridius System as a gift from the Eridius World.>

    <The Eridius System has been designed to help you in your progression and path to power. Please check ¡®Status''.>

    A various set of sounds rang out in the mind of the new entity before it even had the ability to think.

    ¡®...¡¯

    DING!

    <Congratulations. You have gained the [Common Language].>

    The equivalent of a question mark formed in its mind¡­ because it couldn¡¯t understand a single thing. But before it could think any further, ¡®symbols¡¯, sounds and matching meanings flooded into its mind like an avalanche.

    They consisted of¡­ ¡®things¡¯ that the Entity could not properly comprehend just yet. It had just been born and was just beginning to grasp self-awareness. It didn¡¯t even have an understanding of existence itself, talk less of a bunch of words that had forcefully entered its mind.

    But¡­ What were these new things floating in its head?

    It didn¡¯t know. But there was nothing to do. It must¡­ think.

    *5 Minutes Later*

    ¡®...Words. Confusing.¡¯

    It had just deciphered the concept of the conundrum that called itself Words or Language. It was quite weird.

    <They System congratulates the host¡¯s comprehension speed. Please check ¡®Status¡¯.>

    ¡®This thing again? Congratulated¡­? Why? Comprehension speed, fast? How? ¡­What is Status?¡¯

    The entity¡¯s thoughts flickered from one to another, having only questions to ask and no answers to answer.

    DING!

    [Status]

    [Name: None]

    [Titles: None]

    [Race: Living Moon (Anomaly)]

    [Cultivation: None]

    [Anomaly Stage: Neophyte]

    [Combat Strength: Unknown]

    [Contracted Apostles: None]

    [Contracts: 0 / 2500]

    [Affinities: Moon(100%), Gravity(100%), Earth(100%), Metal(70%), Water(100%), Ice(80%) Wind(30%), Fire(50%), Light(100%), Life(100%), Creation(10%)]

    [Elements: Earth, Metal, Water, Wind, Fire, Light]

    [Laws: Moon(100%), Gravity(20%), Earth(50%), Water(10%), Metal(30%), Light(5%), Ice(5%), Life(1%), Creation(1%)]

    [Innate Skills: Contract, Spirit Sense, Syphon Essence, Appraise, Elemental Manipulation, Geographical Creation]

    ¡®...Too much... Must think again.¡¯

    Stolen story; please report.

    The Entity that had now been shocking revealed to be the Moon itself¡­ Could not understand a majority of the Words that had been presented before It. So It decided to think some more.

    *7 Hours Later*

    ¡®Still not understand all¡­ but Spirit Sense¡­ is this?¡¯

    !!!

    The Moon felt shock for the first time as a world of images flowed into Its mind.

    The first thing It saws was a large expanse of pearl-white rocks that curved around to form a beautiful spherical shape. It could instinctively tell that this was Its body and a sense of comfort could be felt as It looked all over.

    In some places It could find faintly blue coloured ¡®things¡¯ that were flat and most of the time circular in shape, for some reason they had an undulating appearance and it confused the Moon.

    ¡®What, that?¡¯

    <That is [Lunar Water]. A type of liquid that forms on the Moon.>

    ¡®Oh¡­ What, you?¡¯

    <The Eridius System.>

    ¡®Oh¡­¡¯

    The Moon quickly found itself bored with the System and continued the exploration of Its body.

    As it peered deeper, it managed to witness the way the lunar caves under the surface twisted and turned like a maze until it found something that It could feel was very important.

    ¡®What, that?¡¯

    <That is your core. The Moon¡¯s Core.>

    ¡®I, Moon?¡¯

    <Yes. You are the Moon.>

    ¡®Oh...¡¯

    The Moon felt like it had quite a lot to learn.

    ¡­

    [South Continent, Southern Region, Unknown Forest]

    Somewhere in the Southern Region of the Continent, there was a peculiar Forest that stood out from any other Forest in the Continent. Apart from the plant-life, there was no other life to be found at all. No Beasts, no Enlightened Beings, no Monsters and not even any insects.

    But it didn¡¯t take much to understand why.

    Disregarding the unholy amounts of blood that lay splattered on almost every surface of the Forest¡­ There was a disgustingly thick and frightening aura of death that positively radiated out of every inch of its domain. It couldn¡¯t be seen, but anyone who could step within a mile of the Forest would definitely feel a chill run up their spine.

    Clearly, anything that had lived here before had either died or fled long ago. But if you knew who used to live in this Forest, then it would become natural. Of course everything here had died and no wonder there was so much blood.

    This was the Forest in which the Blood Fiends had originated from!

    However, in the centre of this Forest there was a strange Tree. Although it looked like the many other Trees around it being 10 metres tall, regular brown coloured bark and green coloured leaves albeit splattered in blood¡­ There was something that set this Tree different from the others.

    And it was the oceans of Magical Energy that was flooding into it. Very quickly, the Tree started changing in appearance.

    It¡¯s height ballooned as its branches thickened and stretched out, its roots beneath the earth reached out in all directions like tentacles and its bountiful leaves became more vibrant. Going by this series of events, the Magic Tree seemed to be evolving into a Spirit Tr-

    Hm? Something changed.

    Suddenly, the dry blood that had been coating its surface seemed to be revitalised with life. It had once again become liquid in nature and luminously crimson in colour. But no one but the omnipresent System was there to witness such shocking events before the Blood disappeared into the Tree.

    The Tree had somehow absorbed the blood on its body¡­

    But it didn¡¯t stop there.

    As the Magical Energy kept coming, the Tree got bigger and bigger and the amount of blood it was stealing from the Forest increased. On top of that, as it absorbed more blood the colour of the bark became darker and the colour of the leaves became more crimson. The aura around the Tree also became more and more menacing as if a terrible spirit was emerging within it and it soon became clear why.

    Not only was the Tree absorbing the blood around the Forest like an insatiable black hole. But it was also absorbing its aura as well!

    What was happening?!

    *10 Minutes Later*

    Eventually, the blood all around the forest had been entirely cleared out and even that terrible aura was gone. The Forest had once again become a beautiful force of mother nature.

    But if anyone was to walk into the depths of this Forest¡­ may the gods help their soul.

    Sat in the centre of the Forest was a blood-curdling 250 metre tall Tree with mahogany-coloured bark and scarlet-coloured leaves along with a powerful soul that was very, very different from other Spirit Trees of its kind. Its aura billowed out in terrifying waves that possessed a clear desire for blood and the intelligence of a being that possessed unmistakable self-awareness.

    ¡­

    DING!

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <You have received the Eridius System as a gift from the Eridius World.>

    <The Eridius System has been designed to help you in your progression and path to power. Please check ¡®Status''.>

 Ch.78 The Sacred Volcano and The Heavenly Sun Flame

    [East Continent, Western Region, Unknown Mountain Range]

    Slap bang in the middle of an inconspicuous mountain range was an unsuspecting Volcano of gigantic proportions. Copious amounts of smoke continuously billowed out of its top but it had been like that for many years. All the beings in its vicinity had long ago lost their wariness and continued to do the best they could for their future generations.

    But that¡¯s how things used to be.

    ¡­

    One day, the strange but harmless ¡®mountain¡¯ that had stayed the same since the day they were born had undergone ground-shaking changes!

    It suddenly started absorbing dreadful amounts of Magical Energy as its size shot up. Its innocent grey colour darkened to charcoal black whilst horrifyingly hot ¡®red-coloured liquids¡¯ exploded into the sky with wrathful grace. Anything that was unlucky enough to be in its landing spot had turned into ash.

    The other mountains in the range were affected and they too started changing with the ones closer to the Volcano (which they identified with help from the System) becoming darker and taller. Only the mountains on the outskirts of the range were left unaffected.

    But eventually things calmed down and all the beings in the vicinity had either fled or died. There were still crazy amounts of lava all over the place and even more still flowing, but if you had basic intelligence and avoided the glowing hot lava (which they identified with help from the System) that you could feel even before you saw, then things were relatively safe.

    Soon, the more bold and intelligent creatures were attracted to the Volcanoes'' ambient Magical Energy that kept rising every day, and thinking that their beloved homeland had turned into a cultivation haven, they crept closer and closer to the Volcano.

    They all had varying limits that they could withstand because of the unbearable heat with no one being able to touch the actual Volcano, but there were some that got as close as the 3rd ring (3rd circle of mountains that surrounded the 2nd circle of mountains, 1st circle of mountains and the Volcano itself. There are 9 circles/rings in total). When Magic Stones filled with Lava or Earth Essence started spawning they all rejoiced, although no one had the Lava affinity and were therefore unable to absorb the Lava Essence if they didn¡¯t want to end up getting hurt. As beings born in the mountain range, most of them had an Earth Affinity and were fully capable of absorbing the Earth Essence from the Magic Earth Stones!

    A racial war for monopoly had quickly begun but it ended just as quickly as it started.

    The fights had become pointless with more and more people arriving, and with such a treacherous warzone (lava everywhere), dying was too easy. So they advocated for peace and so long as they were within the range, no one was allowed to kill.

    Everything was going well. Breakthroughs were occurring everyday and more and more Beasts were gaining Earth-aligned innate skills. Some even evolved when they crossed over a Realm and this was all in the matter of days.

    But then things changed again.

    Out of nowhere, the creatures that they had looked down on the most, the weakest kind of lifeform that barely even qualified as Beasts, the most unsuspecting and useless type or race on the planet¡­

    Started slaughtering them!

    They were on average, half a metre tall and 1.5 metres long. Their bodies were split into 3 sections consisting of head, thorax and abdomen and they had 6 legs, 2 antennae and a pair of jaws also known as mandibles. Their charcoal-like bodies looked suspiciously like the Volcano that they had been praising all this time and even more suspicious were the visible veins filled with glowing lava that streaked over their bodies. The only normal thing about them were their black compound eyes that looked in every which way with obvious hunger.

    They were Ants!

    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    An insect subspecies that was supposed to be one of the weakest and most useless beings on the planet. And yet here they were, digging out of the rocky ground that no other being (to their knowledge) were able to so much as dent like it was nothing, and killing everything in sight without discrimination.

    They shot lava out of their mouths, bit down on necks with crushing jaws and stabbed through hearts with razor-sharp legs. Even though there were only tens of such Ants, hundreds of carcasses were dragged back into the tunnels.

    If someone were to gather the collective thoughts of all the beings on the mountain range and refine them into one. It would sound something like:

    ¡®What the fuuuck?!?!?!¡¯

    ¡­

    [West Continent, Centre Region, Unknown Mountain]

    ¡®...Status.¡¯

    Deep into the depths of the West Continent, a peculiar existence made a prompt for its status page.

    DING!

    [Status]

    [Name: None]

    [Titles: None]

    [Race: Living Sun Flame (Anomaly)]

    [Cultivation: None]

    [Anomaly Stage: Neophyte]

    [Combat Strength: Unknown]

    [Contracted Apostles: Liyanda]

    [Contracts: 1472 / 2500]

    [Affinities: Sun(100%), Fire(100%), Light(100%), Life(100%)]

    [Elements: Fire, Light]

    [Laws: Sun(90%), Fire(100%), Light(100%), Life(21%)]

    [Innate Skills: Contract, Spirit Sense, Syphon Essence, Appraise, Fire Manipulation, Light Manipulation]

    ¡®My comprehension of the Laws of Life have increased¡­ but it is difficult. It has been¡­ a week? And it has only gone up by 1%... Disappointing. But I have made progress on the number of contracts. That is good.¡¯

    A giant golden ball of fire surrounded by nothing but ash pondered on its progress since its birth 1 week ago.

    This used to be the only Heaven Ranked Flame in the World that rested inconspicuously at the top of a mountain on the West Continent. It had a startling affinity with the Sun and was very powerful. Back then, its presence had been completely concealed. Even if someone were to walk within 1 metre of it they wouldn¡¯t have even sensed it, talk less of seen it. This was the self-defence mechanism that all Natural Flames of the Heaven Rank and above had. It was fallible and could be seen if someone coming close was too powerful, but not even 4th Realm beings were good enough so the Heaven Ranked Flamed had been safe all its days.

    But alas, ¡®something¡¯ had disturbed it and it had become something else, something completely different from any of its kind, something that would cause entire galaxies to wail with fear because of its existence.

    It had become an Anomaly.

    But it was also in its fledgling stage and very visible. Its awakening as an Anomaly had stripped away its concealment and reduced everything in the surroundings to ashes.

    At the time, It didn¡¯t know that It was in possible danger and planned to continue its days of nothingness with more nothingness. It had gained a fully sapient soul, yes, but it was a soul that was empty. Desires and emotions had yet to form.

    But the System had informed It of the Contracts and encouraged that It found some life forms to protect It while It was young and unable to defend Itself.

    So it did.

    ¡­

    The Heavenly Sun Flame gave a glance at the over 1000 Humans that went about doing their business. They had golden hair, golden irises and powerful auras that were perfectly aligned with fire. Most of them had smiles on their faces and would look back at the Sun Flame from time to time with reverent gazes.

    However, 5 metres in front of the Sun Flame was a Woman that sat cross legged with closed eyes, clearly meditating.

    She was a woman of ethereal beauty with a perfect face that carried a wild charm, a curvaceous figure that tantalised the eyes and long golden hair that seemed to be made from the silkiest of materials.

    As if she could sense the Heavenly Sun Flame looking, she opened her eyes to look right back with an expression that was coloured in startlement, but unlike the other Humans behind her, her eyes were completely gold and glowed like the sun.

    She abruptly scrambled to her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground in a manner that was similar to the way Beasts prostrated themselves, letting out a heavenly voice and saying:

    ¡°Your humble servant, Liyanda, awaits your orders.¡±

 Ch.79 Heavenly Sun Apostle

    In the presence of her Lord, Liyanda couldn¡¯t help but shiver with awe.

    She still remembered that fateful day not too long ago when she and her people had encountered the Lord. That day, her tribe had been in a very perilous situation. Their stressful yet peace-filled days had been torn apart by the arrival of beings they had never seen before, predators. Before then, they had never seen a predator in their life. They had only seen the docile herbivores that paid them no mind so long as they weren¡¯t trying to contest for resources.

    Although they had to struggle every day just for scraps, they had never been in danger and to a certain extent, they were able to prosper.

    Alas, such days were never meant to last, their territory was invaded by groups of predators that slaughtered them like insects. There were Wolves, Bears and the worst, Eagles. 3 whole races of the likes she had never seen before.

    By then, the herbivores had long run away. Even though her tribe had tried to follow in their footsteps they would never be able to keep up with the speed of Beasts. One by one, her brethren were culled until only a little over 2000 were left. From 32,000+ healthy Humans to just a bit over 2000.

    The thought still gave her heart a terrible ache.

    But gripped by desperation, she had steered her Tribe to a land that had quickly become forbidden to all things.

    A few days before then, there had been a terrifying explosion at the peak of a tall mountain. Everything on the mountain and even 2 miles outside of it had been obliterated with only scorched charcoal and ash remaining.

    Naturally, nobody dared to get close.

    They didn¡¯t even care about the rising ambient Magical Energy because it didn¡¯t matter if they were killed. Liyanda had also thought the same, but they were going to die anyway. And if they were to die on that mountain, then they hoped that whatever killed them decided to kill those blasted predators too.

    So she forced her tribe up the mountain.

    That was when the predators finally stopped chasing. They had already killed so many and didn¡¯t necessarily need to run into dangerous lands just for small returns, so they decided to return and arrange their spoils.

    Liyanda remembered being overjoyed by the beautiful turn of events, yelling for her tribe to halt, halfway up the mountain.

    Unfortunately, she didn¡¯t see the Eagles coming.

    Even if the Wolves and Bears couldn¡¯t afford the risk, the same couldn¡¯t be said about the Eagles who possessed the ability to fly. They were very capable of swooping down quickly and fleeing back into the sky with prey caught in their claws.

    And that was what they did.

    It was only when her tribe had gotten 8/10 of the way up the mountain that the Eagles had decided that continuing was far too risky. Probably wary of the extreme heat that had only got hotter the higher they got.

    But at this point over 500 more of her brethren had died. She was so, so angry and it was only that anger that prevented her from retreating when she made it up the mountain. She wanted revenge but she could only acquire it if she survived. At that time, she was unable to reason well and failed to realise that anything that hot from so far away, wasn¡¯t something that anyone could freely come close to.

    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    That was when she met her Lord. The descendant of the Sun. The embodiment of all that was Sacred. The epitome of power itself¡­ The Heavenly Sun Flame!

    She still remembered that even from half a mile away, she had been struck with awe, almost prostrating herself with reverence at the magisterial aura of the flame. Thinking back on it, she felt like a fool for not kneeling straight away.

    Back then, she had actually thought she had been unworthy of witnessing such a beautiful existence. Even thinking that she would be smited in the next moment. But no, her great and merciful Lord was not such an unfair existence. Something completely beyond her wildest expectations occurred in that moment. Something that changed the fate of her and her tribe forever.

    DING!

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <You have been offered a Contract by the Heavenly Sun Flame.>

    <The Heavenly Sun Flame would like to make you an Apostle in exchange for eternal servitude, protection and a copy of your memories. Do you agree?>

    She had been so stunned back then. But even though she didn''t understand what was going on, she could tell that she was being offered something. A gift from such a mighty existence was definitely something that could benefit her and perhaps her whole tribe. On top of that, if she was the servant of such a figure, wouldn¡¯t that mean that she would have a powerful backer?

    She obviously accepted.

    But she was certainly not ready for what occurred next.

    DING!

    <Congratulations. You have made a Contract with the Heavenly Sun Flame.>

    <Congratulations. You have become the Apostle of the Heavenly Sun Flame.>

    <Congratulations. You have gained the Heaven Grade [Sun Apostle Physique].>

    <Congratulations. You have gained the Earth Grade [Heavenly Sun Bloodline].>

    <Congratulations. You have gained comprehension of the Law of Fire.>

    <Congratulations. You had gained the title [Heavenly Sun¡¯s First Apostle].>

    <Congratulations. You have been named [Liyanda] by the Heavenly Sun Flame.>

    <Congratulations. Your Mana has been reforged by the Laws of Fire.>

    <Congratulations. You have entered the 3rd Stage of Body Refinement.>

    <Congratulations. You have entered the 4th Stage of Body Refinement.>

    <Congratulations. You have entered the 5th Stage of Body Refinement.>

    System notifications rang out in her head continuously as she was engulfed in golden fire.

    ¡­

    (Present Time)

    ¡®Aaah¡­~ I still remember the fantastic rush I felt. The ethereal concepts of the Law of Fire, the amazing body I was granted and¡­ my name. My Lord is indeed the most amazing thing in existence. Who would have thought that the abysmal fate of me and my tribe would be changed in such a way?¡¯

    The Heavenly Sun Flame had even made contracts with the rest of her brethren even if on a lesser scale. They had only gained the Earth Grade [Heavenly Sun Bloodline] and an affinity with the fire element along with a small boost in cultivation. All in exchange for 10 years of servitude, protection and copy of memories. Quite different from her eternity, but it was them that had lost out, not her.

    ¡®But all of this is probably nothing to my magnificent Lord, I must make sure to pay him back in full! No, 2, 5¡­ 100 times over!¡¯

    --Liyanda. Your cultivation has increased.--

    The androgynous voice of her Lord resounded in her mind.

    ¡°Ah? Yes! I am now in the 9th Stage of Body Refinement thanks to my Lord¡¯s grace. The Magic Stones that keep on appearing have been extremely beneficial to all of us.¡± Liyanda responded with the utmost respect clear in her voice¡­ along with her face still pressed to the ground.

    --Perfect¡­ Make sure to protect me well.--

    ¡°Yes, my Lord!¡± Liyanda almost squealed with joy.

 Ch.80 The Queenâ€™s Consort

    There was now an Anomaly on each Continent. Ciera Domicus the living Spring of Life in the Central, Cleo the living Storm Cloud in the North, the Unnamed Blood Tree in South, the Volcano in the East and finally, the Heavenly Sun Flame in West.

    It was surely a coincidence with the first 2, but the 3+ more afterwards? What was the System¡¯s- no, Eridel¡¯s aim?

    Even the Moon had been granted life as an Anomaly and nobody could predict what it would do. There were many beings in existence that wielded the Moon Laws to strike down their foes with heavenly might, but no one could use the full extent of a Moon¡¯s power without the help of terrific Runes and heavy sacrifices.

    But here was a perfectly sapient Moon that had no restrictions whatsoever on the power it could draw out from its own body.

    Terrifying.

    The whole entire Eridius World was terrifying.

    Ground-breaking and absolutely rule breaking phenomenons had repeatedly taken place all over the World ever since Eridel¡¯s arrival like it was nothing.

    A whole new racial faction called ¡®Monsters¡¯ that had never been seen before, Tribulations that purified and even enhanced the potential of cultivators, Beasts that could gain humanoid forms along with the ability to absorb Essence from the air, every object that could passively absorb Magical Energy (Trees, Herbs, Ores, etc) already being in their first stages of cultivation, treasures that could make other-worlders turn green with envy, alternative Realm evolutions (Celestial Beasts) that possessed untold powers, Anomalies that could use the World¡¯s ability to form contracts¡­ too much.

    This World was too much.

    The impact that the World would have on the rest of the galaxy was unknown and no one was aware of it. Time continued to flow and the World continued to grow. The Magical Energy on the Planet was soon going to reach Saturation and everything would explode once more.

    A new dawn was nigh¡­

    ¡­

    [Central Continent, Eastern Forest, City of Elves]

    (3 Months Later)

    Within an intricately designed building, a being of transcendent beauty and imperial grace sat upon a throne with a pensive look on her face.

    She had smooth green skin clear of blemishes, fully white eyes that glowed like stars, long white hair that rested softly against her ankles, perfect white lashes that graced her eyes, an alluring figure to tantalise the senses and the most perfect face that exceeded mortal imagination.

    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    She was the Queen of Elves.

    Titania sat upon her throne with one leg crossed over the other, pointing delicate toes towards the ground with her face resting peacefully on her fist. Although her clothing seemed to consist of 2 white pieces of cloth that wrapped around her chest and waist respectively, none of the people moving about around her gave her a single vulgar look.

    Clothes had been prevalent long enough that the idea of them coming off was much more interesting than it used to be. And yet, the Queen only received gazes filled with reverence, adoration or fear.

    Nobody dared to blasphemy the Queen.

    They had learnt that lesson long ago and they were unwilling to pay for another one.

    Titania gazed into the floorboards of her new palace absentmindedly... Worries for the future had been blossoming within her heart for a long time now and they had refused to stop. She couldn¡¯t stop thinking about the rising ambient Magical Energy that had recently begun to feel compressing, and her conversation with the Lady of the Lake (Ciera) that she had a few days ago.

    Back then Ciera had informed her that the World was at a tipping point and was bound to evolve in any moment, and even though she couldn¡¯t understand how a World could evolve, she was very apprehensive.

    She still remembered the day that Magical Energy first appeared; it was like a blessing from the heavens when everything glowed with profound life. Comparing the World with Magical Energy to the World without it was like comparing a coloured image to a black and white one. Alas¡­

    Even more memorable than the scene of Trees shooting up into the air and varying Beasts growing into new forms as they evolved¡­ was the absolutely apocalyptic series of events that happened before it.

    The unholy rage of quaking earth, lightning bolts that stole lives like thieves in the night, sundered mountains that collapsed like sand, yawning seas that rearranged landscapes¡­

    Titania shivered at the memory of it. A lot of life had been lost that day and she was afraid that the second coming was close.

    ¡°Is something wrong, my Queen?¡± came the familiar voice of a male on her right.

    On her right was a Man that sat on another throne. His throne was made from the same beautiful wooden material that hers was, but it was smaller and less designed. The Man himself had healthy white skin, intelligent cerulean eyes, black shoulder-length hair and a slender but muscular figure.

    The gaze on his handsome face was soft and intimate but tinged with a hint of worry.

    He was her husband, Alan. And by virtue of being her husband he could be considered the King of Elves¡­ but it would be more accurate to call him the Queen¡¯s Consort than the King.

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: Introduced back in Chapter 25: Status of The Central Eastern Forest}

    Everybody and their friends knew that Alan was nowhere near as capable as the Queen. Although he was indeed the next best, being the most talented Elf after her highness, he was inferior to the Queen in every way possible and thus not eligible to hold the equal title of King.

    The concept of politics hadn¡¯t even finished gestating so there would be nobody calling him King just because of the fact that he was ¡®married¡¯ to the Queen. Only might makes right.

    ¡°I am fine, Alan.¡± Titania looked at her husband with a tired look. She was so occupied with potential problems and managing the Elves that she rarely had the time to pay her husband any mind these days.

    Alan¡¯s eyebrows drooped with sympathy. ¡°My Queen¡­ may I suggest-¡±

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

 Ch.81 Mid World Evolution

    A resounding boom echoed throughout the World without warning, shaking the earth in its entirety and damaging the ears of all its residents.

    Titania, Alan and the others pressed their hands to their ears in pain as dizziness threatened to overwhelm them, it was a completely new feeling and it terrified them. Looking at each other they could see matching sets of wide eyes contorted in fear and paler skins moist with sweat.

    ¡°What is happening?!¡± ¡°MY QUEEN!¡± ¡°Are we under attack?!¡± ¡°YOUR MAJESTY!¡± they screamed out to each other but it was futile. They couldn¡¯t hear a single thing and the blood-curdling sight of their mute companions only served to invigorate their fear.

    ZZZZ!

    ¡°AAARGH?!¡± a feeling of terrible tightness and bone-tingling itchiness gripped their bodies as the Magical Energy around them started reacting chaotically. It was rushing about in every direction and growing in both quantity and quality like a tsunami in a storm, creating an unbearable pressure that tormented the residents.

    As darkness began to consume their visions, they couldn¡¯t help but begin to feel¡­ despair.

    What was happening? How could this be possible? Are we going to die? Is this all we amount to? Thoughts of imminent death and destruction corroded their minds, frightening each other with their pale faces and wild eyes.

    Titania gritted her teeth as she repeatedly tried to harness her Mana only to fail again and again. Her Mana had been circuiting around her body on its own and she was, much to her frustration, unable to affect it.

    Fear shone in Alan¡¯s eyes as he looked desperately at his wife, hoping that she would somehow save them all. Alas¡­ nobody would be ¡®saving¡¯ them and one by one they collapsed, unable to withstand the increased pressure that the ambient Magical Energy was having on their brains.

    THUD! THUD! THUD!

    Titania¡¯s last sight before she fell unconscious was the sight of all her people slumped against the floor, helpless and defenceless. She had tried so hard, so hard and yet she was unable to save them. Unable to protect her people from danger.

    It hurt.

    She could only hope that this was somehow a procedure of the World¡¯s evolution and that it was not death that they faced.

    ¡®Please¡­¡¯ was her last thought as a tear slid out of her eye.

    The World went black.

    ¡­

    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    Eridel surveyed his World whilst simultaneously activating the incomprehensible runes that were written on his core. These runes were the new rules that would assimilate with his World when they were absorbed, the Soul Mate ¡®laws¡¯ for example were written there. Soon, they would slip in and disappear.

    He had already completed most of the runes (that could be edited at any time) and could have activated them earlier, but he wanted to see if something would be different if he activated them when the World was evolving. He was certain that nothing would go haywire because that was drastically unrealistic. The worst thing that he could imagine possibly happening was the runes being agitated and consequently destroyed. But¡­

    ¡®Is this normal?¡¯

    Eridel used his Spirit Sense to see through underlying effects of the World¡¯s evolution. In fact, he was focusing so hard that he was seeing straight through the flesh and cells, looking at atoms beneath.

    He didn¡¯t want to miss a single thing.

    The World shook violently and all Essences in the World were reacting crazily, growing in quality and mutating if possible. The North and South Continents were changing the most. Not only were they growing in size, but the nature of their ambient Magical Energies was changing very quickly.

    The Demonic Energy in the South Continent was quickly corroding the nature of the pure Magical Energy and converting it into more Demonic Energy. Even the main territory of the Blood Fiends which had recently turned into a Sacred Land that free released Blood Essence¡­ was being assimilated with Demonic Energy. But wait? That wasn¡¯t quite true. It was looking more like they were combining and becoming something¡­ else? Demonic Blood Essence? Yes¡­ that must be it. It was similar to the Mutated Killing Essence that a few of the rarer Monsters like Asura had. Ah, indeed, Asura¡¯s Savage Earthen Ogre Territory that was also a Sacred Land was having its Earth Killing Essence converted into Demonic Earth Essence. Luckily, this didn¡¯t mean that every residential Monster was going to be able to wield it. They could absorb it, yes, but they would have to be Realm 4 Greater Demons to do so. Everyone below that would have to kill as usual.

    However, Eridel wondered how the Fiends would cope when there were more 4th Realm Savage Earthen Ogres.

    ¡®How scary.¡¯

    Over in the North Continent, the situation wasn¡¯t quite as impressive. But there was a new Undead Energy that was pervading the territories of the Undead. This energy was different to the Undeath Essence that their residents were used to but could be considered as a product of that very same Undeath Essence finally corrupting the ambient Magical Energy.

    The Sacred or rather Cursed Land where the Original Undead resided was an eldritch mess that released all sorts of corrupt Essences which was no doubt the result of the Abomination¡¯s presence. But, that didn''t really affect the ambient Magical Energy flowing in and out like the Demonic Energy in the Demon King territories did.

    Now it was. And it was doing it very quickly.

    ¡®I must say¡­ It''s looking pretty hopeless for those 2 kids.¡¯ Eridel thought as he looked at the Twin Stars of Hope. If the entire Continent''s Magical Energy converted into Undead Energy then they were finished. Even if they could keep their own lives, their mission to save the continent or at least preserve the lives of Humans was doomed for failure.

    But it wasn¡¯t the outbreak of all this ¡®Magical Energy mutation¡¯ that was getting Eridel worried. Nor was it the perilous situation of the Humans on the North Continent. Nor the shaking and rumbling of the World or the splitting of certain landmasses that were growing into small continents on their own.

    No.

    All of those crazy sceneries were like Horses grazing on grass compared to what was going outside of the World.

    ¡®God¡­ I¡¯m finished.¡¯

 Ch.82 Impending Doom

    Eridel could not for the life of him believe what was being presented before his metaphorical eyes as fear cascaded his soul.

    Floating ominously above his ever growing planetary body was¡­ a Magic Circle.

    A gigantic Magic Circle that was so interlaced with dizzying Runes that just looking at it caused his mind to dull. He knew that if he dared to seek its truths, his mind wouldn¡¯t be able to take it. His powerful soul that had never been impeded before now lay helpless.

    The Magic Circle shone with a red light that gave the tumultuous World below an apocalyptic glow, and radiated an Aura that was so terrifying that it caused Eridel¡¯s mind to shiver. But it was still growing. It¡¯s terrifying presence was encroaching much farther than Eridel could see, and yet, he could feel that it was still growing..

    The Magic Circle was missing its trademark cloud, but he knew what it was with a single glance. He invented its design after all.

    ¡®How could this happen to me?¡¯ If Eridel was using his Avatar, his body would have fallen slack.

    Never. EVER. Did he think that he would have fallen prey to his own Tribulation rules.

    ¡®But how could this be?¡¯ Eridel thought as he glanced at the Tribulation above him. The Magic Circle was actually a red-coloured Tribulation Circle that was patiently charging up its energy, waiting to strike him down with its full might. It didn¡¯t have its usual surrounding cloud but Eridel wasn¡¯t about to be fooled by it. What was much more concerning was its red colour.

    Gold, White, Blue, Red, Rainbow. These were the 5 Grades that a Tribulation could use and each one was more fatal than the last. The Abomination Of The North hadn¡¯t gone through its tribulation, but Eridel was predicting it would face 2 white Tribulations and then a final blue one. And that was a being who if not stopped, could grow to the point that it was devouring entire Worlds.

    Eridel¡­ never thought he would be seeing a Red Tribulation today.

    No. He did not even think that he would see it in a million years. Nor did he think that HE would be the target. Or that he would have to bear a Red Tribulation on the 1st Strike... This meant that if things didn¡¯t get worse, he would have to take on 3 Red Tribulation strikes. There was no ¡®if things were better¡¯... there was only worse.

    If Fate thought that a Red Tribulation was going too easy on him, it was more than capable of giving him a Rainbow one on the second or third strike.

    ¡°But how¡­? HOWWWWWW!!!¡± Eridel roared out in anger for the first time in 2000 years, his voice resounding throughout space like a primordial cosmic beast.

    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    Eridel quickly suppressed his emotions and forcefully cut off his voice before trying to run hundreds of calculations, but his fear of impending doom was getting to him. Yet it was at this moment that he recognized the difference between his emotions during the time he was forcing Primordial Essence into his Planetary Core to awaken Magical Energy, compared to now.

    He had always had suspicions but now, in this terrible moment of fatality, they were confirmed. His instincts as a World was¡­ overpowering his will. Or at the very least, they were having a heavy influence on his actions. A World¡¯s primary instinct was to evolve at all costs, and in the face of this overwhelming desire, death was a paltry consequence for failure.

    ¡®It all makes sense now¡­ It was that stupid ¡®will¡¯ that drove me to do something so foolish as to destroy my core for the mere chance of awakening Magical Energy. But now, there¡¯s an absence of the ¡®will¡¯ despite the situation being even more dangerous than the awakening. I feel fear of death as most lifeforms do, but the desire to overcome at all costs is gone. Clearly, it was only my new instincts to evolve no matter consequence, that drove me to such suicidal boldness. Not some kind of threat to my life. What a joke.¡¯

    Eridel felt daunted by these revelations but refused to let it stall him in the face of certain destruction. He wasn¡¯t just about to just lay there and wait for death.

    ¡®Wait¡­ could it be?¡¯

    It was at this moment that he remembered the moment that the Runes written on his Core merged inside during the start of his Evolution. Could the World¡¯s evolution truly have had an impact on the effect of the Runes? Even the Runes that had already been activated long ago? ¡­Is this why I have been bound by the same rules of my Residents?

    For an instant, The Eridius World shook even more intensely before returning to its regular quaking. As if the World had shivered.

    ¡®Did the Runes become a part of the World¡¯s Integral Laws¡­? What does this mean?¡¯ Eridel wondered what this could mean for the future, what differences could his evolution have had on his other plans when a sudden thought came to mind.

    ¡®Why is it a Red Tribulation? This doesn¡¯t make any sense, how could I have used up so much Fortune? I am a World and shouldn¡¯t even be able- wait, is it because of my soul¡­?¡¯ Eridel¡¯s mind ran cold at the prospect of unknowingly using up so much fortune. In all this time¡­ the Fortune he had been using was so extensive that Fate had decided that he¡¯d pay back with a Red Tribulation. Unbelievable.

    ¡®How could I have been oblivious to so much informa-¡¯ A sudden flash of a bright red light that snapped his attention back to the Tribulation and his mind was once more gripped by fear, but this time for a different reason.

    The Tribulation had just undergone its first pulse, racking up the intensity of its aura and increasing the feeling of desolation that was oozing out in all directions.

    Eridel knew that if things kept on going the way it was now¡­ he was going to have company.

    It was this thought that spurred him into action.

    Eridel withdrew his Primordial Essence to form a golden sea that crashed down on the Tribulation Circle like a tsunami. Nobody had ever attacked a Tribulation before and they were right to, because he knew that the Tribulations had countermeasures and things could potentially get worse.

    But he wasn¡¯t willing to let anybody know of his existence just yet and especially not in such a spectacular fashion.

    Gigantic Tribulations weren¡¯t good for first introductions.

 Ch.83 Discord

    I have 2 announcements to make.

    1st Announcement: I¡¯ve created a new Discord Server that will soon host all the Books and Games (Yes, I¡¯m a game developer) that I¡¯ll be creating and would like to invite you all to join.

    As I¡¯ve been writing this book, I¡¯ve also been making a game based on the book on the ever so popular ROBLOX platform called [Eridius World]. It¡¯s in its beginning stages and you most likely won¡¯t find it because it¡¯s private, but soon¡­. You¡¯ll all be able to play in the World created by Eridel.

    But first, join the Discord so you can get all the news. Oh, I¡¯d also like to mention that everyone who joins within a week from now will get the [Ancestor] role so don¡¯t dilly-dally.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    Here¡¯s the link that you can use to join the Discord: https://discord.gg/TGvRnS7vKn</a>

    2nd Announcement: I¡¯m in an important moment in my education and will be spending a lot of time focusing on that, so I won¡¯t be able to release as many chapters. But if you want to get my attention for whatever reason, your best bet is Discord.

    And also¡­ Thank you all for the support you¡¯ve given for this Novel. I¡¯ve always been a person good at working alone without any kind of support in any way shape or form (I¡¯m the Monarch after all, hehe~); But I can¡¯t help but feel gratified and boosted by the enjoyment that you express in the comments when you read my novel. It¡¯s a pretty amazing feeling. So thank you.

    Er, was that 3 Announcements?

 Ch.84 The First Strike

    The golden sea crashed into the Magic Circle with chaotic ferocity, causing the Circle to develop cracks that deepened the more Primordial Essence was poured on. Eventually, the light being emitted by the Circle stuttered out like a dying lightbulb as its daunting aura vanished. Clearly, It had lost power.

    CRISSSSHH!!!

    The enormous Magic Circle that was twice the size of the entire World shattered like glass, raining down softly like red snow. The sight was eerie and ethereal yet absolutely beautiful, it was definitely a sight that could cause minds to stall. Especially when it was surrounded by the infinite cosmos.

    But Eridel didn¡¯t dare to admire it.

    ¡®Quickly!¡¯ Eridel thought as he summoned forth even more Primordial Essence. The golden sea grew to terrifying scales that slowly morphed in shape, becoming a dome-like forcefield that encased the World, Moon and Magic Circle.

    ¡®Annoying¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as he looked at the biggest Mana Construct that he had ever crafted. He couldn¡¯t help but feel frustration at the amount of Primordial Essence it had cost, because it had definitely tapped into his finite depths. This was completely incomparable to the small cages that shackled the Laws of Destruction.

    ¡®At the very least, this should stop anyone from sensing what¡¯s going on, allowing me to-... It¡¯s coming.¡¯

    The shattered Magic Circle pieces that looked about to vanish suddenly brightened up like crimson stars and froze in the air as if time had stopped. It was like red fireflies had been frozen in mid-air and the disturbing sight caused Eridel¡¯s thoughts to stutter. Not because of the view but because of what he knew was coming next.

    ZUUUUUUUM!

    A sound that suspiciously sounded like time reversing boomed throughout all the space within Eridel¡¯s barrier as the Magic Circle particles began floating back to where they came from, getting brighter and brighter as they did so.

    ¡®Never would I have thought that I, Eridel¡­ would become the first victim of my own trap. How ludicrous.¡¯ Eridel would have laughed at the thought, if it wasn¡¯t reality. A very perilous reality.

    The broken pieces became bigger and bigger as they connected and fused with others but Eridel could only watch in silence. 5 minutes later, the Tribulation Circle was back in place and good as new except there was something that was blatantly different.

    ¡®Fuck¡­¡¯ Eridel groaned in his mind.

    By now he had already come up with a few scenarios that could possibly help him to survive the ordeal in one piece and maybe even gain unknown benefits, the Tribulation¡¯s purpose wasn¡¯t to simply hurt you after all. But¡­ he knew he was about to enter a world of unprecedented suffering.

    He was about to experience a pain that he had never in his life experienced before and if he managed to survive he was sure he would never forget it.

    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    Floating above his planetary body was a Tribulation Circle that was 5 times bigger than before positively glowing with mind-crippling power. Eridel knew it was coming, the countermeasures that came with attacking a Tribulation were not defensive but instead extremely offensive.

    He was aware of the fact that there would probably be a time where ¡®Sons and Daughters of Heaven¡¯ that were blessed with peculiar abilities capable of damaging the Tribulation Lights would be born sooner or later, so he had decided to install some ¡®defensive¡¯ measures just in case.

    At that time, he remembered thinking-

    *FLASH* The Tribulation Circle pulsed.

    ¡®...¡¯ Eridel felt a feeling akin to racing blood but he kept his silence.

    At that time¡­ he remembered thinking something along the lines of: ¡®Let me see if any one of you would dare to overcome fate. There¡¯s no escape!¡¯ Now,he couldn¡¯t help but feel like a fool.

    *FLASH* The Tribulation Circle pulsed..

    At this point the Tribulation Circle was flat out vibrating, struggling to compress the boundless amounts of Essence that it was gathering. Eridel didn¡¯t even know where the energy was coming from but it was most certainly not him. He felt that if he could comprehend the Runes being used on the Circle then he could-

    *FLASH* The Tribulation Circle pulsed.

    Eridel¡¯s mind lit up as he burst into action, forming around his body another defensive dome that he compressed to the extreme. If one was to look at it from the outside, they would think that they had lucked upon some World-sized gold.

    BOOOOOOM!

    A red pillar of light burst out of the Tribulation Circle and crashed into the shield with its full might, instantly causing cracks to spread along its surface.

    ¡°NNNGH!¡± Eridel groaned out loud as unholy amounts of pain assailed his soul in repetitive waves. It felt like he had been staked by blades of diamond all over his body and his mind almost blanked.

    Straight from the White Grade, Tribulations started targeting the souls of the recipients so Eridel wasn¡¯t totally surprised by the fact that just the pain of his shield cracking was causing him so much pain.

    ¡®But fuck me¡­ I need to find a way to get rid of this.¡¯ Eridel thought as the waves of pain finally fled his soul. He was dead set on making sure that he never again experienced a Tribulation when a sudden thought came to mind. ¡®Without the Tribulations, how can I pay back my Fortune?¡¯ Eridel thought as his thought-processing speed started picking up.

    He decided to put the matter to the back of his mind before focusing on his planet, checking for damage.

    The World was still quaking and growing, having not finished its evolution. But everything was pretty much left unharmed with all the residents still sleeping¡­ even if most had blood leaking out of their ears.

    ¡®I¡¯m going to need to heal them after this.¡¯ Eridel thought warily. It could be said that he was the cause for their unjustified suffering and he had no qualms about rectifying it.

    Eridel temporarily ignored the undercurrents of the Tribulations after-effects and focused on the next strike.

    Even though he was still feeling raw from the pain, he felt that it wasn¡¯t all bad. In fact, he had already discarded the notion that he wouldn¡¯t survive the ordeal. He had suffered a lot of pain, but he wasn¡¯t truly damaged at all.

    ZUUUUUUUM!

    ¡®...Nevermind.¡¯

 Ch.85 Burning Will

    The Tribulation Circle completely tripled in size as it prepared for its second strike, drenching the World, Moon and Space in a red light. It¡¯s new size even forced Eridel to expand the barrier, wasting even more Primordial Essence so that the Tribulation wasn¡¯t found by others.

    At the very least it was still in the Red Grade. Still, Eridel feared that going by the course of events, there was a slim chance of the next one being in the Rainbow Grade. And if that happened, he would not survive it. His soul and the rest of the planet would be obliterated.

    A resident on his planet experiencing a Rainbow Grade Tribulation compared to him, the World itself experiencing a Rainbow Grade Tribulation, was utterly incomparable. The former was indeed unquestionably dangerous and had the power to turn whatever part of the World it landed on to be a Dead Magic Zone for hundreds of millennia, but if a Rainbow Tribulation designed for a Mid Grade World with the power of a High Grade World was to land, the World would vanish without resistance.

    He knew of its power scaling and wasn''t about to be deluded into thinking any sort of plan would help him if a Rainbow Grade Tribulation truly came for him. Even getting rid of the barrier to attract a powerful expert who would save the planet for his or her own gain wouldn¡¯t do anything. It would only make it worse. Anyone who received help during their Tribulation would only make the power of the Tribulation scale up to a Tribulation that took into consideration both of their powers combined.

    Eridel had thoroughly checkmated himself.

    Eridel sighed as he dispelled his shield, preserving as much Primordial Essence as possible.

    *FLASH* The Tribulation Circle pulsed.

    How could he have known that a Tribulation would ever feast it¡¯s eyes on him? Nothing in his inheritance entailed that he could create a World¡¯s Integral Laws with Runes. Not even all intelligence and mind power in the Universe would have helped him predict this situation if he didn¡¯t even have an inkling of its possible existence. You needed to know or at least guess that something existed before you could even think of it, talk less of planning for it.

    Eridel couldn¡¯t help but feel frustrated.

    *FLASH* The Tribulation Circle pulsed.

    Could he have been too arrogant? Ever since the beginning of his new life as a Word, he had been performing all sorts of ground-breaking acts one after the other that went against the norms of life. A lot of the things he had done had out-right flipped reality on its head, creating unknown lifeforms, creating unknown cultivation systems, creating unprecedented Enlightened Transformations and even allowing for the birth of beings like the Abomination Of The North to exist.

    He had been lucky enough in all this time that he had never suffered the consequences of his actions, and as a matter of fact, it was almost like he was rewarded for his oversights! Just look at Emperor Asura; Eridel had neglected the possibility of Asura taming all 4 of the Demon King Armaments and as a result, the Lord of all Monsters was born. Over in the North Continent, Eridel had overlooked the possibility of a Slime assimilating with the 2 Domicus Treasures, now there¡¯s a Calamity Grade Abomination just waiting to enact unpredictable feats.

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    So far, his oversights just seemed to be creating more talented and powerful existences. It was almost like he had been extremely¡­ lucky?

    ¡®...¡¯

    The World started ferociously trembling.

    ¡°HOW¡­ HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN OBLIVIOUS TO THE FACT THAT I HAD BEEN USING SO MUCH FORTUNE?! FUUUUCK!!! HOW-... w-WO¡­WORLDS WILLLLLLL!!!¡± Eridel¡¯s voice blasted out of the Planet and resounded throughout space, only stopping at the barrier that he had created before bouncing back, causing even the Moon to start shaking.

    Eridel finally realised that his instincts as a World were far, FAR more troublesome than he had initially thought. It was the Will of a World to evolve no matter the costs, cool, he understood that. But it was to the point that it had been hijacking his mind?! Making him act irresponsibly reckless in his pursuit of evolution?!

    ¡°DOES THIS NEW BODY OF MINE NOT UNDERSTAND THE REPERCUSSIONS OF UTILISING SO MUCH FORTUNE?!¡± Eridel screamed, completely losing his cool in the face of possible slavery or death.

    *FLASH* The Tribulation Circle pulsed.

    ¡°Now look at what I have to face.¡± Eridel said in a bleak voice that suddenly lacked emotions. ¡°A demonic tax collector of Fate that has come in the form of a Tribulation.¡±

    A second bolt of scarlet light even bigger than the first crashed into Eridel¡¯s newly remade shield, nearly destroying it in an instant as cracks spread all over. It was obvious that Eridel had suffered a pain that was many times greater than before but he didn¡¯t make a single sound.

    Not, one, single, sound.

    It was utterly uncanny. He had clearly groaned in pain from the last strike, unable to withstand the pain that flared across his soul, so what co-

    ¡®I will not stand for this.¡¯

    The 6 words endlessly repeated themselves in Eridel¡¯s mind as he suffered the horrible agony of a Counter-Attacking Red Grade Tribulation¡¯s second strike. The pain was definitely worse than before, but unlike before, his mind was completely clear.

    In the centre of Eridel¡¯s mindscape that was filled with nothing but whiteness, a golden ball of fire was burning ferociously with the wrath of a sun. The ball of fire was increasing in size and as it did, various vague intents could be sensed from it.

    Wrath, Nobility, Ruthlessness, Freedom, Dominance, Peerlessness, Dauntlessness, Defiance, Ambition and more¡­

    This¡­ this was the embodiment of Eridel¡¯s Will. And it was growing.

    On the outside, the Crimson glowing cracks that had been spreading over Eridel¡¯s shield like a virus eventually lost power, ending his suffering. Immediately after the shield was dispersed as if it too had lost power. But still, Eridel¡¯s will burned like never before as a new conviction was born in his mind.

    Innumerable calculations sprang up within Eridel¡¯s mind as he discarded and created new plans.

    ¡®I refuse to be reduced to a mere tool by my own body and that is final. But first¡­ I must rid myself of this pesky Tribulation.¡¯

 Ch.86 What Just Happened?

    *FLASH* The Tribulation Circle pulsed.

    Despite the huge increase in the Tribulation¡¯s size, Eridel remained indifferent. His Will impervious and unwilling to buckle before the might of his own creation. So long as a Rainbow Tribulation didn¡¯t appear, he would survive, he knew it.

    This wasn¡¯t just his new-born arrogance speaking either, he had already run the calculations and knew that even though this next strike would undoubtedly cause physical damage to his Planetary Body, he would survive.

    If a Rainbow Tribulation didn¡¯t appear¡­

    *FLASH* The Tribulation Circle pulsed.

    Despite the fact that he had created the mechanics of the Tribulation system, he was unable to decipher the Tribulation Circle above him. The Runes were incomprehensible and he was unable to evaluate them. Even now they were morphing in shape, upgrading to fit the strength of the last and final strike that would either kill him, or reward him.

    It depended on whether the final Strike was Red or Rainbow Coloured

    The Integral Laws had hijacked his own concept and even improved on it¨C putting he, the creator, within the scope of it¡¯s judgement. However, with his mind clearer than ever, he could acknowledge that if he had unknowingly lived to see the day that Fate forcefully took back it¡¯s Fortune¡­ he would suffer.

    Even if he cried a sea of blood for hundreds of thousands of years, or scraped at his own soul until all memories and thought ceased to exist¡­ his sorrow would not end.

    A million reincarnations wouldn¡¯t be enough to wipe away his despair and it would even pervade the rest of the Galaxy like a curse. Who knows, his misery might even form a life, becoming an entity that would be infinitely more calamitous than the Slime Abomination. That was how crazy- no, taboo the feats that he had performed on the Eridius World were.

    ¡®It matters not. I have¡­ luckily¡­ escaped what would have been my terrible fate... Luck, I¡¯m beginning to hate that word.¡¯

    Eridel stared at the Tribulation as it began making its final adjustments and secretly sighed. Even if the power of the Tribulation had escaped his understanding, the intervals of the Tribulations had not changed. It had roughly 5 seconds left for the last pulse and 2 more seconds for the final Strike.

    There was no more time for an increase in Grade.

    ¡®It would seem that it¡¯s not my destiny to die here.¡¯ Eridel thought as he began to slowly count down the seconds. A Rainbow Tribulation would not claim his life today.

    ¡®5¡­¡¯

    A loud keening sound could be heard from the Tribulation Circle as it continued to compress the last of it¡¯s Essence.

    ¡®4¡­¡¯

    The Tribulation Circle trembled so violently that it caused the surrounding fabrics of space to undulate, some places even developing visible cracks.

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    ¡®3¡­¡¯

    Eridel prematurely summoned forth new shields, stacking 3 of them 1 after the other and emptying the last of his reserves for the first time in his life. Just 0.001 of his Primordial Essence was needed for Eridel to heal his planetary body the first time he took possession of it, and now it was all being emptied to resist a single attack. The reason he hadn¡¯t used extra shields in the previous Tribulation Lights was all for this moment. That goes to show how serious Eridel was taking this final strike. The worst and most judgmental strike.

    ¡®2¡­¡¯

    The Tribulation¡¯s aura became so intense that it caused even the Barrier to vibrate, prompting to Eridel watch with rapt attention, looking for any-

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

    ¡®What?!!¡¯

    Eridel¡¯s Core pulsed with fear as a loud explosion boomed throughout space with the intensity of the Tribulation¡¯s aura shooting up to apocalyptic levels. The Barrier developed cracks all over the place from the unbearable pressure and even looked like it would shatter at any moment.

    And as if to confirm Eridel¡¯s growing anxiety, 6 more colours had appeared on the Tribulation Circle, striking fear into his non-existent heart.

    The Tribulation had broken through to Rainbow Grade.

    And it was marvellous.

    It¡¯s World-collapsing aura threatened to overwhelm Eridel¡¯s newly refined Will within a second as it¡¯s luminous multi-coloured lights flashed throughout space, painting the Eridius World in wonderful colours. A terrifying DO-DO-DO-DO-DO sound could be heard as the Tribulation¡¯s undulations repeatedly battered against the fabrics of space, causing spatial tears to rapidly appear.

    ¡®I¡¯m finished! ¡­But I refuse to wait for dea-!¡¯

    CRACK-PFFFFFFFFFFFFFffffffffffff¡­

    A loud crack followed by an incomprehensible deflating sound was heard as the Tribulation Circle suddenly bulked, barely pausing for a second before it started shrinking in size. It¡¯s spectacular 7 colours reduced to the one Red and the daunting aura collapsing.

    ¡°...What?¡± Eridel uncontrollably spoke out, befuddled by the series of events.

    The Tribulation didn¡¯t stop shrinking until it reached a size that was only double that of the 2nd Strike with the appropriate matching aura and colour.

    ¡®What just happe-¡¯

    BAAANG!

    The 3rd Tribulation Strike slammed into Eridel¡¯s set of shields. The first shield was unable to last for long and it shattered, causing pain to flare over his soul. But that was it.

    The last and final strike had been anticlimactically stopped at the second barrier.

    Eridel watched with disbelief as the Tribulation peacefully dispersed into the air, vanishing from existence as if it had never been there before. For a moment he was in a sort of limbo, trying to grasp onto reality, wondering whether his senses had failed him or what he had just seen was really real, and not an illusion.

    ¡­But how could he suffer from illusion in such a situation? He would have been dead by now!

    Eridel quickly brought himself back together, preparing for any sudden change in the situation. Yet nothing happened. He was, however, quickly able to comprehend what he had just experienced and couldn¡¯t help but think how surreal the whole situation was.

    The truth was that Eridel had been practically touching the threshold for Rainbow Tribulation on the 3rd Strike this whole time, but wasn¡¯t quite there. This pretty much resulted in the Tribulation being undecided, only beginning the transformation to Rainbow at the last moment.

    However, that was a terrible moment to change Grades. The final pulse before the release of the Strike had occurred and disrupted the whole process, even causing damage to it and reducing the strength of the 3rd Strike to something that was even weaker than what he would have been given before the upgrade attempt.

    ¡®This¡­ I couldn¡¯t have just used up more fortune, right?¡¯

 Ch.87 New Integral Laws

    The concept of Fortune was ambiguous. Even if you could tell that whatever crazy action you were committing was going to cost you Fortune, you could never know how much.

    But Eridel was sure that he was fine, the Tribulation had given its judgement and he had paid back in full. Whether or not being saved by the proverbial bell ended up costing him more Fortune was irrelevant. He was safe.

    And now, he was fully interested in digesting the gains that he had won.

    Flowing about within his World Core was a strange substance that looked like a ball of red mist, undulating calmly and seemingly possessing no threat. But as it swished back and forth, a piece of it would separate and fade out of existence as if it were fusing into the Core. It was very peculiar and perhaps even dangerous if it turned out to be something harmful. However despite the suspicious activities within the Core, it remained stable and seemed to take the unknown energy in stride.

    But as things progressed, the rest of the World which had just begun to experience a semblance of stability¡­ once again burst into chaos!

    All manners of Essence flew about crazily as they performed literal ground-shaking events that forcefully changed the structure of the World. The planet¡¯s increase in size that had been slowing down after reaching 5x bigger than before once again sped up as new continents appeared within. All kinds of natural treasures including those without life shot up in grade as the force feeding that had been going on for the last 10 minutes increased. Even the Sentient beings were subjected to the buffet of Essence with most of them experiencing multiple breakthroughs. But by far the most hair-raising event was the folds in reality that occurred as the sky and ground warped, the fabrics of space visibly contracting as something grand took place.

    WHUM-WHUM-WH-CR-CRR-CRRRACK- BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    Space shattered as the pressure of whatever it was trying to suppress finally overpowered it with a deafening explosion.

    And yet nothing came out. In fact, the fabrics of spaces soon restored itself with a few visible ripples before everything was settled once more. It was like nothing had happened in the first place. What was the meaning of this?

    Eridel let out a long sigh as he inwardly counted up to 10.

    He knew that he was going to pay dearly for the feat that was just performed and there was nothing he could do about it.

    If only he knew what he knew now before he started introducing new concepts. He would have forgone the majority of them in consideration for his health, ensuring that his next Tribulation wouldn¡¯t claim his life. But if it must be known, it was this very reality bending phenomenon that he wanted to get rid of the most, the one concept he KNEW was going to come back to bite him. And what a vicious bite it would be.

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    What use was a powerful World if that same power threatened its continued existence? But it was too late now. The deed was done and couldn¡¯t be undone.

    ¡°How aggravating¡­¡± Eridel whispered.

    As Eridel continued to watch, the concepts that he had written into his Core that had most assuredly become part of the Worlds Integral Laws like the Tribulations, were causing all sorts of fantastical events that did a lot more than what they were written to do.

    Colours flew everywhere as the essences that were so concentrated that they became visible did their work, explosions and rearrangements of landscapes happened all over the place, strange existences popped into life and oh-

    ¡®Oh¡­¡¯ Eridel wanted to palm his face but he didn¡¯t have either of such things at the moment.

    All over the Eridius World, a large number of sapient beings were undergoing unforeseen changes, experiencing subtle adjustments to their bodies and even minds. But it was not an evolution!

    They became more handsome or beautiful with a rare few who actually became more ugly. It wasn¡¯t anything drastic, a few tweaks here and there, an increase or decrease in height with a facial makeover, or a darkening or brightening of colours in their skin or hair. The changes weren¡¯t limited and some of them were more notable than others, but it wasn¡¯t too grand. Nobody would wake up and find a new person replacing their friend.

    The changes to their minds were obviously not visible and even if Eridel could detect it, he couldn¡¯t accurately judge it. But he was sure that it was minute. Why? Well¡­

    ¡­This was all caused by the Soul Mate Project.

    The imperative of the Soul Mate Project ensured that there would be 2¡­ or more people that were perfectly compatible with each other. Sometimes there were people whose minds were too¡­ strange, for one person to balance them. But that¡¯s besides the point. Soul Mates were both physically and mentally compatible with each other and when standing next to each other would look like a match made in heaven. Their powers complemented each other and they even had a psychic connection with each other that was established when their bond was consummated.

    It was easy enough for Laws of Fate to take control and create unborn beings that were perfectly compatible with each other, but what about the ones that were already alive? Would they be forever without a Soul Mate? Would they be¡­ Soulmateless?

    Well no. They would not. Normally, as Eridel planned for, everybody would eventually get one even if it was 10,000 years down the line. After all, if they ever lived that long then there was a good chance they still looked youthful too, cultivation did a lot of wonders. And so long as their mate was above a certain age (depending on what the Era considered the age of consent), it was fair game.

    Other than that, Eridel planned to forcefully turn a few special couples, like Gabriel and Seraqiel, into Soul Mates. Eventually, everybody would find their Soul Mates if they lived long enough to see them. But now¡­

    That had all gone to trash.

    Everyone would still get a Soul Mate. That was absolute. But when the Soul Mate mechanics became a part of the Integral Laws¡­ things changed.

 Ch.88 The Soul Mate of a Planet?

    The new Integral Laws apparently found it necessary that rather than waiting for Soul Mates to form naturally, it was more useful for the most compatible pairs on the planet in both body and mind (Magic affinity is considered as part of the body compatibility), to just become perfectly compatible. Effectively making them Soul Mates.

    This was why their changes to their mind couldn¡¯t be too big. They were already like-minded in the first place and the Soul Mate Integral Laws only perfected it. On top of that, they gained the fledgling psychic link that whilst useless before consummation, could still act as a slight guiding hand to find each other.

    However a thing to note was that it wasn''t compulsory for 2 Soul Mates to consummate their bond. They could stay as platonic friends¡­ if they so wished. But Eridel struggled to believe that a match made in heaven would see each other, be with each other for a long time, and still remain just friends. It was like having the tastiest food in the Universe in your mouth, and not chewing for more than 3 minutes. Not impossible, but hard. Very hard.

    Unfortunately, there were some people who actually had nobody alive that could end up being their Soul Mates. They were well and truly alone. But one day, the mate of their dreams would be born. They just needed to live long enough to see that day.

    But though this was all fine and dandy, Eridel¡¯s plans had been tarnished. Again.

    There were a few pairs that Eridel wanted to turn into Soul Mates because of the benefits that would come from their union (for example the birth of new hybrids). But that was now impossible with most of them gaining different Soul Mates. The Soul Mate links had been formed and they could not be carelessly severed.

    But now, some of his plans and predictions for the future that were reliant on 2 people becoming Soul Mates, were destroyed. It was indeed an infringement on free will for Eridel to force 2 sapient creatures to become Soul Mates without their consent, but Eridel couldn¡¯t care less. They were not being harmed in any way and in fact quite the contrary, but furthermore, they would nev- most likely never know that their ideal mate had ever been changed.

    With professions like Seers in existence- no scratch that, with the repeated miracles performed in the Eridius World, Eridel no longer dared to say the words ¡®never¡¯ or ¡®impossible¡¯ with certainty.

    However, nobody, not even Eridel, could imagine what their ideal mate was until they saw them in reality. So everything should have gone smoothly¡­

    ¡°Haaah¡­~¡± Eridel sighed out loud once more. If anyone was awake they would think that ghosts had come into existence. But oh wait¡­

    Eridel focused his omniscient gaze onto 2 familiar people on the North Continent who were passed next to each other. It was a man with amber hair and a woman with lavender hair. Gabriel and Seraqiel.

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    2 people Eridel had very much needed to be Soul Mates.

    But the thing about these Twin Stars of Hope was that they were actually not very compatible, or at the very least, the most compatible. Don¡¯t forget that these were 2 people that Eridel had found on the proverbial streets, nothing Eridel had tampered with, even with the inheritance he had given them. Normally, this would have been fine, Eridel would turn them into Soul Mates right after he was done creating their mechanics. No problem¡­

    Ha.

    The Integral Laws had different ideas. They had spun their magic without his consent, and hijacked all of his new inventions. Eridel didn¡¯t even know what changes could have been made to the Eridius System. But in regards to Gabriel and Seraqiel¡­

    The new Soul Mate Laws had apparently found¡­ better suitors.

    At the very least, as someone that was extremely proficient when it came to the Soul, Eridel was capable of analysing Soul Mate links and tracking who they were connected to. So who were the new Soul Mates of Gabriel and Seraqiel?

    ¡®Let¡¯s see¡­ Seraqiel first. Who¡¯s the lucky man? ¡­Oh, he¡¯s quite far-... Ah?¡¯ Eridel¡¯s mind staggered, almost short-circuiting before foolishly trying to see if there was another body hiding behind the one he was looking at. But of course there was not.

    ¡®Well then, how about Gabriel?¡¯ Eridel thought as he forcefully threw what he just saw to the back of his memory. Completely deciding to wash his hands over the mess that Fate and not him for once, had started.

    But he gave one last glance of pity towards Gabriel as if he was looking at a¡­ cuckold.

    ¡®Cough, so what does Fate have in store for you my friend? Hmm, East Contine- oh. Oh! A High Human. How nice, cough, I wish you all the best.¡¯

    Eridel abruptly turned his attention away from the Twin Stars of Hope, still a bit startled by what he had seen. But after a whole 10 seconds, he restored his lake-like calmness, that was how surprising the chosen Soul Mate of Seraqiel was.

    ¡®Unbelievable¡­ this changes, everything.¡¯ And it really did. Eridel now had to go back to the drafting plans and revaluate his plans for the future entirely. The union between those 2 people was that reality-bending and if he didn¡¯t prepa-

    Eridel¡¯s thoughts suddenly went very silent as he noticed something changing in his soul. It was a string. A small piece of his Soul was stretching out like a string, extending out in a straight line before¡­ stopping?

    Eridel wasn¡¯t a fool. He wasn¡¯t about to be shocked or confused about what was happening to him. Clearly, just like the Tribulation Lights, the Soul Mate project now had the ability to affect him, and the so-called string was actually a Soul Mate link. Eridel had a Soul Mate.

    ¡®But why did it-¡¯

    Suddenly, another Soul Link stretched out of his soul.

    ¡®2? Haha~ I¡¯m quite lu-¡¯ Eridel¡¯s thoughts were once again interrupted by the creation of yet another Soul Link. And then another¡­ and another¡­ and¡­ more. They finally stopped appearing after the 6th one.

    Eridel had¡­ 6 Soul Mates.

 Ch.89 Done With Idling

    ¡®Do I look schizophrenic for there to be 6?¡¯ Eridel thought in slight surprise mixed with amusement. But although it was an exaggeration, it wasn¡¯t too far-fetched of a question. Soul Mates always complimented each other but if someone had more than 1, it either meant that they had something similar to an alter ego, or they had other powers or traits that were either too special or too different to be left alone.

    An example for this was someone who, for some reason, had a 100% affinity in both Fire and Water. If his or her Soul Mate had a corresponding affinity in Fire, that would boost the dual wielders powers with fire and actually imbalance them. But if that person had another Soul Mate with a corresponding affinity with Water? Fair game!

    However, a lot of karmic luck went into it as well. Fate could have just as easily provided a Soul Mate with the same dual wielding Fire and Water abilities and it would have perfectly balanced them all the same. But obviously, the power obtained by the union of 2 was not as great as the power gained from the union of 3.

    It was karmic luck along with a few other things that allowed for the latter to happen and not much could change that. So if you didn¡¯t meet the requirements, Fate would just force what you needed into one person.

    But forget all that, Eridel was more concerned with why his Soul Links failed to lead to anyone? They were all straight lines that vanished into the distance and were much different to Seraqiel¡¯s Soul Mate link which peacefully undulated like a rope in water, connecting to¡­ that person.

    Why did his Soul Mate links not connect with anyone?

    ¡®Could it be that they haven¡¯t been born yet? Or maybe they were not of this World¡­? No, that could not be the case. They also could not be dead because the link wouldn¡¯t exist in the first place and I would be blissfully oblivious. Where¡­¡¯

    Eridel quickly checked on one of the residents on his planet that had not undergone any adjustments for a Soul Mate, meaning that there was no one on the entire planet that was compatible with them and their Soul Mate had yet to be born. Thankfully, his findings relieved him.

    ¡®Hmm. My mates are indeed¡­ what would the word be, unborn?¡¯ Eridel thought as he looked at a male Devil who, like him, had a Soul Mate link that vanished into the distance. Meaning that¡­ they both had no hoe-, no Soul Mates. That had been born.

    But Eridel honestly didn¡¯t know what to think of the situation. He had been provided with a whole 6 Soul Mates with each of them supposedly filling missing blanks and empowering his whole being. However, how would that even work? Who on this planet was even capable of enriching his life? But more than that was¡­Should he accept the liability of such a weakness?

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    He knew the effects of a Soul Mate and what would happen to him if he lost even one. That was a whole 6 extra lives that he had to take care of at any cost. In this whole wide Universe talk less of what lies beyond, how could he make sure that they were all safe when things like curses and soul attacks that could be safely fired from any location if one were powerful enough was possible. And that wasn¡¯t even the worst of it.

    This wasn¡¯t one of those video games where you could farm monsters for exp, easily gaining strength so long as you spent the time. No, this was reality. And there was risk even in the simple circulation of Magical Energy if you were not careful.

    His Soul Mates were most likely not fools, after all, they were HIS Soul Mates. How could they face problems with cultivating? There was even the Eridius System that assisted with such things so they would most likely never suffer from the minor things¡­ But Eridel couldn¡¯t help but feel cautious. Their lives, which he was sure he would not be able to forcefully control, would be tied to his own.

    It was a big risk.

    But speaking of the Eridius System¡­ Eridel wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he invoked a status and it actually popped up in front of him. Or rather his World Core. It would be a little strange for the screen to be hovering in front of his entire planetary body, but it was possible. All of his projects had been assimilated by the Integral Laws after all.

    He was half tempted to try it now and take it for a spin but he had much, much more important plans to accomplish and he was done idling.

    ¡®But first¡­¡¯ With a mere thought, Eridel''s residents woke up one by one, rising from their slumber.

    Most if not all were surprised by the change in environment and shocking increase of power, thinking that perhaps their ¡®almighty¡¯ leaders had blessed them and performed shocking landscape rearranging feats. They also felt happier and brighter as if something had changed within the core of their beings and they couldn¡¯t understand why. Some of the more social races like the Phoenixes, Elves and High Humans even began a feast of celebration, praising their respective overlords for their ¡®grace¡¯ and majesty.

    There were other forms of celebration too, for example the orgies that Dodo and the Greater Demons began performing. But it was overall a happy occasion across most of the World.

    However¡­ there was one place that not only remained chaotic, but became 10 times more catastrophic than it originally was. The Seas.

    When everybody in the seas had been knocked out; they had either floated to the top, or floated to the bottom. Their Magical Nature prevented them from sleeping suspended in water like the regular sea-life of Low Worlds.

    But this basically pushed them all together.

 Ch.90 The First Confrontation

    When the Sea Dwellers woke up, they immediately noticed their upgraded powers and the increase in ambient Magical Energy. They even felt happier than before, just like those above the Seas. But unlike those above the Seas, rather than celebrating by eating with each other, they decided to celebrate eating¡­ each other.

    It was absolutely chaotic.

    With each of them thinking they were some kind of chosen one, chosen by some unknown power to rule the Seas, they feasted on each other like never before! On top of that, the fact that they were all either at the top of the Sea or at the bottom of the Sea and consequently visible to everyone else, made it 5 times worse. Blood painted the Seas red and it was completely unknown if and when it would ever stop.

    But Eridel didn¡¯t intend to do anything.

    Other than the creation of the first generation Sea Dwellers and the help of the Eridius System, Eridel had really and truly left them to their own devices. In all these years following the birth of the Sea Dwellers, nothing had been given to the Seas. They were born with nothing and they had nothing. Not even hidden treasures like the Earth Flames, Evil Eyes and Domicus Treasures. Nothing.

    And yet, the average strength of those in the Seas was¡­ much greater than that of those on the Lands.

    The Sea Dwellers had been doing fine on their own and Eridel didn¡¯t intend to change that now. He wanted to see how far they could go without his direct influence. It was too late to stop certain other things. Thanks to one of the new projects he had launched on his evolution, he was sure that at least one of the Sea Dwellers would be affected. But other than that one being, the Seas would truly have to make it on their own.

    ¡®Anyways¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as he slowly turned his attention to a familiar eye-catching Golden Dragon.

    Numerous colours coalesced above the Dragon Mountain, forming the familiar form of Jonas, Eridel¡¯s Avatar. The Avatar floated in the air with his hair and clothes billowing softly, staring at the bustling Dragons below with a keen glow in his eyes.

    ¡®It is time.¡¯

    ¡­

    [Central Continent, Western Forest, Dragon Mountain]

    Gaia mindlessly walked down the Dragon Mountain with listless eyes, contemplating on all the time she had spent in this World ever since had risen from her slumber.

    First was the ridiculous amounts of natural resources that made every location she laid her eyes upon look like a Sacred Land. Originally, she had thought that this place was indeed a Sacred Land because of the fact that she was in the Dragon¡¯s territory. if the Dragons were claiming the territory, then it meant that it was the best land around. After all it was only natural for the strongest factions to claim the best lands. But when she had left the vicinity of the Dragon Mountain and toured the rest of the Western Forest, she knew that she had been mistaken.

    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    The Forest was huge and no Sacred Land that hadn¡¯t lasted for many millennia was that big. This fact was only confirmed when the Dragon¡¯s main Territory (the Dragon Mountain and surrounding area) truly became a Sacred Land¡­

    Boy was she surprised. It was already reality bending for the ambient Magical Energy to rival that of a Mid World¡¯s ambient Magical Energy despite the World barely being a Low World only 127 years ago, but when the Sacred Land formed by the Supreme Dragons and Dragon King himself was finally formed¡­

    ¡°Haah¡­¡± Gaia sighed. The memory still caused her to fall in a daze every once in a while.

    But that wasn¡¯t even the most shocking thing that this World had to offer her.

    The Enlightened Forms that those that had entered the 4th Realm had gained (this was secretly her most favourite surprise). The so-called Tribulation that possessed the ability to purify, enlighten and empower you. The strange System that supported the progression of all Lifeforms. The mind-boggling technique that allowed her to seamlessly assimilate another being''s bloodline if the correct conditions were met, and finally¡­ the most recent World Evolution.

    Ever since she had once again woken up from a forced slumber, she had been asking one question over and over like a mental health patient.

    ¡®How¡­?¡¯

    How could a World reach a High World''s level of strength from a Low World in the matter of 127 years? This was the kind of thing that took billions upon billions of years! A feat that took billions of years completed in under 2 centuries!

    ¡°NONSENSE!¡± Gaia roared out, startling the Dragons around her.

    ¡®Beasts gaining Human forms, fine. Tribulations, fine. The Eridius System, fine. The World¡¯s Evolution¡­ridiculous but fine. Perhaps some kind grand figure from one of those top tier galaxies was performing something in this lowly World. But¡­ but what is this thing that has attached itself to my soul? And why oh why did it make me so happy?!¡¯ Gaia thought as she growled in frustration.

    Pahk

    A sudden but gentle headbutt brought back her attention to those around her.

    Surrounding her were the few Dragons that had been assigned to protect her consisting of 8 Elder Dragons and 2 Supreme Dragons that had been following her for a long time now, even leaving the celebrative feast to accompany her on her walk. It was quite the impressive entourage but that was how much importance the Dragon King had put in her.

    She was quite happy that the Dragon King didn¡¯t feel intimidated by the obviously higher [Quality of Being] of her and the other Destruction Dragons and instead assigned protection and resources to them after recognizing their talent.

    She was very much in the know of how common it was for the Enlightened Races to get rid of talented individuals who might threaten their lives or positions in the future, talk less of the ever so territorial Beasts-

    *Tap*

    Gaia turned her head to the unknown sound that had somehow escaped her Spirit Sense. Only to find the falling figures of her companions who had somehow lost consciousness, and the figure of the most handsome Man she had ever met looking down at her with brilliant golden eyes and a secretive grin.

    ¡°Would you like to make a deal~?¡±

 Ch.91 The Despicable Brotherâ€™s Descent

    [West Continent, Pure Society, Unknown Underground Cavern]

    Deep within the depths of an unknown cave in the Pure Society Territory, land of Phoenixes and sanctuary of purity; a figure that had once gloriously soared through the air with feathers and fire of blue, culling the lives of the arrogant Pure Phoenixes and laying waste to terrifying Purgatory Vermillion Birds¡­ now hung helplessly suspended by golden chains of fire with not a single bit of previous prestige.

    It was the Despicable Brother of the West. The Despicable Brother who had taken the gifts of his liege and returned it with the spit of betrayal.

    ¡­How far he had fallen.

    Captured by the Phoenix King and stripped of his Beast Core, he had been unable to resist when taken to an underground cavern and shackled by golden chains, burning by day and healing by night. Suffering for long, long years that had scrambled his brain.

    How long had he been here? He no longer knew. But he could have sworn that a second down here was not the same as a second of old, each second stretched as far as possible and they refused to show him mercy.

    But why?

    ¡®Why must it be like this? Is this the doing of the Phoenix King? Does the oh so fabulous King of Fire, lord of the skies and embodiment of all that is good, have no mercy?¡¯

    The Despicable Brother felt like bursting out with laughter at his own world play, one of the few things that he had been able to play with during his imprisonment. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, his body had learnt different tricks down here.

    And one of them was to not waste energy. He needed it.

    It just so happens that bursting out with laughter takes energy. How sad. But he was used to it. As a matter of fact, he even felt like he was used to asking that same question. But surely not. He would remember such a thing. How could he not?

    ¡®This ridiculous sense of nostalgia¡­ another scheme of the King? Does he wish to make me doubt myself? ¡­Pitiful. It doesn¡¯t seem to work.¡¯ the Despicable Brother thought smugly. ¡®Even if he has all these strange powers that ordain him like feathers, he lacks the appropriate intelligence to properly use them. If it was me¡­¡¯

    The Despicable Brother¡¯s mood started to rapidly descend into a pool of darkness as his sense of nostalgia became a near physical thing.

    ¡®IF IT WAS ME, I WOULD NOT BE IN THIS SITUATION! IF IT WAS ME, I WOULD HAVE LEAD THE PHOENIX RACE TO TRUE GLORY! WHY IS HE THE ONE WITH ALL THE POWER? WHY IS HE THE ONE WITH ALL THE MAJESTY? WHY IS IT THAT NO MATTER WHAT I DO, I CAN NOT COMPETE?! WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHYYYYY?!¡¯ the Despicable Brother screamed inwardly as his thoughts exploded into disarray.

    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    He had once again fallen into one of his¡­ moments. But despite his inner turmoil, his body on the outside was as still as a corpse. Head down and eyes vacant, it was really and truly as if he were dead. Furthermore, disregarding the darkness of the cave, the sun was out and the chains of fire burned to destroy and not to heal. And yet he was completely unresponsive.

    This¡­ was a testament of his long stay here and what his body had to learn to cope. Screaming wasted energy. Moving wasted energy. ANYTHING that wasn¡¯t conducive to the continuation of life, was a WASTE of energy.

    His body had learnt very well.

    ¡®Eh? What was I thinking of again? Aaah, it was probably not important. No matter.¡¯ the Despicable Brother thought with a strange feeling of being refreshed. ¡®Hmm¡­ It has been a long time since I last saw the Phoenix King. He must be having fun, basking in the glory of my grand Phoenix Race. Meanwhile I¡¯m here¡­ MEANWHILE I¡¯M HERE-¡¯

    The Despicable Brother¡¯s thoughts once again dipped into a chaotic spiral.

    It seemed to be that certain thoughts about Chad would cause the fragile balance of his mind to keel over. But then he would forget what he was thinking about mere moments later and narrowly dodge the fate of his mind completely collapsing. Obviously, this was another defence mechanism that his body had to install to preserve what little of itself that it had left.

    It was quite sad really. A mighty figure that had once lorded over a third of the West Continent, had been reduced to a drivelling fool that couldn¡¯t even maintain a serenity of mind for more than 5 minutes.

    Pitiful.

    But as mercy would have it, he would be allowed a moment of reprieve soon enough. His mind would clear and he would be the Despicable Brother again¡­ for however long it would last.

    *2 Minutes Later*

    ¡®-HE DOES NOT DESERVE IT! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME! I WAS THE ONE BORN WITH ALL THE INTELLIGENCE, I WAS THE ONE-¡¯

    He was still¡­ going.

    *9 Minutes Later*

    ¡®ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! EVERYTHING BELONGS TO ME!!!¡¯ the Despicable Brother roared inwardly.

    He was still going!

    At this point the Despicable Brother¡¯s body was twitching, moving for the first time in who knows how many years as his mind deteriorated like never before. Descending into uncharted depths of darkness that didn¡¯t show any signs of receding. And if this kept on going, the Despicable Brother was done for.

    *1 Minute Later*

    ¡®MEZ LE CISE PSENIX, LRDOO FO LAAAL, SHING OFK ALLLK, RAAAAAR!¡¯

    The Despicable Brother was finished. Coherent thought had left him and he had reached the point of no return. Any second now his thoughts would come to an abrupt end and his mind would dissipate like a candle light. But why? Why had his mi-

    BOOOOOOM!

    The roof of the cave suddenly imploded as what looked like a torrent of green mist flooded into the room, not even pausing for a second before charging straight into the Despicable Brother¡¯s forehead.

    ¡°SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!¡± The Despicable Brother let out a terrific scream as pain wracked his very soul, sounding like a banshee that had clawed its way out of the abyss. It was such a horrible and sorrowful sound¡­ Filled with desperation, agony and horror. Anyone who heard it might just be dragged to tears.

    Alas¡­ Not only did the whole of the Pure Society hear it; But the rest of the World heard it too.

    The cry of a Menace that wasn¡¯t done with the World just yet.

 Ch.92 The Sin of Envy

    Not only did the whole of the Pure Society hear it¡­ but the rest of the World heard it too. The cry of a Menace that wasn¡¯t done with the World just yet.

    However¡­ fear and sorrow were not the only emotions that they felt in that moment. As the cry of the likes that they had never heard before resounded through the World; gasps of fear and faces of terror sprang up like fleas in response. It was like the whole World was about to face an apocalypse that they couldn¡¯t defend against.

    But not everyone reacted like that. No, there were a few beings who¡­ strangely felt entranced. It was like something deep within them was being drawn towards the source of the cry. And the longer they heard it, the more their senses started to dull¡­ Eventually allowing themselves to silently slip into illusions.

    Their bodies fell slack and their eyes became vacant. However, each and everyone of these people had their eyes turn into hair-raising green colour that glowed like neon lights, radiating a dreadful aura that caused their nearby companions to jump in fright. Some even died then and there, unable to resist as their cautious companions took no chances and stole their lives.

    But for the people who were still alive, various scenes played out within their minds fabricating all sorts of stories. Amongst them there were tales of vengeance, tales of triumph, and tales of conquest. They all varied and none of them were the same. However, the one recurring theme within these stories was that¡­ the main characters were certainly not good people. No, instead, they were envious. Very, very envious.

    One person (a Tiger Beast) dreamt of the mate of his senior brother that he had secretly been admiring in the real World. Only, in this dream he did not keep silent. Instead, he killed his brother and forcefully possessed the mate, not even questioning why he was able to succeed when both of those 2 people were much stronger than him. Things just happened to miraculously go his way.

    Another person (a Sea Dweller) killed all the people he was envious of within his illusions and eventually became the first Sea Emperor.

    Another person (a North Continent Human) actually killed Seraqiel, somehow took all of her powers, united the North Continent and then took Gabriel as her mate(husband).

    Another one (a Devil), somehow killed Emperor Asura, unified the South Continent and then¡­ jumped on all the dick she wanted. It seemed that as an ugly duckling (heavily scarred and mutilated), she had been unable to get some, so she was quite envious of those who could¡­

    Some of these illusions were crazier or stranger than the other, but without fail, they all met the same ending. Success. The victims of the illusions would satisfy their envy, and then¡­ And then a colossal Beast with wings spanned across the skies, would congratulate them. The Beast with emerald green eyes the size of mountains would communicate with them, telling them how good Envy was and all the powers that could be gained.

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    A strange symbol would then float out of the Beast''s beak and sink into their foreheads, form a tattoo of the same pattern and grant them powers that made everything they gained look like trash. They would then open their similarly green eyes filled with reverence, and swear allegiance to the Beast.

    The Beast would then say that if they satisfied their Envy in reality, everything would become reality. Which confused them at first, after all, whatever reality other than the one they were living in was there? But then they would¡­ wake up.

    And understand.

    Some of them were¡­ disappointed. After all, everything they had gained in the illusion had been wiped away. It was quite saddening. But there were some who had their eyes light up with fervour as grins twisted their faces. They were not dissatisfied because they were sure that they could get everything back plus extra. Even if their eyes were back to normal¡­ they were no longer the same.

    CISSSSH! BOOOOM! THOCK!

    A few of them died just like that. It couldn¡¯t be helped, their companions were already tense when seeing such terrifying eyes, so when those creepy grins pulled up they just decided to hell with it. Prevention is better than cure.

    But as for the rest of the people who got out of the illusion¡­

    PTUA!

    They spat on the floor with anger! Kill Asura? Kill Seraqiel? Unify the Continent? BULLSHIT! What kind of strange dreams were they having? It was best to just continue living their humble lives as slaves and serfs and forget everything. Tch.

    These were obviously the people who¡¯s illusions were too extraordinary for them to be possible, causing those that woke up to think of the sky covering Beast with disdain¡­ And unknowingly breaking the spell.

    ¡­

    ¡°-EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!¡± as the Despicable Brother kept screaming and thrashing, fantastical changes took place all over his body with vicious efficiency.

    The feathers upon his body were shredded, the skin upon his flesh stripped, the bones beneath his flesh shattered, and the flesh itself decomposing into a gooey goop... The Despicable Brother was absolutely wrecked.

    And soon enough, he lacked the facilities to keep up his wretched screaming. Returning a semblance of peace to the World, and silence to the Underground cavern. However¡­ he was not done. Not yet.

    WHOOOOOSH!

    The strange energy that had finally been entirely absorbed by the Despicable Brother, suddenly made itself visible again in the form of a green flame that released a soul-aching coldness instead of heat. The flame enveloped his body and started flaring fiercely as if it wanted to reduce what little was left to ashes.

    But against all expectations, the body began to move again. Stretching and contracting, thickening and softening¡­ changing form into something else. And the brighter the green flame burned, the quicker the change.

    Eventually¡­ The transformation was complete, and standing upon a pile of ashes was the new form of the Despicable Brother. Wholer and greater than ever before.

    ¡®The Sin of Envy¡­ how fitting.¡¯

 Ch.93 The Essence of Envy

    The Despicable Brother gave himself a cursory glance as he admired his new form.

    Turquoise coloured Feathers that looked like they were carved from ice but alight with viridescent flames, a height of 60 metres and a wingspan of 190 metres, emerald coloured beak and feet with 5 black ominous looking talons, neon green eyes and a crown of flames that looked like it would continue burning even if the World reached the end of its lifespan.

    He was absolutely majestic. However, he didn¡¯t have the time to keep ogling himself because he was facing imminent danger.

    The Essence of Envy had pushed his cultivation all the way to the brink of the Seeking Beast Realm and he hadn¡¯t even finished digesting a 20th of it. And on top of that, thanks to the torture he had gone through¡­ He was in the eye-boggling 11th Stage of Anatomy Refinement! But, as amazing as all of this was, he was aware of the fact that the Essence of Envy would very soon push his cultivation to the 4th Realm and a Tribulation would come looking for life. Although he was certain he could pass it, he knew that he would soon have company and none of them would play nice. And even if he could defeat all of them, he couldn¡¯t do it if the Tribulation Lights crashed down on his head at the same time.

    Yes, he knew all about the Tribulations.

    Disregarding the fact that he had been confined in this pitiful cavern before he could even lay his eyes on a single Tribulation, the memories that he gained from those that had been enthralled by his Sin of Envy Awakening¡­ were more than enough knowledge.

    The Despicable Brother inwardly grinned as his emotions of ellation bubbled.

    ¡°I¡¯m back! And not only that, but I have been chosen by the Sin of Envy itself! Haha! I knew I was destined for greatness! Destined for glory! Oooh the glooory~¡± The Despicable Brother burst out laughing before launching himself at the hole that the Sin of Envy made in its path to reach him.

    ¡­

    At this very moment, Chad was racing towards the Despicable Brother¡¯s location with 2 other legendary birds by his side and a flock of them behind. Within this flock were a group of Pure Phoenixes, Ice Phoenixes and Purgatory birds. And by his side was the 9 Flame Queen herself along with a peculiar Ice Phoenix.

    They had all united together in hopes that it would be enough to face off against the source of the strange green Energy. But secretly, none of them believed it. Not even him.

    He still remembered how frightened he was when the entire sky was filled with nothing but green. Green energy just seemed to be rising from everyone, even him. But most of it seemed to come from huge fogs of green essence that had suddenly appeared around occupied territories. It was as if they were an invisible miasma that had suddenly been revealed, scaring all the residents who were able enough to see it.

    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    But as terrifying as it was, it didn¡¯t stay long and flew off into the air without causing any casualties, so some people thought that that would be the end of it and they proceeded to return to their daily activities. Even if they were still filled with remnant fear and caution, they couldn¡¯t feed themselves and their families if they started slacking. They decided to placate themselves by thinking that no matter what the phenomenon was, it was probably going for someone or something else and not them.

    And they were right.

    The terrifying bird scream that echoed throughout the World was absolutely terrifying and somehow they knew that it was related to that Green Energy.

    Chad and the rest of the hegemon¡¯s of the West Continent felt absolute dread when they realised that the source of all this trouble was in their very own Continent, especially Chad when he felt familiarity in the screamers voice. But since it was coming from their own Continent, they had to deal with it or potentially wait for death.

    So here they were. Looking at the most beautiful Phoenix they had ever met.

    Green and turquoise icy feathers, green flames and luminous eyes, a height of 60 metres that seemed to be slowly growing and a wingspan of 190. The unknown Phoenix was absolutely spectacular.

    And absolutely terrifying.

    By Chad¡¯s side, the 9 Flame Queen was currently stunned. She could feel that the daunting aura that was billowing out of the strange Phoenix was similar to hers in nature! Although it mostly felt like something else, she was very familiar with the half Monster/half Beast hybrid energy that she and her descendants had, and it was oozing off of this Phoenix like crazy!

    What was the meaning of this?!

    ¡°Oh, Chad! Come to join me have you? Lady Nine too! I feel sooo very honoured~¡± the Phoenix spoke in a sing-song voice, splashing shock into the hearts of all the listeners.

    They knew this voice!

    The Phoenix, who they were very sure by now was the Despicable Brother, paused when it looked at the Ice Phoenix that was huddled by Chad¡¯s side.

    ¡°Who¡¯s this, hmm? Sniff. Oh? Oh dear, Chad. You¡­ could you have been ploughing my daughter? The one I had with your mate? Hahaha, what a dirty degenerate~¡±

    Although Chad couldn¡¯t fully understand all of the silvery words that were being said to him, he still got the gist of it and he was sure that the Despicable Brother was mocking him.

    ¡°YOU!-¡±

    ¡°Ah calm down, calm down~ My apologies. But I¡¯m currently quite busy and I must leave as soon as possible. Ah, but worry not. We will most certainly have a proper reunion at a later date. Tata now!¡± the Despicable said before flapping his wings and turned into a streak of green light that flashed towards the horizon with astonishing speed.

    ¡­Everyone was speechless. They couldn¡¯t comprehend what had just happened, and they were worrying about the possible future. The 9 Flame Queen was especially wary, afterall¡­

    The Despicable Brother had just gone off in the direction of the South Continent.

    ¡°WAAAAAIT!¡± Chad screamed as he shot off in the same direction, but the 9 Flame Queen shook her head. The difference in speed was almost overwhelming and there was no way he could catch up.

    ¡°Haah¡­~¡± the 9 Flame Queen sighed before rounding up the Purgatory Vermillion Birds and returning back to where they came from.

 Ch.94 The 7 Regions of the Lolay Galaxy

    Within the Lolay Galaxy, there were 7 Regions that shared the 197 Worlds and billions of fledgling Planets.

    First was the [Desolate Region], the weakest Region in the Galaxy putting it at Rank 7. This Region contained 1 Law World, 2 High Worlds, 4 Mid Worlds and 10 Low Worlds. However, there was a completely undiscovered World which had secretly made it to the Mid Stage, and that was of course the Eridius World. Pushing the amount of Mid Worlds to 5 and the grand total of all Worlds to 18.

    Then there was the [Mirth Region] which ranked 6th in the Galaxy. This Region had 2 Law Worlds, 4 High Worlds, 8 Mid Worlds and 7 Low Worlds with a grand total of 21 Worlds. There was nothing special about this region and it was just a few steps away from being put in the same status as the Desolate Region.

    Then the [Mithril Region] ranked 5th. This Region contained 3 Law Worlds, 12 High Worlds, 19 Mid Worlds and 4 Low Worlds with a grand total of 38 Worlds. This region, though not the strongest, was the most peaceful and social region out of all them thanks to the fact that they had the best blacksmiths, alchemists, architects etc. They were the absolute best when it came to commerce, and thanks to that, multiple pact¡¯s had been made to ensure the absence of fights and the pursuit of buying and selling. If you wanted to visit the Worlds in this region, you were not allowed to fight. Otherwise, you would be killed or suppressed by the joint efforts of the other regions, who were likewise interested in the products sold in the Mithril Region.

    The [Dragoria Region] which was ranked 4th, contained 5 Law Worlds, 18 High Worlds and 13 Mid Worlds, creating a grand total of 36 Worlds. This Region was famous for the legendary Beasts that were born on their Worlds. They didn¡¯t have any Low Worlds because they had all evolved long ago.

    The [Heavens Supreme Region] ranked 3rd, containing 7 Law Worlds, 20 High Worlds and 3 Mid Worlds with a grand total of 30 Worlds. This Region was famous for giving birth to the unique race that called themselves Deities. They were beings with extreme affinities with Light, Holy and Fire. They also had the most gods out of all 7 Regions. But unfortunately, they were quite arrogant and mostly independent. This prevented them from uniting the entire Region under 1 banner.

    After that came the [Unhallowed Region] which was ranked 2nd. Containing 10 Law Worlds, 30 High Worlds and 10 Mid Worlds. A grand total of 40 Worlds. This Region was famous for being fully occupied by the Undead. But although an extremely powerful Region, they too were not completely united. However, even if they were, whether they could ever claim 1st place or not remained dubious.

    Last but not least was the [Kong Eternal Region] ranked 1st. This Region only contained 15 Worlds, which was even smaller than the Desolate Region¡­ But all of them were at the whopping Law Stage with one of them given the indications of going even further beyond! On top of that, the entire Region had been conquered by a single faction that called themselves the Kong Eternal Family!

    Their supremacy was completely undisputed!

    But for how long¡­?

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    ¡­

    [Lolay Galaxy, Desolate Region, Unspecified location in Space]

    Peacefully orbiting in some corner of the Desolate Region was a Low World that was filled with the bustling activities of an eye-catching Enlightened Race.

    They looked humanoid enough, but they only had one eye and 4 fingers that had bulbous tips. And their skins varied between red, blue and green and then some in between, which were probably the mixed-race people of their species. Besides that, the men were bigger and more robust than the women, but the women were more aesthetically pleasing than the men.

    There were many other kinds of species on the planet, but they were all animals and insects. No other Enlightened Races. Thanks to this, the colourful and one-eyed race were easily able to dominate and propagate all over the World with their intelligence and self-awareness alone.

    A normal Low World.

    But seeing as the World already had many thriving civilisations along with a deep insight on the 12 basic laws of existence, it wouldn¡¯t be long before it experienced a Magical Outburst and became a Mid World. A million years or so, not long at all in the grand scheme of things. All it had to do was keep up its stable development.

    ¡°Marvellous¡­ I must indeed thank Gaia for this.¡± Eridel hummed as he gazed at the World before him. He¡¯d been prepared to be disappointed when he was given the coordinates from Gaia, but she had truly fulfilled her side of the deal. Thinking of this, Eridel couldn¡¯t help but think back to his conversation with the reincarnated Immortal.

    ¡­

    (13 Years Ago)

    ¡°Would you like to make a deal~?¡± Eridel said as he gazed at the 20 Metre tall Golden Dragon before him. It hadn¡¯t even been a single year since she¡¯d woken up from her forced slumber, and yet she was already nearing the Seeking Beast Stage despite being a Law Beast.

    He wondered if she was relying on a Beast Technique she might have collected in her long years. But perhaps it was just her vast experience with Magical Energy and Mana.

    ¡®She¡¯s quite the cautious one¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as he looked at Gaia who was as still as a statue with eyes as cold as millennial ice. ¡®But that¡¯s as it should be. Immortals didn¡¯t just gain their power over night after all. She¡¯s no doubt experienced a lot of things¡­ But I¡¯m no pushover either.¡¯

    Eridel sat down cross legged and placed his hands on his lap before meeting Gaia¡¯s eyes with a twinkle in his own. He was indirectly stating that he could sit here all day if he had to.

    Although Eridel had never conversed with someone as old or older than himself ever since that fateful event, he knew the way beings who had experienced many things thought. He was one of them. And he wasn¡¯t foolish enough to underestimate the Dragon before him either.

    In this conversation¡­ everything they said, or didn¡¯t say, and every chance to control the flow of the conversation they took, or didn¡¯t take, and every movement they performed, or didn¡¯t perform¡­ All mattered.

    On the other hand, things like apparent stupidity or a lack of control in emotions or a nervous tick and motion. Did not matter.

    Because it would be all a Lie.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± came the cold and rough voice of the Dragon of Creation.

    Let the games begin.

 Ch.95 A Battle of Wills

    Gaia inwardly flabbergasted by the strange existence before her. The man wore white robes that blended with his long silky-like hair, and had golden eyes that appeared to see right into the depths of her soul. On top of that, he was surrounded by a divine golden light that made her think of those bastards from the Heavens Supreme Region.

    For a split second she even thought that he might have actually originated from there, but then immediately wrote it off as extremely unlikely. Out of all the Regions in this Galaxy, it was the bastards from Heaven Supreme that bullied and harassed the Immortals from the Desolate Region the most. Whenever she or the other Immortals from the Desolate Region visited the Mithril Region to buy precious goods, they would always be met with contempt. And if they ever met those from Heaven Supreme, it would always turn into a depressing situation.

    Remembering the humiliating acts that she was forced to perform, Gaia had to blink away her anger.

    Such people¡­ would not even be caught dead here. They considered the entire Desolate Region a disgrace, and sometimes even insulted each other by calling the other a ¡®Desolate loving scum¡¯ if they were caught indulging in the bodies of those from Desolate, or ¡®Desolate Dweller¡¯ if they were low in talent.

    This man before her, although arrogant in appearance, did not possess the disdain or disgust that those from Heavens Supreme never bothered to hide when looking at anything that came from the Desolate Region.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± she finally decided to ask, unwilling to participate in a battle of patience that other Immortals liked to do. She was planning on pretending to be an overly arrogant Dragon who¡¯s ego was over inflated by their natural talent, instead of the Immortal that she actually was. If she was caught, she was caught, it mattered not.

    The man before responded with a wider grin that genuinely made the World seem brighter, and made the plant-life around them grow. It was a wonderful sight straight out of a fairy=tale. Coupled with the man¡¯s divine looks, it was enough to make almost any girl or even man lose control of themselves. But the only thought that came to her mind was:

    ¡®Mere parlour tricks.¡¯

    ¡°Me¡­? Hmm, you can consider me as¡­ the Guardian of this little World~¡±

    Even his voice was sublime, it touched her in places she very much rathered it didn¡¯t, and even caused her to briefly, very briefly, think of the 2 of them doing things in a different scenario and different location. And that was when she knew she was in danger.

    ¡°Stop it.¡± She said quietly, but her voice was filled with all the killing intent that she had managed to gather in the tens of thousands of years she had spent alive. The gloves were off and she was throwing away her plan of false ignorance before it began.

    She couldn¡¯t allow the man to continue speaking like that.

    The man''s eyes lost a bit of its light for a single moment. and even if the grin remained, she knew that she had shocked him. But unfortunately, the light came back even stronger than before, possessing a beguiling property that threatened to befuddle her senses.

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    ¡°Whatever do you mean little Dragon~?¡± the man said, and it was almost a physical thing. The voice billowed over her like an illusive mist and caused a shiver to run up her spine.

    Trying her best to ignore the way her mortal body was reacting to his voice, she decided to come up with a different plan. Even though she wanted to scream at him to stop, it was already proven that threatening him was redundant, and even counter-productive. She needed to either attack him where it hurt, which was impossible, or somehow convince him to stop.

    On anyone else, there was also the option of using his emotions against him, but 1, she didn¡¯t know which way the man''s morals swung, so something like crying might excite him instead, and 2, she did not believe for a second that he would lose control of his emotions. But even if he apparently did, she was sure it would be a trap.

    It was then that it came to her.

    ¡°I will not proceed with any deal, if you keep using the Laws of Sound against me.¡± she said with a cold voice.

    Recalling that the first thing he said when he had come here was a request for a deal, she decided to use it against him, happily feeling like she had gained a slight upper hand. But she didn¡¯t let it get to her head and prepared for the man to threaten that if she didn¡¯t comply, it could get worse, with a reply that if he did so, she would self-destruct. From there it would become a battle of wills.

    The light in the man¡¯s eyes shot up in intensity as the grin on his face morphed into a frown. His aura flared out and the World around them began shaking from the pressure it was unable to withstand despite its recent evolution. Beasts of all kinds launched themselves into the air or stampeded in every direction with fear, clearly sensing that if they were to remain in the vicinity, they wouldn¡¯t even know how they died..

    The man looked like a very, very angry god.

    But she knew it was all a facade, he was merely displaying his displeasure and portion of his power. Basically giver her the threat that she guessed was coming, but in an indirect manner.

    ¡®Bastard¡­¡¯ she inwardly thought before giving him a glare of her own. Filling her eyes with the experience and indifference of a long-lived Immortal.

    This lasted for 5 minutes that felt more like 5 days with each second raising the intensity in the man¡¯s indomitable aura more and more. But when the first sound of a tree cracking was heard, the pressure and aura sputtered out like a mortal machine that had lost electricity. Bringing peace to the land that had become silent.

    But even then, Gaia didn¡¯t let her guard down.

    The man continued to glare at her, but all the fanfare had vanished. The lights in his eyes, the golden aura¡­ even his shiny clothes and hair had dulled. He looked like an ordinary mortal man, albeit, an impossibly handsome one.

    But just when she thought she had one, the man began laughing.

    ¡°Pfft- hahaha¡­~ HAHA-HAHAHAHAHA!¡±

    !!!

    Gaia felt dazed as she looked at the man flopping to his back and stretching out his limbs in a spread-eagle position, laughing like a boy that found something amusing that no one else knew about. The sound was¡­ arguably one of the most beautiful things she had ever heard in the entirety of her life, and she was unable to resist as a grin pulled itself from her lips.

    ¡°Haha¡­hoo~ Sorry, sorry¡­ My name''s Eridel. What¡¯s your name?¡±

 Ch.96 Eridelâ€™s Cold Assault

    ¡°Haha¡­hoo~ Sorry, sorry¡­ My name is Eridel. What¡¯s your name?¡±

    Eridel was obviously not asking about the name that he had given her, but instead her real name. The name she had been using before her reincarnation. However, he had no doubt that she was unaware that he had named her Gaia, and there was a chance that-

    ¡°My name is Gaia¡± came the draconic voice of the Creation Dragon.

    ¡®And there it is¡­¡¯ Eridel thought. He was absolutely certain that she was thinking it was okay to use the new name provided for her as an alias, thinking that it was fine because it really was her real name now.

    It wasn¡¯t a bad thought process to be honest, in the wide universe there were many ways to easily prove if someone was lying or not. This was one of the biggest reasons as to why Immortals became more proficient in manipulating the truth the older they got. Gaia was probably thinking that since her new name was both real and harmless, it was the best scapegoat to cover her true identity even if she had already thrown away the pretence of being a regular mortal Dragon.

    Unfortunately for her, she was speaking to the one that had given her that scapegoat.

    If she was at her peak, she might have come up with something less fallible. Her powerful soul would have quickly enlightened her to the fact that her new name might actually have been granted by a strange individual like him, instead of the strange System¡­ But she wasn¡¯t and Eridel was thoroughly enjoying the control that he was slowly gaining over the situation.

    Giving a secretive smile, he said. ¡°I see... A fine name you have there, dear Immortal.¡±

    ¡°So you know.¡± Gaia said softly, not even giving a token resistance.

    ¡°Yes I indeed know and it wasn¡¯t hard to find out. But forget that, Miss Gaia. You know something that I don¡¯t, and I¡¯m willing to trade with you for that information.¡± Eridel said.

    For a moment, he had thought of mentioning her crazy feat of converting Destruction Essence into Creation Essence to make himself seem all knowing, but decided to veto the idea immediately. Saying such a thing would actually devalue his mystery and narrow the range of options she had to guess his identity. On top of that, she would surely assume that it was his Primordial Essence that had enabled her to complete the Destruction to Creation conversion feat.

    True enough. But she didn¡¯t need to know that.

    The less she knew about him, the more wary and cautious she would be. He needed that for this conversation.

    Of course, there were other ways of causing intimidation, such as pretending to be an evil fiend who would kill her if she didn¡¯t comply, or threatening to use his voice to enthral her now very mortal soul. But there were too many variables in that. Although unlikely, she might commit suicide in defiance. She had already reincarnated once and she could probably do it again.

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    On top of that¡­ he needed to keep their relationship amiable even after the deal. Especially after the deal.

    ¡°What do you want to know.¡± Gaia said without a single ripple in her emotions.

    But Eridel didn¡¯t reply straight away. He just continued to stare at her with his dangerously fascinating golden eyes as the World around them fell silent. Colour slowly seeped out of reality and all motion came to a complete halt. Apart from Eridel and Gaia, everything else had turned black and white.

    Time had stopped.

    ¡°...What are you doing?¡± Gaia said, still without a ripple in her emotions. But she knew, and he knew; It was utterly false. She was absolutely terrified.

    The Time Laws!

    ¡°Just a bit of privacy for what I want to be said, nothing much.¡± Eridel said, nodding his head in a boyish manner as if the whole situation was really just a small matter. But then his face took upon a serious expression.

    ¡±I¡­ want to know the location of all the Worlds in this Galaxy.¡±

    Silence descended upon them as they continued to look at each other, each looking for the slightest clues that would allude to the others true emotions.

    ¡°Why?¡± Gaia finally said. Short and concise.

    Things had become extremely tense and every word uttered was beginning to hold extra weight. Nothing could be said carelessly.

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to know that.¡± Eridel said with a slight smile, aiming to disarm her anger. He knew very well that he had just indirectly stated that he was a foreingn invader. There was no reason for someone as allegedly strong as he was, to not know the location of other Worlds in the Galaxy. It could only mean that he was an invader.

    There was another long silence again.

    Eridel guessed that Gaia was using the entire capacity of her mind to guess his intentions. After all, at the top of this conversation, Eridel had addressed himself as the Guardian of this World. It could be a lie, but it was more than enough information to make her question if he had any hostile intent.

    Eridel decided to press forward, grasping the chance before she jumped to conclusions. His patience in letting her gather her thoughts was a lie. He was very aware of how slow her mind worked and what time to cut in before she could reach anything substantial. It was all just a pretence to make her feel that he cared about what she thought.

    ¡°I know what it sounds like, but I don¡¯t have bad intentions.¡± A lie. ¡°However, I¡¯ve come prepared with the fact that nothing I say could ever change your mind.¡± Another lie. She hadn¡¯t even come to a decision yet, what mind was there to change? All he was doing was increasing the pace of the conversation whilst pretending to think that she could keep up.

    She wouldn¡¯t dare to ask him to slow down if she didn¡¯t want to admit that her mind was actually weak. After all, It could possibly lead to him using his voice to manipulate her again, and if she didn¡¯t want that, she must keep quiet.

    Unfortunately all in vain and much to her detriment.

    ¡°This is why I want you to consider an offer of mine.¡± Eridel said with a very, very slight compassionate light in his eyes. Too much would let her know that he was most definitely pretending. All this while he had been smiling apathetically or secretly. Nothing about him looked compassionate. However, with this tiny amount, it looked like he was trying to hold himself back, but temporarily failing. That spoke much, much more volume.

    Either way, she couldn¡¯t confirm or deny its validity.

    All in his favour.

 Ch.97 An Unprecedented Offer

    ¡°What is your offer?¡± Gaia said quietly.

    Eridel smiled inwardly, pleased that she wasn¡¯t turning short-sighted enough to say something like ¡®I¡¯ll keep the secrets of my galaxy no matter what¡¯ or something like that.

    Zealousness was a real thing. On the off chance that she was some kind of hero who had a penchant to save ¡®Galaxies¡¯ or at the very least her own World, his plans would collapse like sand, and he would have to use force. A slim chance but not impossible due to her now mortal soul that didn¡¯t quite let her grasp the bigger picture like it used to.

    Fortunately, that didn¡¯t come to pass.

    ¡°You know what gods are, yes?¡± Eridel suddenly said out of the blue.

    ¡°...Yes. What of it?¡± Gaia replied, letting Eridel hear the confusion in her voice for the first time. A harmless and appropriate emotion for this moment.

    ¡°Tell me what you know about the gods.¡± Eridel said with a slightly tense expression, making the situation look more serious than it actually was. The colourless World around them only added to this effect.

    ¡°Why-¡±

    ¡°Just tell me.¡± Eridel said with a slight steel in his voice, using a bit of brute force to make her more reactive. He couldn¡¯t tell if it worked, but she began talking and that¡¯s all he wanted.

    ¡°..The gods.¡± Gaia said after a 10 second pause. No doubt confused about the whole situation. ¡°Beings who have managed to gain Faith Energy from genuine believers, and were able to turn the energy into Divine Energy when offered the god contract from the World¡¯s consciousness¡­ They have dominion over a single Law in the World and also have a divine territory, personal pocket realm that comes with many benefits. On top of that, the more believers they get, the more powerful they become, this is the result of them converting the gathered Faith Energy into Divine Energy. They are very powerful individuals. However¡­ they are unable to leave the World and they must forever protect it.¡±

    Gaia explained it pretty much perfectly. In essence, gods were the hired henchmen that High Worlds and on extremely rare occasions, Mid Worlds, were able to employ. There could only be one god per element/Law in the World and they had absolute hegemony over it. A Realm 7 god could beat a Realm 7 Immortal to death with a single slap and then drink a cup of tea right afterwards. However, power in spades they may have, they were forever bound to whatever World made them god.

    For beings who had lived over 5000 years, talk less of tens of thousands, that was a big, big, big loss. Although death by monotony hadn¡¯t happened before, there were things that came close.

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    ¡°That¡¯s right¡­ Those are the gods. Individuals with great power but essentially no freedom. It doesn¡¯t sound very nice, does it? All that power, and yet unable to even pass the World¡¯s atmosphere. Pitiful. To an ex-immortal such as yourself who has tasted power at least close to theirs, but has been able to travel the endless depths of space. That must sound like a cruel trap, right?¡± Eridel said softly, looking towards the grass as if he were lamenting.

    Gaia chose to remain silent and Eridel continued.

    ¡°...But have you ever wondered what would happen if a god was free to leave their World?¡±

    Gaia just continued to stare at him impassively, knowing he wasn¡¯t finished. Eridel knew she was truly as indifferent to his question as she looked. Jokes and tales about such a concept were sure to be all over the place. Although unprecedented in reality, it wasn¡¯t anything new.

    However, Eridel pressed on.

    ¡°Such a god would be able to do whatever an Immortal could do, gain whatever an Immortal could gain, and sweep over the cosmos with unparalleled power.¡± Eridel spread out his arms as a charismatic smile adorned his lips. ¡°What would you say if I could make you such a being-¡±

    ¡°I would say that your head is faulty.¡± Gaia retorted, washing away the momentum that he had gained so far. She was most likely fishing for a glimpse of emotions to appear on his face, trying to figure what his deal was by saying all of this. Only, he had already foreseen such a possibility and he didn¡¯t waver.

    Letting his arms fall to his side, Eridel let out a small sigh and gave a slight shake of his heads as if he was a teacher that was tired of his stupid student.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t expect beings from such a low-level galaxy like this to understand, but I ask that for you to broaden your mind and remember that there is always a bigger mountain. The heights of this galaxy that you think are lofty¡­ don¡¯t even qualify to be used as public toilets for the truly important people in the big Galaxies.¡±

    Gaia¡¯s eyes narrowed and Eridel wasn¡¯t able to tell if it was from anger or focus.

    ¡®She¡¯s quite good¡¯ Eridel thought as he inwardly smirked. However on the outside, he once again had a serious expression.

    ¡°gods that can leave their own worlds truly exist, each possessing untold power that you couldn¡¯t even imagine.¡± The truth. ¡°And I can make you such a being.¡± A lie depending on how you looked at it. ¡°What do you say?¡± Eridel said as he gazed into the ex-Immortal¡¯s eyes.

    There was a moment of silence as the 2 quietly stared at each other before Gaia finally spoke.

    ¡°...All of this in exchange for the map of this Galaxy?¡±

    ¡®...Tch.¡¯

    Eridel¡¯s face finally took on a cold expression. The way she said it, others might have thought that she was on the brink of agreeing, but he knew that she wasn¡¯t one bit closer than she was before.

    As a matter of fact, she was indirectly calling him a scammer.

    ¡°Gaia, I do not have infinite patience so do not test my anger.¡± Eridel said with frost in his voice. It was looking like he had finally lost a bit of control¡­ But then all of a sudden he sighed.

    ¡°I would have thought that as someone seeking revenge you would have accepted my offer by now. What a pity.¡±

 Ch.98 Irresistible

    ¡°...You know what happened to me?¡± Gaia said. But there was a nearly imperceptible crack in her voice which caused Eridel to inwardly smile with glee. However, when he thought of the fake compassionate expression he pulled off earlier, he quickly humbled himself. She might have been using the same trick back on him to fake a sign of emotional weakness.

    ¡°You didn¡¯t die just for fun did you?¡± Eridel said with a slight mocking expression.

    Actually, it was a fair question. Eridel was pretty sure that there were some people who would actually choose to reincarnate for fun if they could. Reset their souls and live new lives. There was also the benefit of acquiring an extremely talented body or cultivating an impeccable foundation with your past life experience, but you didn¡¯t need to do a full on reincarnation for that. Body possession was much quicker and far less dangerous.

    Eridel calmly stared at Gaia as a vicious light appeared in her eyes, but on the inside he was laughing quite rambunctiously.

    In truth, with Eridel¡¯s question, he had just indirectly confirmed that he knew of Gaia¡¯s exact predicament. It was more than likely that she was thinking that all this time they spent talking, he was assuming that she was an Immortal that had possessed a mortal body, and therefore still had her Immortal Soul, and a semblance of defence. He had only addressed her as an ¡®ex-immortal¡¯ after all. That was why she hadn¡¯t been too shaken up by his acknowledgment of her previous Immortality. If the enemy thought that she had a line that shouldn¡¯t be crossed, then she was relatively safe.

    But now, Eridel had admitted that he knew she was a reincarnator! It would be a deep, deep lie to say that she wasn¡¯t worried for her future.

    However, Eridel continued on as if he didn¡¯t notice. ¡°Reincarnation isn¡¯t a joke and those who had the means would normally use it as a last resort. I do not know how you got your technique but I do not care for it. However, I want to ask you this¡­ are you okay with your current situation? Are you okay with knowing that whilst you stay grovelling in a pitiful World like this, your enemies are getting stronger and stronger? And even if by some miracle you manage to make it back, do you think that you could defeat them as you are now?¡±

    Whilst being a Dragon of Creation was really impressive, in the grand scheme of things it wasn¡¯t much. All of those that reached the grand stage of Immortality had similar levels of talent and Gaia¡¯s enemies were sure to have the same.

    ¡°But if you were a god, a Dragon god of Creation with the ability to chase them anywhere they would try to flee. Which one of them could stop you? Which of them could defend against you¡­? Do not let this opportunity fly away, Gaia.¡±

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    There was once more a bout of silence as the 2 stared at each other.

    ¡°What would you do if I said no.¡± Gaia asked.

    ¡°Hmm¡­~ I¡¯m a very vengeful person, you see. I might just be tempted to forcefully read your memories and gift the same opportunity to your greatest enemy.¡± Eridel said whilst looking up to the sky with a cheeky smile.

    ¡°That isn¡¯t funny.¡± Gaia said coldly, then paused for a moment before continuing. ¡°Why¡­ why don¡¯t you just do it? Forcefully read my memories, I mean. It has become abundantly clear that you know that my Soul is mortal, just like my flesh.¡±

    Eridel then looked down at her as if he were looking at an idiot. ¡°Because you will be a future partner of mine of course¡±

    ¡°A future partner? You didn¡¯t say any-¡± Gaia began but was quickly interrupted.

    ¡°Gaia. Let us not do this.¡± Eridel said as he covered his face with his palm in exasperation.

    Gaia stared at him for a long moment. She wasn¡¯t foolish. She could clearly understand that the reason why Eridel was offering such a great opportunity for a mere map of the Galaxy, was because she was probably being expected to use that power for him.

    But she didn¡¯t know how he was going to enforce that? A soul contract? Or maybe a blood contract? There were all sorts of binding contracts that were used in deals nowadays and some of them were downright malicious. However, she didn¡¯t believe that he would use such a thing against her because if so, then it would ruin the point of him being civil about the deal.

    And¡­ she really needed that power.

    ¡°Haah¡­ I accept.¡± Gaid said.

    ¡°Mmh, you won¡¯t regret it.¡± Eridel said indifferently ¡°Now, as you know¡­¡± Eridel said as he held out his hand and clicked his fingers, restoring colour and motion to the World as the hold on time was released.

    ¡°To become a god, you would need to acquire a lot of Faith Energy from the residents of the World before establishing a contract with the World itself.¡± Eridel said as he walked towards Gaia.

    Gaia narrowed her eyes, not expecting to hear about the conventional World-god contract. Wouldn¡¯t that mean that she would be tied to this World?

    ¡°I can help you with the contract, but I¡¯m sure that with your experience as an Immortal, you¡¯re more than capable of acquiring Faith Energy on your own. Now I know what this sounds like, but I can assure you that so long as you can acquire your Faith Energy and convert it into Divine Energy, you will become a god with the ability to leave the Planet.¡± Eridel said as he stared directly into Gaia¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°I see¡­¡± Gaia replied, scepticism clearly in her voice. At the very least, she was finally allowing emotions to colour her voice and facial expressions. A slight show of trust.

    When Eridel arrived in front of Gaia, he immediately crouched down without pause and pressed his palm against the floor.

    SHWIIIING!

 Ch.99 Becoming a Pseudo god

    SHWIIIING!

    From the point where Eridel¡¯s hand met the floor, a golden Magic Circle spread across the floor and rapidly expanded until it encompassed the whole of Gaia¡¯s body.

    Gaia remained passive, but she was clearly uncomfortable. There were many things that someone could do to you with the help of a Magic Formation, and she didn¡¯t have her previous Immortal strength to defend against it if she needed to.

    She was quite helpless, and for the nth time she was reminded of why the obtainment of Power was her highest priority. But for now, she was once again put into a situation in which she had to entrust her life to someone else¡­

    ¡°Brace yourself, but do not resist.¡± came the sonorous voice of Eridel.

    Gaia did as he asked and immediately steadied herself before forcing herself into a state of tranquillity, something most experienced cultivators were able to do because of their daily cultivation/meditation sessions.

    A moment later, the ¡®Magic Formation¡¯ flared to life and sent an amalgamation of Essences into Gaia¡¯s body.

    !!!

    Gaia¡¯s eyes widened as she used her Spirit Sense to watch as Essences flowed through her body, changing the nature of her body and even her DNA, remaking it into the vessel of a god, before flowing to her Mana Core with single-minded purpose.

    This was where she got a little worried. Because if something untoward happened to her Beast Core, she was as good as crippled. And she wasn¡¯t sure she could find the necessary materials to remedy that in a World like this no matter how freaky it was. Hopefully, everything would be-

    Crrrack-BOOM!

    ¡®!!!¡¯

    Gaia¡¯s mind was sent into a state of shock as she watched as her Beast Core was shattered right before her ¡®eyes¡¯, the accumulated Mana dispersing throughout her body and out of her pores, fading away and leaving her powerless in a matter of seconds.

    She could not believe it. The thing she had been dreading the most had just occurred and she was now a cripp-

    ¡°Relax~¡± Eridel said with a voice that sounded like it came from the high heavens and Gaia immediately calmed down, her rising panic deflating even faster than her Mana did. Clearly, Eridel had released the restrictions he had put on his voice and was letting its innate power do his bidding, causing Gaia to once more focus on the happenings of her body.

    The strange Essences in her body had all coalesced into the location of her now destroyed Beast Core, and seemed to be forming¡­ a new Core?

    Indeed! A new Core that seemed to take the properties of the Law of Creation, had replaced her Beast Core. But it was most certainly not a Beast Core. It radiated a certain hallowed intent that put to shame her previous Core even if this new one was empty. It was something that she had seen only a few times in her life and something that was very hard to confiscate unless you owned terrific power.

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    A Divine Core!

    <Congratulations, Gaia. You have formed a god contract with the Eridius World.>

    <Condolences, Gaia. You have lost all Mana and consequently don¡¯t even qualify as a Stage 1 Magic Beast. To regain your cultivation, you will need to cultivate Divine Energy instead of Magic Energy.>

    !!!

    Gaia was expecting it, but she was still shocked! Somehow this man, Eridel, had managed to form a god-contract between her and the World!

    ¡®How could this be? Has the World truly awakened its consciousness?¡¯ Gaia thought incredulously. She had been speculating the possibility ever since the World evolved and everything in sight just seemed to bend reality, but to have a nearly direct confirmation like this¡­

    It was mind boggling even to an ex-immortal like her.

    She was even a god now. Although she was much weaker than she was 5 minutes ago, she could tell that her new starting point was much, much greater than her previous starting point.

    ¡®Is becoming a god so simple nowadays? How much time did I spend in the Reincarnation Cycle?¡¯ Gaia sceptically thought, doubtful of how easy she became a god.

    Actually, it wasn¡¯t as simple as she was making it out to be. The pain she had suffered as the new Divine Core formed itself in her body was enough to make the Crystal Dragon King prefer the strike of 10 Tribulation Bolts. But as an Immortal, what kind of pain had Gaia not experienced?

    Pain is temporary. Power is eternal.

    ¡®Unbelievable¡­¡¯ Gaia thought, still thinking of the possibility of a Worlds Consciousness being formed despite only having Magical Energy for 120+ years.

    If only she knew.

    ¡°Well¡­¡± Eridel said, bringing Gaia¡¯s attention to his soul-stealing eyes. ¡°It¡¯s time to pay up.¡±

    Gaia sighed once, hoping that at the very least, whatever happened to the rest of the Galaxy the Sigothia World would be fine, before complying and telling Eridel everything she knew about the 196 other Worlds and their locations.

    *10 Minutes Later*

    ¡°Alas, our time together has come to an end¡­ In any case, it¡¯s been a pleasure speaking with you and I had a lot of fun.¡± He wasn¡¯t lying. It was his first conversation with an Immortal after all and it was quite entertaining. ¡°But I¡¯m quite the busy man and our business here is done. However If you need anything, all you have to do is scream out the following words. ¡®Lord embodiment of all that is sexy and desirable, please do with me as you wish and save me from my vows!¡¯ and I shall appear. Pfft-HAHAHAHA!¡± Eridel crudely said before bursting into sprinkles of light, and leaving his boisterous laughter behind.

    ¡­

    Shortly after that, the Despicable Brother had been chosen by the Sin of Envy, and became the Demon god of Envy. The first of the only 7 Demon gods that the Eridius World would have.

    He was sure to make a big mess of the Eridius World.

    But that was all according to Eridel¡¯s plan and he naturally didn¡¯t dwell on it. He was far more interested in how easily he had scammed Gaia, and the benefits that would come from her connection to the Sigothia World.

    Yes. He had scammed Gaia.

    If she had experience as a god, she would have known that the contract she had established with the World was the same as any other. This meant that she was a slave to the World just like any other god, and was unable to leave his domain.

    Gaia a partner? No, just a slave, a godly slave.

 Ch.100 The Eonix World

    However, he wasn¡¯t entirely lying when he said that she would be a god with the ability to leave the World. As a matter of fact, If things went according to plan, then she would eventually be able to leave the World freely. That was a fact.

    But she would never be able to leave his domain. That was also a fact.

    You see, Eridel had grand plans for his future¡­ And in those plans, Eridel¡¯s area of influence didn¡¯t stop at being just a 1 planet. Nay, that was too pitiful for his aspirations¡­

    ¡­But in regards to Gaia¡¯s pseudo god transformation with the whole Magic Circle/Formation and everything, that too, was a sham. Eridel was a World, and like any World, he could have psychically sent the god contract offer to Gaia, and she would have the choice to accept or deny. Quite easy. But as easy as it was, he would have just as hard a time explaining how he was able to command the World to send Gaia a god-contract, and on top of that, he would lose his ability to guarantee his part of the deal, since it wasn¡¯t ¡®him¡¯ offering the god contract.

    So he had to set up a few tricks.

    At the end of the day, they both got what they wanted. He got the map of the Galaxy and a god of creation, whilst she became a god with the ability to leave the World, and possibly exact vengeance. Perfect!

    However, on the topic of a god being able to leave their World, Eridel couldn¡¯t help thinking of a certain group of beings who were very much capable of doing such a thing.

    Truthfully, a god being able to leave their world wasn¡¯t an impossibility and had been done many times in the past. These beings were all extremely powerful and were much more stronger than Gaia would ever be even if she could also leave the World. Well, unless she got some other kind of boost. But the point was, these beings existed and each of them were terrifying.

    However, these particular gods were all hated and hunted down by anyone who had knowledge of what they were, and the ability to actually deal with them. And that was because of what these gods actually did in order to get their powers. In order to obtain power and freedom, they did something so heinous that everybody who knew of them began calling these people [World Sinners] or [Evil gods].

    It wasn¡¯t known how they did it, but by assimilating their entire World¡¯s into their Divine Territory¡¯s and consequently killing all life forms within them including the Worlds Consciousness, they were able to gain untold powers and utter freedom, striking fear into the hearts of Immortals, gods, and other beings alike.

    These were the World Sinners.

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    ¡­

    [Lolay Galaxy, Desolate Region, Eonix World Outer Space]

    Eridel shook his head and decided to turn his full attention to the beautiful bounty before him. The Eonix World.

    The Eonix World was a Low World in the Desolate Region that was currently owned by a powerful faction in the Sigothia World called [Midnight Requiem]

    A group of individuals who were proficient in the Laws of Sound and Undeath. According to Gaia, they were not particularly evil or villainous, but because of their affinity with the dead and soul encroaching songs, they were treated as such. They had 6 Immortals at the helm and 2 gods. The Sigothia World¡¯s god of Undeath and goddess of Music.

    Apparently they were ranked 4th in the Sigothia World¡¯s top 10 Magisterial Factions and would have ranked higher if they had more members, but the requirements for the affinity in both Music and Undeath proved too much of a high hurdle.

    And yet despite that, they still had as many as a million members. Millions of members with the affinity for Music AND Undeath. Even if some of their members were talented individuals looking for an opportunity from the Mid and High Worlds of the Desolate Region, it was still an impressive number. Truly¡­ you could find almost anything in a Law World.

    In any case, the Midnight Requiem was undoubtedly powerful and through their own efforts they were able to obtain ownership of an entire Low World. A grand feat.

    Unfortunately for them, an abnormal singularity with ambitions that knew no bounds was greedily eyeing their most prized possession.

    ¡®Hmm¡­ there they are¡¯ Eridel thought, using his Spirit Sense to lock onto 30 Cultivators that were in the 5th Realm pretending to be average old-aged mortals. Clearly, they were the guardians of this World. Stationed here to protect the World from potential invaders and make sure that it made a smooth and steady evolution to the Mid Stage.

    Eridel¡¯s soul was extremely potent thanks to his soul cultivation along with his nature as a Planet, so even though these individuals were in the 5th Realm, they were completely oblivious to his probing.

    ¡®They should serve as a nice final meal for the first horseman.¡¯ Eridel thought whilst stroking his smooth chin. ¡®But first¡­¡¯ Eridel eyed the protective Magic Shield that encompassed the World. It looked like a blue dome, the colour of normal Magical Energy, and it was covered all over in glowing Runes.

    The mortals within the World couldn¡¯t see it but Eridel certainly could. He didn¡¯t need Gaia¡¯s information to know what it did, and that if he touched it, even those back in the main headquarters of the Midnight Requiem would know.

    But that was a simple fix.

    He didn¡¯t spend 13 years flying here just to be stopped by a pesky shield. Raising his hand from his chin, a golden ball of light was quickly formed and shot straight into the shield. However, when it collided with the shield, it vanished. No explosion, no sound, no sparks, not even any ripples.

    ¡®Now then, which one of you want to go first¡­¡¯ Eridel said as he smiled at the 4 multi-coloured eggs that were calmly orbiting around him.

 Ch.101 The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

    Surrounding Eridel were 4 eggs the size of watermelons. One of them was a pitch black colour that was so dark that if one were to look at it, they would almost think that they were looking at a hole in the fabric of reality. The only thing that truly prevented this was the beautiful grey patterns that covered the entire egg, they were swirly and elegant and seemed to dizzy the senses if you stared at it for too long. And on top of that, the egg radiated a strong aura of [Death], [Darkness], [Corruption] and [Space].

    Clearly, whatever was inside had a strong affinity with those specific Laws. However, there were also 2 other abstruse feelings that could be sensed from the egg, but they were not Laws. They were Intents. Namely the Intent of [Wolf], which in itself was crazy, along with the Intent of [Omniscience]. A strange but versatile Intent.

    But the fact that there was not only 1, but 2 Intents at all, especially when coming from an unborn Lifeform such as this, was absolutely mind-blowing.

    Intents were extremely powerful and were able to accomplish many things. Their power came from how well the user comprehended them, and how well he/she could use their imagination to enforce their Inrent on reality. It was often said that they were even harder to grasp than the Laws themselves, but if one was able to comprehend an Intent, they would find out that even if they weren''t as powerful as a Law on their own, they were much more useful. So it could be imagined how crazy it would be when an Intent achieves its natural state, which was to be paired with a Law.

    Something this unborn being had already achieved¡­

    The next egg was the colour of sand and had beige coloured cloud-like patterns covering its shell. From the egg, a strong feeling of heat and dryness could be felt, causing the space around it to distort with its intensity. From the looks of this, it could be said that the egg contained the Laws of [Sand], the Laws of [Corruption], the Intent of [Heat], the Intent of [Desolation], and the Intent of [Withering].

    The terrifying Intent of Desolation and even Withering¡­ the being born from this Egg was not to be messed with at all.

    The third egg was silver coloured with fear-inducing red streak-like patterns that criss-crossed to form incomprehensible symbols all over the egg. This egg constantly released piercing waves of wind, and an almost overwhelming feeling of sharpness and chaos that made one feel like their eyes would be lacerated away from them if they stared for too long. In this egg, there were the Laws of [Corruption] that all of these eggs seemed to have, the Laws of [Wind], the shocking Laws of [Destruction], the Intent of [Sharpness], and the Intent of [Swords].

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    Clearly, whatever came out of this egg was going to be an unparalleled juggernaut.

    The fourth and final egg was a navy blue coloured one that was patterned with yellow stars. Just like the sand coloured egg, the atmosphere around it shimmered about as if the egg was extremely hot, but unlike the sand coloured egg, this one didn¡¯t give off any heat but instead an illusive feeling. On top of that, the golden sparks that would flicker around the egg here and there complimented the illusive shimmers and made the egg look exceedingly ethereal. But as for its true specialities, the egg had the customary Laws of [Corruption], the Laws of [Illusion], the Laws of [Soul], the Laws of [Lightning], the Laws of [Time], the Intent of [Domination] and the Intent of [Seduction]...

    ¡­It actually had 5 Laws along with 2 Intents, making it arguably the most terrifying egg out of all of them. This egg would definitely give birth to a being that would cause chaos anywhere it went.

    ¡°The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse¡­¡± Eridel said as smiled at the 4 eggs with visible pride. ¡°Ah, but perhaps a change in name would be appropriate? They have nothing to do with horsemen after all, or horses for that matter.¡± Eridel mused as he once again began stroking his chin.

    ¡°The 4 Knights of the Apocalypse? The 4 Riders¡­? The 4 gods¡­? Well, that one wouldn¡¯t be too far fetched. But¡­ -Tch semantics, semantics, I¡¯ll just leave the names as they are. Now as for who¡¯s going first¡­¡± Eridel said as he eyed each of the eggs, trying to make a decision.

    ¡°It has to be this one¡± Eridel said as he finally locked his attention onto the Navy blue egg covered in yellow stars. The egg stopped orbiting him and floated to a position that was 2 metres in front of him. ¡°As the most peculiar, it certainly has the right of being the oldest.¡±

    ¡°Hmm¡­ Well then, I suppose this is goodbye for now. I do not know what you will turn out to be, but you have inherited some memories from me and will surely be able to accomplish what you were born to do. Do not disappoint me.¡± Eridel said, knowing that the unborn being within was very much alive and capable of hearing him, even if it could not understand him yet.

    ¡°Go forth, Horseman of Conquest¡± Eridel said as swiped his hands through the air, sending the egg flying towards the Eonix World even though he didn¡¯t make contact with it.

    The egg, which was revealed to be the Horseman of Conquest, picked up speed as the gravity of the Planet dragged it down. Soon, it would collide with the Planets built in Magic Shield, which was no doubt made to be resistant to damage. How could an egg withstand being thrown at it at that kind of speed?!

    Was the Horseman of Conquest going to die before it could even be born¡­?!

    No. Of course not.

    The egg seamlessly passed through the shield as if it didn¡¯t exist, pierced through the atmosphere of the planet, and broke through the clouds in the sky without a single drop in speed.

    Looking at the gloating grin on Eridel¡¯s face, it was very clear that the apparent uselessness of the Magic Shield had something to do with him.

 Ch.102 The Birth of Conquest

    The egg fell towards the direction of a city like a shooting star with a streak of blue light that attracted the eyes of the citizens within, causing a ruckus to begin as everyone grabbed the attention of their friends and pointed towards the unknown object with fascination and excitement, not yet knowing that it was heading straight for them.

    Not yet knowing WHAT was coming for them.

    Shiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

    The sound of the unknown object piercing through the air as it got closer to the city was heard when the citizens of the city finally recognized that they were probably in danger and should probably start fleeing.

    It started off slow at first, about a hundred or so people speed walking out of the group of masses, but then more and more people caught on and eventually everyone started running, causing a stampede to begin as everybody tried to escape from the unpredictable landing point of the unknown object. Even those that didn¡¯t know what was going on were forced to start moving or be knocked to the ground and stomped on by hundreds of people.

    In the matter of seconds there was absolute chaos.

    However, it wasn¡¯t all that bad. There were even people screaming out loud with excitement, caught up in the intense emotions of the environment but not in agreement with the fact that there was actually any danger. These people were mostly children who raised up their hands and squealed with laughter as their parents tried to suppress them, the teenagers who were jogging relatively silently but had looks of interest and curiosity on their faces as they turned back to the unknown object every now and then, and the rare few adults in safe locations that laughed at the situation with varying emotions, even if they too gave wary looks at the unknown object.

    There was something about chaos paired with the belief that you weren¡¯t actually going to be harmed that seemed to raise the excitement in certain people.

    SHIIIIIIIIIII-BOOOM!

    But unfortunately for these people, they were not nearly as safe as they thought they were.

    A tall building that was reminiscent of a skyscraper directly exploded as the unknown object crashed into it. Not a slow collapse or half-damaged half-okay status that was left questionable, the entire building was reduced to debris in a single blow, immediately causing casualties as those within and those in the vicinity lost their lives to the richoting pieces.

    Nearly a thousand dead in a single moment.

    And it wasn¡¯t over yet.

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    ¡°EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!¡± A high-pitched keening sound that sounded like the crying of a strange creature came out of the pile of debris with shocking intensity that caused the air to visibly vibrate.

    Looking at such a thing, one might have thought that sound would cause instantaneous damage to the ears of the citizens (who were running even more desperately than before with not a single expression of excitement), but instead, a strange scene started to play out as those that were closest to the sound completely stopped running.

    Their eyes took on vacant looks as if their souls had been snuffed out with a few even having saliva drip out of their mouths. But then all of a sudden, expressions of absolute fervour and adoration twisted their faces as their eyes turned pink with their pupils turning into white-coloured hearts.

    They all looked towards the direction of the piercing sound with their obsessed faces, not caring about their friends or family members who tried to drag them away and just glanced over with their clearly enthralled eyes.

    Just when it was looking like they were going to do that forever, they suddenly started running towards the source of the sound as if they were running towards the world''s most grandest treasure with their lives on the line, disregarding anything or anyone that was in their path even if it got them killed.

    The sight of this caused even more terror to pervade the fleeing citizens when they realized how similar this scene was to some of their popular horror fiction stories, causing them to begin running even more crazily with hopes for safety.

    Some of the more quick-witted ones even made the decision to use their communication or media devices to seek external help, but alas¡­ to their absolute despair they realised that for some reason their devices had ceased all function, leaving them and the entire city isolated from the rest of the World.

    If before they had ran to find a safe shelter, now they ran to escape the city entirely.

    Which of course, only escalated the situation because now vehicles were involved.

    crrrrrr-BOOOM! HOOOOONK! CRASSHH! SCRRRRRR!

    It was an absolutely apocalyptic scene in the matter of minutes. People cursing at each other, piles of debris began piling up, fires were started as a result of bad crashes, fights broke out when someone got in the way of a delinquent and- oh, someone was just murdered¡­

    It looked like there were a few depraved people who were using this opportunity to resolve grudges. Unfortunately, this only caused the citizens to become more crazed, nullifying the effects that the brave local-security teams were trying to achieve.

    It was utter chaos.

    And the cause of all this was¡­ peacefully devouring the bodies of completely passive Eonixians.

    When the Eonixians who had finally made it to the source of the wailing, they had found the scene of the most abnormal creature they had ever seen surrounded by what looked like blue egg shells.

    The creature was a strange mass of tentacles with sharp snapping mouths that could be found here and there. And although it was only the size of a tennis ball, the creature was so terrifying that just looking at it caused Soul damage.

    To a cultivator, this wouldn¡¯t have meant much because they had the means to nullify or block the damage. But to a Mortal¡­

    How could a mortal possibly deal with damage to their souls?

 Ch.103 The Soul of Conquest

    As soon as the enthralled Eonixians caught sight of what was clearly the Horseman of Conquest, their minds which were already in a fragile state, fractured beyond redemption. Losing all hope of returning to what they used to be.

    When the creature saw them, it squealed and clicked excitedly before extending its many tentacles in their direction like a baby that had seen its parents carrying food. The enthralled Eonixians saw this and their faces became dopey with silly smiles, rushing to the creature with even greater fervour than before and almost fighting to pick it up.

    The first one to pick it up was a purple-skinned girl (who must have had red and blue parents) with long black hair, a curvaceous figure and the same singular pink eye with a white heart-shaped pupil that the others around her had. By Eonixian standards, she was a great beauty.

    The girl held the squealing creature to her face and¡­ got a chunk of it bitten right off.

    ¡°Hahaha~, it¡¯s so cuuute~¡± the girl said as she looked at the other citizens around her with a gloating look on her face, proud that she had been the first one to pick up the ¡®great one¡¯ and feed it with her flesh.

    !!!

    This girl had just had a chunk her cheek bitten off and was smiling with pride¡­

    What¡¯s more was that the other citizens around her had clear looks of jealousy, almost seething with rage that they were not in her position. In fact, the only reason that they hadn¡¯t jumped her already was because of the fact that they would rather kill themselves than disturb the ¡®great ones¡¯ meal.

    Utter madness.

    But the Horseman of Conquest didn¡¯t seem to think so, in fact, all the mouths patterned over its body seemed to be grinning as they voraciously tore chunks of flesh from the smiling Eonixian that only had adoration in her eyes. It was very much obvious that whether or not the girl was healthy before she was enthralled, she was now very much retarded. But was she so far gone that she did not feel a single bit of pain?

    *Riiiiiip* ¡°nyum nyum nyum¡±

    ¡°So cuuute~ please eat every last bit of me, my lord!¡±

    ¡­Apparently so.

    Eventually she had gotten her wish and every last piece of her flesh was devoured, even if she had died long before then. It was quite the terrifying sight. However, what was even more attention dragging was the reaction that Conquest was having to the body it had just consumed.

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    WOOOOSH!

    A strange energy that had never been seen before was radiating off the creature in billowing waves, causing dust clouds to fly about with its ferocious intensity. There were vaguely familiar Laws that could be sensed from the energy such as the Laws of Lightning, Soul and Corruption, but the energy itself was completely unprecedented.

    On top of that, the presence of a Soul, which was certainly not there before, could be faintly sensed. It was completely raw and woefully incomplete, but the fact that this being who for some reason did not have a Soul before could begin the creation of one just by eating a single Mortal was preposterous. Was there such a good thing?

    And another thing to note was that Creature of Conquest had grown a bit bigger and had a slight change in appearance. At this point, it was obvious to see that it had the same ability to derive strength from its food the way Beasts did, and perhaps to an even greater extent.

    Even if its level of power was barely that of the first Stage of the first Realm¡­ this Creature was utterly dangerous.

    However, instead of fleeing for safety, the enthralled Eonixians gleefully prostrated themselves in a manner of absolute subservience, singing praises of majesty and godliness, and presenting their lives as nourishment for their lord in hopes that they could become one with it.

    The Creature of Conquest squealed happily in response, pleased that it had such faithful food donors. But for some reason the Creatures voice was slightly higher in pitch than it was before, even baring a faint smoothness that reminded one of, at the very least a feminine Abomination, if not a female Enlightened being.

    Could it be that the result of it consuming a female as its first meal, had set the previously unidentified gender of the creature?

    It was indeed a possibility, but the Creature didn¡¯t seem to be affected and was only excitedly extending its many tentacles that sparked with faint lightning, in all directions, tearing chunks of flesh from everyone around it and gobbling it all down.

    One might even say that the strange wiggling it was doing was¡­ a happy dance!

    ¡­

    The entire series of events was witnessed by Eridel and nothing had escaped his attention. He had managed to reconfigure the Runes within the Magic Shield, preventing it from alerting anyone of Conquest¡¯s arrival and¡­ preventing anyone from leaving, he had also made sure Conquest would arrive in the most optimal location that would give it the best chances of overall success, and he had even disabled all the technology within the city, preventing anyone from recording or calling for help.

    By the time that it had eaten all of the citizens within the city, it would have a full fledged Soul and all the memories of those that it had devoured, and his inheritance. With this knowledge, it should be able to take care of itself, and avoid situations that would drag the attention of the entire World until it was ready.

    Nothing had escaped Eridel¡¯s calculations. The only thing that remained unpredictable was the final showdown between Conquest and those 30 or so Realm 5 Beings.

    But Eridel was sure that when Conquest began using its Laws of Corruption to convert the Eonixians into otherworldly mutated beings that could cultivate, and consequently promoting the World into a Mid World, it would have achieved its final step as just a Creature of Conquest, and take the next step as the true Horseman of Conquest. The god of Conquest. Or rather¡­

    The Evil god of Conquest.

    By that time, what was a mere 5th Realm Being?

 Ch.104 The Slime Abominationâ€™s Schemes

    ¡®On to the next I suppose¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as he gave one last look at the Eonix World with grand aspirations. However, he still had 3- no, 4 more Worlds to visit and time was of the essence.

    ¡®Hmm¡­ the Shiona World should be this way.¡¯

    After flicking through the compiled knowledge of the Galaxy that he gained from Gaia, he looked over in a certain direction before turning into a streak of golden light that flashed through space.

    ¡®This is going to be another long flight¡­¡¯

    ¡­

    [North Continent, Forest of Death, Abomination Pit]

    Deep underneath the Forest of Death was a large cave that extended for a 1000 metres in every cardinal direction. Within this cave, a disgustingly dense aura of Undeath permeated the air like a deadly miasma. There were many other elements that could be sensed from the aura, but it was the Laws of Undeath that sung the loudest.

    However, despite the apparent potency of the aura, it seemed to be restricted by an unknown force that prevented it from reaching out of the cave.

    Normally such a cave would have been too dark for anything to be seen, but fortunately there was a beautiful source of light that illuminated the cave with a spectacular golden colour. They were chains, chains that criss-crossed all over the place before concentrating on something that sat motionless in the centre of the cave. They were crystal-like in appearance and shone radiantly like stars in the night.

    However, the thing that these chains were constricting, was not beautiful. It was a huge gelatin-like mass that was grey in colour and relatively spherical in shape, but pulsed in places and constricted in others. It was a Slime.

    But more specifically, the Abomination of the North.

    The Abomination of the North, also known as the Slime Abomination, had been sealed here for quite some time now, unable to cultivate or even initiate the process to breakthrough to the 4th Realm, most of its powers sealed and its aura unable to penetrate through the restrictive cave. It was even incapable of extending its [Bloodline Will] past the cave to reach its descendants. If it hadn¡¯t been knocked out senseless by that ridiculous ray of light then even if its Bloodline Will wasn¡¯t unable to breach this cave, the connection would have already been made and it could have possibly controlled them to get rid of these hateful chains.

    But no, the connections had been severed as a result of the strange attack from the sky, and it couldn¡¯t reconnect them unless the chains were gone. Perhaps if its descendants were kind enough to come here and free it, it could have used its Bloodline Will as progenitor to forcefully enslave them again. But none of the Original Undead were foolish and they were certainly not kind. Even though they could sense the Abominations predicament and even location, they didn¡¯t dare to help and kept a large distance away from it, even preventing the other converted Undead from going there in fear that they would cause an irreparable mistake.

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    The Abomination of the North¡­ was helpless.

    However, after 13+ years of solitude, an opportunity was finally at hand! Abominations completely lacked Souls so those 13+ years didn¡¯t affect it in the slightest, it was as mentally strong as it was before its imprisonment (since it used its many brains to think) and it was perfectly receptive to the beautiful opportunity that was coming its way.

    An unknown Lifeform that it had never sensed before was quickly moving in its direction. The being was extremely weakened and seemed to be fleeing from its attackers but the Slime Abomination couldn¡¯t sense anyone else, so it guessed that the attackers must have given up as soon as they knew the destination of the victim. Everybody avoided this place after all.

    But for some reason, the near iron-clad rule to never enter the Abomination¡¯s Pit was about to be broken.

    *1 Minute Later*

    WHOOOSH!

    Bursting into the scene was a strange creature that the Slime Abomination had never seen before despite touring the entire North Continent. The figure looked like a humanoid shaped mist that was pitch black where a head should be, and dark grey everywhere else. The creature had 2 illusory horns on each side of its head and held a strange cylinder shaped item that was see-through in most places (glass) and solid-thick black in others (metal), in its left hand.

    The creature radiated an aura that the Slime Abomination had felt before on rare occasions, but nevertheless it was still a cause of surprise. After all, it was 100% sure that it had caused every one of its kind to be extinct.

    A Monster. That¡¯s what the Creature was. Just like the Slime Abomination before it became the entity that struck fear into the hearts of the entire North Continent.

    There weren¡¯t many of such beings on the Continent so it was simple for the Slime Abomination to cull their numbers to 0. But who would have thought that another one would appear right here in this great time of need?

    Glee coursed through its non-existent heart as the prospect of freedom became closer and closer.

    ¡­

    On the other hand, the Wraith King was having a very bad time.

    Ever since he had fled from the South Continent, he had been suffering loss, after loss, after loss. It was an extremely aggravating experience.

    The first place he had fled to was an isolated island that had no lifeforms on it, which meant there was no way for him to kill anyone and gain strength, so he had to migrate and look for a better environment. The next place he had arrived in was an even bigger island that even had a few lifeforms on it, but they were all weak and quickly went extinct, forcing the Wraith King to once again keep it pushing. The next place took quite a while to get to, but when he did get there, he was extremely pleased. The expansive land was comparable to the South Continent and was filled with many powerful Beasts. Even if the territory he was in was filled with abundant sand, the powerful Beasts were extremely lucrative.

    At that time, he didn¡¯t know that the place was called the Celestial Desert of the Central Continent. Home to the Celestial Beast, Apis.

 Ch.105 The Wraith Kingâ€™s Troubles

    The Wraith King was having the time of his life. After being suppressed by Asura and the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe for so long, this was the best thing he could have asked for. Dominion over a large territory and a large amount of prey to increase his strength. It was wonderful.

    Alas, the end of all good times came much quicker than he thought it would.

    One day he was doing what he did best; cutting down Beasts with his deathly Scythe and absorbing the resulting Killing Essence. But then all of a sudden

    BANG!

    Something had crashed into his body and sent him flying.

    BOOOOOM!

    His body had crashed into a distant mountain and it was all he could do not to phase out of existence. And when he had finally gathered the energy to look up, the shock that ran through him almost finished him off then and there. An Elephant! An Elephant that was over 500 metres tall!

    Looking at the gigantic trunk that had a faint golden glow to it, the Wraith King knew that that was what had struck him because regular physical attacks wouldn¡¯t be able to touch him.

    Knowing that he was heavily outclassed, he used his innate teleporting ability and ran away. Vowing to get revenge whenever he was strong enough. But thinking of the colossal size of the Elephant, even he knew it was a tall order.

    After some more travelling and killing whatever he could on the way, he arrived at the entrance of a grand Forest that contained a Tree that shot up far above the clouds. Only the branches filled with multi-coloured leaves and strange cocoon-like things prevented it from looking like one huge sky-piercing pillar.

    The forest was practically overflowing with Magic Energy and it even contained other elements. Namely water, ice, life, wood, lightning and fire. It was a Sacred Land! A land that was guaranteed to be filled with all sorts of treasures!

    However, the Wraith King wasn¡¯t dumb. He had learnt from his experience with Celestial Apis that with great territories came great territory owners. He had already learnt this in the South Continent, but with his excitement at finding a large land filled with adequate resources after many years at sea, coupled with his instinctual disdain for Beasts that he gained after slaughtering them to extinction in the South, he had completely overlooked the possibility of a local hegemony.

    This time he wouldn¡¯t make a mistake, he would go in there with the stealth he had mastered over the years, kill the best of what could, absorb the Killing Essence, take a treasure or 2 if they were on sight¡­ then flee!

    Oh how foolish and naive he had been.

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    But to be fair, there was no way for him to know that as soon as he walked into the Forest, the first-born of the Heavens would appear right in front of him.

    ¡®Teleportation!¡¯ He had thought at the time, filled with shock that someone else, especially what looked like a human, had his ability. However, he was instantly filled with disdain. A mere human adolescent dared to appear in front of him so nonchalantly?

    He completely disregarded the pale white skin, light green hair and strange material wrapped and her body that he had seen no other Human have and prepared to attack. She was a human so she was weak.

    But before he could even ready his scythe, her childish yet melodious voice rang out as she pointed her palm at him.

    ¡°I don¡¯t like Monsters. Please go away.¡±

    BOOOOM!

    He was sent flying once again.

    The next place he had arrived in was Jungle somewhere up North with high reaching trees that blocked the sun. The place was filled with all sorts of luscious fruits and herbs that were filled with bountiful essence but to a Monster, especially one that technically lacked a physical body like him, such things were useless. However, the Beasts within were not!

    This was the place where he achieved the most success, he had managed to slaughter all sorts of powerful Beasts and subjugated the weaker ones, planning on fattening them up with essence-filled foods before slaughtering them. He did the same with the Humans within too.

    After a couple of years went by, he had finally accumulated enough Killing Essence to reach the peak of the 3rd Realm, just one step away from becoming a Greater Demon. Everything was perfect!

    But then one day¡­ the only being who could face him to a stand still, the only being who kept thwarting his plans time and time again, and the only being who had managed to keep him from taking control of the entire Jungle¡­ went through a colossal fate-changing breakthrough!

    Although he had achieved hegemony in the jungle, there was one peculiar¡­ Monkey, who had lustrous black fur and a scar over its left eye. This Monkey had an extremely tough body and that normally would have meant nothing, but when the monkey glowed with a golden aura that gave off the feeling of light and metal, its heavy thumping fists would rain all over his body, causing him great agony.

    Even though he usually had a great advantage over such close combat fighters thanks to his previous tussles with Babunda,his long Scythe, and his teleporting ability, this advantage was rendered useless when he fought against the stupidly fast Monkey that possessed otherworldly reflexes and battle instincts.

    So it had been a stand-still this entire time. He terrorized the Jungle and the Monkey King protected it.

    But just when he was filled with glee at the prospect that it wouldn¡¯t take much longer to become a Greater Demon, the ambient Magical Energy around him experienced a great shift, fleeing the vicinity and flowing to the other side of the forest where he knew the Monkey King was. Such a thing didn¡¯t make sense and was a little worrying, he couldn¡¯t allow anything to interrupt his future breakthrough so he needed to investigate whether or not that the sudden change was a threat.

    If the Monkey King was pulling off something strange, he needed to stop it immediately.

    But just when he was flying towards the cause of the sudden ruckus, a feeling of absolute danger flooded his soul, causing him to freeze.

    BOOOOOOOOOOM!

 Ch.106 The Golden Monkey King

    BOOOOOOOOOOM!

    The Jungle shook all around him as an explosion went off in the destination of his investigation. Having a bad premonition, he quickly looked up to see if his ghastly prediction was true¡­ and it was!

    Although it was hard to see through the canopy of the Jungle, the glaring golden light of the unforgettable Tribulation Lights was not something he would mistake for something else. This could only mean that somebody was undergoing a Tribulation, but who else in this Jungle could it be if not the King of Monkeys? His arch-nemesis, only second to Asura himself.

    Filled with anger that his fated enemy would reach the 4th Realm before him, he tried to rush towards him in hopes of disrupting the Tribulation, because if he didn¡¯t do it now and the Monkey successfully evolved, then there was no doubt that he would be forcefully kicked out once again.

    Alas, each metre he managed to cross only added to the sense of danger cascading his mind. Eventually, his body refused to move any closer and he could only watch with desperation as the last strike sounded out, rocking the entire Jungle and cementing his fate.

    But he refused to give up! This Jungle was too bountiful to abandon without a fight! So he used his fastest speed to reach the Monkey King¡¯s location, hoping that the bout with the Tribulation Lights would have left him extremely weakened.

    Soon, he arrived at a giant Lake that had a massive island in the centre, but the island held an even huger mountain that took up 90% of its space with only the coast being flat-landed. It was quite the magnificent sight and was sure to be one of the best natural territories in the World, but that was not why the Wraith King had been looking on with speechlessness.

    The real reason was because of the 400 metre tall Golden Monkey that lay spread-eagle upon the canopy of trees like it was a bed.

    The Monkey¡¯s newly golden fur glistened like the finest of silk and was extremely eye-catching, but what was even more eye-catching was the new accessories on his body that seemed to have come out of nowhere.

    Wrapped around his wrists were 2 thick wristbands that seemed to have been condensed out of golden light, shining with a gentle intensity that whilst bright, didn¡¯t cause any discomfort to the eyes. He also had what seemed to be a necklace of prayer beads, and a strangely designed metal headband, that were all made of the same condensed-light material. Last but not least was the strange neon bright runes that were patterned all over its fur like a tattoo. They too were golden in colour.

    The Beast was absolutely magnificent.

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    Even if it was clearly unconscious, it radiated a powerful and profound aura that felt like harmony, peace and majesty. And yet, there was a strange undertone to it that made it feel like all that peace and harmony could switch into a bottomless wrath in an instant.

    The Wraith King gritted his teeth. He was very familiar with this feeling and he wasn¡¯t happy about seeing it again. He wasn¡¯t sure what made them different from other Beasts, but he was sure that this Monkey¡­ and the Elephant back in the desert, were of the same kind. Unfortunately, it didn¡¯t cross his mind to ask the System.

    Instead, he teleported to the Monkey King¡¯s neck with his scythe raised high. He wanted to see how exactly this stupid Monkey would defend against him whilst unconscious!

    WHOOSH!

    He slammed down with his scythe.

    TING!

    ¡®!!!¡¯

    The sound of metal bashing against metal was heard when his Scythe connected with the Monkey¡¯s neck, causing shock and fear to course through his soul. He quickly turned back to the Monkey¡¯s face to see if he had woken, and encountered the most terrifying eyes he had ever seen glaring right back.

    The eyes had the regular white sclera, but they lacked any kind of pupil and left the ridiculously bright irises to look like 2 golden suns.

    The Wraith King knew he was in trouble and wanted to flee, but before the he could even teleport away-

    BANG!

    WHOOOOOOSH!

    He was sent flying with a slap.

    ¡­

    2 years later he had made it to the North Continent. By then he was already a Greater Demon and was much stronger than before. He even gained an Enlightened form that reduced his previous 10 metre tall Wraith body to a 2 metre tall physical body.

    He had pale white skin, ghostly silver hair that defied gravity, the same smoky hooded cloak that his Wraith body had, and completely white eyes that had no irises or pupils. Although he was handsome, it would take a peculiar woman to get past all of that eeriness.

    When he had arrived in the Continent, he had been appalled by the overall strength and lack of diversity in the Beasts. Most of them were in the upper stages of the 1st Realm to the lower stages of the 2nd Realm with the elites being in the middle stages and the cream of the crop being at the upper stages. Very, very few were in the 3rd Realm and it was extremely disappointing to him who needed to kill stronger enemies to increase his strength.

    This was completely unlike the other continents that he had visited, whose Beasts had average strengths at the upper stages of the 2nd Realm. He couldn¡¯t understand why and it was quite aggravating.

    It was only later on did he find out that it was because of the fact that 90% of all the Beast ancestors (that he was used to fighting) had all been wiped out, and the Beasts he was seeing now were all the younger generations.

    As for the lack of diversity¡­ Well, that could only be explained by the fact that quite a majority of the species had gone extinct.

 Ch.107 The Most Dangerous Encounter Of His Life

    Despite the disappointment that the Wraith King felt in the Continent, he still decided to wander the lands in hopes that he could at least find special treasures before leaving. He¡¯d seen his fair share of trinkets in his adventures but he¡¯d never been able to possess one.

    Since his birth, the only treasure he had ever owned was his Demon King Armament and it was quite disappointing. The lantern that he almost always carried in his left hand didn¡¯t count since it could be considered a part of his body.

    So he trekked around the southern sector of the Continent with little to know excitement until he reached the Western Sector. And what he found was a terrifying Forest that was filled with an overwhelming amount of putrid Magic Energy of the likes that he had never seen before. It was even denser than the Magic Energy found in the Forest with the gigantic tree!

    Maybe there was something about Trees that created such high levels of ambient Magic Energy because he could see another gigantic Tree right in the middle of this Forest. And although it wasn¡¯t as big as the Tree found in the Forest from the previous Continent, it was still the second biggest one he had ever seen. But that wasn¡¯t the point.

    The point was that not only did this place have an overflowing amount of Magic Energy, but its elemental nature also contained elements that were compatible with him! And thanks to the fact that he was a Greater Demon who could now absorb Magical/Demonic Energy from the air, the deathly and miasmic aura of the Forest was like the sacredest of all sacred lands to him!

    Filled with glee, the Wraith King decided to enter despite knowing such a place would be laden with dangers. But he was a Greater Demon now and there weren¡¯t many things in this World that could harm him anymore, and even in the slim chance that there was something that could harm him within the Forest, he could always just run away as he always did.

    He couldn¡¯t allow himself to give up such an opportunity because of fear!

    Nearly drunk with glee at the prospect of greater strength, he flew right in without hesitation as he circulated the basic cultivation technique he had gained from his Greater Demon inheritance.

    And what joy!

    The corrupted ambient Magical Energy was extremely compatible with him and was already improving his cultivation by leaps and bounds, even if, in reality, he was still exceedingly far away from the 2nd Stage of the Greater Demon Realm. He didn¡¯t know what it was, but similar to the vast power boost that he gained when he broke through to the 4th Realm, the amount of essence needed to make even 1 breakthrough was just too tremendous. Sometimes he would even catch himself thinking that it almost wasn¡¯t worth it.

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    But in a place like this, there was no longer a problem! He had truly struck gold!

    Letting out a ghostly laugh that sounded like it came from multiple directions, he flew even faster to the area that had the densest amount of Magic Energy, thinking about all the faces of those that had wronged him as he pummelled them to the ground with the strength he was soon to gain.

    ¡®I will make such a thing a reali-¡¯

    BOOOM!

    He was¡­sent flying.

    But this time it wasn¡¯t as far! He crashed into a tree only a hundred metres away and nearly broke his back, reminding him of why he didn¡¯t like his pitiful physical form. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he couldn¡¯t absorb essence from the air without it, he would never use it.

    Quickly switching into his Wraith Form, he readied his scythe and looked towards the-

    His scythe?

    Feeling the lack of weight in his palm, his ghostly cloak flickered with confusion... Where was his scythe?!

    ¡°What kind of creature are you?¡± came the dry crackling voice ahead of him.

    ¡®!!!¡¯ He quickly turned his attention towards the source of the voice and was astonished to see another one of those creepy half-dead humans right in front of him!

    He had long since come into contact with irregularly strong humans that looked like walking corpses with some of them even having half or all of their flesh missing, especially when he had arrived in the western sector. He knew that they were still humans instead of some kind of abnormal creature in Enlightened Form, but he also knew that they were not the same humans that he was so used to seeing at all.

    Talk less of their atrocious appearances, merely their smells were different from the tell-tale scent of the average human. And he wasn¡¯t talking about the decaying smell of a corpse, even if that too was there.

    It was this smell amongst other things like aura and Magic signature that let him know that the thing before him, even though it looked like the most perfect human he had ever seen, was one of those walking corpses.

    It had pasty white skin that was paler than his (when he was in his Enlightened Form), flat black eyes, a bald head, a muscular figure that was over 2 metres tall, an irking bright white grin, and a scythe carried in its right hand¡­

    A scythe?!

    ¡°Hmm¡­ can you not speak?¡± the undead said as it caressed its jaws with its free left hand.

    ¡°I want my scythe back.¡± the Wraith King said with barely suppressed rage. He knew that he was in a position of vast disadvantage and that he must humble himself, even if this was the first ever time that his scythe had been stolen from him.

    Thinking of the strength and speed that the creature had shown thus far, he knew that he was probably having the most dangerous encounter of his life, and that he must be very, very careful.

    Readying himself, he said: ¡°I want¡­¡±

 Ch.108 Trapped Between a Rock and a Hard Place

    ¡°I want-¡±

    ¡°I heard you the first time, strange creature. But I like this thing and it belongs to me now.¡± the walking dead creature spoke as it folded its arms across its chest.

    The Wraith King gritted his teeth with sheer frustration before bursting out in anger.

    ¡°THEN DIE!!!¡± he screamed as he pointed his [Lantern of Doom] towards the creature, shooting out tens of smoky black skulls that zig-zagged in its direction with a sharp sound.

    However, instead of bracing itself, the creature merely raised an eyebrow with curiosity as if it were looking at a harmless experiment.

    SHEEEEEEE-BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

    The skulls slammed into the unreactive creature, causing a dense black explosion to obscure its body.

    But not even waiting for the last skull to connect, the Wraith King teleported to the undead creature and reached for his scythe with his highest possible speed. He knew that he had no chance of defeating the creature, but he was hoping that he could use his racial treasure, the Lantern of Doom, to distract it or even hurt it whilst he stole back his Scythe. After that, he would run away for the nth time.

    Alas, it seemed that fate had different plans for him this time.

    Just as his fingers had wrapped around the Scythe and excitement coupled with a hint of disdain was beginning to rise in his incorporeal heart, his sense of sight caught the terrifying image of the completely unharmed creature as it stared straight into his soul with an emotionless gaze.

    BANG!

    Before he could even react, he was sent flying with an attack that he was incapable of seeing. AGAIN!

    BOOOM!

    The Wraith King one again crashed into a tree, cursing the fact that he was unable to phase through the World¡¯s physical objects despite being able to do so to physical lifeforms as long as they didn¡¯t summon forth any energy-

    ¡®!!!¡¯

    The undead creature had mysteriously appeared before him once again and slammed its fist his body. Unfortunately, being flown away wasn¡¯t going to help him this time.

    BANG!

    His body smacked back into the Tree behind him and his mind blanked once again as pain wracked his body.

    ¡®...HOW?!!!¡± he inwardly screamed when he regained his bearings. ¡®HOW COULD HE BE SO FAS-, WAIT! Could it be that he can teleport like m-¡¯

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    BANG!

    The Wraith King¡¯s mind was once more sent into oblivion with a mighty blow. At this point, his body was flickering and had become transparent, looking like it was going to be snuffed out of existence with just a couple more blows.

    But he was certainly not going to let that happen.

    As soon as his mind regained function he immediately teleported 1000 metres away, not even caring about the Scythe that he had left behind.

    ¡®What kind of creature is that?! The Wraith King inwardly exclaimed with fear as he turned his head towards his previous location, only to catch the anxiety-inducing sight of the undead creature crouching down to the point that its backside rested on its ankles and emotionless eyes that stared right back at him.

    Strangely enough, its thigh muscles seemed to be expanding like a balloon as engorged veins appeared like writhing snakes.

    The Wraith King didn¡¯t trust it at all and immediately started the procedure to teleport once more.

    ¡®What is it-¡¯

    WHOOSH!

    Before a quarter of a second could even tick, the undead creature had already appeared a shy 2 metres away from him with Its left arm extended out, looking like it was going to slice right through him.

    BVVVT!

    ¡®This is way too much trouble! I must flee!¡¯ the Wraith King thought as he appeared another 1000 metres away, not even waiting for an initiative before teleporting once again.

    He had been saved by the proverbial bell this time but who knew if the strange creature had any extra tricks. Even if his precious Armament must be left behind, there would always be other days. If he stayed behind, the only thing he would be claiming would be death.

    The Wraith King¡¯s ethereal cloak flickered as rage warred with fear in his mind.

    ¡­

    [North Continent, Forest of Death, Abomination Pit]

    (Present Time, Year 140)

    That is how he found himself in this current situation.

    Even though he had been repeatedly teleporting throughout the uncanny Forest, the terrifying Undead creature had been almost neck to neck to him the entire time with raw speed alone.

    There were even other similar undead creatures that had joined the chase and it was quite frightening, but for some reason, they all stopped chasing him when he reached the vicinity to this peculiar caves entrance.

    He wasn¡¯t dumb and knew that whatever was preventing them from coming any closer wasn¡¯t something he could deal with. He even stopped running in hopes that if he waited long enough, his attackers would give up and he could avoid having to delve deeper.

    Alas, even though the additional undead creatures that had joined the chase left after 2 boring days, his original attacker did not. He had noticed the dubious and annoyed looks the other similarly strong undead had cast at it, and he was sure that they too had been wondering why it was trying so hard to chase him. From their perspective, it must have looked like his original attacker was greedily coveting his treasures or even the essence that his body held, but he couldn¡¯t for the life of him guess why, when the others were showing clear intent that the threat of what lay within the cave outweighed the essence of another 4th Realm Being.

    He had already long dispelled his lantern and there was no other treasure to be seen, so it was extremely strange to see the undead¡¯s behaviour.

    After that 3 days passed, but instead of the creature looking wary, it looked even more greedy! It showed visible signs of tension and looked like it was going to spring forwards at any moment.

    So, deciding that he had no more options, he ran into the cave.

 Ch.109 The Shiona World

    At that time he was thinking that he should just hang around inside one of the hallways and wait for the undead creature to leave. But that idea was vetoed when he felt the aura of the undead creature become volatile, as if it was going to snap at any moment.

    So he ran as far as he could whilst he cursed his luck.

    When he reached a tall archway that seemed to have a golden light source on the other side, a little bit of excitement coursed through his mind. After all, such things didn¡¯t normally exist and there was no one on the planet (to his knowledge) that could make such things, so when they did exist, they normally hid great secrets. Or great danger.

    It was the latter part that quenched his excitement but he had already burst into the opening, presenting him the ethereal sight of luminous golden chains that criss-crossed all over the place. Each of the chain-links were a metre long and they twinkled like the starry night. It was an absolutely glorious sight.

    But when he looked at where the chains seemed to be concentrating, his thoughts froze.

    Wrapped in the golden chains, a hideous¡­ thing, looked right back at him. It was a huge jelly-like mass that was grey in colour and roughly spherical in shape, it pulsed grotesquely as transparent fluids oozed out of its body and air bubbles popped all over its body.

    Truly ugly.

    But that wasn¡¯t what caused fear to grip his mind. No, instead, it was the petrifying aura that suddenly erupted all around him like a gigantic storm. It was so terrifying that he couldn¡¯t even think straight and his softly billowing body fell into a stasis.

    Shockingly enough, the aura wasn¡¯t even that strong. His Spirit Sense was telling him that the abnormal slime creature was only at the peak of the 3rd Realm. But for some reason, the rest of his mind and body seemed to disagree!

    Perhaps it had to do something with the nausea-inducing amount of elements he could feel within the aura, or perhaps it was the reality-twisting quality of the aura that he was sure would have turned those furry creatures he liked to bully into static bushes.

    Madness.

    That was the feeling that was slowly encroaching his soul and he was barely able to defend against it. He had only felt like this once before and the rage that came with the thought slightly pushed it away

    ¡°I¡¯M NOT THE SAME AS BEFORE, AND THE ASURA OF BACK THEN WASN¡¯T EVEN THAT GREAT! RRRAAAAAAH!!!¡± bellowed the Wraith King as he switched into his Enlightened Form, hoping that addition of physical flesh would protect his soul.

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    And indeed it did. The waves of confusion and disorientation crashing against his consciousness were reduced to a significant degree, but unfortunately, he didn¡¯t know that that was exactly what the appalling creature was waiting for.

    A sticky and suffocating feeling suddenly enveloped his head, but before he could even give birth the feeling of fear, his thoughts were vanquished and his consciousness faded.

    ¡­

    [Lolay Galaxy, Desolate Region, Shiona World Outer Space]

    (Year 146)

    ¡°I have finally arrived.¡± said a figure wrapped in white robes and golden light as it floated above a Low World.

    This was of course Eridel. He had spent an entire 6 years travelling from the Eonix World to the Shiona World and he had only just arrived. It was a pretty uneventful journey but it gave him a lot of time to think of his future plans and further consolidate his Will and Mind without the instincts of his planetary body interfering. Still, he couldn¡¯t help but feel a smidgen of excitement at the prospect of interacting with a new World, even if it would be brief.

    The World before him was mostly purple in colour and was no doubt a result of the purple seas. But make no mistake, if you poured the water here into a cup, it would be as colourless as any other, only, the Integral Laws of this World that dictated the way light and colour would affect it were a little different.

    Other than that, the residential Enlightened Beings of this World were also quite eye-catching. They looked like the Humans of his World, but they were much, much bigger, reaching a domineering height of 4-5 metres. And they were all bald irrespective of gender.

    He could actually see someone that had reached a terrifying 12 metres tall, but his face was funny, he was extremely skinny, and his bone formation was a little disfigured. Eridel was pretty sure that the person had the gigantism disorder, which he found quite funny, but he didn¡¯t bother to check.

    ¡®A giant with gigantism. Ha¡¯

    Lastly, the World had 30 Realm 5 protectors just like the Eonix World (which he thought was going to become recurring), and the same blue Magic Shield laced with shining Runes. However, Eridel was pretty sure that the creator of both Shields were one and the same because they carried the same runes, potency, lifespan, and most importantly, Magic Signature.

    ¡®What a greedy bastard, he didn¡¯t even give full ownership of the Shields to the new owners¡¯ Eridel thought with a smirk. But in truth, he already knew this. Gaia had already told him that the person who sold the Magic Shields of the 10 Low Worlds was the Sigothia World¡¯s god of Space who also doubled as a Formation Master.

    Although she didn¡¯t know all the details of the trade, Eridel could guess from the extra religions that were on this World and the last.

    The Eonix World which was owned by the Midnight Requiem, should rightfully believe in the 2 gods who owned it. The god of undeath and the goddess of Music. However, there was a third god statue that he had found there, and he was currently looking at its replica in this World.

    ¡®How ambitious. Not bad, not bad. But unfortunately, your goals to unite the Desolate Region won¡¯t be coming to fruition.¡¯ Eridel thought as he gave a gloating grin at the male statue.

    ¡°Well then¡± he said as he turned his gaze towards the 3 eggs orbiting around him. ¡°Who¡¯s up next?¡±

 Ch.110 The Birth of War

    ¡°How about¡­ you?¡± Eridel said as he eyed the silver egg with red criss-crossing patterns, radiating a chaotic and sharp aura. ¡°Sure, why not. A place like this would do well to raise a good juggernaut.¡±

    Raising his right arm, the egg separated from the others and floated up in response as if it were a magnet. *Swish!* He swiped his arm down in one sharp movement and sent the egg speeding towards the Shiona World like it was a shooting star.

    However, surrounding the egg was a golden glow that mysteriously disappeared when it made contact with the Magic Shield. Obviously, this was the same countermeasure that Eridel had used against the Eonix World¡¯s Magic Shield, rendering it useless.

    The egg followed a similar process as its predecessor, breaking through the clouds and crashing into a small town whose residents were already fleeing with shock. But unlike the Creature of Conquest, there was no high keening cry that besotted the defenceless Mortals around it. No, the Creature of War was going to have to do it on its own.

    ¡­

    *Zuuuuuuumm¡­*

    Floating above the shattered debris of a broken building was a menacing knife that audibly hummed with power. It was mostly silver in colour but there were a few red designs that patterned the blade along with a faint crimson glow. The hilt was also entirely red.

    It looked quite ethereal and if one were dumb, they would even think of the knife as delicate.

    But there was nothing delicate about the sharp chaotic aura it was releasing and the crazy billowing winds that carved grooves into the surrounding bricks.

    Suddenly, the knife moved. But it barely moved 20 centimetres before it suddenly wobbled and dipped in altitude. This continued to happen as it flew and it was clear that flying was a new experience for it. But eventually it got the hang of it and the amount of times where it faltered were becoming far in between.

    A minute later, it was starting to pick up speed when a 5 metre tall male giant entered its sight. The giant was a middle-aged man with a large scruffy beard and tattered clothes that smelled, he had shoes with gaping maws and bleary eyes that stared at the empty bottle in his hand. He was obviously homeless.

    *Zuuuuuuumm¡­*

    ¡°Wha¡¯s-that?¡± the homeless man groaned drunkenly when he heard the strange humming sound that was consistently growing in volume? However, when he looked around and saw the knife peacefully floating towards him, he threw his bottle to the ground in apparent rage.

    ¡°Fackin¡¯ blimey! Diz fooking shit keeps making me ear and see staff! Fack!¡± said the homeless man with a reddening face as he roughed his hand through his dry hair and trudged off.

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    ¡°All dat screaming and booming too¡­ das a new one. Hiccup! Eeargh¡­ What will I see next, gho-¡±

    SHICK! Thud!

    The homeless giant suddenly slumped to the ground with a knife buried within his skull. He didn¡¯t even have time to resist before death had already claimed him. But perhaps, It could be considered a small mercy.

    The knife, or to be more accurate the Creature of War, floated back into the air with blood and brain matter trickling down its blade. It was¡­ an extremely ominous sight. However, the following sequence of events was even more terrifying.

    Whoosh!

    A colourless light abruptly rose from the giant''s corpse and coalesced above the body, it then took on the form of the giant and seemed to be silently screaming as it was sucked into the knife like a ghost trapped by a magic bottle¡­

    That¡­ was his Soul! The giant''s Soul had just been summoned and consumed by the Creature of War!

    ZUUUUUUUMM¡­

    The knife¡¯s humming suddenly increased in intensity in tandem with the crimson glow as the chaotic aura and sharp winds that had oddly disappeared before, burst back into existence with atrocious force! The giant¡¯s corpse was torn to pieces and the 2 opposing buildings that created the alleyway exploded.

    BOOOM!

    The knife itself grew a few centimetres and the semblance of a Soul seemed to have come out of nowhere, radiating a nefarious intent that seemed to desire more of what it had just consumed.

    Clearly, it had grown in strength. But who would have thought that it had the ability to consume Souls!

    ZUUUUUUUUUUM!!! WHOOOSH!

    The Creature of War suddenly flew off into the distance with shocking speed, destroying the surroundings with its terrifying winds that had become thick enough to be visible, creating the terrifying sight of a knife surrounded by faint crimson winds that destroyed everything in its vicinity.

    Shortly after, horrified screams could be heard before they were cut off one by one.

    ¡­

    ¡°Sorry Mortals, but such is life. Pray that you can be reincarnated into the Eridius World or something and all will be well¡± Eridel said flippantly as he gazed at the carnage that the Creature of War was conducting with a care-free expression. But then he turned his eyes towards the array of god statues and a grin adorned his face.

    ¡°Ignoring the god of space, these are the 3 gods that lead the [Simara Templars], the 3rd strongest faction in the Sigothia World. The god of fire, the goddess of light, and the goddess of swords. Unfortunately¡­ they too, will have their hard-earned World stolen by me. Ah... what an evil bastard I am. Somebody please stop me before I go too far~¡± Eridel said as he covered his face with his palm, but it failed to cover the wide grin that peaked out of the edges.

    ¡°Pfft- Hahahaha! ¡­Haa~ Well then...¡± Eridel said as he dropped his hand and turned his eyes to the 2 remaining eggs. ¡°Shall we?¡±

    ¡­

    [Eridius World, New Unknown Continent, Mountain Range in the Centre]

    When the Eridius World evolved into a Mid-World, there were many new Continents that had formed in tandem with its growth. Some of them were originally giant islands that had explosively grown in size, but there were a few of them that had actually broken off from the 4 Main Continents (The Central Continent did not experience this).

    And this Continent was one of them.

 Ch.111 The Lunar Moon Kaiser

    (Year 150)

    This particular Continent was a piece of land that had separated from the West Continent and expanded in size thanks to the World¡¯s evolution. Although it wasn¡¯t anywhere near as big as the West Continent, it was still quite big and had produced many lives in the past 23 years.

    But the crazy thing was that¡­ this Continent had been conquered!

    ¡­

    [Lunar Continent, Sacred Moon Hallowed Lands, Celestial Mountain]

    The Lunar Continent was the name that the residents of the continent had been told to call their Continent when it had been conquered by the powerful faction called the [Divine Moon Syndicate], the Sacred Moon Hallowed Lands was the name of the Mountain Range at the centre of the continent at which they mainly resided, and the Celestial Mountain was the gigantic 10,000 metre tall Mountain right in the middle.

    Sitting at the peak of this Mountain was as a 320 metre tall and 500 metre long male Lion with pristine white fur that glowed like the Moon, his mane was lustrously thick and just as white but had silver streaks running down till his chest that glistened like hidden treasures. His eyes were like 2 identical moons with a tinge of blue and every time he took a breath, the incomprehensible Runes that patterned his entire body would light up before returning back to normal. And lastly, he had 4 silver ankle cuffs that were wrapped around his ankles.

    Currently, this gigantic Lion, which was obviously a Celestial Beast, was looking at his Status Page as he waited for the other 5 leaders of the Divine Moon Syndicate.

    [Status]

    [Name: Zion]

    [Titles: Lion Emperor, Celestial Beast, Sanctified Lord of the Divine Moon Syndicate, Lunar Moon Kaiser, First Kaiser of the Eridius World, The Moon¡¯s First Apostle]

    [Race: Lunar Lion]

    [Cultivation: Enlightened Beast - Stage 1]

    [Anatomy Refinement: Stage 2]

    [Combat Strength: Realm 4 - Stage 3]

    [Bloodline: Sanctified Lunar Bloodline(Earth Grade)]

    [Physique: Moon Apostle Physique(Heaven Grade)]

    [Affinities: Moon(70%), Ice(100%), Fire(100%), Metal(30%)]

    [Elements: Ice, Fire]

    [Laws: Moon(1%), Ice(3%), Fire(3%)]

    [Innate Skills: Lunar Bolts, Lunar Breath, Lunar Flame Fusion, Lunar Enhancement, Metal Claws]

    [Contract Skills: Divine Lunar Punishment, Divine Lunar Enhancement]

    ¡®This is all thanks to our Divine Lord, the Moon who¡¯s divine presence shines upon the World at night.¡¯ the Celestial Lion thought as he gazed at the Sacred Moon Hallowed Lands below.

    ¡®I am truly lucky. For this, I must make sure that all shall praise the Moon. All shall roar, chirp, squeal, scream, neigh or even quack with worship. There is truly nothing greater than the Moon, and all must know. This is my divine purpose.¡¯

    Contrary to his lazy seating position, there was a great zeal within his eyes that could not be hidden. Clearly, he held the Moon with great regard.

    He still remembered the moment 23 years ago with perfect clarity. After the World had gone crazy and the Continents were divided, he and his pride had to fight nearly every day just to secure resources and territories that they didn¡¯t have the opportunity to gain before (because of their flying overlords).

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    It was a wonderful opportunity and he was grateful for the chance to become something much more than just a lowly Lion King, but death was becoming way too prevalent and he was becoming sick of having to watch as his super pride slowly dwindled in numbers.

    But then one day, as he was surveying his territory with a pensive expression, a divine light shot down from the night sky! It crashed against the mountain in the middle of his territory and spread a silver light across his entire vision. He could see nothing but white, but he could feel the intense rumbling beneath his feet and knew that something absolutely abnormal and most likely dangerous was going on.

    Fear was beginning to parade his heart and thoughts of his pride filled his thoughts. Even if he died, he at least wanted his pride to survive. After all, around 80% of them were his descendants.

    But just as he was thinking of doing something drastic, a notification from the System pierced through the cloud of fear.

    DING!

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <You have been offered a Contract by the Moon.>

    <The Moon would like to make you an Apostle in exchange for eternal servitude, protection, and a copy of your memories. Do you agree?>

    Shock ran through his body like an electric bolt. What was the meaning of this? The Moon? Apostle? Eternal Servitude?! A copy of his memories?! No way!

    But although he wanted to disagree, he wasn¡¯t the young impulsive Lion that he used to be. If he decided to disagree, would the harmless light that still filled his eyes suddenly decided to claim his life? Because although it wasn¡¯t harming him, he could feel the potent might that even surpassed that of the 9 Flame Queen, he was sure that with just a single thought, his life could vanish.

    On the other hand, if he decided to accept, would he and his pride be safe?

    It was an obvious answer. He accepted.

    He didn¡¯t think that whatever was causing his plight would request for eternal servitude if it wanted to kill him. He was a smart Lion who had reached the 1st Stage of Anatomy Refinement during an accident concerning fire and he was able to look into the little details. However, he was certainly not ready for what occurred next.

    DING!

    <Congratulations. You have made a Contract with the Moon.>

    <Congratulations. You have become the Apostle of the Moon.>

    <Congratulations. You have gained the Heaven Grade [Moon Apostle Physique].>

    <Congratulations. You have gained the Earth Grade [Sanctified Lunar Bloodline].>

    <Congratulations. You have gained comprehension in the Laws of Ice and the Laws of Fire.>

    <Congratulations. You had gained the title [The Moon¡¯s First Apostle].>

    <Congratulations. You have been named [Zion] by the Moon.>

    <Congratulations. Your Mana has been reforged by the Laws of Ice.>

    <Congratulations. You have surpassed the Seeking Beast Realm, prepare for your Tribulation.>

    <Congratulations. You have met the requirements for the Celestial Beast and now have 2 evolutions to pick from.>

    <Enlightened Beast: Gain a humanoid transformation with the ability to absorb Essence and utilise Runes.>

    <Celestial Beast: Unfortunately, the Host is unqualified for this information.>

    <The host has 10 seconds to choose before a forced evolution to an Enlightened Beast.>

    ¡®...¡¯ He was very speechless. The power that was flooding his veins was just too exquisite and he could not believe it. But when he was presented with the 2 evolution options, he quickly chose the Celestial Beast form. Although he would miss out on the chance to absorb essence from the air, he knew that anything rare must surely be greater.

    He had seen a few Enlightened Beasts but never a Celestial Beast, and on top of that, the information for a Celestial Beast was barred. This must surely mean that the knowledge was too precious. He had learnt this lesson very well when he had tried to inquire about the Purgatory Vermillion Bird¡¯s bizarre strengthening technique.

    So Celestial Beast it was.

    It was only after the terrible pain that soon followed, that he knew that he had made the greatest decisions of his life.

    Praise be to the Moon.

    ¡®Ah, there they are.¡¯ the Celestial Lion thought as he rose to his giant feet.

    Scaling up the mountain with great speed were 5 indistinguishable figures that were covered in a silver light. The Celestial Lion watched with impassive eyes before turning his head towards the Moon that shone bright against the night sky. His eyes were no longer impassive and a strong adoration could be sensed from his visage.

    ¡®It is time for today¡¯s worship¡¯ the Celestial Lion thought as what looked like an attempt of a smile adorned his face.

 Ch.112 The Blazing Ant Empress

    [East Continent, The Burning Nines, Sacred Volcano]

    (3 Years later, Year 153)

    * BOOP * BOOP * BOOP *

    Quite some time had passed and the Sacred Volcano was much larger than it was before, reaching a grand height of 4500 metres. This was no doubt a combined result of the World¡¯s evolution and the Syphon Essence innate skill that all Anomalies seemed to have. But more interesting than that was the powerful Laws of Earth and Lava that the Volcano was consistently releasing like it was nothing.

    Clearly, the area around the Volcano had long become a Sacred Land, but the density of which the ambient Magical Energy had reached, was truly impressive. On top of that, instead of it mellowing out the further it spread, it was actually systematically raised the closer you got to the Sacred Volcano and never reached out of the 1st Circle, causing the special properties of the Volcano¡¯s ambient Magical Energy to be concentrated within the 9 Circles. For example, if someone were to cross through the invisible dividing barrier of the 1st Circle and enter the 2nd Circle, they would feel an abrupt increase in the quality of the ambient Magical Energy, talk less of if they were to enter the 1st Circle from the outside.

    However, just as the ambient Magical Energy increased the closer you got to the 9th Circle, so did the heat. So this prevented many beings from delving deep even if they had the courage to do so. But on the flip side, if you were able to spend a lot of time within the hottest Circle you could reach, not only would you steadily gain a resistance to heat, but the harsh conditions would also pressure you into advancing in Anatomy Refinement. And thus, allowing you to proceed to the next Circle.

    This created a powerful environment for those who were able to fend off the attacks of the ferocious Lava Ants and make a living within the 9 Circles (which had also expanded in size), producing many battle-hardened elites.

    A territory like this was to die for, and unfortunately, many often did.

    ...

    Within the Sacred Volcano (which was located in the middle of the 9th Circle), there was a massive cave that was not affected by the constantly flowing lava and was utterly safe in contrast to the environment in other areas of the Volcano. But this place was only safe to one particular race, and that was because it was home to the most terrifying being that reigned supreme within the boundaries of the 9 Circles.

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    The Blazing Ant Empress.

    This cave was her nest and sanctuary that provided her with the security that she needed to produce the eggs for her colony. Although¡­ Most would argue that she didn¡¯t need such protection because of the fact that despite being a mere 28 years old, she had already reached the Seeking Beast Realm (Realm 3) and was also in the 4th Stage of Anatomy Refinement, making her peerless within the 9 Circles. Not to mention the terrifying Lava Ants that had increased in number over the years who wouldn¡¯t hesitate to die for her.

    This was all due to the fact that around 70% of the resources and natural treasures that the colony was able to obtain was fed straight to her so that she could produce more powerful offspring.

    At this point, she could have decided to lay her eggs out on the edges of the 1st Circle and nobody would have dared to touch her. However, the Blazing Ant Empress didn¡¯t care about such things and preferred the safety of a secure nest as her instincts dictated. And what better location than the cave provided by her lord benefactor, the Sacred Volcano itself?

    So here she was, looking at the beautiful white eggs covered in streaks of lava around her with a strong adoration that, although was hard to see on her face, could be seen from the way she would occasionally caress an egg.

    It was quite hard to look loving when your face was made from chitin.

    But although the numerous eggs were a marvellous sight to behold, they could not compare to the fantastical beauty of the Blazing Ant Empress herself.

    A domineering height of 30 metres tall that left many of her peers in the dust, a dark red crystal-like chitin that resembled magic rubies and was covered in soul-stirring intricate patterns that streaked across her body like lava, curved and sharp serrated mandibles that snapped every once in a while, amber-like compact eyes that glowed and showed obvious signs of intelligence, spear-like legs that stood securely and surely, a disproportionately large abdomen that could produce many eggs, and 2 long antenna that had glowing tips.

    Although beautiful in the way lava was beautiful, most would similarly run away from the first sight of her, and they were right to do so. Unlike the way she treated the Colony and the Sacred Volcano itself, she was a cruel, unfeeling creature who considered other life-forms as the nutrients she needed for her and her colony.

    This was because of the fact that the stronger she became, the more talented, powerful, versatile and intelligent her offspring were when they were born, and this was especially so when she evolved. But because of this, the amount of eggs that she was able to produce per day was rapidly dwindling.

    It took too much energy to produce new offspring and she was needing more and more nutrients. It had reached the point where the amount of eggs that she was able to produce per day had dropped to 50 and she wasn''t happy at all. 800 eggs a day reduced to 50. Utterly atrocious!

    The growth of her colony brought her great happiness and she hated for it to slow. So as a result of this, the brave adventurers that dared to try their luck in The Burning Nines, often didn¡¯t come back.

 Ch.113 The Rise of an Ant

    The growth of her colony brought her great happiness and she hated for it to slow. So as a result of this, the brave adventurers that dared to try their luck in The Burning Nines, often didn¡¯t come back.

    However, she couldn¡¯t say that the power she gained wasn¡¯t worth the loss in egg production.

    Ever since the day she was born, the only thing she had been able to do was produce eggs and expand her family. But this wasn¡¯t a kind World that would allow her and her colony to just exist in peace. No, just like her the other creatures of the World needed nutrition, and her colony, which was voluminous enough to provide value but virtually defenceless, was the perfect prey.

    And although it was only the smaller and weaker creatures like the rats and the ferrets that actually cared about the nutritional value that they could provide, it wasn¡¯t rare for the stronger Beasts to kill them just to keep their territories looking nice. After all, most beings couldn¡¯t endure the nauseous sight of thousands of ants crawling over each other.

    So, the first 2 years of life could be considered to be hell. Always running from other lifeforms and rarely ever finding something to eat. And If it wasn¡¯t for the occasional 4 limbed creature that stood upright on 2 legs (something that the System informed her was a ¡®Human¡¯), she would have definitely perished long ago. The fact that something that was even bigger than the rats was so weak used to always puzzle her, but she didn¡¯t care.

    They may have been stronger than an individual ant, but they were unable to defend themselves against the combined might of the colony. So they became food. They and the other insectoid creatures were the only things that they could eat, so eat they would.

    But unlike all the Ant Queens that had come before her, she had possessed a sharper intellect along with a burning desire to devour her oppressors. All she needed was just a single chance.

    And it came!

    In a valley formed by 2 mountains, a mini war of epic proportions had broken out between a foraging team of the Carmine Flame Deers, and a hunting team of the Rigid Stone Bears.

    They were 2 out of the 5 hegemon races within the mountain range and frequently had hostile altercations, it was so bad that whenever they would meet, a war would immediately break out. And if the Carmine Flame Deers won, they would burn the corpses of their enemies to ashes (usually out of rage), but if the Rigid Stone Bears won, they would devour the corpses of their enemies without leaving a single scrap.

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    However, this time, for the first time ever (at least, according to the Ant Queen¡¯s memory), the war had resulted in a total Wipeout with none of them surviving, leaving plenty of bountiful Spirit Beast corpses in their wake. And for the Stage 2 Magic Beast Ant Queen who had stumbled into the climax of the scene, it was simply a heaven sent opportunity!

    Not wasting a single second, she rushed towards the carcasses with thoughts of power filling her heart. She knew that if she dared to stall, the sweet smelling blood of the Spirit Beasts would bring all kinds of attention, and It was for the same reason that she didn¡¯t order her colony to drag the carcasses back to their nest. There was no way for the current ¡®them¡¯ to eliminate the trail and resulting smell, so the only way to capitalise on this opportunity was to devour the carcasses immediately!

    First, she went for the Carmine Flame Deers because she could tell that they were much more tender than the Rigid Stone Bears. Their rough and stiff fur that remained static despite the wind wasn¡¯t something that the Queen wanted to test. She wasn¡¯t even sure that she could eat them. But the soft red bodies of the Carmine Flame Deers? Simply a delicacy!

    At least, that¡¯s what she had initially thought. But reality proved itself to be much different from her daydreams when the Queen failed to pierce Beast¡¯s tough skin. That was when it hit her... How could a mere Magic Beast devour a Spirit Beast even if it was dead?

    It was then that she remembered the many times the colony had tried to defeat their enemies with their ¡®sharp¡¯ mandibles only to receive repetitive failure and countless losses, and despair slowly dawned on her. If their Mandibles didn¡¯t work before, why should things change just because of the fact that their target was dead. It was hopeless!

    But fuelled by a surge of desperation, the Ant Queen made multiple attempts to find a soft spot that she could take advantage of. The thigh, the chest, the nose, the tongue, but nothing worked.

    ¡­Until she tried the large gash mark on the back of the Deer¡¯s left hind thigh.

    Indeed¡­

    The thought of trying one of the open wounds on the carcass had not once crossed the Ant Queen¡¯s mind. But to be fair, it was to be expected. She had been trying to tear off a chunk of flesh to swallow it herself, so the location she took a bite from shouldn¡¯t really have mattered. And indeed it didn¡¯t, the bite that she took at the wound failed just like the rest, but when the hot blood gushed into her mouth, all thoughts of flesh vanished.

    And not for any good reason.

    ¡­

    The pain of consuming the blood of Spirit Beast that had an affinity with fire was something that she struggled to recount even till this day. It puzzled her because she had a FANTASTIC memory, but she suspected that the severe reaction that she had to the blood had never actually stored itself in her memories in the first place. But that was foolish, was it not?

    She didn¡¯t really know, but she did remember that instead of retreating quickly when she had regained her bearings, the 2 year old-foolishly-brave version of herself started charging towards the remains of what used to be a Rigid Stone Bear.

 Ch.114 Memories of an Entire Bloodline

    Just like with the Carmine Flame Deer, the Ant Queen bit at a wound on the Rigid Stone Bear and began gorging on the blood, and despite being torched from ¡®head to toe¡¯, the blood she had swallowed from the Carmine Flame Deer was beginning to be digested and she was feeling drastic increases in power.

    The current ¡®her¡¯ didn¡¯t notice that she was also taking in a lot of impurities as a result of her actions, but she was loving every bit of the increasing strength. It was just too great.

    Even as she was crazily rolling about on the floor in an attempt to alleviate the pain caused by the consumption of the Rigid Stone Bear blood, there was only joy in her heart. Thankfully, the Rigid Stone Bear blood wasn¡¯t as painful as the Carmine Flame Deer blood, but it was still extremely thick and caused waves of agony as it went down her oesophagus.

    2 minutes later, she began to feel the positive effects of the Rigid Stone Bear blood and although the pain had barely receded, the feeling of her cultivation rising was just too wonderful. She had already broken through to the 3rd Stage and she was swiftly making her way to the 4th.

    Her previously 10cm long all-black body was slowly growing and gaining red patterns along in certain parts of her carapace, and going by the feeling in her mandibles, she already felt like she could take on the rats that used to bully her!

    She was finally, finally obtaining greater power!

    A ray of euphoria burst through the cloud of pain in her heart as thoughts of revenge already began to impregnate her mind. But then all of a sudden, the environment around her began to change.

    WHOOOOOSH!

    The wind became audibly violent as the ambient Magical Energy turned chaotic, moving in an irregular pattern that had never occurred before. It was extremely worrying, but when the temperature began to rise in heat, and the ¡®Mountain¡¯ on her left started to grow in height as its colour slowly darkened, the Ant Queen decided to flee immediately.

    The series of events were too dangerous, and if the rise in the ambient Magical Energy¡¯s density was any indication, this place was about to become swarmed with trouble. On top of that, the panicked signals from the worker ants in her colony reminded her of the fact that even if she had become stronger, and was still becoming stronger, those in her colony were still weak and the chaotic environment was having ever effects on them. The soldier ants were doing okay, but that wouldn¡¯t last long. She needed to escape rapidly.

    But just as she was about to send the signal for the colony to flee to the nest, an abrupt sharp pain coursed through her body and paralysed it completely.

    It felt like her innards were burning and cracking at the same time and it was so painful that she collapsed to the ground. Her colony started clambering all over her body in a desperate attempt to protect her, but all it did was increase her already rising stress.

    She was dying and she knew it.

    But how? How could this be? Why now? Why her? All she wanted was power, and she got it! Power was within her grasp so everything should have been okay! So what the hell is going on?!

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    DING!

    <Condolences Host, the power granted by the blood of a Spirit Beast is too much for a Rank 2 Magic Beast to withstand. And although you are now a Rank 4 Magic Beast, your body isn¡¯t able to keep up.>

    <There isn¡¯t enough energy left to become an Abomination, but there is more than enough left to destroy your body. If things do not change, you will die.>

    ¡®What?!¡¯ the Queen Ant inwardly screamed. She had heard this voice in her head a few times in the past, and even though she wasn¡¯t a stranger to telepathic communication, it still managed to always confuse her. But what were the things that it was saying now? The same boon that had granted her power, was the same thing that was trying to kill her? What kind of concept was this?!

    ¡®How could this be?! No, help me! Help me!¡¯

    DING!

    <The potent energy and impurities that were in the blood have proven not only incompatible, but too high in density for your Magic Circuits to endure, and unfortunately, you do not possess a medium in your body that I could use to rectify the situation.>

    <I have been stabilising your body for the last 5 minutes and 37 seconds, but I am no longer capable of helping you anymore. Condolences, Host.>

    ¡®So you knew all this time?! Why did you not tell me before?!¡¯

    DING!

    <You did not ask.>

    And that was it. That was all it said in response. The Ant Queen was absolutely livid, but her vision was already beginning to fade and she could no longer feel her body. It was hopeless.

    But as her lifeforce continued to dwindle and her consciousness gradually lost its grip on reality, different scenes began to appear in her mind.

    She began to see the entire lives of countless ants as they struggled on a day to day basis. She even saw herself through the eyes of her own colony and that of those that had died, but that began to change and she saw the lives of Ants she had never seen before. They were all powerless and helpless against their oppressors like she was, but as these lives continued to play and end in her mind in quick succession, she began to notice a change.

    The overall quality of the ants she was seeing was rising, and instead of only the Queen having enough talent to reach Stage 2 of the Magic Beast Realm, there were actually some special soldier ants who reached Stage 2 too! Some of the Queens she was seeing even reached Stage 3!

    Still hopeless against the rest of the food chain, but as long as their colony was big enough, they were at least able to fend off a mischief(group) of rats! Amazing!

    She even noticed that the Queens that she was seeing had different mental states to the previous ones, they had more emotions and they were almost as furious at their status quo as she was. However, she couldn¡¯t help but notice the difference in the environment.

    The level and amount of the Magic Herbs, Trees and Magical Energy in the surroundings, was actually decreasing. But instead of the talent of the Ants decreasing in tandem, it was actually rising, and because of the fact that she was seeing the entirety of their short lives, she knew why.

    The simple answer was talent.

    The purity and vigour of the Ants that she was currently seeing was heads and shoulders above that of those of the rest, including her colony, and it made her feel ashamed. But at this point, she knew that she was seeing memories of the past. The memories of not only her ancestors, but the memories of EVERYBODY connected to her bloodline.

    And eventually, she saw the life of the first ever Queen.

 Ch.115 Becoming an Abomination?

    The First Queen hadn¡¯t hatched from an egg like the others and instead had been spawned by Magic. Or at least that¡¯s what she thought, because from the first scene of the First Queen¡¯s memories, she had already been an adult. The entire larvae and pupae stage had been skipped.

    But as the memories continued, the Ant Queen found herself not only awed by the entire life of the First Queen, but also puzzled. The First Queen lived a life of blazing ambition and never ending war, and she was breathtaking. She was smart and highly talented, reaching the 4th Stage with just her own bodily talent, and reaching the 5th Stage using the flesh and blood of a Fire Ferret, gaining the affinity for Fire as well. She also managed to build up a super colony that contained millions of ants with the help of the thousands of Queen Ants that she herself had given birth to, and It was extremely glorious.

    A little later on, the First Queen used her Stage 5 Magic Beast power and super sized colony to take control over a large sized Territory. This was because of the fact that most of the other creatures weren¡¯t able to keep up with the stupendous reproduction rate of their colony, and their low numbers that never surpassed 20, were incapable of achieving anything other than becoming food.

    But after a couple decades (which was the First Queen¡¯s 60th year), things began to change. The foraging/hunting teams never came back when they left, and it was eventually revealed that their 10,000+ member teams were pretty much unable to deal with the hundreds of Beasts that were all as strong as their Queen.

    Fast forward some more and the glorious life of the First Queen has been reduced to shambles. Not even able to take control of a small sized territory, and always having to run. The magnificent and fear-inducing numbers of the super colony, reduced to a 100k+ large colony.

    It was extremely pitiful.

    The First Queen raged and fought every day to claim back what she lost, but she had reached the limit of her strength. She had not once made a single breakthrough since the last one, and she was losing her touch.

    In a desperate attempt to overcome this, she tried to devour the blood of a Stage 7 Aquarian Buffalo that she had luckily found, and died after 2 minutes of unbelievable pain. Which although unfortunate, was to be expected.

    How could it be possible for a Beast with an affinity for Fire to absorb something with an affinity for water? Is that not just asking for death?

    And so came the end of the memories.

    But as the Ant Queen¡¯s mind gradually restored itself back to normal, she couldn¡¯t help but be puzzled by the startling resemblance between herself and the First Queen. Down from their appearances to their mentalities, it was almost exactly the same.

    Weird.

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    ¡­

    When the Ant Queen regained her bearings, she realised that she was still paralysed on the ground and had completely lost her vision. But she still couldn¡¯t help being astonished by the memories she had just seen and was feeling more than a little disorientated. It even took her a while to remember who ¡®she¡¯ herself was, because at this moment, she wasn¡¯t really feeling like a single entity.

    Even at this moment, she was still gaining the updated memories of her colony, watching through their eyes as they clambered over each other in order to protect her, and watching through their eyes as the chaotic environment became too unstable for them to endure, and they lost their lives.

    It was very, very, very disorientating. And sad.

    But as time continued to tick and she did her best to cling to life, she began to realise that¡­ she seemed to be getting stronger? Or rather, healthier? She couldn¡¯t feel any extra strength, but she could feel wisps of lifeforce entering her body even as her own constantly leaked out.

    It was very strange, but through the eyes of other Ants she saw the Ants that died wither away as if something had been sucked out of them. It didn¡¯t take much from there to realise that the lifeforce that was bolstering her own was coming from those in her colony that were succumbing to death.

    However, even though she knew this and was sad to see them die, elation filled her heart. After all, no one wanted to die, and their lifeforce was better off helping her rather than dissipating into nothingness. On top of that, if she died, the whole colony would eventually fade away and die too, so it was better for the Ants to sacrifice themselves for the greater cause. But all Ants knew that and it need not be said.

    The only thing that concerned her was the strange mystical connection she seemed to have with her entire Bloodline. Apparently, it didn¡¯t stop at just an exchange of memories. She wanted to experiment with it further, but she didn¡¯t have the time nor the energy.

    ¡®System, can you use this extra lifeforce to save my life.¡¯

    DING!

    <Yes, I can. However, if the incompatible Energy is not cleansed from your body. You will still become an Abomination. Will you like me to go ahead?>

    ¡®Yes! Yes! Just save me!¡¯ The Ant Queen didn¡¯t care about anything else and only wanted to survive.

    DING!

    <Understood.>

    After that things went silent. However, the Ant Queen had a vague feeling that something within her body was twisting around. At another time, she might have been able to detect it, but her body was just too numb and she couldn¡¯t be sure. She decided to write it off as the effects of the System¡¯s manoeuvring, and waited with bated breath.

    This strange state of limbo continued for an impressive 5 minutes, before things began to change.

    Her sight was slowly beginning to return to her, and she had even regained some feeling in her legs. It was looking like she would live after all! The Ant Queen was ecstatic and finally started thinking more about her current situation, suddenly remembering that she was in an extremely vulnerable state and needed to start evacuating. She needed to instruct her colony to carry her away.

    But just before she could, a terrifying shock coursed its way through her body, causing her to collapse into a writhing mess.

    It was so painful that she had lost all control of her senses for a whole minute, and it was only after that did she realise through the eyes of the Ants in her colony, what was happening to her body.

 Ch.116 Praise the Empress and the Sacred Volcano!

    Her body looked like it was decomposing and reconstructing itself at the same time, elongating in some places and contracting in others, darkening in some places and lightning in others, and it was a very horrific sight.

    It was then that she remembered what the System had said, and couldn¡¯t help but feel fear.

    ¡®Is this what it means to become an Abomination? AGH!¡¯ the Ant Queen thought before a swelling in her abdomen caused her a mind-numbing pain. When she looked through the eyes of another Ant, she saw that her shell had ¡®popped¡¯ open, and spat out something that looked like liquid fire, radiating the essences of both fire and earth.

    ¡®Wh-what is that?¡¯

    DING!

    <Congratulations Host. During the process of becoming an Abomination, the 2 originally unrelated essences of Fire and Earth, have fused together to form Lava Essence.>

    But although the Ant Queen could hear it, the sudden increase in pain had addled her thoughts and made her feel like she was going to die. And on top of that, the strangely active yet desolate energy that was forming within her body, was beginning to directly attack her mind, causing her thoughts to deteriorate or think crazy things.

    So in a desperate attempt to save herself, her befuddled mind decided to employ the only trick that she had left, and without any hesitation in her heart whatsoever, she sent a ruthless order to her colony to kill themselves!

    She was of the mind that all she needed to retain her sanity was the extra lifeforce from her dying colony members, so without any regards to their lives, she sacrificed them all.

    Clearly, she wasn¡¯t thinking straight. But the order had been sent and it must be obeyed, so in one big wave, all the thousands of Ants that had managed to cling to life in the increasingly chaotic environment, keeled over and died.

    It wasn¡¯t one by one, and neither was there some kind of heroic self-stabbing. No. They all just collapsed like they had been deactivated, and it was quite the terrifying sight. Thousands of Ants lay dead and one huge pile.

    It also didn¡¯t help that they started to wither just like those that came before them.

    But they had done their job and their Queen had received their bountiful lifeforce. And it was so quantitative that she even began to glow from within, with every breath that she took exhaling lifeforce like it was common carbon dioxide.

    But that did not stop the Abomination Transformation.

    It had restored her sanity like she wanted, but Abominations were Abominations and it was only a matter of time before her mind was once again eroded. And at that time, there would be no more Ants in her colony for her to sacrifice (something which was already causing her massive guilt), to stall the process.

    The Ant Queen was finished.

    Or at least, she should have been.

    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    DING!

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <You have been offered a Contract by the Sacred Volcano.>

    <The Sacred Volcano would like to make you an Apostle in exchange for eternal servitude, protection, and a copy of your memories. Do you agree?>

    The Ant Queen was shocked, but she didn¡¯t dare to think too much and immediately asked the most important question.

    ¡®Will it save me?!¡¯

    DING!

    <Yes. If you form a con->

    ¡®¡¯Yes! I agree! I agree!!!¡¯

    DING!

    <Congratulations. You have made a Contract with the Sacred Volcano.>

    <Congratulations. You have become the Apostle of the Sacred Volcano.>

    <Congratulations. You have gained the Heaven Grade [Sacred Volcano Apostle Physique].>

    <Congratulations. You have gained the Earth Grade [Rapacious Magmic Bloodline].>

    <Congratulations. You have gained comprehension in the Laws of Fire, the Laws of Earth, and the Laws of Lava.>

    <Congratulations. You had gained the title [The Sacred Volcano¡¯s First Apostle].>

    <Congratulations. You have been named [Meaphite] by the Sacred Volcano.>

    <Congratulations. Your Mana has been reforged by the Laws of Lava.>

    <Congratulations. You have become a 5th Stage Magic Beast.>

    <Congratulations. You have become a 6th Stage Magic Beast.>

    <Congratulations. You have become a 7th Stage Magic Beast.>

    The Ant Queen lay underneath the pile of her dead colony with a dazed expression as an avalanche of blessings were bestowed upon her.

    ¡­

    Fast forward 26 years and the lowly Ant Queen had become the Blazing Ant Empress that she was today, with numerous Ant Queens that she had given birth to and even the rulers of other races within the 9 Circles, obeying her every command.

    Currently, she was making her way down the Volcano with numerous Spirit Beast Stage Ants following her every step with extreme vigilance. They were very bulky and had large thick abdomens covered in a steely black igneous-rock-like material that looked impenetrable, along with lava-like veins running across their bodies, and burning red compact eyes. They were one of the new caste of Ants within her colony called the Royal Guardian Ants, whose sole purpose being to protect the Queens within the colony and the Empress herself.

    They were a step above the Guardian Ants and the Knight Ants (who were above the Soldier Ants, Architect Ants and the Worker Ants), and only equal to the Juggernaut Ants: Ants who were built for the sole purpose of wreaking destruction.

    It seemed that things were going extremely well for the Colony and it was looking like they were steadily making their way to becoming a super colony, and it was all thanks to the Sacred Volcano.

    A familiar light of reverent zeal appeared in the callous Empresses eyes as a single thought rose above the other simultaneous thoughts running through her mind.

    ¡®All praise the Sacred Volcano.¡¯

    ¡®Praise the Empress and the Sacred Volcano!¡¯¡®Praise the Empress and the Sacred Volcano!¡¯¡®Praise the Empress and the Sacred Volcano!¡¯¡®Praise the Empress and the Sacred Volcano!¡¯¡®Praise the Empress and the Sacred Volcano!¡¯¡®Praise the Empress and the Sacred Volcano!¡¯¡®Praise the Empress and the Sacred Volcano!¡¯

    The voice of thousands upon thousands of Ants resounded throughout her mind, joining the other hundreds of thousands of thoughts already circulating there.

 Ch.117 The Caranoya World

    [Lolay Galaxy, Desolate Region, Caranoya World Outer Space]

    (Still Year 153)

    Eridel was once again floating above another Low World, but this time he didn¡¯t waste any time and after a cursory check to make sure things were as they should be, he threw the Egg of Pestilence at the Magic Shield along with the golden ball of light that would soon assimilate with the Shield and recode the Runes within.

    After that, he once again flew off.

    ¡­

    The Caranoya World was a Low World that was owned by the Sigothia World¡¯s [Truth Seekers Sect], and was ranked 2nd out of the 10 Magisterial Factions. They were a secret illusive sect that had the mysterious ability to enforce truths, detect lies, and create contracts. Not the all powerful ones that a World or an Eridius Anomaly could make, but just a simple promise that all the parties involved were capable of complying to, and they were called [Veracity Contracts]. The only difference that this contract had from a mortal one, was that it could not be broken without severe repercussions.

    95% of the time, someone who broke one of these Veracity Contracts just ended up dead, so most people didn¡¯t dare to violate it. And it was for this reason that the Truth Seekers were put in charge of the entire World¡¯s Law Enforcement.

    They weren¡¯t very strong, but with their massive influence and backing from all the other Magisterial Factions, they were able to firmly hold 2nd place.

    In charge of this Faction was the god of Truth alone, but unlike the other Magisterial Factions who only had a handful of Immortals (3-7), there were 12 Immortals within the Truth Seekers Sect. And if it weren¡¯t for the number 1 Faction in the Sigothia¡¯s World, they would have owned the most Immortals.

    Most people speculated that they were obtained through devious contracts, but without proof, there was nothing that could be done. After all, they were the Truth Seekers. And even if you could technically call upon them to verify a truth for the right price, was there anyone out there who believed that the Truth Seekers would verify something that could possibly be one of their own most kept secrets? Ludicrous!

    Anyways, the Truth Seekers were the most impartial faction in the Sigothia World, and since they left everyone else alone, everyone else left them alone. And like this, it was relatively easy for them to obtain ownership over one of the 10 Low Worlds in the Desolate Region.

    But unfortunately for them, an aberrant existence had set sight on their treasured possession, and they were none the wiser.

    ¡­

    [Caranoya World, Sea of Gold, Southelm City]

    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    In the Caranoya¡¯s largest Desert named the [Sea of Gold], there was a large and popular city called [Soulthelm City]. And despite being in the middle of a desert, it was a city filled with opportunity and luxury wherever you looked. However, it had a bad reputation for being high in debauchery, and many husbands had forbidden their wives from visiting without them.

    But when you looked at the denizens within (who looked no different from Humans), dressed in either skimpy or at best small flimsy clothing (for the women), and shirtless with beige coloured harem-pants (for the men), who were dancing against each other with obvious lustful intent, the men who refused their wives to go, couldn¡¯t really be blamed.

    But at this point in time, there was a massive festival taking place to celebrate the city¡¯s 131st year anniversary, and the entire city was dancing. Music was blaring and the DJ¡¯s were yelling.

    It was a lovely scene and everyone was happy.

    WHOOSH!

    But then all of a sudden, the clouds above were dispersed as a small object burst through it with terrifying speed. Shortly after, a high keening sound was heard and it didn¡¯t take much for all of the residents below to be alerted of the incoming danger.

    SHEEEEEEER!

    They looked up with expressions of confusion, wondering what could be making such a sound, with most people guessing that it was some kind of flying aircraft. However, their curious faces twisted ones filled with fear as they laid eyes on the flying object.

    ¡°A missile! Run!¡± They yelled as a stampede quickly erupted. They all made way for the exits but there were too many people and a traffic jam quickly took place.

    Much to their detriment.

    BOOOOOM!

    The object collided with a tall clock tower, and sent the resulting debris cascading into the sea of residents below.

    ¡°AAAAAAAAH!!!¡± screams of fear and pain were heard all over the place as those who were lucky enough to survive wailed with desperation, desperate for their lives to be saved.

    But there would be no saviour.

    People soon found out that their connections to the outside world had been cut off and that they were effectively stranded in the middle of the desert. Obviously, this just caused another wave of panic, and the danger of the situation racked up to a new high.

    3 minutes later, a few of the survivors who had managed to escape the clock tower''s untimely demise, were able to get up and slowly flee. But one of them stayed behind and cradled the dead body of a little girl that shared his brown hair and green eyes.

    Clearly, she was either his daughter or sister, but unfortunately, half of her body seemed to be missing.

    So although the situation in the vicinity was a lot more calm than it was before, especially considering that it didn¡¯t seem like any more ¡®missiles¡¯ would be coming down, the grief within the man¡¯s heart made him feel like the entire World was collapsing.

    He cried and rocked the girl¡¯s body, desperately seeking for a miracle, hoping for all of this to be a dream and that he would wake up any moment, ANYTHING that would deny the reality before him.

    And oh look, someone had come to end his suffering.

    Before he could even react- but perhaps it was more true to say that he didn¡¯t bother to react, something enveloped his head in one swift movement, and sent his mind into eternal darkness.

 Ch.118 The Birth of Famine

    Time had passed and the people in the surroundings had calmed down since the destruction of the clock tower, after all, the main source of their fear was that some unknown terrorist or even army was raiding the city, which meant that they wouldn¡¯t stop at one missile.

    However, it seems that whoever shot the missile at the clock tower was stopping with only one? It was weird, but they were much more willing to believe that than to believe that someone of unknown origins was plotting to send down more missiles.

    Still, pacified as they were, they still made way for the city¡¯s exits with some even disregarding their belongings. Mainly because of the fact that most of their gadgets had ceased all function, and it was just too suspicious to ignore.

    It was best that they fled.

    However, for those that were injured and consequently slower than everyone else, they got the unprivileged position of witnessing a terrifying sight that would scar them for the rest of their lives. But after seeing such a thing, they themselves no longer knew how long¡­ or short that would be.

    Surrounded by the rubble of the fallen clock tower, a man who desperately rocked the body of his half complete sister, was unaware of the impending doom lurking behind him. But everyone else saw it, and they screamed out with fear.

    Rising up from the rubble was a strange wiggling mass of sand, it was slime-like in nature but quite small in size, just a tad bit smaller than a watermelon. However, the trauma-inducing waves of power that it radiated caused those in the vicinity to lose control of their faculties with the hairs on their bodies standing on end.

    They watched as the abnormal creature snuck up on its unsuspecting victim with silent and strangely bewitching grace, and then-

    WAP!

    It suddenly lunged forward and completely covered the man¡¯s head, blocking his vision along with his access to oxygen.

    At this point, the more strong willed people had already run away (with a limp), screaming all the while. But there were still some people left, who were too terrified to move. So all they could do as their legs failed to support them and they crashed to the floor, was watch with terrified eyes as the abnormal entity conducted its work.

    Some of the more peculiar minded people were thinking that the creature was purposefully blocking the man¡¯s intake of oxygen to kill it, but in the next moment, that notion was dashed away.

    Barely 3 seconds later, the Creature started moving down towards the neck of the man, strangely looking a tad bit bigger, and exposed the man¡¯s head for the world to see.

    ¡°AAAAAAAAH!¡± somebody screamed as they saw that all that was left of the man¡¯s head was an eroded skull that looked like it had seen the passage of many years.

    This time, the viewers were shocked out of their petrification and began running away in all directions. But little did they know, it was already too late.

    Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

    ¡­

    [Central Continent, Western Forest, Dragon Mountain]

    (4 Years Later, Year 157)

    The Dragon Mountain had a large amount of caves that the Dragons used as homes, and the higher up they went, the bigger and more comfortable they were, courtesy of Eridel¡¯s machinations. And as such, the more stronger Dragons lived at the top, and the weaker ones at the bottom.

    Within one of the caves closer to the ground, a relatively large Dragon that was 5 metres tall with grey coloured scales was sleeping peacefully, letting out loud snores that rattled the small stones hiding in the corners of his cave.

    It didn¡¯t look like he was going to wake up any time soon, but someone else thought otherwise.

    ¡°Quick! Quick! The goddess is about to reclaim her divinity and we definitely cannot miss it!¡± yelled an excited female Dragon from the outside, causing the sleeping Dragon to choke on his snore.

    ¡°Go away¡­~ I¡¯m not here.¡± He yawned with his eyes still closed. But then barely 3 seconds later a heavy tail collided with his head.

    SMACK!

    ¡°Theodore, you stupid, stupid dullard!¡±

    SMACK!

    ¡°I said the GODDESS is about to reclaim her DIVINITY!¡±

    SMACK!

    ¡°If you make me miss-¡±

    ¡°ROOOOOAAAR!¡± Theodore roared with rage as he leapt to his feet, revealing ordinary black eyes and ordinary fangs. ¡°WHO DARES TO- Eh? Lyrria?¡±

    Standing before him was a heart-palpitating 7 metre tall Dragoness that was covered in fiery red scales. She had alluring amber coloured eyes and-

    SMACK! A fiery tail collided with the left side of his face.

    ¡°Dammit Theodore! You dare to roar at me?!¡±

    ¡°Fuck! Alright, alright! I get it, so just stop hitting me already!¡± Theodore yelled with barely suppressed anger.

    ¡°Hmph. You¡¯re lucky I even bother with yo-¡± Lyrria started pompously.

    ¡°IF I¡¯M SUCH AN EYESORE, THEN LEAVE YOU BITCH!¡± Theodore roared vehemently.

    There was a moment of silence as the both stared at each other, Theodore¡¯s chest heaving up and down and Lyrria¡¯s tail flopping to the floor.

    ¡°I- I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t mean-¡± Theodore began as the last remnants of sleep vanished from his system.

    ¡°No, it¡¯s my fault. I shouldn¡¯t have said that.¡± Lyrria said with her head cast down, and a remorseful expression on her face. It appeared that she was feeling quite guilty of the situation, and wasn¡¯t blaming Theodore at all.

    They both sank into silence once more, taking a moment to calm down, before they regained their bearings and began to chuckle.

    ¡°You¡¯re always cranky when you¡¯re tired¡­¡± Lyrria said softly.

    ¡°Hmph, you think I don¡¯t know you too? You¡¯re always cranky when things start going even a little wrong¡­ Wait. What¡¯s wrong? Could it be¡­?¡± Theodore asked with a wary expression that bordered on fear, clearly thinking of a worst case scenario.

    ¡®Has her father found out about our rel-¡¯

    ¡°Ah, that¡¯s right! The goddess!¡± Lyrria exclaimed, dispersing his thoughts.

    ¡°The goddess?¡±

 Ch.119 A Talentless Dragon

    ¡°Yes the goddess! She¡¯s going to be reclaiming her divinity any moment now and we can¡¯t miss it, let¡¯s go!¡± Lyrria screamed before running out of his cave and taking off into the air with her magnificent wings.

    ¡°Really?!¡± Theodore yelled with wide eyes before he too flung himself into the air, following Lyrria as she made her way up the Dragon Mountain ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say so earlier?!¡±

    ¡°I did, you idiot! Multiple times too!¡± Lyrria said as looked back at Theodore with a look of disdain.

    At this, Theodore chose to be silent. He was just a Stage 4 Magic Beast with no special bloodline so his cognitive ability wasn¡¯t all that great, and he was fully aware of how worse it became when he was just waking up, so it was probably true that she had told him earlier, but it flew over his head in his drowsiness.

    ¡®Tch, the fact that she also wacked my head a few times must have made it worse. Maybe I would have heard if she hadn¡¯t shaken my brain so much. Hmph!¡¯ Theodore thought in an attempt to console himself.

    ¡°Theo!¡± Lyrria called out. She had stopped moving forward and was now looking back at the grey Dragon whilst she suspended herself in the air with a few periodic flaps. There was an awkward expression on her face as she looked back at Theodore¡¯s eyes and it was clear that what she was about to say next made her uncomfortable.

    Theodore slowed to a stop and sighed. But before the inner turmoil in his heart could show itself on his face, he put on a grin and said. ¡°I know, I know! Don¡¯t worry about me, just go! It would be bad if your Father saw us together so you should go first. I¡¯d rather not die just yet~¡±

    However, Lyrria seemed to see right through his fa?ade. ¡°Theo, you know-¡±

    ¡°Yes, yes, I know. You love me and I love you, blah blah blah. Look, the goddess won¡¯t wait for any of us so just go already!¡±

    That seemed to get her. She blinked with light surprise, almost as if she had forgotten about the goddess, before she sighed and turned around, flying off into the distance with greater speed than before.

    Theodore too sighed as he started counting in his head, however, the soul-stirring sight of Lyrria in flight was too distracting so he closed his eyes.

    The truth was that both Theodore and Lyrria were in a romantic relationship. After a mystical encounter in the Forest below, both Dragons had gone from a relationship that was filled with despise, hatred, and sexual tension, to a loving romantic relationship with only a few clashes here and there. But that was their thing.

    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    Lyrria was a Fire Dragon and they were renowned for their volatile and often violent personalities, and he was a snappy, grumpy, rebellious Dragon that resented the World for his lack of inborn talent. And although he sometimes regretted how terrible his personality could be, he couldn¡¯t deny the chemistry that he had with the fiery Dragoness, and he wouldn¡¯t trade that away for the World.

    However, the problem was that¡­ Lyrria was the daughter of not just an Elder Dragon, but a Supreme Dragon! The Supreme Fire Dragon, Osmont, to be exact.

    Osmont was often regarded as the right hand of the Dragon King himself, and had a large influence over the dwellers of the Western Forest, Dragon or not. So how could he allow his own daughter to entertain a talentless trash like Theodore? It would never happen!

    So for this reason, Theodore, brave as he was in even knowing this and still retaining his relationship with Lyrria, still made sure that their relationship was never found out. So in situations like this where they would be seen in public, it was best to act like they didn¡¯t know each other.

    That was why Lyrria had flown ahead. It wasn¡¯t the first time and it¡­ wouldn¡¯t be the last.

    Theodore gritted his teeth and focused on waiting for the appropriate time to start moving.

    ¡®Soon¡­ No matter what I have to do, I will grasp power with my own claws and proudly raise my head above the clouds with Lyrria by my side for all to see. So please, Lyrria¡­ Don¡¯t give up on me just yet!¡¯

    ¡­

    Soon, Theodore had reached the lower mid-levels of the Dragon Mountain, but he wasn¡¯t looking nearly as excited as he was at the start of this journey. Instead, an aloof and grim was worn on his face. Looking very much the part of the lone Wolf. But it soon became clear why.

    ¡°Wow, would you look at that guys~, look who¡¯s finally decided to show his face.¡± came the distant jeering voice of a male Dragon.

    ¡®Fuck, it¡¯s him.¡¯ Theodore thought with rage and a tad bit of fear, but he did not let it show on his face.

    All this time, as more and more Dragons who had the same destination as him came into view, they would stare at him like as if he were one of the lowly creatures that lived in the Forest below, gossiping silently with their friends and laughing each time his flying became a little turbulent (He wasn¡¯t a great flyer either). But even if he was used to it, it still managed to irk him each and every time, which was why he was so sullen. However, for the most part, they had left him alone.

    Until now.

    Theodore had no doubt that the Dragon that he hated the most, wouldn¡¯t be willing to leave him alone with just a few words.

    ¡°Hahaha~ why are you flying so fast, my friend? It¡¯s been so long so Let¡¯s have a chat, shall we?¡± came the voice of the same male Dragon, but this time from a much closer distance. And the few deep laughs that followed after signified that he wasn¡¯t alone.

    ¡®Lo and behold¡¯ Theodore thought bitterly.

    WHOOOSH!

 Ch.120 Theodore vs Argentino

    WHOOOSH!

    A large 12 metre tall Dragon covered in shimmering silver scales arrived in front of Theodore with a powerful gust of wind. He had domineering green eyes, a row of spikes starting from his neck and ending at the tip of his tail, and 2 thick horns (which was a sign of high testosterone). And going by the aura that he was freely emitting, it was certain that he was at the peak of the Magic Beast Stage, and just a step away from the Spirit Beast Stage.

    This young Dragon could be considered to be the poster child of all male Dragon youth and what most aspired to be. The eyes of all the male Dragons in the vicinity looked at him with respect or fear, and the females in the vicinity looked at him with either interest, lust or fear as well.

    But apparently, he only had eyes for the ordinary Theodore before him, whose radiance compared to his was like day and night.

    ¡°What do you want, Argentino¡± Theodore asked with a bland voice whilst secretly preparing for any change in the situation. Not that there was much that a Stage 4 Magic Beast could do to defend against a peak Stage 9 one, but it was better than being completely passive.

    ¡°What? Do friends need a reason to catch up with each other after such a long time? How heartless.¡± Argentino responded, and the other Dragons that soon arrived behind him burst out laughing once again.

    ¡°We are not friends Argentino, and we will never be friends. Why can¡¯t you get it through your thick skull that nobody likes you and only put up a front every time you¡¯re around? Even the pack of hyenas behind you are only clinging to you for benefits. But the truth is, you would be treated just like me if it wasn¡¯t because of your talent, and close connections with the Royal Family. Nobody likes the descendants of the sinner!¡± Theodore¡¯s voice began quiet, but he was roaing a the end.

    There was a wave of silence that allowed his voice to echo, which made the ordinary looking Theodore look quite imposing. But there was not one look of respect cast his way. Instead, there were just a lot more expressions of fear as people looked at Argentino, waiting for his reaction.

    ¡°YOU!¡± Argentino yelled as his face twisted into a grimace. But then just a second later, it smoothed out again into a disdainful smile, making it clear that he was pretending.

    ¡°Little Theo, I must admit, the first time you said something like that, it hurt quite a bit.¡± He said as an essence of wind began to circulate around his body, causing wild winds to push back the Dragons behind him.

    ¡°However, that seems to be the only thing you can say, no? Unfortunately for you, during the 1 year that we haven¡¯t seen each other, I have reached the peak of the Magic Beast Stage and have matured quite a lot, whereas you have only broken through 1 stage and entered the 4th? Oh, does that upset you?¡± Argentino said as he noticed how Theodore¡¯s aloofness began to crack.

    ¡°Sorry, sorry. That was not my intention~¡± Argentino said with a noble expression. ¡°The point is that¡­ I have long since come to terms with the sins of my bloodline. Yes, it was my Supreme Grandfather that was captured by those dreadful Snakes and caused the creation of those counterfeit Dragons, and it was my Father who fled from the Dragon Mountain during our latest war. But¡­ I am not like them!¡± Argentino yelled with an ambitious expression.

    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    In response to this, the Dragons in the vicinity had on awkward faces with a few who even cast looks of hatred before they quickly wiped it away (this included 2 of the Dragons that had been laughing with him). However, there were also a few who seemed to respect Argentino for what he was admitting.

    ¡°With my own 2 claws, I will reignite the glory within my bloodline and-¡± Argentino continued before he was rudely interrupted.

    ¡°Good for you Argentino, but I am unable to summon forth a single bit of care. My apologies. But what is it that you want from me?¡± Theodore cut in snappily.

    Argentino¡¯s arms that were slowly rising up paused, and then dropped down to his sides as if he had given up. But a cold light flashed in his eyes before he flew towards Theodore and pressed his snout to the other Dragon¡¯s ear and started whispering.

    ¡°I just wanted to ask you¡­ How¡¯s Lyrria been, hmm?¡±

    Theodore shivered as rage and fear flooded his mind.

    ¡°She¡¯s quite the spectacle is she not? Hey, hey, calm down. You don¡¯t want people to find out about your relationship with Lyrria right? Fix your face. ¡­That¡¯s better. Now where was I¡­? Ah! Right, as I was saying¡­ Lyrria is an amazingly talented Dragon who has reached the 6th Stage at such a young age, and is completely incompatible with the likes of you. She¡¯s even bigger than you! Does that not cause you shame? A female who should be submissive to you, is bigger than you! Anyhow¡­ you have done something to grab her attention and she is now frolicking with you. How? I can never know. However¡­ It is best that you make sure to enjoy your remaining time with her, because sooner or later, she will be all mine~¡±

    Theodore was visibly shaking with rage, but Argentino wasn¡¯t done.

    ¡°Picture this. Lyrria¡¯s glorious body spread beneath mine with my teeth clamped around her neck. Then, with one mighty thrust I¡¯ll-¡±

    Theodore couldn¡¯t handle it anymore and burst out with rage.

    ¡°ARGENTINO YOU EVIL BASTARD, SURRENDER YOUR LIFE!¡± he roared as struck out with his right claw in a domineering fashion, disregarding the fact that his target was more than double his size.

    Argentino on the other hand merely flapped his wings and dodged backwards with a calm face. However, Theodore wasn¡¯t fairing as well. The wind summoned by the flap of Argentino¡¯s wings was abnormally powerful, and sent Theodore spiralling down the Mountain like a piece of paper in the in free fall.

    ¡°Count your days, Theodore! Count your days¡­¡± Argentino said with a smirk, before he looked at his followers with a cold emotionless face. ¡°Let¡¯s go. The goddesses'' divinity reclamation will happen any moment now and we can no longer waste any time.¡± Then he disappeared into the distance with a powerful gust of wind that slammed into Theodore.

    At this, everyone in the vicinity panicked and began zooming towards the 15 peaks of the Dragon Mountain, clearly having forgotten the same thing and just now remembering. However, they didn¡¯t forget to talk about the drama that had just occurred, saying things like: ¡®Did you see how the overgrown Lizard tried to attack Argentino?¡¯ And ¡®What did Argentino say to make him so mad?¡¯

    None of them turned back to look at Theodore, who was looking up at them with a shadow draped over his eyes.

 Ch.121 Pioneering a New Era

    30 minutes later, Theodore had finally made it to the top of the Dragon Mountain.

    Originally, it wouldn¡¯t have taken so long for a flying Magic Beast to reach the top of the Mountain from the bottom, but ever since it had become a Sacred Land it had largely grown in size, and then when the World had evolved it had grown once more, reaching the size that it was now, which was so high that you could barely see the clouds that you had once passed below. Now, even a Magic Beast Dragon like Theodore had to spend arduous effort to reach the top.

    However, when he did, he couldn¡¯t stop elation from rising in his heart and dispelling some of the murky darkness within. The 15 Peaks were that spectacular.

    Not only was it one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen, but the quality of the ambient Magical Energy was just sublime. And although he was unable to directly absorb it like the 14 Supreme Dragons and Dragon King were allegedly able to do, it still made him feel extremely comfortable.

    But then when he thought about how this was only his third time visiting this place, the darkness within his heart could only grow larger.

    Because of his low value, he wasn¡¯t allowed to come to such places except on special occasions. Disregarding the strange time that the Dragon King himself had requested his presence (which he still till this day thought was 1 of the reasons that he was so frequently bullied), the only other time he was allowed to come here, was when the abnormal yet ridiculously beautiful golden Dragon had revealed her identity as the fallen goddess of Creation to all.

    Back then they didn''t know what a goddess was, talk less of some kind of ¡®goddess of creation¡¯. But when she stated that she was the one who created the World, along with a majority of the races (with the Dragons being the first race ever created), everyone had been shocked senseless, before immediately disparaging her words and calling her a crazy liar (something they immensely regret nowadays). They questioned why she was so weak, with a few who had been jealous of her special treatment all along accusing her of being so weak that she had to leech off the Dragon race. However, the goddess gracefully and magnanimously explained how she had been betrayed by the sinister god of ice.

    The story was told in such a compelling way that even Theodore felt anger rising within him, unbelieving of how someone could be so evil to someone so kind and innocent.

    Later on, the goddess spoke about how lucky she was to quickly escape at the last moment and reincarnate as a member of the Dragon race. She even winked and said ¡®don¡¯t tell anyone else that the Dragons are my favourite¡¯, which obviously caused many to guffaw with pride. Theodore even remembered thinking that the goddess was legit then and there. And it was then that the Dragon King (who had most likely heard the story before), told everyone that they needed to do all that they could to help the goddess ¡®take back her divine cave¡¯.

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    ¡­Haah~ how embarrassing. Divine cave? Seriously? Now that they had the knowledge that they had now, they realised how insulting and pointedly stupid it was to say such a thing.

    Tch, stupid King.

    After that, the goddess told them that they didn¡¯t have to do much, and all they had to do was fill the World with creation, create anything that they liked and spread her name. They also had to do something called prayer (which they later found out to be a wonderful thing), but that was it. Apparently, such acts would grant her something called Faith Energy, and that would give her back some of her power, but it was quite weird. However, when the goddess started teaching them about the different things that they could create (with examples), they were flabbergasted!

    After that it didn¡¯t take long for their race to be pioneered into a new era where instead of just taking, consuming, and growing, the Dragon race started to learn how to stockpile knowledge, and use various materials to create all kinds of things.

    There were culinary arts (the most popular form of creation), sculpting, architecture, music, dancing, alchemy, rune formation, blacksmithing (one of the rarest), and much more! It was wonderful, and it was all thanks to the goddess!

    Theodore felt passion coursing through his veins when thought about becoming a mighty blacksmith (which was his second biggest dream), but when he remembered the¡­ what he liked to call ¡®low-likelihood¡¯ instead of impossibility, his mood dampened once more.

    He and Lyrria had already decided to become the perfect duo of Blacksmith and Rune Inscriptionist, but whilst the young Fire Dragoness had already embarked on that journey, he couldn¡¯t even get his head in. It was a massive blow to his ego.

    Theodore sighed, deciding to get his head out of the gutter and focus on looking for what he came for.

    After utilising his small size to bypass a sea of flying Dragons (no he wasn¡¯t going to be thankful), he eventually ended up at the forefront of the crowd, where he could finally lay eyes on the goddess herself.

    She had golden scales, light yellow horns and claws that almost seemed like they were carved from light, an imposing height of 20 metres (which Theodore suspected had something to do with a high attainment in Anatomy Refinement), a feminine figure that caused many in the crowd to feel dazed, and soul-sucking golden eyes that caused all sorts of reactions. Fear, reverence, lust, love. Any of these things could be felt with a single look.

    She was extremely beautiful, and by common standards, was definitely the most attractive female Dragon of all time.

    But¡­ Theodore just really couldn¡¯t dig it.

    Although she was beautiful, when Theodore looked at her, he always thought that she looked tooo beautiful. Rather than thoughts of lust, her beauty would only inspire a feeling of wonder within him, kind of like when he looked at a spectacular creation. Something to be admired but not touched.

    On the other hand¡­

    Theodore turned his head to the left where he caught the sight of a familiar figure that had plagued almost all of his thoughts since the day he met her.

 Ch.122 Lyrriaâ€™s Family

    He didn¡¯t know why or how, but for the longest time Theodore had always been able to sense Lyrria¡¯s approximate location. It was like he had a metaphysical map etched within his mind with the Dragoness being the only landmark, so when he instinctively looked to his far left, he wasn¡¯t surprised to see the bewitching figure of the Fire Dragoness as she flew stationary in what could only be considered as the VIP section, and unlike when he looked at the impossibly beautiful goddess, naughty thoughts that mainly consisted of pinning and thrusting immediately flooded his mind.

    But he was quite used to such things occurring whenever he looked at her, and it didn¡¯t take long for him to take back control of his thoughts.

    Surrounding her was her family and the other VIP families of the Dragon race. He could see her older sister, Minerva, her younger half brother, Jericho, her father Osmont, and her new step mother, Yoorin.

    Minerva and Osmont were full blooded Fire Dragons just like Lyrria, however, their younger brother was a new type of Dragon that had never been seen before. A Sand Dragon.

    No one knew the reason for this occurrence, but when the Supreme Fire Dragon, Osmont mated with his new wife, an Earth Dragoness, it resulted in the birth of Jericho, the first and only Sand Dragon. He was an extremely talented youth with affinities with Fire, Earth and Sand (something that they had never encountered before but had taken in stride), and was treated almost as nicely as the Royal Family and the Destruction Dragons.

    Thanks to this, even though he was younger than Lyrria, he had surpassed her 6th Stage Magic Beast cultivation and was in the 7th Stage, something that Theodore knew secretly irked Lyrria.

    However, even though many people adored him, just as many people were puzzled by his existence. After all there were many mixed raced matings every day but none of them had ever resulted in a hybrid like Jericho, so as a result of this, many people were very interested in the 2 parents, and waited patiently for them to give birth to another child, wanting to see if they would ever give birth to another powerful hybrid like Jericho.

    But because of this, many people who weren¡¯t in the know found out about the history of Osmont¡¯s wife, Yoorin. (Something that Theodore had already known thanks to Lyrria)

    It turns out that in the last war with the counterfeit Dragons, which was 20 or so years ago, Osmont¡¯s first wife, Vivian, who was an Elder Dragon that was almost as strong as her Supreme Dragon husband, was killed. (Most people already knew this) And as a result of that, the Supreme Fire Dragon, Osmont, went CRAZY!

    He would always attempt to bring forces to initiate another war after the war that took his wife was already over, but was always stopped by the King who wanted to recuperate from their losses. So since he couldn¡¯t defy the King even if he wanted to, he decided to take his anger out on the Western Forest, laying waste to many lives and even causing a few extinctions, so once again he was stopped by the King (who was being quite lenient because of his pity).

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    Because of this, Osmont had to bottle up his anger, and no one heard from him for about 6 months.

    But then one day, Osmont had flown out in a rage, unable to handle the wrath that he was unable to suppress, and launched an attack on the Eastern Dragons by himself. Which was clearly a suicidal attack.

    But somehow, he had been able to come back alive, even if with serious injuries and possible crippling, making him a hero that many revered till this day. But what most people didn¡¯t know was that he hadn¡¯t come back alone, and was instead accompanied by a beautiful young Earth Dragoness.

    In the war that had occurred before the latest one, a few Dragons had been kidnapped and enslaved by the counterfeit Dragons (which caused the True Dragons to respond in kind). And the Earth Dragoness that Osmont had somehow saved was a descendant of one of those slaves.

    The specifics weren¡¯t completely known, but apparently, Osmont had liberated the enslaved True Dragons that were trapped in the Eastern Forest, and started another war right in the enemies home court. (It was because of this that the Dragon King ensured that the counterfeit Dragon slaves were all killed, not wanting the same to happen to them.) Of course, many of the liberated slaves died in the war, but the rest were able to flee in all directions, including Osmont and the Earth Dragoness.

    Later on, when the 2 had returned to the Dragon Mountain, the Earth Dragoness had slowly nurtured back the Supreme Fire Dragon¡¯s broken and restless heart (which had worsened after the [Battle of Liberation] because of the death of many True Dragons that he was unable to save during the war, and his ability to bring the ones that were able to escape back to the Dragon Mountain) and had somehow even gotten him to break his vow to take no other wife after his first one had died. (Which Theodore knew Lyrria had mixed feelings about).

    Theodore thought it was quite the beautiful story, but he couldn¡¯t stop the jealousy that he felt when he thought about the super talent that they had given birth to.

    ¡®If only my parents were like them, I wouldn¡¯t¡­¡¯ Theodore thought then sighed with self-pity.

    However, when he looked back up, his eyes lit up as they collided with Lyrria¡¯s mischievous gaze. Technically, her entire face was emotionless, albeit filled with noble grace; but Theodore would never mistake the twinkle in his eyes for anything else.

    His heart bloomed with an indescribable emotion, and he just barely managed to stop himself from smiling. Lyrria nonchalantly looked away in the next moment, but even though it caused him a twinge of pain, he understood.

    They had to keep up a facade in public¡­ and it was all his fault.

    ¡°Haah¡­~¡± Theodore sighed once more as the fuzzy feeling in his chest began to fade away. But just as he too was returning his focus to the goddess, he caught sight of something that sent his heart back into the abyss.

 Ch.123 Descent into Darkness

    Flying over to Lyrria¡¯s direction was a 12 metre tall silver scaled Dragon, who moved with a domineering swagger that gave off the feeling of immense self-confidence. Of course, It was Argentino. And even as he flew towards Supreme Fire Dragon¡¯s VIP section, he was looking right back at Theodore with an expression that looked equal parts curious and cocky.

    Theodore wasn¡¯t a fool and he was sure that Argentino had somehow detected the minute interaction between him and Lyrria. Again. He didn¡¯t know how he did it, but Argentino had always been able to notice the relationship between him and Lyrria for what it truly was, when everyone else was fooled. It was weird and more than a little frightening.

    For now, it appeared that Argentino hadn¡¯t told anyone else, but there wasn¡¯t a moment that Theodore breathed that he didn¡¯t feel like a claw was pressed against his throat, and at any moment, it would be all over.

    But the main reason for Theodore¡¯s current inner turmoil was the obvious intentions that Argentino had in flying over to the Supreme Fire Dragon VIP section. He wanted to meet Lyrria!

    Remembering the ghastly things that Argentino had whispered into his ear just over 30 minutes ago, Theodore couldn¡¯t help but think the worst. In that moment, rage and jealousy tag teamed to destroy his rationality, and he almost charged over to Argentino without regard for the consequences.

    But just as he was unknowingly moving forward, he collided with someone and disrupted both of their flying.

    Theodore¡¯s mind snapped back from the place it had been cornered into and gave the 2 devious emotions a mighty blow each, causing Theodore to regain control of his actions. But perhaps, a little too late.

    POW!

    A huge claw crashed into his face, causing him to spiral backwards with pain.

    ¡°Watch where you¡¯re going you filthy Lizard.¡± came the deep voice of a massive Water Dragon that was clearly in the Spirit Beast Realm. ¡°Tch, I feel like cleansing myself in a lake. What a disgrace.¡± the Dragon said as he flew away and vanished into the crowd, but not after causing a wave of laughter that left Theodore in a pile of humiliation.

    Looking at the abundant laughing faces, along with Argentino who was making his way over to Lyrria, Theodore¡¯s mind was once more beat back into a corner.

    ¡®Why am I so unlucky? If I had more talent I could have lived in one of the highest caves on the Mountain, enjoying the Magical Energy in the environment and the potent Herbs that grew there. I could have lived with Lyrria proudly, letting everybody know that she belonged to me, and beating up everybody who dared to covet her. But instead, my talent is the lowest of the low, codemning me to live in a cave that nearly scrapes the ground. Come to think of it¡­ What is the difference between me and any of those weak creatures in the Forest? What is the difference between me and a-a- a Lizard? ¡­Fuck! If only I didn¡¯t have such useless parents!¡¯ Theodore thought with blinding fury.

    But it was that last thought that doused out his rage in an instant.

    ¡®W-what did I just¡­¡¯ Theodore thought as he opened his eyes wide with intense regret. He¡­ he had finally said the thought that he had tried his best to bury.

    Ever since the day that he knew what innate talent was, Theodore had secretly been upset by his parents who did not possess a scrap of talent that they could pass on to him. However, when they had mysteriously died, he promised himself that he was going to forget all about talent and prove his parents proud by making it big without it. He would never blame his dead parents.

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    Alas, that promise that had been deteriorating in the past few years, had finally been utterly broken.

    ¡®B-but look at the situation!¡¯ Theodore thought, trying to console himself. ¡®How can I¡­ How can I take it?! I should be allowed to vent a little right? Right?!¡¯ Theodore thought as guilt joined in the battle to wreck apart his mind.

    ¡® ¡­Oh goddess, what am I doing? Father, Mother, I am sorry! Please forgive me¡¯

    Stress had apparently joined the tag team match against Theodore¡¯s mind, and he was gradually breaking down with tears appearing in his eyes.

    = What a POOR boy~ =

    Came a sudden deep voice within Theodore¡¯s head, shocking him greatly. He cautiously looked around, trying to look for the voice that he was somehow sure was talking to him when the voice spoke up once more.

    = With such a trashy body, you are ultimately destined to be a nobody your whole life. What a pity~ =

    Theodore froze. But although the things that were being said rattled him greatly, he wasn¡¯t about to take whatever this faceless being said seriously. The goddess had once warned the Dragon race of mind control and had even given an example by revealing a certain group of Dragons that had suddenly gained green eyes, a strange green symbol on their foreheads, ferocious power, and boundless evil intent. Of course, they were all killed, but it was still quite the terrifying sight.

    Apparently, a powerful evil spirit had risen 30 years ago (this was before he was born), and all the Dragons with weak minds had been unable to resist against its evil enthrallment, causing them to become possessed or something like that.

    The strange thing was that all of those that had been forcefully revealed by the goddess were people who were originally not all that talented (but still more talented than him), but had suddenly gained great talent and random upgrades in power from time to time. So it was clear that although they were forced to reveal their cards all at once, the passive power they gained was obtained much earlier.

    Although Theodore had snorted in disdain when he had heard about it back then, he couldn¡¯t help but think ¡®what if¡­¡¯, before he forcefully calmed his mind with a peace-inducing breathing technique that the goddess had spread out to the Dragon race.

    = Hmm? I am feeling my connection with you fade away by the moment. What are yo- ¡­What is this strange breathing pattern? ¡­How miraculous! I would like to thank you for teaching me, but that is not the point of this¡­ visit, shall I say? So I would like you to stop it. =

    Theodore had started rejoicing when he heard the first part of the faceless beings words, barely stopping himself from speeding up the breathing technique, which would give adverse effects instead of what he wanted, but when he heard how the unknown man (for he was sure that faceless being was male) had learned the technique in but a single moment, he had panicked.

    His only consolement was that the voice was gradually fading away and that he would soon be free. But when the faceless being had finally ordered him to stop¡­ his body had frozen up! Without his consent, his body had obeyed the words of the unknown being that was speaking to him in his head!

    But that wasn¡¯t it. No, it got worse.

    Because when the breathing technique was abruptly broken, a sudden avalanche of emotion had hit him like a sledgehammer and quickly occupied all of his thoughts. It was an emotion that he had been feeling a lot of lately so it wasn¡¯t all that hard for him to¡­ identify it.

    He had felt it when he looked at the 15 peaks of the Dragon Mountain.

    He had felt it whenever he saw new Dragons who were younger than him had surpassed him in cultivation.

    He had certainly felt it whenever he looked at Argentino.

    And there were even a few times that he felt it when he looked at Lyrria.

    It was Envy.

 Ch.124 Run to Flee or Run to Chase?

    Countless envious thoughts forced its way into his mind as his wings rigidly fought to keep him in the same position.

    He thought about all of the things he was envious about, even the Crystal Dragon King and goddess, but the most recurring thought that bounded its way around his mind were thoughts of Argentino.

    Theodore hated him to the core, and yet, Argentino was all that he aspired to be. Talented, powerful, domineering, intelligent. All these things and more, but he had none of it!

    Theodore groaned out in pain and anger as his head began to ache. But because his head was bowed and his eyes were shut tight, he wasn¡¯t aware of the fact that his eyes had begun to shine green.

    = Good~, now the connection between us is even greater than before, do you feel that? =

    The unknown being suddenly pierced through the cloud of turbulent emotions and spoke up in his mind once again. However, the voice was much clearer and louder than before, and there was even an obvious jovialness in the tone that Theodore was sure wasn¡¯t there before.

    ¡®Get out of my head!¡¯ Theodore inwardly screamed, which was already impressive considering his current mental state. However, he wasn¡¯t able to stop his body from thrashing around, nor was he even aware of it. But that didn¡¯t mean that others were blind.

    ¡°Hey, everyone, look at the Lizard! He¡¯s going crazy! Hahahaha!¡± came the voice of a male Dragon, but Theodore was so disorientated that he barely heard it.

    = Hmm¡­ this seems to be a bad time. What to do¡­=

    ¡°Hey, do you guys think that¡­ he¡¯s being possessed?¡± said a female Dragon, which put an almost comical stop to the laughter. However, the accusation that was being made wasn¡¯t funny in the slightest and the Dragons in the surroundings started looking at Theodore¡¯s twitching figure with a growing hostility.

    They had heard of the sinister tales concerning possessed people, and they didn¡¯t want a repeat of it.

    Unfortunately, Theodore¡¯s mind was so addled that he was completely unaware. But luckily, there was another entity within his head that wasn¡¯t as oblivious, which perhaps¡­ wasn¡¯t as lucky as it sounded. After all, the same foreign entity within his head was the root cause of the entire situation.

    = A bad time indeed¡­ Alas, I do not have time to give you¡­ my gift. But there will be other times, so worry not! =

    Theodore completely ignored him as he focused on trying to regain control of his mind.

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    = If you ever find yourself desiring more power, call out to the Demon god of Envy with all your hear- whoop, gotta go! How scary¡­ =

    The compelling voice that was almost singing in Theodore¡¯s head suddenly balked before anticlimactically fading into nothingness. Even the avalanche of envious thoughts that was throwing his mind every which way suddenly left him alone, restoring a semblance of peace to his soul.

    But Theodore was confused, he was sure that the unknown being was gone, but why had it seemed like it had¡­ fled?

    Opening his eyes, he saw the mass of Dragons that were looking at him with wary eyes, which was something that he had never seen before, but he would do his best to deal with it later. Over in the distance, he saw the distressed face of Lyrria as she looked at him with clear worry, which warmed his heart. However, she seemed to be¡­ signalling to him?

    Ignoring his desire to glare at the embodiment of garbage that called himself Argentino, who had made it to her side, he looked at the direction of Lyrria¡¯s pointing, and his heart froze.

    It was the goddess in all her glory, and she was staring right at him.

    ¡­

    [Lolay Galaxy, Desolate Region, Miyanka World, Unknown Forest]

    (Still Year 157)

    Within an ancient Forest that had remained largely unblemished by mortal influence. A large pack of wolves was running towards a specific location with their hackles raised and a cautious light in their eyes.

    Around 70 minutes ago, a large explosion was heard from the location that they were now running to. At that time, they had fled without a second thought, hiding their cubs back into the den and preparing for any sudden attack.

    However, nothing had happened in all this time, and the alpha¡¯s fear had long ago converted into curiosity with a tinge of greed. In his mind, there was a chance that whatever had occurred in that moment had left dead bodies in its vicinity. Because as a transported wolf experiment that used to live with humans, he wasn¡¯t unfamiliar with weapons that make the same sound and destroy all the lives around it.

    But even if that wasn¡¯t the case, there was still a chance of their being something to be gained right? The explosion had only occurred once and no other sound was heard afterwards, so the danger should have passed, right?

    So off they went, and here they were. (The cubs and weaker members had, of course, been left behind).

    As they neared the sight of the explosion, a large crater that was 4 metres deep and 23 metres wide was revealed, causing the alpha of the pack to be even more wary than he was before.

    He couldn¡¯t really smell much thanks to the dusty and earthy smell that came as a result of the explosion, and neither could he really see anything of value or danger that could attract his attention (other than the crater). So hoping to get everything over and done with, the Alpha quickly pressed his nose to the ground to scout out any possible dangers or prey.

    The pack also did the same, and they spent a good minute or so moving around to pick up any scent that would dictate whether they ran to flee or ran to chase.

    With the whole pack moving as a single unit, it didn¡¯t take much longer for them to pick up a scent that they were very familiar with.

    Blood.

 Ch.125 The Birth of Death

    Blood.

    The wolf who found it signalled the rest of the pack with a howl and they all rushed over, thinking that they had found the trail of prey. But as the alpha made his way over whilst doing an instinctive head count, he noticed that 2 wolves had gone missing.

    He was confused at first but he quickly summarised that they had gone too far and were taking a while to get back, something he would definitely berate them for later. After all, it would be a hassle if they got killed and endangered the pack.

    However, when he reached the sight of the blood, he immediately realised why the howl that had notified them was so filled with alarm. The blood belonged to 1 of the wolves in his pack!

    His hackles raised immediately as fear coursed its way down his spine. Although he was just a Wolf, he was a very smart one as a result of the strange and painful things that the humans used to do to him before he escaped. So it wasn¡¯t hard for him to speculate that whatever could kill one of his own without him even knowing, was something that he could not contend with. He quickly signalled the pack to be alert before they began to slowly pace their way to where they came from with their eyes scouting for any possible danger.

    When they exited the vicinity of the crater, the Alpha gave one bark to his pack before legging it without any regard as to whether they were following him or not. But of course they did.

    Roughly 5 minutes later, the pack had gassed out and they were unable to keep up their terrific speed. The alpha could have gone longer, but it was best to remain with the pack for now. Whatever danger was back in that crater should have been unable to keep up with them, but there might be other forms of danger if he abandoned his pack, and that was not something he could easily accept.

    He ordered his pack to rest, and they quickly dropped to their bellies or sides with their chests huffing and puffing and their tongues lolling out. Obviously, they were quite tire-

    ¡®???¡¯

    The alpha¡¯s head snapped up to attention when he finally recognized something that made his heart skip a beat.

    ¡®9¡­ Only 9 left?! Were the others all killed?!¡¯

    That¡¯s right. The group that had once consisted of over 20 wolves had been reduced to a paltry 9.

    ¡®I must flee!¡¯ the alpha inwardly screamed before dashing off again, abandoning the pack once and for all and only thinking about his own life. At the end of the day he was still an animal, and when it came to soul-stirring events like this, his intelligence was immediately flayed to the bone, and only his instincts would keep him going.

    3 minutes later, he had gassed out completely like the wolves that he had abandoned, but even then, he still kept forcing himself to take step after step, fully intent on escaping the calamity that he was sure had befallen the rest of his pack. He didn¡¯t even know where he was but it didn¡¯t stop him in the slightest and he kept on going.

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    However, all of a sudden, he caught sight of something in his peripheral vision that caused his already disordered running to falter. He collapsed to the ground and rolled for a couple of metres, but the terror within his heart forced him to stand up once immediately.

    He looked towards the direction of the strange thing that he was sure was hiding behind one of the trees, but he saw nothing. Yet instead of calming down, he was even more terrified than before and it was to the point that he started whimpering.

    He swivelled his head every which way in an attempt to locate the terrible entity that was seemingly intent on prolonging his torment, but there was nothing to be found. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, and nothing to even smell.

    ¡®But I saw it! It was black, and- and- AAAAAAAH!¡¯ The alpha was inwardly panicking, but then roughly 10 metres in front of him, something warped into existence like a ghost, and he screamed.

    It looked like a floating ball of darkness that had multiple wolf heads (of a slightly lighter shade) around its ¡®body¡¯, and it was around 2 metres tall and 1.5 metres wide. The eyes of the wolf heads were extremely horrifying, and they looked like black holes that wanted to devour everything.

    On top of that, the alpha could finally smell the thing that had been haunting him all this time, and it was ghastly. It smelled like the dead, and yet unlike the dead. It didn¡¯t possess the rotting stench that he was used to associating with dead creatures, but nevertheless, when he caught a whiff of the abnormal entity, the image of that one graveyard that he used to see when he lived with humans kept appearing in his mind, and it frightened him.

    But nothing, and he meant NOTHING, was as blood-curdling as the strange¡­ ¡®energy¡¯, that was wafting off of the creature like a mantle of evil. He couldn¡¯t see it, but he was sure it was there, and its existence completely crippled his desire to flee.

    He was weak. He was prey. He must not flee, and he must obey.

    That was all that he could think about.

    Even up till the moment that his entire body was devoured by one of those heads.

    ¡­

    5 minutes later.

    The alpha stepped out of what used to be his body and was now a dead corpse, and rose to his new height of 1.2 metres tall. His new form looked like his previous one, but it was not only completely black, but also slightly transparent.

    And yet, despite his groundbreaking changes, his now non-existent heart was completely at peace. A peace that he had never felt before because of his previous daily struggles. There was no fear, no stress, no shock. He didn¡¯t feel¡­ anything.

    He looked up and landed his sight on the figure of the creature that had done this to him. There was no hatred, no anger, no terror. Nothing.

    =You must serve.=

    A feminine voice spoke within his mind. It was somewhat like the way humans spoke, but¡­ if something as incomprehensible as darkness itself was able to speak, he reckoned that it would sound just like that.

    ¡°Yes, sire.¡± He responded with his head bowed.

    The only desire that he now possessed was the will to obey.

    And nothing else.

 Ch.126 The Yamelon High World

    [Lolay Galaxy, Desolate Region, Yamelon World]

    (6 Years Later, Year 163)

    The Yamelon World was 1 of the 2 High Worlds in the Desolate Region, and its territory was split by the multiple Kingdoms and Empires that had erected themselves over time. But really and truly, there were only three masters of this World. The Emperor of the Syden Empire, the Empress of the Efrita Empire, and the Emperor of the Ifeden Empire. All Kingdoms and minor Empires had already subordinated themselves to one of the 3.

    They wielded Realm 6 Strength and owned 1/3 of the World each, granting them boundless resources that they would never be able to finish alone, and yet, despite the vast power that they possessed, it was not enough.

    The three powers were in a turbulent state where they were constantly establishing and dissolving wars with each other all the time, desperately hoping for the day that they could claim the entire World as theirs, and move on to bigger things. After all, as the 3 hegemon¡¯s of the Yamelon World, they were privy to the deeper secrets in life, and were aware of the Law World above their heads.

    They even knew that there were distinguished factions in the Law World, who had long ago created branch factions in this World. Their sole purpose was to poach the mega talents who entered those branch factions, into their main factions.

    All of this information and more had been obtained by their Ancestors who had been lucky enough to be recruited in the past, so it was only natural that only a handful of people in this planet knew of the true intentions of those ¡®peculiar¡¯ factions, and why they had never been destroyed since the beginning of their existence.

    Even a majority of the higher ups in the branch factions were unaware of the truth, thinking that their respective factions were actually singular existences whose luck and power were of their own doing.

    Quite laughable.

    However, the 3 Supreme Emperors didn¡¯t think so. They spent a majority of their time scheming against each other in hopes that they could grasp the power of the entire World and increase their connection with the Sigothia World (The Law World).

    Even though they knew that their own chances of reaching that World was slim, talk less of arriving there and achieving anything substantial, they still hoped that their future descendants could achieve what they couldn¡¯t and attain the utmost glory for their Empire. And for that, they would do anything!

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    So they murdered, stole, kidnapped, r*ped, defamed, betrayed and worse. ¡®All for the greater good¡¯ they would say. After all, when they grasped the entire World in their hands, couldn¡¯t they rewrite history? They could paint the other 2 Empires as sinister, evil cults that were in cahoots with the Abyss, and paint their own Empire as the righteous faction that had used all their power to save the entire World. Eventually, all the people who knew the truth would die out naturally or be killed secretly, and that rewritten history would be all they could decipher from the past.

    Of course, they took into account the possibility of someone down the line finding hidden inheritances that carried the ¡®true history¡¯, so to prevent that, they were already prepared to establish forces or societal constructs that would label anyone that was found with such things as heathens who were attempting to betray the Empire, or evil beings who were the escaped descendants of the 2 evil cults.

    This war had lasted hundreds of years by now and they were prepared for everything. Eventually, things would come to an end and there would only be 1 master left.

    ¡­

    [Yamelon World, Ifeden Empire, Grayham Forest]

    The Grayham Forest was one of the Ifeden Empire¡¯s most famous locations that received all kinds of people from all kinds of places, so it wasn¡¯t rare to see multiple groups of people walking in and out every 10 - 30 minutes. However, 70% of these people never dared to tread past its outer region.

    This was because of the fact that the deeper you went, the more powerful the Beasts you encountered became. You could even find Realm 4 Beasts in the middle region, which was why out of the remaining 30% of people that visited the Forest, 25% dared to travel to the middle region.

    In the Inner Region of the Grayham Forest, there were 6 powerful Realm 5 Beasts with great renown who had divided up the territory, so it wasn¡¯t rare for people to come visiting and never be seen again. There were even rumours that a Realm 6 Beast had been slumbering within for over a thousand years, but despite the fact that nobody could confirm it, it was still incredibly daunting. So for this reason, only 5% of the people who entered the Forest came to the Inner Region.

    It was at a clearing that was not too far from the outer region¡¯s border, that a group consisting of four badly damaged teenagers dressed in extravagant clothing could be found. Surrounding these teenagers were older men covered in armour from head to toe, but they were divided into 4 different kinds. The most impressive group was the group covered in pure white armour that glowed, clearly containing potent Magical power.

    But judging by the way that they were all huddled around the teenagers with their backs towards them, it was clear that these people were guards, and not the cause of the current dangerous situation.

    No, that merit went to an even larger group.

 Ch.127 Princess of the Ifeden Empire

    Surrounding the group of teenagers and their guards were a mass of assassins covered in dark garments and masks. They wielded all sorts of weapons but the most commonly used ones were a pair of daggers or a crossbow, giving clear indications of their profession. There were over 100 of them and they were all in the 4th Realm, or very close to it.

    Even though the guards were also in the 4th Realm and even used much more powerful gear, there were only 36 of them left and that number was rapidly dwindling. If nothing changed then they were finished. Talented as the teenagers they were protecting were, their 3rd Realm strength wouldn¡¯t be able to perform anything substantial, and they most certainly could not help.

    ¡°Your highness!¡± yelled out the strongest guard of them all, he was part of the guards covered in the glowing white armour, and was clearly the leader of them all. He fended off the strike of an assassin with his sword (which was also completely white and glowing) and then cut off his head with an expert manoeuvre. ¡°You must use the Grand Displacement Bead and escape! There are too many-¡±

    ¡°But what about the others!¡± screamed out a girl whose beauty was so divine that it could turn any untrained male looking at her into a dullard.

    She had pure white hair that fell down to her waist, bright white eyes that shimmered like mercury, long white lashes that glittered like diamonds and a feminine body so tasteful that it should have been illegal.

    She wore a luxurious white dress with intricate silver patterns that somehow remained unblemished despite making it this far into the forest in such as precarious situation, but going off by its bright hue and the potent Magical Energy it was radiating, it was clear that its was an item even more special than the armour of the white guards.

    ¡°If they don¡¯t have their own means of escape, then you can only leave alone!¡± shouted back the head guard as he ducked a dagger slashing at his head, only to be impaled by an arrow in his right shoulder. However, he showed impeccable discipline and didn¡¯t flinch, managing to dispatch the assassin in front of him with 2 short moves before moving onto the next.

    ¡°But they¡¯re my friends! I can¡¯t aban-¡±

    ¡°Your highness, please! If you don¡¯t escape then we will all die here, including your friends. If you alone escape, then you can at least aveng- GUH! Huff! Huff!¡± SWING! ¡°You can at least avenge us later on!¡±

    The head guard had just been impaled by a sly rapier, but using the unrelenting tenacity that had gotten him to this position, he turned around and swung his sword with such ferocity that it split his hidden attacker in half. And then finished his sentence as if nothing had happened.

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    Meanwhile, the girl who was called highness was visibly distraught. The Grand Displacement Bead could only work once and only on one person, it wouldn¡¯t be able to bring the other 3 girls along with her.

    But she was the princess of the Ifeden Empire who had been raised with special training, and as such, her mind was sharp. She knew that if she decided to stay here, she wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything at all and she would just die along with her friends. But if she escaped, she could inform her imperial father about the situation and seize the opportunity for revenge later on.

    Gathering her thoughts, she gave a look of pity to her 3 closest friends, burning their image into her memory and vowing to take revenge.

    The other 3 girls returned her look with scared but brave smiles and encouraged her to flee, breaking her heart even further. But with resolution filling her heart, she raised her delicate wrist to her chest and focused on the twinkling silver bracelet wrapped around it as if she were looking at the time. A moment later, a smooth and tiny dark blue ball appeared out of thin air and she quickly caught it with a flick of her hand.

    Satisfied, she turned her attention to her guards, and then to the assassins. Although she wasn¡¯t able to gain a proof of identity from their appearance, she was sure that they were from the Syden Empire and she once again vowed to take revenge, but this time in the most ruthless manner.

    ¡°Your highness!¡± the head guard yelled out once more, surrounded by 4 assassins with similar strength to his own.

    His time was coming to an end.

    Tears pooled in the princesses eyes, filled with grief at the severe losses she was about to sustain, but with furious eyes she began to press down on the small ball in her hand (which was clearly the Grand Displacement Bead), intent on breaking it. However, just as she was about to succeed, a rough and deep voice spoke into her ear.

    ¡°Oh no you don¡¯t.¡±

    SWISH!

    ¡°Wh-¡± the Princess started before a blinding pain cut her off and the hand containing the bead detached from her body and fell to the ground with a light thud.

    Her hand had been cut off.

    She wanted to scream out in pain, but she had been trained better than that and adrenaline was coursing through her veins, yet still, she couldn¡¯t stop the pitiful whimper for leaving her lips.

    The pain of losing one''s hand wasn¡¯t one that could be easily ignored.

    However, the princess showed great perseverance and reached for the Bead with her other hand.

    ¡°Do you honestly think-¡±

    The princess heard the same voice and fear almost petrified her limbs, because deep down, she knew that she wouldn¡¯t be able to make it. She was just doing the best that she could so that she didn¡¯t feel remorseful in her afterlife. But then suddenly, the voice of her assassin was cut off, and a large amount of liquid splattered against her back.

    The liquid was crimson in colour and its pungent smell quickly began to irritate her nose.

 Ch.128 Truly a Divine Quest

    It was blood!

    The princess quickly snatched up her severed hand along with the Grand Displacement Bead before reeling backwards with shock, utterly perplexed by what had just happened. But even though she wanted to find out what had happened, she knew that every millisecond counted and suffering a loss of one could possibly mean death.

    That was not something she wanted to experience.

    So she quelled her instinctive desire to look for danger and squeezed the bead within her hand with force, hoping with all her heart that she would have enough time to escape whatever disaster was breathing down her neck safely.

    But just as the Bead was about to shatter, her entire body suddenly locked up and froze in place without her consent. No matter how hard she tried to flex her fingers or any of her other limbs, she could not move.

    She had lost control of her body completely.

    Fear assailed her mind and it was slowly causing her to become frantic, but even then she still did her best to retain the stability of her thoughts so that she could find a way to escape. She refused to give up, because that would mean that all would be loss and-

    ¡°Calm down, little girl~¡± A voice that sounded like it came from the high heavens suddenly spoke out with insurmountable power, caressing her ears like the softest of clouds and dispelling the murky fear within her heart like a divine light. The sound was as ethereal as the northern lights and twinkling stars and yet was filled with so much might that she could feel it down to the core of her being, and it was at that moment that she was sure that whatever entity was speaking to her must have been god himself, or something of a similar status.

    The human shaped golden light that suddenly appeared in the middle of the clearing only cemented her thoughts.

    ¡°My oh my~¡± The god muttered as it looked around at all the humans that were frozen just like her. ¡°What a terrible situation¡­¡±

    It then began to walk towards her and her friends who weren¡¯t too far away with graceful, autocratic steps that caused the ground to tremble. But the most terrifying thing about those steps was that each one caused groups of assassins to burst apart into mists of red, soaking the few remaining guards and the earth with blood.

    For a split idle moment, she reckoned that that was what must have happened to the person who cut off her hand.

    ¡°113 full grown men want to slaughter 4 innocent children in cold blood for the sake of currency. What an utter travesty¡­ What an utter disgrace¡­ A HUMILIATION!¡±

    At that last word, all the remaining assassins burst into blood at once, creating a downpour of blood that soon splattered against the ground with a sickening wet sound. The grass in the vicinity had turned completely crimson, and it was so much so that it looked like they were formed like that. After that, It didn¡¯t take long for the pungent smell of blood to become denser and it was almost unbearable.

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    A nausea inducing scene.

    But what really caused her to nearly have a heart attack was the fury within the gods voice that rattled against her bones. It was so horrifying that parts of her mind began to shut down and she nearly lost consciousness then and there.

    ¡°Ah. Sorry my dears~¡± The voice of the god spoke out once more with a sound that she was sure could put even the Nightmares from the Abyss to sleep, and the mental collapse that she had about to succumb to was quelled immediately. But it didn¡¯t completely stop her from feeling fear.

    That was because, deep down, she knew that the up and down reactions that she was having to this beings voice were absolutely abnormal, the scriptures said nothing about the gods ability to compel or at least influence with his voice, but the sighs of relief coming from all around her let her know that her friends and few remaining guards were experiencing the same thing as her.

    It was terrifying. But even knowing that, she couldn¡¯t feel the full depth of the emotion. No, as the god spoke, such ¡®irrelevant¡¯ thoughts were pushed to the back of her mind and she could only become more and more enraptured.

    ¡°I am unaccustomed to conversing with mortals and sometimes I forget how¡­ susceptible you are.¡± The god said as he covered his face with remorse.

    Then he let his hand drop to the side and stared up to the sky. And even without facial features (being a human-shaped light and all), the princess felt like she could see a hint of deep wisdom and profundity on his face. It was as if he was looking at something deeper than just a mere green sky.

    And perhaps he was. The princess reckoned that he was probably looking at the frameworks of the World itself, or at least something like that, whatever that would be.

    He was the god after all¡­

    ¡°Unfortunately I am unable to stay long. The planet has been improving rapidly in the last few millennia and requires my attention to steer it in the right direction.¡±

    ¡®So that¡¯s why the god has been silent for the last few thousand years!¡¯ the Princess thought with wonder.

    ¡°However, I have indeed neglected the residents of this World for what you would call a ¡®long time¡¯ and for that I apologise. And as such, to compensate for the chaos that I have let run amok in this World for the last few years, I would like to give you 4 children a powerful blessing.¡± The god said and finally lowered his head to look at the Princess and her 3 friends.

    Glee filled their hearts at what was said and they were almost unable to stop themselves from shivering.

    ¡°However, if I were to give out such a blessing for free, the karmic imbalance would destroy you. Which of course, we don¡¯t want, do we~¡± The god said as he folded his arms across his chest with a light chuckle. But the casual charm he exuded was so calming and welcoming that the others actually found themselves laughing along too!

    They were laughing with a god!

    ¡°So to counteract that, I will require a price. Just a small one. Big enough so that you won¡¯t be wrecked apart by Fate, but small enough that you should be able to accomplish it with relative ease.¡±

    The princess and the other 3 young mistresses from the Ifeden Empire were almost dizzy with anticipation, whereas the guards, even though jealous, were still happy to be able to witness the start of a divine quest.

    ¡°I want¡­ your wombs!¡±

 Ch.129 Divine Gifts

    ¡°I want¡­ your wombs!¡± The god said as he spread his arms out with his palms facing the air. It was an awe-inducing pose, but the words coming out of his mouth were so shocking that it left everyone listening dumbstruck. Nothing could have prepared them for the vulgar statement that came out of the gods mouth.

    However, the princess and the other 3 girls were rather quick-witted and they couldn¡¯t help but think of the offer that the god was giving them. He wanted to give them some kind of power in exchange for their wombs? Did the god want to impregnate them? Wouldn¡¯t that mean that they would obtain power, AND children of god?!

    They always knew that one day they would have to find a spouse and continue the bloodlines of their grand noble families. Love was rarely ever involved and the most opportune candidates were those with the best genes or at least power. This was something that had been practised amongst the powerful families for millions of years before them, and they had no desire to change that.

    Each of the 4 girls had already kept an eye on a few males they were interested in for the future, but in the face of this bizarre opportunity, all of those boys had all been thrown to the back of their minds. If the god was true to his words, then they would be granted with his seed! They would give birth to the children of god! How could they be anything less than ecstatic?!

    ¡°Your holiness¡± began one of the Noble girls as she stepped forward ¡°It would be my greatest honour to give birth to your children.¡± she said with her hands demurely clasped together and her head bowed.

    Apparently, they could move again.

    The other girls rushed forth to say roughly the same, but the god''s attention seemed to have been caught by the one who spoke first.

    ¡°I see¡­ What is your name?¡± he asked as he gave her an evaluative glance that sent shivers down her spine.

    ¡°My name is Tina Alstreim, your Holiness.¡± she answered with visible glee. Tina Alstreim was a great beauty descended from 1 of the 4 greatest noble families in the Ifeden Empire called the Alstreim Family. She had silken blonde hair, sky blue eyes, a curvaceous figure that seemed even more enticing than that of the Princess, and soft unblemished skin that beckoned the eyes.

    A great beauty indeed.

    ¡°Mmm¡­¡± The god hummed before nodding, causing Tina to feel both shy and proud, and the other 3 girls including the princess to feel jealous. However, what the god said next nearly shocked them silly.

    ¡°All of you seem to have misunderstood¡­ I do not intend to impregnate any of you at all. In fact, quite the contrary. I am about to take all of the eggs in your womb but one, and nothing in this World would be able to recover them.¡±

    To that, the girls froze and soon began to pale as the reality of what had just occurred dawned upon them. Had they just proposed to spread their legs for a god who wasn¡¯t even interested in the first place? What a blunder! What if he thinks they were promiscuous? What if he-

    ¡°Relax¡­¡± the god said with his cloud-like voice. ¡°There is no need to fret. I understand that I wasn¡¯t clear in my statement and that it was quite easy to misunderstand, for that I apologise.¡± the god said as he placed a hand on his chest in a sincere manner.

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    ¡®Wow¡­¡¯ the princess thought with growing awe, her previous fear nowhere to be found. Courtesy of the gods impeccable voice. ¡®Not only is he kind, patient and understanding, he seems to be able to read our mind... As expected from the god.¡¯ The princess nodded.

    None of them seemed to be upset about the fact that the amount of children they could give birth to was about to be reduced to 1 for eternity.

    The god snapped his head to the sky and continued to stare at it for a couple seconds in a pensive manner before looking back at the 4 girls. Clearly, something had changed.

    ¡°It looks like I don¡¯t have as much time as I thought¡­ I must return quickly if I don¡¯t want all of my work on this World for the last ¡®few¡¯ years to be reduced to waste. So be fast and tell me if you wish to accept my blessing.¡± he said in a tense manner that seemed to thicken the air, making each breath a bit of a struggle.

    The girls panicked at the sudden change in the situation and rushed to accept his proposal, unwilling to let the chance of a god''s blessing fly away from them.

    ¡°I accept!¡± ¡°Your Holiness, I accept!¡± ¡°I-I accept!¡± ¡°This lowly one accepts your grace!¡±

    Something seemed to change in the gods face but it only lasted for a moment before it was gone.

    ¡°Very well then~¡± he said before he disappeared and reappeared in front of Tina Alstreim with a single flash. The girl let out a short gasp but was silenced when the god placed his right hand on her head. Soon after, golden energy began to seep into her in droves and it didn¡¯t take long for her to start screaming.

    However, the other girls weren¡¯t afraid but were instead wildly elated. They all knew that with great increases of power there was almost always a severe pain that came along with it. They had all suffered to such a fate numerous times in the past from legendary treasures that their families had been able to obtain for them and were therefore quite used to it, so for Tina to be screaming like this, it meant that the power she was gaining was like nothing else they had ever seen before. And they were about to receive the same thing! What joy!

    2 minutes later, even though the girl had learnt to keep her voice, her face was still distorted with pain. However, the black and slimy sludge-looking thing that began to seep out of her pores caused the girls watching to once again gasp with shock.

    Impurity cleansing!

    Everybody knew how hard such a thing was to come by after surpassing the Body Refinement Realm, and although they had received unique treasures that had achieved this feat in the past, they were far and in between, and never like this! The amount of impurities being forced out of Tina¡¯s body was unheard of!

    At this point, they were almost panting with anticipation.

    3 minutes later, Tina broke through to the next stage and the ordeal was over. However, the princess who was the strongest of them thought she saw Tina¡¯s abdomen area glow with a golden light for a split second. However, she reckoned that it was merely the god taking his due and shrugged it off.

    The god didn¡¯t waste any time and moved on to the next girl, then the next, until finally it was her turn.

    She went through the same thing as the other girls, and when it was almost over, she saw with her Spirit Sense how all of the egg cells in her womb but 1 were eradicated in an instant with a golden glow. But just as a sentimental pain was about to overcome her, she saw a golden glow light up within the last remaining egg cell, and saw how it began to change colour, becoming something much more powerful than it used to be. And although she didn¡¯t know what the effects were, she was sure that the child born from that egg would be extremely gifted!

    The princess was ecstatic and began to sing countless praises to the god in her heart.

    But what she didn¡¯t know was that even though the same thing happened to the other girls, the resulting glow that lit up on her abdomen was much brighter, and there was a little¡­ extra something, that had been added into that egg cell that the other girls didn¡¯t receive.

    Something that would change the fate of the entire Yamelon World forever.

 Ch.130 Eridel the Conman

    Eridel looked at the 4 girls before him who foolishly believed him to be their god, but truthfully speaking, he didn¡¯t look down on them for it at all. Not only was his impersonation of the local god of light impeccable, but the fact that the god had in fact been dead for thousands of years proved to be too great an opening for Eridel to exploit.

    A few hours ago, he had arrived with the knowledge of the Yamelon World¡¯s only god, the god of light, and had already factored its existence into his plans (thanks to Gaia), but who would have thought that when he arrived, he would not be able to detect a single hint of undiluted divinity.

    This could only mean that even if there was a god in the past, it was either dead, or had left the planet completely. Which was impossible. There was no way for a god to leave the planet unless it became a World Sinner and assimilated the entire planet into its Divine Territory, erasing all life including the World Consciousness in the process, which of course, did not happen.

    Moreover, no amount of hiding or hibernating would be able to conceal Divine Energy from those who knew what they were looking for.

    The god was dead.

    ¡­How wonderful!

    Not only did this make Eridel¡¯s plans monumentally easier, but it even provided him with the perfect identity to imposter! Can you believe it? What a benevolent god indeed!

    But there was one problem.

    Even a dead god should leave a corpse overflowing with raw Divine Energy, so how could there be naught a single iota to be found? It had confused him for a moment, but it didn¡¯t take much of a second later to guess that the corpse had probably been taken by the higher ups of the Sighothia Law World, and that it was highly likely that they were the cause of the gods death too.

    But what did that have to do with Eridel? Nothing. At least not at this moment, so he began the first few steps of his plan and here he was, facing 4 teenage girls and a hoard of knights who looked at him as if he were god himself.

    Ha!

    Eridel¡¯s avatar shrouded in golden light began to float upwards as the surroundings became brighter and the ambient Magical Energy became turbulent. All sound ceased to exist, all motion came to a stop, and all attention was on the being who called himself god.

    ¡°Hear me, children of Yamelon. I must leave and return to Ageia as soon as possible to return to my¡­ tiring duties, but I have one last thing to say.¡± Eridel said with his arms spread out, seemingly ignorant of the fact that he was phasing out of existence.

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    ¡°If you 4 girls give birth to a child exactly 300 years from now, then your days will forever be blessed. You can oblige if you wish, but I will not scorn you if you don¡¯t.¡± Eridel said, much to the shock of the people below.

    ¡®There were still more blessings to come?!¡¯ they were thinking.

    ¡°Goodbye now.¡± Before they could even respond, Eridel disappeared in a bright show of light that left them transfixed.

    Nobody spoke and nobody moved.

    ¡­

    Above the Yamelon World, a humanoid figure that seemed to be carved from light itself abruptly appeared in shocking fashion, but soon after, the light that formed its body retreated inwards and revealed the devilishly handsome figure of a human male.

    Long white hair, dizzying golden eyes, peerless clean skin, pure white robes, and an autocratic demeanour that inspired immediate respect.

    This was of course, Eridel. But to be more specific, Eridel¡¯s first Avatar, Jonas. And right now he was sporting a wide grin that lit up his entire visage.

    ¡®Perfect! It looks like lady luck has been smiling upon me these days. Not even a single hint from the god of light? Ha! What great woe! Is there not a single female in existence that can resist my quintessential looks?! A tragedy indeed¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as he allowed the lack of gravity to spin his body around.

    His gift to those 4 girls was a great one indeed, and if it wasn¡¯t for the price that he took it would eventually lead to their doom if they didn¡¯t somehow pay it back themselves. Nobody could fleece away Fortune without paying it back. And whilst his price had looked like a 2nd gift because of the fact that he had obviously augmented their last remaining egg cells, the fact that he had permanently erased the remaining eggs was more than enough to offset that. Afterall, they could have become individuals who might have amounted into something great, and then they would create their own children and so forth. But not anymore. They had all been wiped out.

    Quite the price, right?

    At this moment, Eridel could dispel his Avatar and he wouldn¡¯t even need to make the return trip back, however, a sudden impulsive thought which he had no doubt was related to the domineering Will of his Planetary body, suddenly gripped his thoughts. His own Will was much stronger than before and allowed him to possibly ignore it, but the idea that had just popped into mind was too enticing and wasn¡¯t even that dangerous.

    ¡®What if¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as he caressed his hairless chin.

    The idea that had come to mind was undoubtedly fate changing, and if he didn¡¯t pay the appropriate price, his next Tribulation (which was already looking dicey thanks to the new Integral Laws and other such things that had been added to his Planet) would surely reduce him to dust.

    But he could deal with it. If his plans on the Yamelon World came to fruition, he wouldn¡¯t need to worry too much about Tribulations or anything related to it.

    ¡®But I wonder if it will work¡­ Such a thing is¡­ Well, I guess I¡¯ll see soon enough.¡¯ Eridel thought with suppressed excitement before disappearing into the distance in a streak of golden light.

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: Undiluted Divine Energy is Raw Divine Energy, Diluted Divine Energy would be the energy that things such as Divine Treasures and Divine Inheritances left by a divine being would contain.}

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: Ageia is what the residents of the Yamelon World consider their ¡®Heaven¡¯.}

 Ch.131 Elven Civil War

    [Central Continent, Forest of Dawn, Capital City of Elves]

    (4 Years Later, Year 167)

    Within the central region of the Central Continent¡¯s Eastern Forest (which had now been named the Forest of Dawn by its residents), a beautiful city which had incorporated the surrounding giant trees into its architecture¡­ was undergoing what seemed to be a civil war.

    The once ethereal designs of the Elven architecture had been soiled by blood and ashes, creating a scene of horror as the Elves within continued to clash against each other with strangely carved out bits of wood that bore suspicious resemblances to swords and spears.

    Clearly, the Elven Queen, Titania had not stopped advancing her race during the past 40 years, and they had even learned how to create weapons with the intent of causing damage. But what was the current situation?

    And what¡­ were those beings with Wings on their backs?

    ¡­

    [Forest of Dawn, Capital City of Elves, Shrine of Life]

    Not too far from the Elven Queen¡¯s palace was the Tree of Life which still stood domineeringly at the very centre of the Forest. Its height was so vast that it pierced the clouds and its multi-coloured leaves were so vibrant that they tantalised the eyes, and just below, the Spring of Life shimmered with its green liquid and seemed to have greatly increased in size since the beginning of its existence, reaching roughly 10 hectares large.

    Both of these 2 treasures of nature were extremely dazzling and it would be hard for anything in the vicinity to match its beauty, but just a few Trees away was a splendorous shrine that possessed many intricate carvings that seemed to portray both the Tree of Life and the Spring of Life. Its delicate designs and beautiful wooden materials were so eye-catching that it almost rivalled the Tree of Life in beauty.

    What was more amazing was that this building was the only one in the entire city that hadn¡¯t been sullied by the fires of war. Even the mighty palace was looking a little sorry! But in its defence, this was where the war was the hottest. People were dropping like flies all over the place and it was in total contrast to the tranquillity of the Shrine.

    But perhaps¡­ that had something to do with the fact that the very Queen who should have been protecting the palace was currently missing. Well, not missing to be exact, but she was certainly not anywhere near the palace.

    Nay, she was currently within the Shrine and was prostrating herself on the ground with her noble head pressed against the floor and her eyes closed. She was completely alone and seemed to be praying quite fervently, but when this was coupled with her divine looks, it made her look like a devout shrine maiden.

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    This continued for 2 more minutes before the peace of the environment was abruptly broken and the Queen was no longer alone.

    ¡­

    Green water that looked suspiciously like the water belonging to the Spring of Life had suddenly materialised in front of the praying Queen like a ghost before it quickly took on the form of a teenage girl. But even then, it hadn¡¯t finished its transformation and other colours started to appear on the humanoid-shaped blob of water.

    Soft white skin with a healthy ruddy glow, pearly white teeth and a delicate pink tongue, light green hair and eyes of the same colour, long pointed ears that stood erect from her hair, small hands with pretty green nails that seemed to be grasping a wooden sceptre? And finally, a shrine maiden garment with green hakama trousers.

    A few seconds later the being became solid enough to look no different from an actual Elf, and yes, she was indeed carrying a wooden sceptre. But considering the fact that the being was obviously formed from water¡­ was it really wood or did it just look like that?

    Despite the bizarre change in events, the Queen hadn¡¯t moved in the slightest and it soon became apparent that she had been expecting this. Not wasting time, she immediately paid her respects to the newly arrived teenage girl with her head still pressed against the ground.

    ¡°This lowly one greets the Heavenly Daughter.¡±

    ¡°Mmh¡­¡± the Heavenly Daughter noncommittally responded with a small nod, but clearly, this was the avatar of the Spring of Life, the self-proclaimed daughter of Eridel Domicus and the Anomaly known as Ciera Domicus. But how had she changed so much?

    Previously, she looked no different from a 10 year old humanoid blob of green water with twintails. But now, even though she still had her twin tails, she now looked like a flesh and blood being. An Elf on top of that. Moreover, she seemed to have grown by 6 years in appearance (which considering the fact that she was actually 167 years old was quite deceiving).

    How was this possible?

    ¡°Heavenly Daughter¡­¡± the Queen started cautiously. ¡°Are you sure that you don¡¯t want me to get involved yet? My- our people are dying.¡±

    ¡°I understand that. But when the Fae first rebelled 12 years ago, they didn¡¯t even have the chance to cause a single kill before you had already killed over half of them, subdued half of the rest and let the remaining ones flee, including their leader.¡± Ciera responded flatly, but when she spoke about the leader, there was a noticeable hitch in her voice.

    Even the Queen¡¯s heart began to race at the mention of the Fae leader. She still remembered the blood-curdling green energy that she had only seen once before, the emotions that it had inspired within her and the chaos it had caused¡­ Who knew that such an event would lead on to cause such problems within her recently established Kingdom?

    ¡°Now, our people know what rebellion tastes like, but not of the true repercussions.¡± Ciera continued with a wary look on her face. ¡°Of course, they know that you would do worse to them if they were to rebel again, the Fae I mean, the regular Elves are as loyal as can be, but most of them think that if you did not exist, they could easily seize control.¡±

    ¡°This is why I had you stay in this Shrine for 2 years, Titania. I wanted them to learn.¡± Ciera said before turning around.

    ¡°I wanted to let them experience the repercussions of war. What it means for your friends and enemies to die all around you. What it means to fear each and every sound you hear and every motion you see¡­¡±

    Ciera made a quick swiping motion across her face before sighing.

    ¡°Now they know.¡±

 Ch.132 The Origin of the Faerie

    Titania trembled for a moment before sighing.

    At the back of her mind she had always known that her timely interruption of the rebellion 12 years ago would possibly lead to a possibly bad future, especially when the loyal Elves that she had saved began to over rely on her for the protection of the Kingdom and began focusing more on the advancement of Elven culture. They were filled with blind trust, always thinking that as long as their Queen was alive, they would always be protected.

    Titania clenched her fists with frustration.

    Now, to learn a painful but valuable lesson, they were dying by the minute. Elves and Fae alike were slaughtering each other, and although it was actually the Elves who were overwhelming the Fae, Titania didn¡¯t want to see them die either.

    After all, they were technically Elves too.

    ¡­

    It all began 40 years ago when the World abruptly changed and became multiple times greater than before. The Elves called this event [The Second Heavenly Shift] because apparently, the Queen had seen something similar to this when she was the only Elf in existence.

    After The Second Heavenly Shift, the Trees had grown bigger and radiated more Wood Elemental Essence into the air, the ambient Magical Energy (which had become flavoured with Wood, Water and Life after the Queen, Tree of Life and Ciera converted the territory into a Sacred Land) greatly increased in quality, everyone had passively grown stronger and it was like a gift from the Heavens.

    But there was one more thing.

    When everyone had woken up and saw their peers still alive, they were jubilant with joy. They hugged each other and cried, promising each other to cherish their lives and make the most of it. However, there was suddenly a scream of shock that caught the attention of everyone in the vicinity, and what they found was nothing short of a miracle.

    In the Palaces front garden, people were surrounding a boy of 15 or so years who had stepped out of a bush. Obviously, he had been unlucky enough to be standing near it when the World had gone crazy and had fallen into it when he had lost consciousness, but the strange thing was that¡­ he had wings!

    Huge butterfly-like wings erected from his back in beautiful colours of green and gold, casually released green-gold sparkles that faded into the air like fireflies, and glowed like a pair of magical treasures that could not be blemished.

    The boy himself had bright green eyes and blonde hair, the norm for an Elf, but the people who were surrounding him and obviously knew him noticed that other than the spectacular wings, the boy had experienced a few other chances that caused him to look different from before. Not only was he quite a bit taller than before and also a lot more handsome, his muscles had also swelled in size despite not doing anything. How bizarre!

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    They knew this boy because he was the most talented youth in his generation and was also born from the Tree of Life. Because of this, he had been allowed free access to the Palace and often frequented the place.

    It didn¡¯t take long for people to find out that he was a dragon amongst men and extremely skilled in leadership. The boy had even formed his own organisation called [Faerie] who tasked themselves with upholding the Elven noble heart, maintaining justice, protecting the weak, indulging in cultural arts and more.

    The organisation had obviously started off small, but it had swiftly become a force to be reckoned with when even Core Refinement (3rd Realm) cultivators began joining, despite the fact that their leader was a 15 year old boy with no cultivation.

    It was not that he was untalented or anything, but a rule had passed a few decades ago that youths were only allowed to cultivate when they became 16 years old, so that they could take all the time before then to plan out their future path. It was a rule that had taken place when the Grand Elders had realised that there were too many people being pushed into being warriors, and not enough people to advance other things like building, clothing and entertainment, and the Queen had approved.

    Who knew that despite having no cultivation that the boy who was named Zalucard would experience such a shocking transformation?

    Everybody congratulated him and said it must have been a gift from the Heavens for creating the Faerie, the organisation which had improved the livelihood of many Elves and taught them the importance of being more ¡®Just¡¯, ¡®Elegant¡¯ and ¡®Refined¡¯.

    The reason why they thought it was a gift instead of a curse was because everybody knew of the boy''s obsession with Butterflies¨C something about them being the embodiment of beauty and elegance or something like that¨C and thought that the Heavens decided to gift him with Butterfly wings.

    Later on, they found out that every single member of Faerie had gained the same boons as Zalucard and had wings of their own! Naturally, it caused quite the scene and there were many people who joined the organisation in hopes that they could gain the same blessing, including a few Grand Elders. But alas, there were no more transformations after the first batch and people who joined solely for that purpose began to leave.

    But not everybody did! A few of the Grand Elders that had joined were able to experience first-hand the benefits of the Faerie organisation to their race as a whole and actually decided to stay so that they could advance it, hoping that their race would experience better improvements.

    Obviously, such a thing attracted more people to join and the Faerie organisation experienced a booming rise.

    As for the original people who had transformed and gained wings, they were named as the first subrace of the Elves called the [Fae], obviously named after their organisation, and received lavish gifts from the Queen herself.

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: The Elven Grand Elders are the Elves that were born in the Queens batch. The other 199 of the first 200 Elves that the Tree of Life produces once a month. Regular Elven Elders are just those that are powerful enough to be called so.}

 Ch.133 Zalucardâ€™s Proposal

    After that things went pretty smoothly for the Elven race and they were constantly improving every day thanks to the brilliant mind of the Queen and the unique ideals of the Faerie. However, years passed and eventually there came a time where nearly all of the positions of power (disincluding the Grand Elders of course), had been rightfully obtained by the Fae.

    In year 150, which was 23 years after the Second Heavenly Shift and the birth of the Fae, 37% of the Elders in the Elven Kingdom were actually Fae. Naturally, this caused some thoughts to enter a few people¡¯s heads, but for the most part, it didn¡¯t really matter.

    Although there were times that a racial joke was made such as the term ¡®Half Elf half Butterfly¡¯, most people considered the Fae as no different from an Elf if not an even more elite version, and there was no problem with the Fae obtaining so much power. After all, their power was obtained righteously and fairly. In fact, under Zaculard¡¯s lead, the Fae were so noble that there were times that they would willingly give up power to those that deserved it, or sacrificed themselves to protect the weak.

    As a matter of fact, it was becoming a rising notion that the Fae were peak Elven lifeforms. They all had greater talent than regular Elves, greater strength, greater wisdom, greater creative ideas, selfless benevolence, noble hearts, unparalleled elegance, bewitching beauty and an awe-inspiring love and respect for nature.

    Was this not the very essence of what it meant to be the perfect Elf? Was this not what all Elves aspired to be?

    The Elves loved the Fae and their adoration for them was increasing by the year, and if it wasn¡¯t for the Queen¡¯s new rule that prevented Fae from reproducing with Elves (in hopes that they could produce more pureblooded Fae), they would have become the best candidates for marriage (something that always led to the birth of children if not its only purpose).

    However, they still considered it a huge offence when Zalucard, the progenitor of the Fae, suddenly asked for the Queen¡¯s hand in marriage 1 year later (Year 151).

    The concept of marriage had taken place in the Elven Kingdom more than a hundred years ago because of the fact that the more powerful people kept on building harems of spouses and the weaker people were utterly unable to find even a drop of love. Obviously, this was quite a bit tragic for those at the bottom, and when these people started running off into situations that would surely end up leaving them dead (like attacking the Beast Kingdom in the Southern Region of the Forest), it was decided that things had to change.

    For a while, it was debated that the weaker people should either find a harem owner to attach themselves to or become strong enough to own harems themselves, however, the Queen, who had knowledge of monogamy and its benefits to society, decided to introduce a majority of its concepts into their society including adultery.

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    In the memories she had gained, adultery was heavily frowned upon but it wasn¡¯t a crime. However, in the Elven Kingdom, adultery was most certainly a crime, and was punishable by death. It wasn¡¯t that the Queen had a personal issue about polygamy, but it was the only way to get those who owned harems to give it up and choose only one spouse. She couldn¡¯t wait for them to die out of old age like a mortal ruler would so she had to be extreme in times like this. Later on, she planned to lighten the punishment for adultery and other such things that had been labelled as ¡®crimes¡¯, but for now, it still remained to be a fatal crime that shouldn¡¯t be committed unless you were seeking death.

    So for Zalucard to ask for the Queen¡¯s hand in marriage despite the fact that she was already married, was that not asking her to commit adultery? Was that not asking her to die?

    The concept of divorce had not been introduced (even if some people were gradually coming up with a few rudimentary ideas leading up to it on their own), so there was no other possibility other than Zalucard intending for the Queen to disregard Alan and commit adultery with him.

    Madness!

    Although the Elves wouldn¡¯t dare to say anything even if the Queen were to break any or every of her own rules (because they loved and revered her that much), until the Queen responded, they absolutely wouldn¡¯t let Zalucard off!

    That day, Zalucard almost died, and If it wasn¡¯t for some kind of strange powerup consisting of the invasive green energy the felt extremely cold and left the minds of those that were affected by it in disarray, and the swift arrival of the Fae, then he definitely wouldn¡¯t have lived to live another day. Leader of the Faerie or not.

    But instead of running off into seclusion or even fleeing the whole Kingdom altogether, Zalucard began to preach to the masses about the benefits of such a union to the entire Elven Race.

    Of course, people tried to attack him once again, but this time he was ready and there were elite Fae guards everywhere he went. The Elves felt betrayed by this but going by the nonchalant manner of the guards that surrounded him and the passionate behaviour of the Fae that listened to him, it was clear that they were already in the know.

    Something that caused the beginnings of the first true divide between the Fae and the Elves.

    However, the more the Elves reluctantly listened, the more they began to feel like the things he was saying weren''t so bad. If Zalucard and the Queen were to band together on the highest level possible, who knew what greatness would rain from their combined brilliant minds? The Elves couldn¡¯t help but have fantasies of such a power couple that would undoubtedly advance their race by miles upon miles.

    Something that Grand Elder Alan had unfortunately failed to live up to.

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: For those who didn¡¯t get it, the concept of suicide doesn¡¯t really exist yet. The Elves who suffered loveless lives and had suicidal thoughts but not the knowledge of what they¡¯re really thinking, simply concluded that the ¡®Heavens¡¯ were prompting them to sacrifice themselves for the ¡®greater good¡¯.}

 Ch.134 Beating up Juniors in Broad Daylight

    Speaking of Alan, on the 2nd month of Zalucard¡¯s speeches, he was unable to keep his silence and actually came down from the palace to confront him.

    Originally, he thought that the boy would suffer from the undying loyalty that the Elves had for the Queen and would only need to wait it out. Sooner or later, the Elves would no longer be able to endure the Zalucard¡¯s nigh blasphemous tales, and he wouldn¡¯t need to anything on his own. But who would have thought¡­ who would have thought that the mere boy of 39 years of age would actually begin to change the minds of the people!

    He had no doubt that half the reason for his success had to do with the stupid act of handing out his resources to the crowds that came to his speeches. Such an act was too selfless even for a Fae, and even he thought that the boy was one of the most exemplar ¡®Elves¡¯ that he had ever seen.

    However, this boy was coming for his own position and he was not going to allow it! Still, he was a noble Elf and wasn¡¯t going to start killing on sight, instead, he was going to give the boy a warning first. But if the boy refused to give up his foolish acts, don¡¯t blame him for being ruthless!

    ¡­

    Such a meeting naturally ended up in disaster.

    Alan had come to one of the speeches with 2 Grand Elders accompanying him, much to the crowd¡¯s awe, and proposed that Zalucard ceased his actions of trying to marry the Queen or suffer the consequences.

    The fact that Alan had managed to summon 2 Grand Elders to this occasion spoke volumes of how seriously he was taking this situation. Normally, all the Grand Elders along with the Queen spent all their time cultivating or improving the martial techniques, only taking time out on special occasions like the birth of the Fae to make an appearance. Even the Grand Elders that had stayed in Faerie after finding it satisfactory went back into seclusion after things had settled down and it was unknown when they would reappear.

    This was because of the fact that as Grand Elders, they were extremely knowledge about the circumstances of the Dawn Forest and even places outside of it such as the Western Forest containing the True Dragons, the vast desert in the South with the ridiculously huge Elephant, the ex-neighbour Snakes who now resided in the centre of the Continent, and even the Jungle in the North that had given birth to the new Monkey King who¡¯s 400 metre tall height nearly rivalled the Elephant.

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    Such forces had large territories and powerful forces that they could employ along with terrific ambitions that aimed for the skies, and all of them, including the mellow and calm Elephant, were competition. So if the Elves wanted to preserve their freedom and grow their influence in this Continent for years to come, they had to take every chance that they got to raise their power!

    However, this caused them to often neglect their surroundings.

    It was because of this reason that the Queen was mostly oblivious to the current situation and hadn¡¯t responded to Alan¡¯s actions in all this time, something that she would come to dearly regret in future.

    Zalucard had refused Alan¡¯s demands, and after Alan made a few more desperate attempts to change Zalucard¡¯s mind (because he truly liked the boy and didn¡¯t want to see him dead), he ruthlessly attacked him just like he said he would.

    That was when things all went wrong.

    A massive brawl between Zalucard, who at the time was in the Mana Refinement Realm (2nd Realm) and Alan who was in the Soul Refinement Realm (4th Realm) took place. Obviously, no matter how miraculous Zalucard was, it was impossible to breach the gap of 2 entire Realms, so his many guards got involved, and in turn, Alan¡¯s 2 accompanying Grand Elders also got involved.

    The fight lasted quite a long time before a group of Grand Elders who had been informed of the situation came and put a stop to it, but amongst these Grand Elders were those who had joined Faerie, and naturally they were more inclined to take Zalucard¡¯s side. They didn¡¯t even bother to take in Alan¡¯s account and directly brought him back to the palace where he had to explain himself to the Queen herself, who could no longer act aloof.

    Her husband was out on the streets, beating up a junior in broad daylight! What a humiliation!

    However¡­ She too realised that she was at fault for letting the situation go on for so long and decided not to punish Alan at all. After all, he was doing this for her. How could she be so heartless as to punish him for it when the situation was still rectifiable? All she did was make him promise not to attack the boy again, then made a public announcement that she would not marry Zalucard, and that he should completely stop his campaigns or truly pay the consequences.

    This completely changed the Elves'' thoughts towards Zalucard once more, and now they completely despised him.

    ¡®What were we thinking?¡¯ They would ask themselves ¡®A man who dares to poach the married Queen? How insidious! Is this the true face of Zalucard, the leader of the noble Faerie? The Fae were also in on it and fully supported him even now, they must be in cahoots! The whole Faerie is a scam!¡¯

    They had completely disregarded all the donations that had been freely given and all the good deeds that Faerie had performed.

    All because of one announcement from the Queen.

 Ch.135 The Encroachment of Envy

    After that, the division between the Elves and the Fae began to grow without a visible stop in sight. It wasn¡¯t too serious in the beginning, the Elves would just shun the Fae from whatever activities that they were doing or scam them out of resources, however, this kind of bullying kept on growing until the Fae weren¡¯t even allowed to own any of the nicer buildings or live anywhere close to the Queen, they also had to take the more dangerous jobs and many of them ended up dying.

    Naturally, no matter how intrinsically nice the Fae were, there was no way that they could continue to take this kind of persecution without retaliating, but in the end, they were quite unwilling to give up their noble Faerie code which had become an innate trait of their race when they had become the Fae, so all they did was band even closer together and protect each other when needed. Sometimes things got violent, but it wasn¡¯t too unbearable

    However, when the first Fae to die on the streets in broad daylight ended up being a small child of the 2nd generation, all gloves came off! The Fae had always thought that their children would be fine so long as they didn¡¯t stick their head out too much, after all, they were children and children were the future. It was utterly sinister to harm a child, something that the Fae couldn¡¯t fathom, so their protection towards them was somewhat lacking. It shouldn¡¯t have mattered because everyone loves kids, but who would have thought that the Elves would be so cruel!

    Unfortunately, the Fae were unaware of the fact that when the Elf that had killed the child committed the deed, a strange green energy that wasn¡¯t too dissimilar to that of their leader had taken control of the man¡¯s body. His eyes had filled with green light and a strange symbol had appeared on his forehead.

    Too bad, all of these markings had disappeared after the deed and the man¡¯s consciousness had returned, but before he could even feel remorse for his actions, 5 Fae that had heard the dying screams of the child appeared before him with enraged faces before tearing him apart.

    This occurred 3 years after the Queen¡¯s announcement (Year 154), and it marked the beginning of the rebellion.

    The Fae began to parade around the streets, complaining about the unjust harassment that they had been suffering despite their grand contributions to the Elves, and began demanding that the Queen should give back everything that was taken from them and return their honour, or marry Zalucard and make him King.

    They came and went with such domineering force that the proud Elves that used to pick on them before began to steer out of their way, not wanting to be the next Elf to be torn to pieces. So like this, their momentum continued to rise until 1 year later, they actually began to become more violent. They forcefully confiscated homes from Elves and took the resources of others, however, even in this chaotic state, the only Elves that they harassed were Elves that were deemed too devious or useless to society.

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    They still considered themselves the noble Fae whose goal was to uplift the quality of all Elven life, even if there had been a clear division between the Elves and the Fae. It was in their very nature after all.

    However, one day, a certain portion of the group of Fae parading the streets began to glow with a green aura, but that mass amount of green aura started to raise a strange feeling of Envy on those who were nearby and they too began to glow with the same green aura.

    It was like an unholy plague, and at the head of it was Zalucard.

    Normally, the boy had bright green eyes which weren¡¯t too uncommon for an Elf or even a Fae for that matter, but at that moment, they were glowing with an ominous light that caused those who looked into them to feel ugly emotions rising in their hearts. But on top of that, there was an even more eerie green symbol that was etched onto his forehead, and looking at it was even worse.

    It didn¡¯t take long for the emotions of everyone in the vicinity to become extremely volatile. The noble Fae began to scream their protests with spittle flying out of their mouths and wild eyes looking in every direction, and the gentle Elves began to throw whatever they could grab at the crowds of Fae with similar appearances.

    Strangely enough, the longer this continued, the more the green aura continued to spread and the more the ambient temperature began to drop. It was completely terrifying and everyone with a brain should have been screaming and fleeing, or at least becoming vigilant, however, that was not the case.

    Instead, the people just became more and more wilder to the point that a furious battle was going to take place at any second.

    None of them¡­ none of them were aware of the fact that portions of the green aura that was growing and at an even faster rate¡­ began to be sucked into the strange mark on Zalucard¡¯s head.

    As this continued to go on, the mana within Zalucard¡¯s body, which was also green in colour, began to rise at a pace that had never been seen before. Even his flesh and blood began to receive the strange green essence and it could be considered that he was undergoing Anatomy Refinement.

    WHOOOSH!

    Zalucard¡¯s aura burst forth as he broke through the 9th Stage of the 2nd Realm and entered 1st Stage of the 3rd (Core Refinement Realm), and his Anatomy Refinement officially began at the 1st Stage. The only reason that impurities didn¡¯t begin to flood out of his veins was because they were directly eradicated by the same energy that was nourishing his body.

    Other people had to not only endure great pain to achieve what Zalucard had just achieved, but that also had to be lucky too. After all, if all you needed was pain to unlock Anatomy Refinement, then nearly everybody on the planet would have done so. You needed a suitable enriching force that would preserve your life and help you grow to complete the process, and even then, dying still wasn¡¯t out of the question. But here, Zalucard had entered the path of Anatomy Refinement as easily as inhaling oxygen!

    If people like Raiko and the Crystal Dragon King heard of what had happened, who knew how many teeth they would have grinded away out of anger.

 Ch.136 Deathâ€™s Acceptance

    The green energy continued to grow denser and spread further, hypnotising everyone that was encompassed within and increasing Zalucard¡¯s power. Everybody was screaming at each other (not just Elf vs Fae anymore) with utter animosity and appeared extremely volatile, but just as the first punch was thrown and Zalucard broke through to the 2nd Stage of Core Refinement, everybody including him froze as a mighty pressure enveloped all their bodies.

    This was clearly the work of a powerful person¡¯s aura and for some reason it felt very familiar, but their brains were too addled for them to identify who it belonged to. But in the next moment, the green was dispersed like smoke and sanity began to return to the eyes of the Elves and Fae.

    Zalucard was the only person who had remained sane the entire time, but even as a smile remained on his face it looked quite grim. Naturally, he could identify the owner of the domineering aura as the Queen.

    Soon, many people also realised the same thing and immediately dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves, begging for mercy and shooting accusations at Zalucard. This was mostly the Elves but even some of the Fae were doing so.

    They were not fools. They could see Zalucard¡¯s abnormal appearance (strange symbol and neon eyes) and knew that everything had to do with him. They felt confused and betrayed but their noble hearts demanded that they do what was best, and that was to give up Zalucard for punishment.

    Unfortunately, these people only amounted up to about 26% of the Fae. Shockingly, around 60% of them still had a green neon glow in their eyes and were still affected by the green mist. They had turned their envious and ravenous glares towards the Queen who had appeared down the street and was steadily walking closer, and began screaming even more. Some of them even ran towards her with obvious hostile intent, apparently ignorant of the difference in power.

    Obviously, they didn¡¯t get very far.

    Apart from Zalucard, anyone who had a green glow in their eyes had perished in a single moment. Elf or Fae. Large twisting spears of wood had erupted from the ground and pierced their heads, killing all of them down to the last one with flawless precision. The remaining people didn¡¯t even have time to react before those same branches grabbed them and divided them into 2 groups.

    The first group were the people who had lost the crazy green light in their eyes and regained their sanity but didn¡¯t act subservient to the Queen when she appeared, and the other group was just everyone else. The Fae who had prostrated themselves and the Elves.

    Zalucard was standing at the forefront of the first group, defiantly glaring back at the Queen who was staring at him, but then he suddenly smirked and said ¡°Your Highness, your beauty truly-¡±

    ¡°Just leave, Zalucard. Take those people with you and leave.¡± the Queen interrupted him with a cold look in her eyes.

    Zalucard¡¯s face actually paled, the symbol on his forehead faded away and the ominous glow in his eyes disappeared. ¡°Your Highness, you cannot do this! This was just a mis-¡±

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    The pressure from before suddenly came back with increased power that nearly sent him crumpling to his knees. ¡°From here on forth, you and your group are exiled, and if you ever come back you will die immediately. The only reason you get to keep your beastly life is because of your grand contributions to the Kingdom, something that I thank you for. But I do not have any more patience for your actions anymore, Zalucard, so leave. You have become a danger to our race.¡±

    For a moment, Zalucard just stood there lost, unbelieving of the fact that the Queen had effectively offered him a death sentence. After all, everybody knew that it was impossible to survive alone unless you were in the 4th Realm, something that was too much of a distant dream for him.

    The paltry amount of Fae that had been grouped with him were insignificant in the grand scheme of things and wouldn¡¯t be able to truly help him. He was doomed!

    Gritting his teeth, he looked at the Fae that had been spared and then the Fae that were with him, who were looking back at him with mixed parts of fear, anger and dependency. The anger wasn¡¯t directed towards him, something he was slightly glad for, but he couldn¡¯t bring himself to care too much at the moment.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± He said before walking towards the gates of the city without turning back once.

    ¡­

    The Queen came back to her senses and lifted her head up to look at the demure figure of the Heavenly Daughter before her. She wanted to console her but the plight of her people had her on edge, her muscles and mana thrummed with the need to speed off to stop the war.

    ¡°Heavenly Daughter¡­¡± the Queen began ¡°May I-¡±

    ¡°You can go.¡± Ciera interrupted softly.

    The Queen winced and guiltily nodded before standing up and vanishing in the next moment.

    ¡­

    Outside of the Palace, the Elves were surrounding the final group of rebels with faces filled with rage. Everyone had suffered in this war but the winners were the righteous and the losers were the evil. The Elves were more than willing to release their rage on the final members of the rebel group, culling them until there were no more left. They brandished their swords and spears and charged forth with overflowing killing intent.

    The rebel group on the other hand weren¡¯t going to just sit there and wait for death so they too pointed their weapons. Funnily enough, it wasn¡¯t just the Fae in the group, there were Elves too. These people were actually the members of Faerie who had joined after the birth of the Fae and had been even more furious about the injustice shown towards the Fae than the Fae themselves.

    It was mainly them that were behind the instigation of this rebellion. They were angry that Zalucard and the others had been exiled after doing so much and such emotions kept on rising intensity all these years with no reprieve, and this was the result. But even they would have done anything to reverse the situation. The blood that had been shed this day has been too much!

    However, they had already jumped onto the tiger and there was nothing they could do about it now. They could only see things to the end, praying for a miracle to happen¡­ Oh how they wished the Queen were here. They thought that her disappearance had been the best thing to happen to them after Zalucard¡¯s exile, barely even hesitating before plotting their rebellion¡­ Utter foolishness!

    Unfortunately, it was too late to realise this now. The death they had been courting for so long was finally about to accept their advances.

 Ch.137 The Queen Appears

    The Elves and the Faerie rebels charged at each other with their faces pale or red from blood loss or adrenaline, their expressions twisted with fear or fury, their veins stretched against their skin and their weapons fiercely gripped. But just as they were about to indulge in the final clash, a sudden change occurred.

    A mass of large tree branches had suddenly erupted from the ground, wrapping around their waists and wrists and immobilising every last one of them in a single instant like it was nothing.

    The people weren¡¯t fools, so after a brief moment of confusion, shock and futile resistance, they quickly identified the cause of the strange branches and exclaimed out loud with fear, reverence or plea.

    ¡°¡°¡°THE QUEEN!¡±¡±¡±

    They immediately dropped their weapons and tried to prostrate themselves but were restricted by the branches. Strangely enough, that seemed to cause some of them a little bit of fear. They even tried to struggle out of the branch''s grip to the point of incurring injuries, fighting its relentless grip just so that they could kneel.

    Were they attempting to beg for their lives or did they just respect the Queen that much?

    However, nothing changed and for some reason the Queen didn¡¯t appear. The branches were still tightly wrapped around them but nothing happened next. Yet even considering this, instead of becoming wild or or overly-agitated, they instead ceased their useless struggle against the branches. Nobody dared to move or make a sound.

    They were in trouble and they knew it.

    It was only 5 minutes later that they heard a light pitter-patter sound, something they soon recognised as the sound of soft bare feet slapping against the ground. They quickly lifted up their heads and witnessed the heart-palpitating sight of the Queen walking out of the gates of her palace with her all-white eyes glowing like never before.

    They way she ambled towards them as she idly looked in random directions reminded them of a simple person who was strolling through their garden and admiring flowers. However, when the Elves tracked the source of her idle attentions to the piles of blood, ashes, bodies and broken weapons, they couldn¡¯t help but feel a chill spread across their spine.

    Guilt and fear coursed through their hearts, causing them to shiver with nervousness as the soft pitter-pattering of the Queen''s feet became closer and closer. The sound was soft and light but it slapped across their ears like the cracking of whips. The tension in the air was so thick that it almost felt tangible and the strength they were previously so proud of now felt like nothing. It was horrible.

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    Finally, the Queen had arrived in front of them and had stopped moving, but at this point they were trembling so badly that they wondered if others could hear the rattling of their bones. The Queen hadn¡¯t even exhibited her aura in the slightest but they still felt like the weight of their flesh had increased by many kilograms and if it weren¡¯t for the support of the branches still wrapped around them, some of them would have crumpled to the ground.

    They silently begged for the Queen to give her verdict, hoping to get this over with, but woefully contrary to their pleas, the Queen stood silently as she stared at everyone, and this continued for 2 whole torturous minutes that they could have sworn had somehow been multiplied by 10.

    At this point, whether they had suffered grievous wounds or not, all of them had pale faces and shivering lips. They had long forgotten their past fury with each other and had thrown any thoughts of revenge far, far away. And now, the differences between Elf and Fae were beginning to fade away. As they continued to tremble and look around to see other people whether Elf or Fae tremble just like them, they began to feel a small sense of companionship that made them feel slightly better.

    They had reached a strange sort of union through their mutual fear for their future and desperately wished that they could take back everything that they had done.

    It was at this moment that the Queen finally spoke.

    ¡°People of the Elven Kingdom¡­¡± she began with a soft tone and tranquil expression. However, not only did her voice spread far and wide like thunder, the piercing light in her eyes that kept getting brighter and brighter betrayed the serenity of her demeanour and gave off an impression of heavenly wrath.

    ¡°You have completely failed me.¡± the Queen gave a demure nod as if it was to be expected, but the listeners on the other hand felt like the temperature had dropped.

    ¡°Not only have you started a terrible war that has claimed countless lives of your fellow man, but you have even dared to desecrate the palace and undermine my authority in my absence.¡±

    The Queen looked at a few faces in the crowd, faces which swiftly cringed with fright, and then looked at puddles of blood and piles of ashes that stained her castle walls once more. ¡°Mmh, you all have great guts.¡±

    The Queen was indifferent to the increasing heart rates of her people and continued to survey the damage caused by the war. None of the constructions had actually suffered any damage thanks to them being crafted from the World¡¯s natural resources (mostly wood), but there were stains everywhere and some of them wouldn¡¯t be able to be cleaned. Not with the facilities that the Kingdom had at least.

    The Queen turned back to her people with the same calm expression but inwardly she was extremely vexed. This whole war had been extremely foolish, and they were all going to have to pay for it.

    Suddenly, a Fae boy of around 20 years suddenly fell limp. He was still held up by the branches wrapped around him but it was clear that he had fallen unconscious. The Queen¡¯s attention snapped towards him and immediately noticed how serious his wounds were. If nothing was done then he was sure to die at any moment.

    She didn¡¯t need to look around to know that there were others who weren¡¯t too far off from ending up like him and it took a bit of effort to stop the frustration that she felt from showing on her face.

    ¡°Fools¡­¡± she sighed.

 Ch.138 Converting a Planet into an Anomaly?

    Suddenly, the branches that were constricting everyone began to glow green and radiated a peaceful yet stifling aura, the kind of stifling feeling that was felt when you were standing next to an extremely potent power source.

    At first it didn¡¯t look like anything special was happening, just green lights and a slightly daunting but all-around peaceful aura. But slowly, it looked like the injuries covering the bodies of the people they were wrapped around were beginning to fade? This was more noticeable on the people whose wounds were more ferocious like the fellow who had fallen unconscious, the huge gashes on his body caused by the sharp wooden swords were visibly closing. Even his face was looking less like that of a corpse¡¯s and had gained a slight, very slight, ruddy hue.

    They were being supernaturally healed and all of this had been caused by the Queen.

    Thinking about it, it didn¡¯t seem too far-fetched to think of such a thing. After all, not only did she bear a perfect affinity for both the Wood and Life Elements with her mana being formed from the very Laws of Wood, but she also had a faint comprehension on the corresponding Laws, something that was no doubt a result of her mental connection to the Tree of Life.

    The Laws were not a joke. To be born with the ability to create mana out of Law Essence was one thing, but to gain the comprehension that would allow you to wield the Laws was another thing altogether. It was too hard, especially in this era where knowledge was lacking. Only the combination of the Queen¡¯s intellect, the memories she inherited from Ciera and her special connection that she had to the Tree of Life enabled her to come this far.

    ¡®Thank the Heavens¡­ If I hadn¡¯t learnt how to use my mana externally, many more people would have died this day.¡¯ The Queen thought as she secretly sighed with relief. Before, it wasn¡¯t possible to accomplish any of the feats that she had been performing. The understanding that the Elves had for magic was too low and the only thing they were able to do was bolster their physical bodies with their mana or release their aura. However, a few years ago, the Queen finally learnt how to use her mana outside her body and alter the reality before her, and till this day, only a select few others were able to learn this.

    After getting healed to a certain extent, the green glow around the branches faded away, and even though most of them hadn¡¯t been completely healed, none of them were at the risk of dying and they were all grateful. However, only a few of them managed to stutter out their gratifications. The rest were still relatively stunned.

    ¡°¡°¡°W-we t-t-tha-thank y-your hi-highness¡±¡±¡±

    The Queen raised her hand and silence was once more restored.

    ¡°For the crime of murdering your fellow man, you all would have usually been sentenced to death¡­ But that is obviously not possible.¡± the Queen said. After all, killing everybody here meant killing 87% of their entire race. How could she possibly do such a thing?

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    ¡°We have already experienced so much death and there is no need for more. So instead, I will have to punish you in a¡­ different way. But first¡­¡± The Queen looked at the corpses and stains once more. ¡°Clean all of this up¡±.

    Then she walked right back into the palace.

    ¡­

    [Lolay Galaxy, Desolate Region, Unknown Gaseous Planet]

    ¡°At last, I have finally completed the formation.¡±

    Standing upon the core of a pink gaseous planet was Eridel¡¯s Avatar in all his white garbed glory, and despite being in such a hazardous location he looked as neat and kept as he always did.

    As for the Planet, it was a rather decent sized gaseous planet that had yet to become a True World that he had found roughly 1 and a half years ago, and was the Planet that he had chosen for his crazy experiment.

    Normally, a gaseous planet had no chance to become a True World. After all, the most crucial criteria to become one was to have the indisputable potential to raise a sapient species, something that was too hard to accomplish in a gaseous World where the heat was unbearable, the pressure was cell-crushing, and the only hard surface in its entire structure was its planetary core.

    Talk less of a sapient species, even an organism would take herculean effort to raise in such a planet, now if you were to add on to the fact that any planet below a special Mid World was unable to form a consciousness, therefore being unable to control its actions¡­ It was too difficult!

    A few years ago, Eridel had the sudden wild idea to find a planet that had yet to become a True World and convert it into an Anomaly. He himself didn¡¯t know all of the requirements for something to become an Anomaly, but he knew that whatever he wanted to convert must not already have a Soul. Obviously that was not a problem, but on top of that, the thing he wanted to convert had to be a strong enough vessel that could absorb an indefinite amount of the Soul-attuned Magical Energy that was native to the Eridius World so that it could become an Anomaly. Cleo, the storm cloud above the North Continent, had barely crossed that mark.

    However, that was not a problem for a planet. So he quickly looked for one and eventually found an ordinary terrestrial planet that was completely composed of rocks. It wasn¡¯t bad but it was way too average for Eridel¡¯s tastes so he went to look for another, and found this pink gaseous one.

    Such a thing was unexpected, but when Eridel thought about the unique benefits that he could obtain from raising a gaseous planet into an Anomaly that could improve and some day become a full-fledged gaseous True World, he was filled with excitement.

    95% of his knowledge came from the strange golden orb that had somehow fused into his soul on that fateful day, so he knew how rare it was for a gaseous World to come to fruition. It was so rare that it would be easier to find a faction of a thousand World Sinners, so rare that even in the sea of vast inherited memories, he could only see one.

    One that had been unable to become a Mid-World before it had unfortunately walked the path of self-destruction like so many others, unable to reveal a fraction of its secrets.

 Ch.139 Taking a Risk

    If Eridel could convert a gaseous planet into an Anomaly and personally raise it into some kind of subordinate gaseous World, the benefits would be unimaginable. However, in all the time he had spent here, he had yet to do so. It absolutely did not take 1 and a half years to convert something into an Anomaly, no matter how big it was. As a matter of fact, the process was quite quick.

    The reason he had spent so much time here was because he had long realised that even if he were successful in converting the planet into an Anomaly, there would be no point if his access to it was severely limited. The strength of Eridel¡¯s Avatar was that of a pseudo 6th Realm because that was the limit of his World¡¯s current power, but even with such strength, to fly from the Eridius World to this planet would take 12 years! And that was even if he were to fly non stop. How could he accept such a thing?

    Although the lifespan of a Mid World, especially one as unique as him, was extremely vast, to spend 12 years just to visit this planet when he could avoid it was just too wasteful. Provided to him by his inherited memories was 2 options and both of them were Rune Formations. The first option was to set up a Teleportation Formation on the surface of the planetary core and put the corresponding one somewhere on his planet. The second option was to set up a unique Formation that would actually allow the entire planet to move and move the planet next to his, something that although crazy, had been practised many times in the past. The only prerequisite was that the Planet didn¡¯t already have a consciousness. This was because, not only was it not possible to forcefully inscribe any kind of Rune onto a conscious World¡¯s core, but it was also extremely dangerous to be next to it.

    A World could not personally defend itself but it had no problem raising or lowering temperatures to apocalyptic degrees, or summoning a hoard of gods.

    Obviously, Eridel didn¡¯t need to care about these issues. However, when he remembered how the Runes that he had inscribed onto his own core (something that only he could do as its owner) had become Integral Laws, he was slightly wary that not only would the Rune Formation become something more than permanent when the gaseous planet became a sapient life form and obtained control of itself, but he had a slight suspicion that he would lose all control of the Formation as well.

    If he used the World Travelling Formation and it became an Integral Law, that would give birth to a sapient planet that could completely move on its own, something that even he couldn¡¯t do. But the problem was that it might¡­ run away. Eridel found the thought of a planet running away from him amusing, but he would suffer a major loss if such a thing became a reality.

    However, the more he thought down this path, the more he realised how much of a treasure trove the gaseous planet that he had truly was.

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    What if he were to purposefully create Integral Laws? What if he were to make the already unique prospect of a gaseous World even more special? He could create a World that was just as bizarre as him! And of course, it was that thought that nearly left him stunned.

    Eridel wasn¡¯t a fool.

    However, the idea that his thoughts had spawned for him was too delicate so he decided to shelve it away.

    The prospect of an allied World that was just as unique as him was too great to give up, so Eridel decided to take a risk. Not only would he inscribe the World Travelling Formation, but he would also add a few other interesting Formations that would become useful as Integral Laws, such as a self-sustainable shield.

    It was all of this that took 1.5 Years to create. After all, he had to physically inscribe the Runes across the entire Core, unlike when he was inscribing on himself. The other name for a gaseous planet was the ¡®gas giant planet¡¯, this was because¡­ all gaseous planets were huge! To physically have to inscribe Runes across a Core which alone was 3 or 4 times larger than his home World (The World he was born in), was obviously a monumental task. To complete the formations in just 1.5 years was actually a great achievement!

    Now, in the current time, he was standing upon the core of the Formation with a triumphant yet slightly cautious expression. However, he wasn¡¯t truly worried. Even in the absurd event that his conjectures were wrong and the gaseous Anomaly made the abnormal decision to disregard him¡­ There were many means that a being like Eridel could use on a disobedient fledgling Soul. He didn¡¯t want to do such things, but he would if he had to.

    The only thing that had him cautious was the unknown. Nothing he was doing had been done before and he would be a fool if he didn¡¯t prepare for any change in the situation.

    He would have liked to activate the World Travelling Formation to bring the planet next to his own before converting it into an Anomaly, but every Formation needed energy to activate, and the only energy he had available was the energy that was forming his Avatar. He planned to use this energy to start the Anomaly Transformation and the Eridius System that was present wherever he was present, to finish the Transformation. Where would he find the energy to do so if he wasted it on the Formations?

    The good thing was that the planet would be able to power the Formations itself once it became an Anomaly and gained sapience. Now, all that was left was to start the transformation.

    Eridel blew out a long breath of air before a tenacious light appeared in his golden eyes.

    ¡°It is time.¡±

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: The lifespan of Low World is roughly 10 billion years, Mid World 30 billion years, High World 100 billion years and a Law World is eternal.}

 Ch.140 Anomaly Transformation and Void Energy

    In one moment, Eridel had been standing peacefully with a dauntless demeanour that inspired respect, but in the next, he had burst into a tsunami of golden light!

    It was an extremely mesmerising and glorious sight that surpassed the northern lights in beauty, however, the domineering aura that it let out was more than enough to make any possible onlooker run far, far away. The golden lights danced above the gaseous planet for a moment before surging downwards and straight into the planet''s core.

    The planet immediately began to tremble as the foreign energy of the likes that it had never felt before forcefully invaded its system. It instinctively made manoeuvres to reject the energy but it was futile. Magical Energy was not something that it had the ability to resist. Only entities who were capable of manipulating Magic were given the rights to attempt such a thing.

    Nevertheless, the planet was naturally unaware of this and kept up its useless resistance, relentlessly trying to reject the energy. However, it soon began to feel unnatural changes within itself. It¡¯s Core¡­ seemed to be growing? Even the gases surrounding its core seemed to be mutating a little, they saturated themselves with the foreign invasive energy and used it to¡­ to¡­ to EVOLVE!

    The planet immediately stopped its resistance and instead began to draw the energy within itself. To a planet, in the face of evolution all other matters become nonentities. In fact, even if an evolution would cause its destruction, a planet still would not hesitate to embrace it. Of course, things began to change when they obtained a Soul and learned of pros and cons, but even then, if there was no other option than a self-destructive evolution, then a planet would actually do it. Even Eridel, an ex-Human, had been a victim of this relentless desire once upon a time.

    As the pink planet continued to absorb the Magical Energy, Eridel was floating high above it in the form of a small twinkling light.

    This was the only form that he could take now that he had taken the ¡®lifeblood¡¯ of his Avatar and given 99% of it away. Now, he could only remain like this. He had no strength in this form and the only thing that it carried was his own consciousness. Not that he cared, he would have given the rest of the energy away if he could but that would have dispelled his avatar completely and destroyed this split soul that he left within. That too was not a problem, but he needed to remain here so that he could give instructions to the new Anomaly if it was a success.

    ¡®This¡­ is quite exciting.¡¯

    *5 Minutes Later*

    Eridel had been using his spirit sense on the planet the entire and he had witnessed some minuscule yet interesting changes. However, things were about to go wrong. Eridel remembered that in each Anomaly transformation before this, all of them had personally absorbed copious amounts of ambient Magical Energy to complete the process. But where would the gaseous planet find the Eridius World¡¯s magical energy up here? Eridel had thought that if he used an entire 99% of his Avatar to substitute the possible need for that 2nd absorption, he could overcome it. But he had been too naive. Or rather, he had been hopeful for an exception in an abnormal situation, only to be disappointed.

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    Eridel could see the planet making the motions to wildly absorb ambient Magical Energy, but it was futile. Magical Energy was something generated by planets and could never be found in open space. The only usable essence in space was¡­ Void Energy.

    Eridel paused.

    ¡®Perhaps¡­ No. What am I thinking? This planet isn¡¯t even a Low World. It would never be able to manipulate Void Essence. That shit is just too heavy.¡¯ Eridel thought with mild annoyance. In the past, Eridel had done his fair share of experiments with Void Energy but none of them resulted in anything spectacular, mostly because the amounts he had been able to manipulate were far too inadequate.

    Void Energy was an omnipresent Energy that existed all over the universe, and normally, it was something that only Rank 7+ beings could use. Eridel was one evolution away from that boundary, however, the gaseous planet was just too far awa-

    ¡®Hm? The system¡­¡¯ Eridel detected the Eridius System¡¯s suddenly appear within the gaseous Planet. It wasn¡¯t too much of a surprise, with so much of Eridel¡¯s Magical Energy flowing through its system it must have been recognised as a native. The only reason those girls back in the Sigothia World didn¡¯t receive the same treatment was because despite the fact that they had received Eridel¡¯s energy, at their core, their Mana was still attuned with their own world, and soon, Eridel¡¯s energy would be completely assimilated. Unlike the gaseous World which for all intents and purposes was ¡®pure¡¯.

    None of this was that much of a surprise, but what was a surprise was the miniscule amounts of Void Energy that began tracking towards the planet''s core.

    The twinkling light that was Eridel flashed for a moment in apparent surprise.

    ¡®The system! Of course! I was unaware of how long it would take the System to enter a new entity since it hasn¡¯t happened before and didn¡¯t factor it into any possibilities, but if I had known that it would arrive even before the planet¡¯s complete transformation, I wouldn¡¯t have needed to worry too much.¡¯

    The System was built to assist its users and in times, especially during breakthroughs, evolutions or mutations, would take complete control of the essence for the user so that everything could be done to perfection. Now, the System had detected its new hosts'' needs and was taking control of the gaseous planet''s core to summon forth Void Energy in an attempt to complete the Anomaly transformation.

    ¡®This is great!¡¯ Eridel thought with elation. Although the Void Energy that was being pulled into the core was so miniscule that it resembled rain falling into a sea, Eridel wasn¡¯t anxious about it at all. The conversion rate of Magical Energy to Void Energy was so stupendous that it was almost unbelievable, the gaseous planet had more than enough.

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: Make no mistake. Void Energy is just super-duper Magical Energy, Eridel could also absorb such things if he wanted to and it is not exclusive. It is not an affinity and does not possess special properties that Magical Energy doesn¡¯t have. I repeat. Void Energy is just like Magical Energy, but instead of being produced by a planetary core, it is being produced by whatever the universe calls its core.}

 Ch.141 Eridelâ€™s First Soul Mate!

    Another 5 minutes later, the gaseous planet had reached saturation and began to release pink splendorous lights along with heavenly fanfare that signified the birth of something miraculous.

    Eridel briefly paused. None of the other Anomaly transformations had produced the sounds that the gaseous planet was now making and it was quite odd. However, he decided that it had to do with the fact that the thing that was being transformed was an entire planet, a gaseous planet even, and took it in stride. The birth of extremely rare things had always been accompanied by seraphic sounds and colourful lights, just like the Tree of Life that he had forcefully created over a hundred years ago.

    Although Anomalies could arguably be considered more precious than the Tree of Life, there were 6 of them and a 7th one was already on the way, Eridel even had plans for the 8th.

    The Eridius World had only entered the domain of magic 167 years ago and there were already 7 Anomalies, whereas, the Tree of Life was the only World Tree on the planet and there was no other Tree that even approached its level. Only things like that could receive the warm attention of the Universe. Regular Anomalies were unable, but apparently, the gaseous planet Anomaly did. This just goes to show how powerful it was going to-

    ¡®It¡¯s here.¡¯ Eridel thought as he detected the ghost-like shimmering lights that began to bloom within the planet''s core. All Anomalies were granted sapient Souls at some point in their transformation and it could be considered their second if not most important feature. And now, the gaseous planet was receiving its own.

    Souls were typically colourless and this one wasn¡¯t any different, but its quality was startling and as it grew more complete, its quality only continued to rise. Eventually, it took on the form of a sphere surrounded by swirling gas, which was essentially its physical form. Most Souls took on the form of their physical shell so it wasn¡¯t a surprise.

    However, when the Soul gave a magnificent pulse of Soul Energy that signified its completion, the jolt that it arose in Eridel¡­ was a very, very big surprise.

    It was a contraction within his very Soul that even temporarily dizzied his senses, which was very abnormal. After all, other than the time that he had faced the Tribulation Lights and the time he forcefully awakened his planet''s Magical Energy, Eridel had never felt such a dizzying sensation. But when he peered into his Soul to identify the cause, Eridel was so flabbergasted that his little light form started rapidly blinking as if he would die out at any moment.

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    After confirming the thing that he was seeing was really true, Eridel took a good moment to calm himself down. Then, he looked towards the pink planet with a look that he had never given another being in a long, long time.

    ¡®So it really is you¡­¡¯ Eridel thought with mixed emotions.

    Within his Soul, 1 of the 6 unconnected Soul Mate Links had finally changed for the first time. Not only did it gain the snake-like fluidity of a connected Soul Mate link along with a peach-like colour, an odd feeling of complete naivety and innocence could be felt from it if he focused on it. No doubt it was the emotions of the other being it was connected to. As for the being it was connected to?

    ¡­Who else could it be other than the pink gaseous planet?

    Eridel looked towards the planet that was finishing its Anomaly transformation with complex emotions that caused him to marvel. However, love was not one of them. The Soul Mate link did not make one feel love, or any other emotion for that matter. It was the Soul Mates themselves who were so ¡®meant for each other¡¯ that inevitably fell in love after spending time with each other. However, there were times where one or even both of the Soul Mates were undeveloped and hadn¡¯t yet grown to be the other''s ideal partner.

    It could be as simple as one of them not yet having a specific affinity that they would gain in the future that was compatible with their Soul Mate¡¯s affinity, or perhaps one of them would consume or undergo something that would change their appearance in future to meet their Soul Mate¡¯s ideal but had met the Mate before doing so. Most of the time these minor problems were inconsequential because the compatibility that Soul Mates had with each other were multi-varied (e.g if the man/girl didn¡¯t look a certain way yet, their minds could still be compatible enough for them to still bear a strong liking for each other until they reached full compatibility). But¡­ sometimes there were highly unfavourable situations.

    It would be rare, but there would be times where someone who was already an adult would meet their Soul Mate when said Soul Mate had yet to even reach the preliminary years of adolescence, or times where someone who had gone through very severe experiences and gained a grossly unique personality, would meet their Soul Mate who had not yet gone through the things it would take to become the ideal partner. In these situations, the possibility of actually disliking each other actually existed, which, depending on how unlucky one was, could end up becoming tragic. Just think of a situation where somebody had been ordered to assassinate the new born baby of so and so, and actually did so, not knowing that the child who they killed was their Soul Mate.

    They would certainly feel the sudden disintegration of the Soul Mate link, but of course, it would be too late by then.

    So once again, the Soul Mate link itself did not force any emotions. And as such, for Eridel (who used to be a Human and preferred women who at least looked like one) to suddenly fall in love with a Planet which had just gained its Soul and didn¡¯t even have a defined gender¡­ was impossible.

 Ch.142 Ghosts of the Past

    For Eridel to suddenly fall in love with a Planet which had just gained its Soul and didn¡¯t even have a defined gender was impossible.

    That being said, Eridel would not be oblivious like others who might be put in the same situation. He knew that eventually, this pink planet would become something that satisfied all of his desires¡­ or at least a sixth of them? He didn¡¯t know how having multiple Soul Mates truly worked. Even though there were already a few polygamous Soul Mate pairings on his planet, none of them had ever met. And although he could infer from their affinities that it was indeed a case of 2 or more Soul Mates meeting specific needs of the ¡®dominant¡¯ Soul Mate, that was only related to power compatibility and didn¡¯t necessarily mean that on a carnal or mental level that it would be the same.

    Perhaps all 6 of his Soul Mates would meet ALL of his carnal desires and have a perfect like-mindedness with him. But even as he speculated on it, even he found it unrealistic. If his needs were so narrow that 6 people could be completely compatible with him, what was the point of even having 6 in the first place? It didn¡¯t make sense. It would make much more sense to assume that his needs were so broad that 6 different people would fulfil 6 different needs.

    That¡­ that was much more exciting.

    In any case, Eridel was in an extremely jubilant mood. He had found his first Soul Mate! She ¨Cand he was sure that the planet would become a ¡®she¡¯ because that was his only sexual orientation¨C wasn¡¯t ready yet, but the time would come!

    Eridel threw away his more negative speculations and decided to revel in the absolute joy of finding one''s destined partner, the partner who would be with him till the end times and would always support him even if they were separated by multiple dimensions or life and death! This was absolutely something to be celebrated!

    Eridel even had the wild albeit temporary desire to release many phenomena into the Eridius World, letting the millions of residents know that something truly glorious had occurred. However, he dispersed the foolish thoughts in the next split second. Just thinking of the chaos it would cause, the false history it would create and the possible religions that it might spawn was enough for him to calm down a little bit.

    Still, he was still excited. This little pink planet of his was his Soul Mate. Quadrillions upon quadrillions of people all over the Universe had the desire for a Soul Mate, and even if some once in a billion year - brain-disturbed-geniuses in hyper-advanced Worlds were able to artificially create a semblance of a Soul Mate system, all of those flimsy things were filled with flaws and was something only the upper echelons could buy. They didn¡¯t come close to the flawless Soul Mate system that Eridel had created, an all encompassing concept that worked automatically all over his domain of influence and even became a part of the World¡¯s Integral Laws. Certainly unlike some Ai chip that had to be implanted into 2 different people or some chemical injection that only the most wealthy could enjoy.

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    ¡®Ha! This time, all of them wish for what I have, but will not be able to have it!¡¯ Eridel inwardly exclaimed with glee. The amount of times that he had wished for even the most basic companionship in those 2000 years of solitude as he watched the intimate moments of others was too embarrassing to admit. It had been unbearable, but now, everything would change!

    Eridel once again peered into the Soul Mate link but this time his intentions weren¡¯t just to passively observe. He wanted to use the link to send his Soul Mate information about all of the Eridius World¡¯s languages along with basic knowledge and common sense. This was all so that he could achieve basic communication with his Soul Mate and direct her into using the World Travelling Formation so that she could move herself near his own planetary body.

    As he began to do so, he had to admit that the urge to add other things was there. He could add in suggestions of femininity that would allow the planet to think it was a female or suggestions that would make it more subservient. However, although Eridel was almost completely unscrupulous when he dealt with other Lifeforms, he wasn¡¯t quite willing to be the same way with his Soul Mates.

    They were going to be the 6 women that would ride eternity with him, inseparable from him in a way that the Universe had never seen before. How could he bear to willfully play with their minds as if they were tools? That was not the kind of Man he aspired to be! He was a chivalrous gentleman, not a controlling sicko!

    ¡®...Haha¡­ Hahahaha!¡¯ Eridel inwardly burst out laughing.

    He would have done just that! Eridel was a calculating person even before he became what he was, and now that he had become a World and his Soul had been transformed beyond recognition, controlling the 6 beings who had the ability to influence his decision making barely even touched his moral boundaries. To him, that was just precaution!

    However¡­ he truly wanted to give this love thing a good try.

    The relationships that he had with those 213 women in his past life could definitely not be called love. That was one of the few luxuries that he could not afford. Too expensive and way too vulnerable. But lust? If there was a church of Lust then he would have been Pope! The Supreme Pontiff! Considering the life he lived, he didn¡¯t have the fortune to afford love. But lust was really just too cheap! And that was how collecting different kinds of beauties became a pastime of his to beat off the erosion of boredom.

    But now¡­? Everything had changed. Not only had he gained true freedom, but he had even gained incomparable power, power that would enable him to prote-!

    ¡®...In any case, honesty is the best policy and if I don¡¯t want to end up in an uncomfortable situation after being asked to explain the reason for certain things in the future, it¡¯s best that I don¡¯t do anything that I¡¯d need to hide from them.¡¯

    ¡®Truthfully¡­ there shouldn¡¯t be anything that I need to hide if they¡¯re truly my Soulmates in every sense of the word, but telling one of them that I¡¯m the reason that they¡¯re female in the first place¡­? This¡­ is a future that I would rather avoid.¡¯

 Ch.143 The Nourishment of Knowledge

    Eridel continued to send down various kinds of information down the Soulmate link that would especially be beneficial for a planet. Maths, Science, Languages, Life and Death, different kinds of animal and plant life, the various cultivation paths, knowledge of the Eridius System and some other stuff.

    As for knowledge on formations, Eridel was sure that the pink planet would be able to instinctively use the ones inscribed on its body. They had surely become a part of her body like the surrounding gas clouds. She could manipulate them as she wished. But as for other formations? She could learn about them herself if she was interested. Eridel didn¡¯t intend to alter her path at all.

    Other than that, Eridel has also sent down basic information about himself. Not who he was as a person, but what he was. Another planet just like her, but one which was much more evolved. He had also sent her images of the different sceneries on his planet and what a terrestrial World filled with life should look like.

    However, with those images he had sent down a short message that the 2 of them were fundamentally different and that she should not try to emulate him. It would likely result in complete failure. After this he waited peacefully as she digestested the information one by one. It didn¡¯t take long and he could see her swiftly analysing going through the information, only pausing every now and then.

    If it was anyone else, talk less of analysing the information quickly or even slowly, their minds might have directly collapsed! This was because information that Eridel had sent was not small at all and would have been too much for an ordinary Soul to handle. Planet¡¯s on the other hand had always had the strongest Souls from birth. But on top of that, even though that the pink gaseous planet was was still just a planet and had yet to step into the rankings of a Low World, its Soul was still as powerful one (If a Low World was capable of having a Soul), so the amount of information that Eridel had sent was easily being sorted out by her.

    He couldn¡¯t help but admit that he felt a strange feeling of satisfaction as he watched the Soulmate link pulse with activity each time she absorbed more information, a feeling that only became more profound when he noticed that her Soul was becoming enriched. For a blank slate Soul, the best source of nourishment was knowledge. Knowledge bred thoughts and thoughts bred questions, questions sought answers and answers sought proof. It was a cycle that made a Soul more active and lively.

    As Eridel watched, the pink planet''s Soul became more vibrant as it hummed with hundreds of thoughts. It wasn¡¯t quite the millions of thoughts that Eridel could achieve, but it was still very good. Eridel was not only a Mid World with the power of a High World, but his Soul had been empowered many times by a strange Soul Cultivation path that he was very advanced on. They could not be compared.

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    3 hours later, the pink planet had finally finished absorbing all of the Knowledge that Eridel had sent it and the activity of its Soul slowed to a low hum. However, that didn¡¯t last long. Without prompt the pink planet suddenly released its Spirit Sense for the first time, probing within its own body for a moment before probing into outer space.

    Eridel had shared a fair bit of information about space and it was most likely that she was trying to see for herself.

    After what seemed like a short bout of experimentation, her Spirit Sense expanded once more and finally enveloped his little avatar. He could feel her Spirit Sense pulse with fledgling emotions that were reminiscent of confusion, faint recognition and curiosity. Clearly, she wasn¡¯t capable of removing her emotions from her Spirit Sense yet, but the reason was obvious. As for the specific emotions she was feeling? It was likely that she was able to feel the strange connection between him and the Soulmate link but was confused about what it meant.

    When Eridel had sent information about himself, he had indeed included the fact that he was the one sending her information, something that she would have discovered later on anyways. However, because of this, the knowledge that the sender of the information that had been sent to her was another planet like her completely blocked her from thinking that the strange little light that gave her a familiar feeling was the same as ¡®him¡¯. The disparity between the 2 forms was too huge.

    Eridel had not sent her information about Avatars. This was because he didn¡¯t want her to think that ¡®little lights¡¯ were the exemplary form when she gained the ability to construct her own Avatar. She would likely come in contact with other avatars and the memory of his own should be significant, but not only were first impressions lasting, but the fact that he was her Soulmate would also make the first form that he used to appear before her more striking.

    He¡¯d rather not have her remember this embarrassing form.

    Unfortunately, his little avatar seemed to be the most interesting thing in the vicinity and she continued to probe. He was sure that she wasn¡¯t yet creative enough to come to a reasonable deduction, but prevention was always better than cure!

    He immediately sent her a message using the Soulmate link that ¡®small light¡¯ was something akin to his subordinate that was meant to guide her towards him. However as he said this he couldn¡¯t help but feel a small amount of shame.

    What kind of stupid lie was that?

    Eridel sighed. Since when did he have to resort to covering up mistakes like a little boy? How embarrassing¡­

 Ch.144 The Blood Fiends Cross The Sea

    The Soulmate link began to pulse a little and Eridel could immediately tell that the pink planet was trying to respond to him, however, no words or even intentful thoughts were coming through.

    It wasn¡¯t a surprise. In truth, the Soulmate link was something that took a long time to learn how to utilise. Messaging or sending images to someone psychically was not as easy as it was to do so physically and was actually really hard to do.

    In fact, the ability to send messages using the Soulmate link was something that most could only do when their Soulmate bond had been consummated. Not because it was a requirement, but because after consummation, the 2 Souls would completely link together in an unnatural way that caused the intimacy and compatibility between each other to reach the peak. In that state, Soulmates can really and truly look at one another and speak without words. It was this special connection that gave them insight needed to better use the functions of the Soulmate link.

    But as the creator of the entire concept, how could Eridel not have any leeways? He created the whole thing so how could he not use the abilities that didn¡¯t need essential conditions? What a joke that would be. But even if he wasn¡¯t the creator, Eridel was still extremely versed in things that concerned the Soul. It wouldn¡¯t take long for someone like him or even Gaia to comprehend some of the functions of Soulmate link once they took time to study it.

    So whilst it was difficult for the pink planet to emulate the things that he did, it was nothing for him to do so.

    =You will learn how to communicate with me at another time. Right now, we- you and my subordinate need to start moving.= Eridel said through the Soulmate link.

    The pink planet''s Spirit Sense pulsed with wonder, fascinated by the workings of¡­ well, everything. As a being who had just gained sapience all things were interesting and eye-catching, especially when they were interactable like the entity known as Eridel.

    =You should already instinctively know how to move your body. However before that, you should camouflage yourself. It¡¯s time to go.= Eridel said.

    He had installed a powerful camouflaging Formation along with the others, but just like the others, they had disappeared when the pink planet had become an Anomaly. He assumed that they had fused with the core and become innate functions of the planet. Otherwise, it really would not be funny if they disappeared.

    However, his worries were not founded and after the planet went through various emotions ¨Cmostly consisting of innocent excitement and curiosity¨C the planet began to slowly fade away as if it was an illusion, and soon, it had completely disappeared. But just for good measure, Eridel expanded his own Spirit Sense far and wide in an attempt to detect it.

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    And he did. But only because the pink planet was his Soulmate. He could sense her Soul (something that would never be able to hide from him), but not her body.

    Perfect.

    Then without wasting any time, he began flying towards his Planetary Body, only pausing to make sure that the pink planet was following him. It would take roughly 12 years, but soon he would be able to meet his Soulmate in the flesh, or rather space rock¡­ He couldn¡¯t help but admit that he was slightly, verrrry slightly¡­ excited.

    ¡®My first Soulmate, hmm~... Considering the fact that I specialise in the almighty Dao of the booty¡­ she should have a big ass when she creates an Avatar, right? Right? Hehe¡­ Hehehehe~ HAHAHAHAHA!!!¡¯

    ¡­

    [Eridius World, Sea between the South Continent and East Continent]

    (5 Years Later, Year 172)

    Somewhere between the South Continent and the East Continent, a large road of ice was slowly streaking its way across the Sea. It was extremely wide and was long enough that you couldn¡¯t see where it originated from, however, going by the identity of the many individuals that stood upon it, it wasn¡¯t too hard to guess where they had come from.

    The aura of cynicism and brutality, the completely blood red eyes, the sharp teeth and fingernails, the pale skin. All of these traits could only mean one thing. It was the Blood Fiends from the South Continent.

    They were the tyrannical race which had claimed half of the continent as their territory and were 1 of the 2 reasons that had caused the extinction of all Humans and Beasts on the South Continent. They were led by their progenitor who went by the name of Ghost, or ¡®Crying Ghost¡¯ if you could live to say it, and were very savage.

    These sinister beings actually used to be regular Humans who struggled on a day to day basis to obtain the most basic of foods that grew in the Forest that they had come from, not even daring to hope for the meat that the Beasts liked so much, however, after a dreadful mutation pioneered by Ghost, they had become baleful beings whose diet mainly consisted of blood.

    Nearly 200 years had passed since the dawn of their conception and they had achieved many grand feats that struck fear across the entire South Continent and would have done so to the rest of the World if communication was possible. Their leader was ruthless, but he was a genius who had been able to fend off the apocalyptic might of the King of Monsters time and time again. Under such a powerful leader, they had obtained enough power and resources that they had fully occupied their half of the Continent. However¡­

    What was the current situation?

    A paltry number of 12,000+ Blood Fiends stood upon the ever-growing road of ice in a despondent manner as if they were advancing towards their doom. There were no visible injuries, but it was clear from their uncharacteristically rough skin and dry hair that they were in a prominent state of disarray. Perhaps, if the Blood Fiends weren¡¯t so adept at healing themselves using the blood of others, they would have been covered in wounds.

    How did this happen?

 Ch.145 The Ruthless Progenitor

    Crying Ghost looked at the wavy motions of the sea ahead of him with a calm expression and folded arms. He stood ramrod straight like a spear and radiated a solemn yet domineering aura of a dictator that instilled a feeling of respect and inferiority in those around him, completely unlike the sinister auras of the common Blood Fiends that were wild and chaotic. However, if one were to truly look into his eyes, they would see the light of a furious, almost rabid fire that aimed to destroy everything.

    Clearly, despite the fact that he was trying to hide it, he was very, very angry.

    Ghost looked at the Blood Fiend towards his left, it was a man with pale blonde hair that was almost white and a lanky body that reached 6¡¯7. His cultivation was also at the Soul Refinement Realm (4th Realm for the Enlightened Races) and his aura was that of a cold and eternally patient serpent, one that looked like it could strike out at any moment with the prey none the wiser.

    Currently, this man was crouched down with his hand ¨Cwhich was glowing with a frigid blue light¨C placed in the water which subsequently froze and increased the size of the giant icy road that had started all the way in the South Continent.

    ¡°Jin.¡± Ghost called out. His voice was deep and emotionless.

    The man called Jin withdrew his hand from the sea and swiftly stood up to attention, his face was cold and his eyes were sharp, but there was a submissive tinge to his demeanour that showed his subservience to the Blood Fiend Progenitor.

    ¡°Yes, Sire?¡±

    ¡°You seem to be slowing down again. Do you need more blood?¡±

    ¡°...¡± For a moment, Jin did not respond. Instead, he gave a quick almost imperceptible glance towards the crowd of Fiends before looking back at Ghost. Not a single emotion to be found. Then he said:

    ¡°Sire, I can surely continue for a few more hours before requiring any-¡±

    ¡°Come.¡± Ghost interrupted Jin and waved his hand towards a beautiful female Blood Fiend who was at the Core Refinement Realm (3rd Realm). She had voluminous black hair and a respectable height of 5¡¯11.

    The girl, who was already pale just like every other Blood Fiend, somehow managed to become even more pale as despair bloomed on her face. Still, she didn¡¯t make a single sound other than a few pitiful whimpers and made her way over to Ghost without resistance.

    She had accepted her fate.

    Everyone had been silent the whole time and it wasn¡¯t anything new, but the silence now was positively deafening. They all knew what was going to happen but they didn¡¯t dare to raise attention, deathly afraid of the consequences.

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    When the girl had finally arrived in front of Ghost, blood coloured tears had begun to seep out of her eyes. The tension in the air was so thick that one could have choked on it but Ghost¡¯s mood seemed to have improved. There was a mild smile on his face as he looked at the trembling girl before him, causing her to tremble even more. However, instead of doing anything that the current mood would have suggested, he lifted up his hands and placed them on her cheeks where he began to caress her bloody tears.

    ¡°Ssh, ssh, sssh~... Do not cry, girl. What is your name?¡± He whispered as he pressed his forehead upon her own.

    The girl jerked, sniffled and sobbed before managing to say: ¡°T-Ti-Tia¡±

    ¡°Tia?¡±

    ¡°Y-yes¡±

    ¡°Mmh~... A good name.¡± Ghost said before placing a gentle kiss on her forehead, then once more pressing his forehead upon her own and staring into her completely red eyes. ¡°A good name indeed.¡±

    ¡°Tia... What is it that I said to those that came before you?¡±

    Hearing this, Tia actually lost the strength in her legs and began to collapse. It was only Ghost who swiftly wrapped his arms around her waist and steadied her that stopped her from completely falling.

    ¡°Easy, easy now~¡± Ghost said with an amused smile. There was also a slightly mellifluous tone to his words that depicted his rising mood. A playfulness that wasn¡¯t there before.

    ¡°You are a great Blood Fiend, Tia. Be strong.¡± Ghost said in a soft voice as he gave her a light shake with his hands now wrapped around her arms.

    ¡°Now¡­¡± Ghost whispered, his lips pressed against her ear. ¡°Say it.¡±

    For a moment, the only sound was the crashing waves of the sea and the piteous sound of Tia cries as she tried her best to inhale oxygen into her lungs. Her lips were quivering intensely but eventually, she still obeyed without question.

    ¡°T-those w-wh-who s-s-sa-sacrifice t-themselves f-for the greater good o-of the B-Blood Fiends, will b-be-become the s-strength of t-the Blood F-Fiends e-even after d-d-death. W-w¨Cwe will n-not b-be lost. O-once a-a Blood Fiend, a-always a B-Blood Fiend.¡±

    Ghost suddenly grinned widely as his fingers around her arms tightened to unbearable degrees that caused cracking sounds in the girl¡¯s arms.

    ¡°Yes! Indeed! Once a Blood Fiend, ALLLWAYS A BLOOD FIEND!!!¡± Ghost practically roared. Then he opened his mouth to reveal terrific shark-like teeth that took a sudden, massive bite out of the girl''s neck.

    KSSSSHHHH!

    Blood spewed out of brutal injury that sprayed the Progenitor, Jin, and a few other close-by Blood Fiends in its crimson liquid.

    ¡°Now¡­¡± Ghost said as he turned the girl¡¯s body around to face Jin, his face returning to its normal calm like nothing had happened. ¡°Drink her blood and do not waste her sacrifice.¡±

    He shoved her body towards Jin who effortlessly caught her, and then returned back to his original position with his arms once again crossed over his chest. But he gave one last look towards Jin.

    ¡°Oh and¡­ Do not lie to me ever again. Otherwise, you will be the one to be continuing your service in the afterlife.¡±

 Ch.146 Sindia and Balik

    For a while, Ghost felt a little good. His power was unimpeachable and nobody dared to anger him. He could say and do whatever he wanted and everybody had to obey. Even when he was still back on the South Continent, he could order around Monsters that had yet to become 4th Realm Greater Demons and bully them as he liked as long as they weren¡¯t too close to Asura¡¯s main territory. Of course, it worked the other way around too, but because the Blood Fiends were too cunning, Asura mostly left them alone.

    In the South Continent, Ghost was an Emperor! And if it wasn¡¯t for Asura who till this day was many times stronger than him, then he would have been Kaiser! Ruler of the entire Continent!

    This had always been his goal and he had full confidence to achieve it. Asura was strong but he was too reclusive. Always training in one way or another and never focusing on increasing the power of his faction or increasing the unity of the Monster races. He didn¡¯t even have any children! At least, none that he knew of.

    That was not the way of a Ruler.

    If it wasn¡¯t because of that 2-headed oaf that somehow always managed to single-handedly thwart his larger scale attacks on Demon King territories, he was sure that he would have been able to cause chaos within the entire Monster race.

    The Crown of Kaiser was practically already in his hands. It was only a matter of time. Sooner or later, more 4th Realm Blood Fiends would have emerged and he would have been able to subjugate a few Demon Kings. Under such a combined force, the so-called King of Monsters would have had nowhere to run to!

    But now¡­ That was all SHAMBLES!

    The muscles in Ghost¡¯s arms bulged as he furiously clenched his fists, his mood once more plummeting.

    ¡®THAT DAMNED TREE!¡¯ he inwardly roared as he gnashed his teeth.

    Everything had been close to perfect! Asura and the oaf would have been dead and the continent would have been his to claim. But then one day, everything had gone completely wrong. And what was worse was that out of the 3 main problems that resulted in his current dilemma¡­ 1 of them had actually spawned and grown under his very own nose!

    41 years ago (Year 131, 4 years after the 4th Realm blockade was removed), other than him, there were only 3 other Fiend Lords. ¡®Fiend Lords¡¯ is the title that the Blood Fiends gave the 4th Realm beings of their race. Out of those 3 Fiend Lords, 1 of them was a woman and she was named Sindia.

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    When it came to Blood Fiend names, it was popular for them to have a syllable in their names that rhymed with ¡®In¡¯ or ended with ¡®Ia¡¯. For example, Jin and Tia. However, at the same time, their names were usually short so it was uncommon to have both sounds in their name. Eventually, it became an unspoken rule that only those of noble association could name their children with both syllables. It didn¡¯t mean that others couldn¡¯t, but if someone of common birth or worse, impure blooded birth, was to have such a name, then it was like a commoner or a slave wearing noble garments. The first would be ridiculed as a poser and the latter might get killed.

    Sindia, who could be considered a Primordial Blood Fiend (One of the first few thousand Blood Fiends that had transformed with Ghost over a hundred years ago), was actually the one to start this trend.

    This was because, not only was she the strongest of the Fiend Lords, but she was actually one of the most beautiful ones as well. On top of that, she had a relatively kind heart that was rather uncharacteristic for powerful Blood Fiends. And even if it wasn¡¯t a trait that was much appreciated in the Blood Fiend race, it still helped her gain a lot more supporters than the other 2 Fiend Lords.

    She was also the closest being to their progenitor. Blood Fiends were certainly not a race that were prone to loving emotions, but many still speculated that Sindia would have ended up giving birth to the first of their Progenitor¡¯s true children. It was the only possible pairing that would have resulted in the most talented children.

    That was Sindia.

    On a strangely cold day, strange because it was almost always hot in the South Continent, a special feat that had never occurred before in Blood Fiend history had taken place for the first time. A Demon King had been subjugated.

    Ghost still didn¡¯t know how it happened, but somehow, Sindia had managed to beguile a Demon King onto their side. Even till today, such a thing had never happened again and the secrets of its possibility were completely unknown. Of course, he had asked back then, but the only answer he had received was that it was because the Demon King had been¡­ enchanted by her beauty.

    At first, he hadn¡¯t believed it and almost punished her on the spot, but when he realised the identity of the Demon King who had betrayed his race¡­ he couldn¡¯t help but begin to believe it.

    All Monsters were lustful, especially Demon Kings. But this Demon King in particular¡­ It was to a different level!

    This Demon King was named Balik and was the ruler of a powerful Monster race known as the Blitzorgs. The Blitzorg race was one of the few Monster races that bore uncanny resemblances to a Beast race and in this case it was the Wolves. They looked like giant wolves with black fur that had interesting purple patterns and they all had purple eyes and purple claws. On top of that, they possessed the daunting ability to wield lightning that was for some reason purple in colour. The lightning was much more powerful than regular lightning and possessed corrosive powers that wouldn¡¯t relent if you didn¡¯t purge it out of your system.

    They were truly a powerful species. But instead of being known for their impressive strength, they were more known for their ruler who was unanimously known as the most beautiful man on the Continent. And also known as¡­ the most lustful man on the continent.

    That was Balik.

 Ch.147 The Peeking Progenitor

    Balik had been notorious for the amount of powerful and prestiged women that he slept with, some who had even been the lovers of other powerful people that had brought him a lot of ire and some who were just regular humanoid Monsters with a bit of beauty. And it didn¡¯t end with just Demons. Ghost was absolutely sure that the beast had slept with some of his Blood Fiends because he had already found out about them and killed them, or at least, those that he knew of.

    When they begged for their lives and pleaded for forgiveness, they all said the same thing. They all claimed that Balik had forced himself upon them and they had been unwilling but had been unable to resist. However, not only did Ghost not believe it, but even if it were true, he STILL would have killed them. It was an absolute disgrace to have the reputable females in his race sleep with a dog.

    But on the contrary, if he could trade one female of his race for the entire aid of Balik and the Blitzorg race, then he would have absolutely no qualms! Even if it were Sindia, he was more than willing! He was quite hypocritical in that sense but he was sure that anyone with a functioning brain would have done the same.

    Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t know that this decision would be his first major mistake.

    A little time after the shocking deal passed and Balik had made numerous secretive visits to the Blood Fiend territory to visit Sindia. Sometimes Ghost was there and he would see the man sneaking in and out like a thief and he would smile with glee, anticipating the day that he wrested complete control of the continent. But even back then, there had always been one question in his mind that had constantly bugged him.

    Why?

    Why had a prominent Demon King like Balik who had countless women throwing themselves at him, decide to betray his entire race for just a single female? The reason Ghost had been able to stand toe to toe with Asura despite the vast difference in power was because he was extremely in tune with reality. He understood people and how to exploit them. He spent a lot of time researching his enemies and he used that knowledge to poke where it hurt but not enough that it would cause an all out war that would undoubtedly lose. He always had control and didn¡¯t like it when things didn¡¯t make sense.

    Balik betraying the Monster race for Sindia, did NOT make sense. On top of that, there had even been rumours that the man had finally been punished by Asura for sleeping with the lovers of Demon Kings, causing the beast to completely end his sexual adventures. A surprising, but not so surprising amount of women all over the Monster side of the continent had lamented the loss. Ghost was even sure that the spike in female Blood Fiend disappearances in that time period was related to this, especially when a few had been found in the Blitzorg territory.

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    So apparently, Balik had stopped visiting females around the continent, causing a few of the desperate ones to actually disregard everything to go and visit him. Wonderful. But Ghost didn¡¯t believe for a second that a man like Balik would decide to go completely celibate because of a so-called warning from Asura¡­ unless he had been castrated. But wasn¡¯t he still visiting Sindia all the time?

    If he had lost his manhood, what would be doing with Sindia in all those visits? Talking about trees? Gazing at the stars? Ludicrous! No, Ghost was sure that for some bizarre reason, Balik had decided to sleep with only Sindia and nobody else.

    But how could that possibly be?! It didn¡¯t make sense!

    Was there something special about the girl¡¯s vagina that had ravished the man¡¯s senses? He had to know! So one day, he made the decision to sneak up on Sindia¡¯s abode when Balik visited and spy on them. It was tricky because the skill set that he had couldn¡¯t help him with things like stealth, so the best he could do was hide in the shadows from a distance and suppress his aura.

    Luckily he had been able to do so, but what he saw had left him flabbergasted for a long time.

    They were laughing and talking as if¡­ as if¡­ He couldn¡¯t put a name to it but it was extremely weird. Never in his life had he seen Sindia, or any other female Blood Fiend for that matter act the way she had done that day. But¡­ he also saw the effect that it had on the Blitzorg King. The way the man smiled, the way the man laughed¡­ It was odd. He had a light in his eyes that was completely absent of the coldness and cruelty that everybody on the continent harboured. Even Sindia¡¯s eyes were the same, but at the time he wasn¡¯t focusing on Sindia but more on Balik.

    In that moment, a new world had opened to him. If he was able to learn how Sindia had been able to make the man appear so¡­ weak, then that would be another great power in his arsenal.

    He continued to watch them, and yes they had sex. That too was quite interesting because he was able to see various positions that were supposedly increasing the pleasure? This was something that he had to admit that he overlooked. He knew sex was pleasurable because he had indulged in it before, but he had never focused on increasing the pleasure. Sex, if not used to create offspring, was just a past-time that he barely focused on.

    But Looking at the 2 bodies rubbing against each other and the faces of absolute rapture and lack of self-awareness, he could see merit in pleasuring somebody so extensively that they lost control of themself. His desire to learn such techniques only grew when he remembered the surprising desperation that females all over the continent had exhibited when Balik had stopped having sex with them.

    The only extra abnormal thing that he saw was the 2 different coloured flickers of lightning that flashed around the scene.

    Purple and White.

 Ch.148 The Child of Sindia and Balik

    Purple and White.

    The purple lightning belonged to Balik and the white lightning belonged to Sindia. Sindia was one of the few Blood Fiends (at this time) who had been able to awaken an Element, which of course, was the lightning element. He hadn¡¯t seen it when it happened, but apparently, she had been struck multiple times by a Lightning Storm and somehow absorbed its essence to become the powerful fiend she was today.

    The lightning was regular and white, unlike Balik¡¯s, but Ghost always found it novel that since the normal characteristic of lightning was to purify, it was directly opposite to that of Balik¡¯s whose lightning was extremely corruptive. He had seen them spar once and although Balik¡¯s lightning was ¡®powerful¡¯, the 2 different lightning attacks would mostly cancel each other out. Ghost reckoned that if the corruptive purple lightning wasn¡¯t running on Demonic Energy, it would have been completely even with the white lightning.

    Fascinating. But fascinating as it all was, he couldn¡¯t understand why they would both summon their respective lightning¡¯s around their bodies when they were having sex. Sex was for pleasure, no? He found it quite counter productive to injure each other in the midst of it. However, not only were they not injuring each other, but their respective lightning bolts actually seemed to be gently mingling with each other.

    He didn¡¯t understand it back then, and even as he fled the South Continent, he still didn¡¯t understand the mysterious connection that Sindia and Balik had, but he wished¡­ Oh how he wished that he hadn¡¯t underestimated it.

    A few months after Ghost had peeked for the first time (Year 132 by now), Sindia had suddenly begun to visit Balik at his Demon King territory where all the Blitzorgs lived. It was a surprise to Ghost and definitely a worry. He had tried to stop her the first time but she had told him that she wanted to investigate the territory and its alleged secret locations that could be used in their war against Asura and the rest of the Monsters. And to that, he could no longer disagree, after all, he was unable to go there himself. That was because over time, both sides had developed rudimentary methods to detect each other in case of invasion.

    The methods were faulty and almost never worked on weaker invaders, but if Ghost, the Blood Fiend Progenitor himself were to ever invade the core of Demon King territories, Babunda would be there waiting for him.

    For this reason, he needed a capable spy who could investigate the Blitzorg territory and bring back trustworthy news. So who else other than Sindia, who for some reason was able to use Balik to mask her presence, was better for the job?

    Back then he had thought that Balik¡¯s ability to mask Sindia¡¯s presence had something to do with their mutual affinity for Lightning, especially after the strange things he had seen concerning the two, but now? He wasn¡¯t so sure.

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    Later on, her visits began to last longer and longer, causing Ghost¡¯s blood to boil multiple times over. But not only did he have to suppress his anger, but he had to also put on a pleasant smile to hide it! Aggravating! However, It couldn¡¯t be helped. The support provided by both Sindia and Balik was not something that he could give up.

    But he was not a fool. He could tell the control that he had over the entire situation was diminishing at an alarming rate and he had to do something about it. But before he could even begin to plot, Sindia had disappeared into the Blitzorg territory and did not reappear for a whole year! It was an absolute slap to his face and a grand undermining of his authority that he could no longer ignore.

    However, before he could release his fury upon her, he caught sight of a shocking sight that would begin the spell of doom that would send him and his people fleeing from the continent.

    It was a Child. And obviously, since it was clearly the child of Sindia and the anger-inducing beast standing next to her, it was a Devil child.

    That was not a derogatory term. The child was quite literally a Devil, the hybrid race created by the rare union of Blood Fiends and Monsters, abominations that neither side cared for. They were enslaved no matter what side of the continent they resided in and their lives were quite terrible.

    Unfortunately for them, due to their inability to manipulate and kind of essence, they were rarely ever able to obtain the strength required to change their fate. But that did not mean they were weak, in fact, quite the contrary. The Devils had a special ability to absorb the blood of foes that they had personally killed and use that blood to increase the perfection of their bodies. Strength and Beauty. So long as they kept killing, their bodies would eventually become literal treasures with immeasurable physical strength that could crush any foe. It was like Anatomy Refinement, but easier.

    However, just like the strange ability that seemed to have come from a fusion of the Blood Fiend race¡¯s ability to easily syphon blood and the Monster race¡¯s ability to absorb Killing Essence from foes they had personally killed, the Devil race seemed to also have a fusion of their personality traits.

    Chaotic Evil + Lawful Evil. Not only were they extreme lovers of death and destruction like the Monster race, but they were also cunning and cruel like the Blood Fiends. They were, without a doubt, the most evil race to ever exist on the Eridius Planet.

    They didn¡¯t look it, in fact they looked like multiple times more handsome/beautiful versions of the Human race that had long ago been exterminated from the South Continent, the only difference being that they all had red eyes (Not the completely red eyes like the Fiends, just regular but beautiful red coloured irises), but they were more heinous than the ugliest of Monsters.

    Fortunately for everyone else, they were being heavily suppressed by the 2 races that had concepted them and there had never been a Devil that had managed to gain any significant level of strength.

    But that would soon change.

 Ch.149 The Paragon Devil

    The child within Sindia¡¯s hands was obviously a Devil, it had their trademark red eyes that were different from the Blood Fiends, but what snatched Ghost¡¯s attention was the 2 tiny horns on each side of the kid¡¯s head, barely peeking out of his short hair. The horns were crimson like blood in colour and possessed a strangely enchanting allure the more you looked at it.

    Very, very similar to the Horns that separated a regular Monster/Greater Demon from a Demon King.

    Ghost immediately knew that the kid was trouble. Of the 87 Demon Kings, many of them had given birth to plenty of children and although they had much more talent than others of their specific species, none of them were as talented as the Demon King¡¯s themselves and none of them inherited the Demon King Horns.

    But apparently, the son of Balik, who wasn¡¯t even a Monster but instead a Devil, was an exception. On top of that, instead of them being purple and jagged like his fathers, they were red and smooth. It was too soon to see what shape they would take so maybe they would gain the same shape as his fathers later on, but they were certainly not the same colour.

    Demon King Horns were different from Greater Demon Horns. The first thing was that if someone was a Demon King (A Monster who possessed the Divine Demon Physique), then no matter what Realm you were in, you would always have the Horns. They were something that you were born with, unlike the Greater Demon Horns that only grew out when a Monster entered the 4th Realm and became a Greater Demon.

    The second difference between Demon King Horns and Greater Demon Horns was that the former were always on the side of your head and the latter on your forehead. On top of that, the former¡¯s colour and shape varied depending on the owner, but the latter was always black and curved upwards. However, there were 2 exceptions to this. The first was when a Demon King became a Greater Demon; instead of getting the regular black Greater Demon Horns, they gained a second pair of Demon King Horns that matched their first pair placed upon their forehead. The second exception was for those Monsters whose constitution was too strange. The Elementals and Wraiths for example. Such beings were privileged to have custom fit horns that matched their bodies.

    And finally, the last difference between Demon King Horns and regular Greater Demon Horns was that the former granted the owner the ability to absorb and manipulate Demonic Energy to even greater extents. Very useful.

    So for a Devil to possess Demon King Horns, it could be imagined how it affected Ghost, who prided himself on always being aware of everything. He had immediately questioned the System for answers, hoping that he wouldn¡¯t once again be denied like the time he tried to inquire about Sindia and Balik, and to his surprise, he was successful!

    The System told him that the child was something called a Paragon Devil. A perfect and complete fusion of a Monster and a Blood Fiend, something that shocked him greatly. But when he tried to ask about its powers, he was expectedly denied.

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    No matter, In that moment, just hearing the term ¡®perfect devil¡¯ was enough. He wanted to slaughter the child before it could do something that he would regret and unhesitatingly demanded that Sindia hand the child over, however, not only did she not do so, but she made it extremely clear that she would join with Balik to fight him if he attempted to harm her child.

    The nerve! Even remembering the scene was enough to cause his blood to boil, especially after knowing what happened after, how he had to back down and actually make concessions.

    It wasn¡¯t that he was scared to fight them. If he wanted to, he could beat the 2 of them silly even if he didn¡¯t use his bloodline suppression over Sindia. He was the Progenitor of all Blood Fiends and that came with unparalleled might. He could have even used his rights as a progenitor to forcefully compel Sindia to do as he wished, but looking at their faces in that moment. The look of fury that they had never once shown him before¡­ he knew that if he were to truly compel Sindia to kill the child, talk less of losing all of Sindia¡¯s ¡®trust¡¯ in him and perhaps creating a snake that would stab him in the back at the worst moment, his ties with Balik and the Blitzorgs would have been irreconcilably destroyed.

    In the end, he decided to let it continue its existence so long as he could monitor it once a week and make sure that it never obtained a drop of strength.

    His helplessness over the situation was infuriating and caused him to itch every time he remembered it, but the him back then was not the him now. The him now would have destroyed the child at all costs, no matter the consequences. But the him back then was stumped by surprise.

    Everybody despised the Devils, even their parents. They had an innate repulsion for the creatures that were even more sinful than them and it was very common for them to accidentally-not accidentally kill them on a whim. But what was the situation? Sindia and Balik had almost attacked him on the spot just for saying that he wanted to kill their Devil child. He knew how that sounded and If it was a Blood Fiend or at least a Monster, he would understand¡­ but it was a DEVIL!

    He HAD to understand. The mystery between Sindia and Balik was becoming too strange and it caused him endless bouts of disorientation and fury, but the thought of comprehending and harnessing their secrets were just too sweet.

    ¡®It was fine¡¯ he had said back then to console himself. Sooner or later he would strip them of their secrets and kill them off along with their child after they had become useless, and then he would continue on his path to becoming the South Continent Kaiser undaunted. He was already half the ruler of the Continent, what was truly the worst that could happen? It shouldn''t be so great that he couldn¡¯t eventually suppress it, even if he had to make temporary concessions to an opportunistic Asura in the process.

    In all his life, he had encountered many ups and downs. Hadn¡¯t he once been called the Crying Ghost because of the way he used to act? Hadn¡¯t he been chased all around the continent by Asura? Hadn¡¯t he suffered many betrayals from the Humans, Beasts and Monsters that he naively used to trust? But look at him now! Look at THEM now!

    2 of those races were now extinct and the last one trembling when they heard his name.

    ¡®I will be KAISER! Come Fate, try and stop me!¡¯

    ¡­He had said back then.

 Ch.150 Arrival of a Third Competitor

    ¡®I will be KAISER! Come Fate, try and stop me!¡¯ He had said back then.

    What a joke.

    Fast forward 18 years (Year 151) and his entire plan had fallen to complete and utter ruin. At the time that he and the rest of the continent had least expected it, Sindia, Balik and their child, which was named Sinbad, had launched a swift and brutal rebellion along with a majority of the Devils on the continent before fleeing to a place where nobody could find them.

    It was a massive slap to the face to both Ghost and Asura, but Ghost found the slap especially hot. This was because, not only had he been the one to pseudo-raise the child which he knew he should have killed from the day he found it, labelling him a fool¡­ but now, even though he knew exactly where they had run to, there was nothing he could do about it!

    They had given him a vicious slap and the only thing he could do was grit his teeth with rage. If this was not first degree humiliation, he didn¡¯t know what was. But this was because of 2 reasons.

    The first reason was also the reason that they had even been able to rebel in the first place. 2 years before this (Year 149), for the first time in many, many years, a Beast had once more appeared on the continent. It was a huge and terrifying flying Beast of the likes they had never seen before and when it casually flapped its wings in the air, it let out billowing waves of green energy that neither he or Asura had seen before.

    It was like regular Mana created by Magical Energy, but it also possessed certain characteristics of Demonic Energy that left everybody flabbergasted. On top of that, the energy seemed to cause commotions in his emotions which caused him fright. The only reason they knew that it was a Beast instead of a Monster was first and foremost because of the lack of horns that every 4th Realm Monster should have, and Asura¡¯s personal admittance that the giant green bird was absolutely not a Monster.

    Perhaps a successful Beast and Monster hybrid, but it was definitely not a pure Monster.

    The Beast had been able to speak and had domineeringly let the continent know of its intentions of taking over. Which at the time was a laugh, but before they could even let out that laugh, hundreds of thousands of beings all over the continent began to glow with a similar green aura which was accompanied by a green symbol on their foreheads. They then pledged their loyalty to the strange Beast with perfect synchrony before rallying under its command.

    Since then, the Beast had made many attacks on the Monster side of the continent using its steadily growing army and its own personal might which actually trumped Ghost¡¯s and Asura¡¯s own (but not combined). Ghost could have left Asura and the Monsters to die, but he knew that if he did so, he would have been the one to face the onslaught next, and at that time, he too would be alone. So both leaders had to team up for the first time ever just to face off the threat.

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    It was 2 years after that, in the midst of a violent battle, that Devils led by Sinbad and his parents, had struck them from the back at the worst moment before fleeing, and if it wasn¡¯t for Babunda and some of his own people, Ghost and Asura really might have died that day.

    It could be imagined how furious they were. He and Asura had both send out orders to find and kill all the Devils but preserve the life of their leaders (Sindia, Balik and Sinbad) if possible so that they could be tortured. Of the 2 of them, Ghost was by far the more enraged. This was because, not only had been betrayed at the worst moment, but since Balik was definitely done for, his one alliance with a Demon King and all of his subjects had been destroyed

    All the things he had to put up with had been for nothing.

    Oh the rage, oh the woe. The despair and the desire for revenge. These emotions had coursed through his veins like a second current of energy and he HAD to satiate them. But unfortunately, when news that the Devils could not be found reached his ears, he knew that he would be gnawing on the bone of frustration for a very long time.

    If the Devils could not be found anywhere in the Continent, then there were probably only 3 places where they could be. The first was the afterlife. Although the chance was slim to none, it was possible that a terrifying Monster or group of Monsters had found them and reduced them to ashes. The reason why only a Monster was a culprit was because only they had the capability to reduce someone to ash after death. Of course, a Blood Fiend with fire powers or powers that could flawlessly hide a corpse could have done it, but he knew all off the beings who had said-powers along with enough strength to slaughter all of the Devils despite having to face both Sindia and Balik, and none of them would have dared to hide such information from him.

    The second place that could have gone to¡­ was beyond the sea. It was rare, but sometimes, there would be someone or a group of someones who were brave enough to traverse the seas and look for foreign land. Thanks to the system, they knew that there were other continents other than the South one and it gave a few people who were living hopeless lives, hope.

    The last place the Devils could have fled to¡­ was the [Forest of Bloody Origin]. The Forest of Bloody Origin was actually in the South Continent and wasn¡¯t even a hidden location. However, out of the few places on the continent that he didn¡¯t dare to enter, this was definitely one of them.

    Considering his history with the place, this certainly shouldn¡¯t have been the case at all, after all, the name ¡®Forest of Bloody Origin¡¯ mainly came from the fact that it was the very same Forest that the Blood Fiends had originated from. The Blood Fiends had been concepted in this Forest and in their early years they had liked to visit it from time to time.

    But that all changed with the arrival of an extremely sinister tree with blood coloured leaves that had almost taken his life. It was also because of this tree that the Blood Fiend race didn¡¯t have as many 4th Realm members as the Monster Races. Those without knowledge would say that it was natural for the Monster races to have more 4th Realm beings because they had the unfair ability to absorb power from slain enemies, but the truth was, the Blood Fiends ability to efficiently absorb power from blood wasn¡¯t all that inferior.

    The real reason that the Blood Fiend race was so inferior was because of that calamitous day in the Forest of Bloody Origin that had ruined their forces and delivered them an unforgettable lesson.

    But he had a sneaking feeling that the very Devils he had been looking for were in that very same Forest.

 Ch.151 Utter Defeat

    But he had a sneaking feeling that the Devils he had been looking for were in that very same Forest and that was the second reason why he could not obtain his revenge.

    Anyone who entered the forest would find themselves having to fend off elongated branches with sharp tips that moved around like snakes, and it would only get worse the closer you got to the core of the Forest where the Demonic Blood Tree was.

    The first and last time he saw the Demonic Blood Tree was many years ago and it hadn¡¯t been as strong, allowing him to get close enough to see it. But going by the increasingly baleful aura of the Forest, it was sure to have progressively grown since then and he didn¡¯t even dare to enter the middle section of the Forest, talk less of where the Demonic Blood Tree was.

    So after futilely sending some men into the Forest to search, he made the decision to forget about them for the time being and focus on the much more dangerous threat. The Phoenix of Envy.

    The name ¡®Phoenix of Envy¡¯ was the title that the denizens of the South Continent had decided to call the terrifying green Phoenix with unprecedented powers that had enabled it to enthral people as it wished.

    Unfortunately, despite the united efforts of the continent, all it took was 10 years for the Phoenix of Envy to conquer the entirety of the Monster territory (Year 161 by that time). Asura, Babunda and a few of the other Demon Kings had fled the continent and the rest of them had been thoroughly grasped by the Phoenix of Envy.

    To think that Emperor Asura who he had been rivals with his entire life had been forced to flee like a pitiful Beast was still extremely shocking, but whenever he thought about the events that led to it he couldn¡¯t help but shiver with helpless fright.

    The Phoenix of Envy was really too terrifying¡­ It was one thing for it to possess immense might that not only surpassed his and Asura¡¯s but also grew faster than theirs, but when unknown creatures from beyond the seas and even from the seas began to arrive on the continent with green coloured scales, furs, eyes or hairs, the resistance of the South Continent became utterly useless.

    Somehow, the Phoenix of Envy possessed the ability to both ensnare and augment beings of any race and used them as loyal soldiers. There seemed to be different levels to it, seeing as only a few were able to mutate and gain green appearances along with strange abilities whereas the rest only gained a green aura and symbol on their forehead, but Ghost didn¡¯t know enough to speculate.

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    What he did know was that the powers that those people gained possessed a strong enticement to both Monsters AND Blood Fiends, causing some of them (mostly Monsters) to betray their rulers and join the Phoenix of Envy.

    Faced against a force like that, there was nothing that he or Asura could do. They were defeated. Almost killed in fact.

    So just like that, the Phoenix of Envy, a being who they had eventually come to learn used to be a lowly Beast and not even the half and half thing that it was now¡­ had become the new Demon Emperor and Lord of all Monsters. What a terrifying day that was.

    Ever since then, Ghost had come to know the true meaning of perpetual fear. Not a single day passed where he could grasp peace of mind or adequate sleep. He would always wonder when his turn would arrive and if he should flee the continent like Asura had done before the Phoenix arrived and his losses became too great. Sooner or later the terror would attack and he would have to submit or flee, and since he refused to submit, would it not be best to follow in Asura¡¯s steps and flee before he suffered and irreconcilable loss?

    But in the end, the thought of having to flee in such a disgraceful manner was harrowing and he decided to wait for a little longer. His hope was that he would get lucky enough to stumble across something unique that would grant him immense power, kind of like the strange 3rd eye that Asura had obtained a few years after the World evolved, but better so that it would enable him to fight off the Phoenix of Envy.

    But that didn¡¯t happen.

    Nothing that Ghost expected or hoped for happened. The Phoenix of Envy didn¡¯t come for him and he didn¡¯t obtain any useful power. Instead, the Phoenix of Envy seemed to be rebuilding the Monster territory for its own purposes and ignored him like they hadn¡¯t been viciously fighting each other for 8 years.

    Like that, years continued to pass and other than a few strange things here and there, he was actually able to regain a semblance of peace. He was even able to build up his forces without resistance and rarely ever saw the daunting figures of the powerful creatures that had invaded his continent.

    Of course, even if there was no fighting or warring, his territory kept on becoming smaller and smaller. Somebody from the Phoenix''s new territory would cross the borders a little bit and build whatever without his permission, no questions asked... But to him, it didn''t matter.

    One day, he would learn all the strengths and weaknesses of the Phoenix of Envy and then use it against him, just like he did to Asura. Soon - it would be hard but soon, he would take it all back.

    Everything that belonged to him, including the entire Continent, would eventually fall into his hands.

    It was on that day, as he was thinking such bold things, just 2 years ago (Year 170)¡­ that the Devils attacked.

 Ch.152 Transformed Devils and Crimson Fae?!

    It came out of nowhere. One day, he was peacefully relaxing in his home, dreaming about his ambitions coming to fruition and picturing the face of a dead green Phoenix, but then all of a sudden, a few of his subordinates audaciously ran into his room with distraught appearances and panicked faces.

    He had immediately known that something was wrong. Talk less of their agitated demeanours, unless they were tired of living, they wouldn¡¯t have dared to barge into his abode without adequate reason.

    It was shortly after that that he heard that not only were they being attacked by the Devils who had disappeared 21 years ago (Year 151), but they were also attacked¡­ by the Fae.

    The Fae! The mysterious race that had appeared on the continent a few years ago. You see, despite the fact that the war with the Phoenix of Envy had long ended, from time to time there would still be interesting figures coloured in green that would arrive in the continent and unhesitatingly fly, run, swim or whatever form of movement towards the Phoenix¡¯s territory, a territory that he and other Blood Fiends called the Domain of Envy.

    But sometimes, those people would bring along their own subordinates and brethren, and the Fae were one of such groups. They were a race that looked like a more visually attractive version of humans who also had long sharper ears and large butterfly wings on their backs of different colours. They had been led by a man who had long green hair, imposing green eyes and luminous green wings. Green, green, green.

    The first time he saw him, despite the fact that the strange Fae had a more inferior cultivation to most of the other invaders, something around the late stages of the 3rd Realm, Ghost had been more wary of him than he was of a lot of the other invaders.

    This was because he knew that rather than judging their cultivations in conjunction with their ages like he did with other people, the best way to examine their talent and most especially their closeness with the Phoenix of Envy¡­ was their colours.

    The more green they appeared, the more mutations they had obviously endured, signifying how close they were to Envy. Which of course, was not something that Ghost liked to see. He had long ago made the decision to acquiesce to any of such figures if they came with demands and avoided getting in their way. But it was most preferable that he avoided getting in their way.

    Unfortunately however, it appeared that apparently, if what his subordinates were telling him were to be true, one of those grand figures had finally come to his doorstep with obvious hostile intentions.

    ¡­But that was actually not the case!

    When he left his home to rush to where the fighting was occurring, Instead of seeing the diversely coloured wings of the Fae that he had been expecting¡­ they were all coloured red! Every last Fae had uncharacteristically pale skin, crimson red wings and ruby red eyes, possessing bloodthirsty auras that not only gave off the unmistakable vibe of the Blood Essence Affinity that every Blood Fiend and Devil had, but also the Demonic Energy that was native to the continent. How could this be?!

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    On top of that, the green winged Fae, their ruler and perhaps progenitor, was nowhere to be seen! What was the meaning of this? Where had the Fae obtained this power?!

    Seeing the entire Fae race radiate power that was multiple times greater than the power that they had walked into the continent with was extremely aggravating. Ghost had looked high and low for anything that would grant him a qualitative boost in power to no avail, but these half butterfly half human mongrels that had come into the continent only a few years ago had found something that had turned them into such cruel and bloody things.

    Infuriating! But that wasn¡¯t even the last of it! The Devils that seamlessly fought alongside them had ALSO experienced unnatural transformations!

    It was different from Devil to Devil, but on a random part of their bodies there were intricate, beguiling red markings that glowed with potent Demonic Energy. Some of them had the markings on their arms, some had the markings or their legs, some had the marking on their chests and there were even a few who¡¯s markings had twisted to form peculiar symbols that lay on small areas of their body like their forehead, cleavage or shoulder.

    These markings apparently possessed remarkable power because the Devils were not only tearing apart Blood Fiends of similar cultivation levels like it was nothing, but they were also fighting head to head with Blood Fiends of higher levels without suffering a loss! Unimaginable!

    These were the same Devils that had to scurry off to who knows where like rats? How. Could. This. BE?!

    He had been filled with so much rage at that moment that he personally went out to massacre swathes of Devils by himself using his sharp claws. Sometimes, he would even devour their heads whilst they were alive, and it was only then that he was able to calm down.

    Loss after loss after loss. That was what he had been facing for many years without reprieve. But in that moment he had obtained a moment of clarity! The attack of the Devils was not a curse but instead a blessing! Not only could he finally obtain the revenge that he had almost been praying to a higher power for¡­ but he could also experiment with their bodies like he had done with many Monsters in the past to perhaps harness their secrets!

    Marvellous! He would do it to the Fae too because clearly they had somehow deserted the banner of Envy, and then he would use their powers to finally come up with a method to deal with the Phoenix!

    As for the attack of the combined Devils and Fae? Meaningless. They had impressive power indeed but neither of them had prospered for long enough yet and their cultivations weren¡¯t high enough. The strongest of them, other than the pesky Paragon Devil of theirs that was surrounded in red lightning, was in the first stage of the 3rd Realm. Whereas on his side, there were more than 10 Fiend Lords. On top of that, even their numbers were lower.

    Looking at such lopsided odds, one couldn¡¯t help but think that the actions of the Devils and the Fae was nothing other than courting death.

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: For those wondering, Zalucard had been exiled in year 155.}

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: From now on, I will be referring to standard cultivation as ¡®Essence Cultivation¡¯ instead of just Cultivation (Unless of course I¡¯m talking about someone''s overall Cultivation). This is because I want to highlight the fact that Essence Cultivation and Anatomy Cultivation are different but equal Cultivation paths. Neither of the 2 could be considered ¡®more¡¯ effective, even if Essence Cultivation is the mainstream in most Worlds.}

 Ch.153 Falling into Madness

    Looking at such lopsided odds, one couldn¡¯t help but think that the actions of the Devils and the Fae was nothing other than courting death. Nevertheless, Ghost naturally didn¡¯t question their suicidal actions and had charged at the Paragon Devil with his arms spread out in attempt to end things once and for all¡­ Only to be viciously intercepted by his parents via 2 different coloured lightning bolts that- miraculously, sent him flying.

    It came as a great shock. He had always been expecting the 2 traitors to interfere, that¡¯s fine. But what he had not expected was the potency behind the strike. It was a power of the likes that he had never felt before. It wasn¡¯t the evil and bloody feature that the rest of the Devils and Fae now had, but something else altogether.

    It¡­ was like a fusion of the 2 different natured lightning bolts. Yeah, that¡¯s right. It was like the Purification of Sindia¡¯s white Lightning and the Corruption of Balik¡¯s Purple Lightning had somehow fused together to form something that rather than just try to tear his insides apart, tried to directly rearrange his composition.

    The purple lightning¡¯s effect would damage, corrupt and twist apart his organs, but before his natural regeneration could kick in, the white lightning would not only harm him, but it would do¡­ something, something that seemed to make the damage a bit more¡­ permanent.

    Thankfully he was strong enough to nullify most of its effects, but he had no doubt that if his natural defences weren¡¯t so high (courtesy of his near-death experiences at the hands of the Asura and Phoenix of Envy), he wouldn¡¯t have been able to nullify the changes that the contrasting lightning bolts attempted to perform on his body.

    Be that as it may, it had still achieved its main purpose which was to stall him. The few moments that his confused fright had caused him to inspect the damage that he had suffered and weigh the costs of continuation, was enough for everything to change.

    BOOM!

    Out of nowhere, what seemed like a mini-tree with red coloured leaves had burst out of the ground and speared straight through his stomach and out his back with appalling ease. Then, it somehow paralysed his body, making him look like a sacrifice as he was helpless suspended in the air. But although the wound was grievous, he had suffered worse and it wasn¡¯t enough to kill him. It was what happened next that really terrified him.

    GU GU GU!

    It began to ferociously suck out his Blood Essence!

    His Blood Essence! Blood Essence was extremely important to every living being and to have it syphoned away was not only damaging to his cultivation, but also damaging to his very life force. He was in deep trouble!

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    Trying his best to save himself, he wasn¡¯t aware that the tide of Devils and Fae were receding. The Blood Fiends of course tried to change them, unwilling to let their enemies flee after causing so much harm, but when a shout had alerted them to the situation of their progenitor, they were fraught with fear and indecision.

    If he had the strength to, he would have roared at them to help him immediately. There he was dying and the worthless fools were actually thinking of chasing? Luckily, they eventually came to the decision to separate. The Fiend Lords and other notable members of the Blood Fiend race rushed to help him and the rest continued to chase the Devils and Fae.

    The people that had stayed to help him let out numerous attacks on the blood-sucking mini tree but they barely did any damage.

    Only after a long while did their combined might leave extensive damage on the mini tree, which caused it to retreat to where it had come from. Yes. Even after so long, the combined might of all the Fiend Lords had still not been able to destroy the mini tree, only managing to cause it to flee.

    By then, Ghost had lost a whole 17% of his Blood Essence which caused his cultivation to Essence Cultivation to fall from the 6th Stage of Soul Refinement (4th Realm for the Enlightened Races) to the 4th Stage. A complete, and utter loss of 2 Stages¨C 2 Stages that had taken him years to achieve¡­ had been taken away in less than an hour.

    ¡­INFURIATING! BONE-ACHINGLY AND SOUL-COLLAPSINGLY INFURIATING! He wanted to bite every last Devil and Fae to death with his teeth, separate the flesh from their bones with his claws, and drink every last drop of their blood until he could make back all of his losses! If he didn¡¯t do so, then he wasn¡¯t the Crying Ghost!

    That day, Ghost had never before been so angry. But it wasn¡¯t the end.

    The Devils and Fae that had managed to flee, actually came back a couple months later to sneak attack them again! But even despite the fact that he was alert of any kind of sudden change in the situation occurring once more in fear of history repeating itself, his efforts were in vain! Balik and Sindia had once again hit him with their abnormal fused-lightning bolts, and a blood-sucking mini tree, which he had long suspected was actually a branch of the Demonic Blood Tree that the Devils and Fae had somehow summoned here, had managed to pierce through his body again!

    AGAIN!

    This time however, the Fiend Lords didn¡¯t dare shilly-shally and quickly came to help him, bringing with themselves more help than last time. Still, it still took time to free him and he lost even MORE Blood Essence, and even MORE of his Essence Cultivation, which had dropped 1 more stage.

    Hoh¡­ that day. That day he really did go mad.

    Faced with the innumerable losses that he had been enduring for the last few years and the sight of the Devils and Fae running away once again, something within him snapped. This time¡­ he was ABSOLUTELY UNWILLING to let the Devils and Fae run away without paying the price again.

    So he chased them.

 Ch.154 Driven by Madness

    He disregarded the giant hole in his stomach and chased them without any other thought than slaughter and destruction, his all-red eyes blazing with a furious and erratic light in a way that it had never done before.

    Considering the direction they had run to, he was able to confirm for a 2nd time that all of his problems had spawned from the very Forest that he had been born in, but he didn¡¯t care. All he wanted to do was kill.

    He quickly caught up to them and it was like an Ogre jumping into a crowd of Goblins. Absolutely no contest. He slashed bodies in half, ripped out arms and legs, tore off heads like he was plucking off flowerheads and latched onto necks with his teeth to drain out the blood of his victims in seconds, but his most favourite attack by far was to impale his victims in the same location that he had been impaled in as he watched their quivering faces filled with fear fall slack as they entered the embrace of death.

    He had killed roughly 40% of them (which left the amount of Fae remaining with very few numbers since they were much less Fae than Devils) when 3 different coloured lightning bolts struck his body at once, causing him extensive damage. Purple and White were obviously expected, but the new Red one was something that he had not experienced before. But he knew who it belonged to. Even if he wasn¡¯t already well acquainted with the owner he still would have been able to guess who it was immediately.

    Who else could it be other than the son of Sindia and Balik, Sinbad?

    The Red Lightning coursed through his body chaotically, borrowing the energy of the other 2 lightning bolts to actually cause damage to his body and exhibit the effects of its own innate nature. Which, to his utter dismay, was to syphon his blood! It even showed signs of interacting with his Blood Essence!

    Ghost had no doubt that if Sinbad was stronger than him, then he really would have been able to syphon his Blood Essence just like that damned tree! He had to kill him!

    He tried to rush towards the boy to eliminate the threat, but another combined lightning attack that was even stronger than before slammed into him and sent him flying. Sent him flying! When was the last time that he had ever been sent flying if he wasn¡¯t fighting Asura, Babunda or the Phoenix of Envy? Never!

    But it was as he was growling with pain and frustration that he finally recognized the rapidly declining state of his body.

    His flesh had sunken, his skin was paler than normal, there were burns all over his body including his organs and there was a giant hole in his stomach that wasn¡¯t healing. He was in significant danger. In fact, he reckoned that if he took 2 or 3 more of those strikes, he would be placed in a position of no return.

    So, with one last glare that promised endless suffering, he fled without hesitation. He wasn¡¯t a fool and with his head clearer than it was when he had started the massacre, he could finally resume making the correct decisions.

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    There was no point in trying to eradicate a threat to his life if doing so without preparation in on itself was a threat to his life. The only option left was to flee. Of course, whilst slashing any Devil or Fae that got too close. Lightning bolts tried to strike but he was able to dodge them without much problems since his mind was 100% set on fleeing. In the end, he was able to escape without suffering any more damage.

    However, his glee at killing so many of his enemies that he had been hunting for so long quickly turned sour when he investigated the extent of the damage. Just like he had feared, although he had ¡®healed¡¯, he had healed completely wrongly. The open flesh from the hole in his stomach had been covered by powerful muscles and perfect skin like normal¡­ but the hole was still there.

    It was similar to the stump that an inferior being would gain if they were to survive getting their hands cutted off. Most Blood Fiends, if provided with adequate blood, would be able to regenerate the loss of biomass after they entered the final stage of the Body Refinement Realm (Realm 1). He, on the other hand, didn¡¯t even need blood to regenerate anymore. It was just automatic. And in the times where he obtained extreme wounds created by special attacks that left its essence in his body, all he needed to do, if using his own energy to purge the blight didn¡¯t work, was drink some potent blood. Using another powerful Blood Fiend for that always worked.

    But not this time. He had practically drained almost all of his Fiend Lords and even gained a small amount of power from it, but his wounds and missing biomass did not regenerate... They healed, but they did not regenerate. This meant that the disordered state of his body that was heavily dampening his energy output, was permanent. All the twisted blood vessels and magic circuits, the misshapen organs and shrunken flesh, all if it would stay the way it was¡­

    It could be imagined how infuriated he had been.

    Only much, much later when many moons had passed and madness was once more beginning to encroach upon his mind that he did something completely drastic. Driven by the insane desire to rid himself from the unsightly imperfection that his body had been reduced to, he used his own claws to gouge out every last ¡®wound¡¯ on his body, then, without hesitance, once more indulged in the blood of his Fiend Lords.

    His deranged hope was that if he could rid himself of the imperfect flesh, his perfect true and perfect flesh would regenerate after drinking some blood. If it worked, good. If it didn¡¯t and he regrew the imperfect flesh, then he would find some place to fight to the death.

    Luckily, it worked.

    It took a lot more blood than the wounds that he had suffered should have, but by the end of the process, he was once more perfect. For someone who didn¡¯t have the ability to endlessly regenerate like a Blood Fiend, they would have been forced to accept the fate that Ghost had been subjected to¡­ permanently. How terrifying.

    But he wasn¡¯t like them. He was Ghost, the perfect being, the progenitor of all Blood Fiends, and from that day forward, the NIGHTMARE OF THE FOREST OF BLOODY ORIGIN!

    Yes. The exact moment that he finally healed all the damages in his body, he ignored the Fiend Lords that had made sacrifices for him and went out to hunt.

    The rage that had been festering in his soul wanted nothing else.

 Ch.155 Absolute Malice

    However, on his journey towards the Forest his sanity had been returning to him bit by bit, and as such, all the things that could go wrong in invading the Forest of Bloody Origin flickered through his thoughts and slowly sapped away the speed in his legs. His sprint became a canter, his canter became a bound, and his bound became a stroll. Eventually, he had completely stopped moving and just stared off in the direction of the Forest.

    He stood there like a frozen statue for many, many hours. And then he left.

    He had given up on invading the Forest on his lonesome, but he had not given up on killing its inhabitants.

    From that day forth, he was truly a nightmare to the Devils and Fae. Having gathered an uncountable amount of Blood Fiends to surround the entire Forest, anybody who tried to escape it had died a gruesome death. Sometimes they would turtle up and refuse to come out, but when they did so, he would heartlessly use his ability as a Progenitor to command hordes of Blood Fiends to run towards wherever they were hiding and then blow themselves up along with their surroundings.

    He wasn¡¯t able to see it, but he was sure that over 90% of the thousands of Blood Fiends that he sent each time would die before they completed their purpose. By this point in time he accumulated a small understanding of how the Forest of Bloody Origin worked and knew that so long as he could send in many weaklings at a time, although a majority would become nourishment for the strange crimson-leafed trees, a few would be able to penetrate through them and enter the living area of the Devils and Fae.

    The only reason why he or other Fiend Lords and powerful Realm 3 Blood Fiends couldn¡¯t enter was because they would be immediately focused on. The bloodthirsty trees would directly ignore the weaklings and stretch their hair-raising branches towards the best source of energy.

    The last time he had gone in, the Demonic Blood Tree itself had directly acted. So he could only come up with this method. Sending in thousands of similarly low levelled Blood Fiends along with a few mid levelled ones in hopes that whilst the mid levelled ones caught the attention of the trees and died, the low levelled ones would have enough time to reach the Devils and Fae and finally complete their mission.

    And it worked. The amount of Blood Fiends that actually managed to succeed, he was sure, were very low, but they were still able to do it. They were able to enter the dwellings of the Devils and Fae where they proceeded to blow up their own Magic Cores as commanded.

    How did he know they succeeded if they were obviously unable to report back to him? Why, that was because of the rage-filled faces of Devils and Fae as they charged out of their Forest with the unmistakable emotion of vengeful fury written all over their skin.

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    Ah¡­ those faces. How they filled him with such glee.

    But all good things must come to an end. After the Devils and Fae realised that turtling up would only cause more people to die and stopped hiding, Ghost had begun to indulge in a new¡­ activity. Driven by the volatile emotions within him that yearned to mark its existence on reality, he had discovered¡­ art.

    He would carefully dissect the bodies of Devils and Fae alike so that he could obtain their noses, ears, lips, skin, bones, muscles, wings and more¡­ and then create something new from the body parts. Sometimes it would be another grotesque looking humanoid with multiple limbs, eyes and wings, but other times it could be strange objects and constructions that had multiple mouths and ears all over it.

    It was something so completely unprecedented and filled with madness that even the Blood Fiends would look at him terror, however, he didn¡¯t care. The activity had become his favourite pastime and anybody who thought of him wrongly for that could become a part of his materials. Unfortunately, it was this favourite pastime of his that would end up becoming the final nail in the coffin.

    On a day that he had least expected it, someone other than a member of his race had come to visit the Forest by himself. It was Zalucard, the leader or rather ex-leader of the Fae, but unlike his fellow Fae, he was still flooded with green colours and in fact seemed to have even more. Green aesthetic markings laced his arms and he had gained another set of wings. Now, they truly looked like butterfly wings. They were noble and ethereal and possessed a beguiling charm. On top of that, he himself had become immeasurably more attractive. His every movement was filled with grace and a deadly charm that easily caught all attention.

    Clearly, he had undergone some sort of evolution. But as he appeared above the sea of Blood Fiends withs obvious intentions of visiting the Forest or at least its periphery, he just so happened to catch sight of Ghost¡¯s newest creation. A beast-like thing with many eyes on its face that had huge red wings on its back. The catch was that those gigantic wings seemed to have been formed from tens of Fae Wings.

    And he noticed.

    The whole reason that Ghost had the confidence to slaughter the Fae as he wished was because he knew that they had somehow aligned themselves with the Demonic Blood Tree instead of the Phoenix of Envy. Their leader, who he had always known was still aligned with the Phoenix, should have abandoned them. He knew about the ridiculous loyalty that each [Creature In Green] had for the Phoenix so guessing such a thing wasn¡¯t strange at all. In fact, if the Phoenix of Envy ordered the Fae leader to slaughter all Fae, Ghost knew that he would do it. And he would do it without hesitation.

    But the look of absolute malice that crept on the Fae leader''s face as he stared at him made him think of 2 things.

    <ol>

    <li> Perhaps he was wrong.</li>

    </ol>

    <ol start="2">

    <li> He needed to leave the Continent. Immediately.</li>

    </ol>

 Ch.156 Discovery of Another Continent

    Although the Fae leader was still much weaker than him, he knew that it was time to go. There were no 2 ways about it. The ferocious look of pure malice that promised him endless suffering wasn¡¯t something that he hadn¡¯t seen before, but in his experience, each and every time he had seen a face like that being directed towards him, trouble always followed. It wasn¡¯t always instant and it was obviously never endless, but each and every time somebody dared to look at him like that, if they didn¡¯t die, they would deliver.

    The delivery might be weak but more than enough times it was not. After all, only those who had the utmost assurance in themselves would look at him, the Blood Fiend Progenitor, like that. Even the weaklings that he had terrorized in the past were too occupied with feeling either fear, desperation or despair, unable to summon the slightest wisp of rage with the threat of death looming over their heads. Later, if they were still alive and he was already far, far away, they might snort their noses and stamp their feets to display their fruitless feeling of indignation, but nothing much more. What else could they do?

    It was only people who knew that they could do something, people who were confident in their own viciousness or the viciousness of their backing, that would dare to look at HIM like that. And as such, he always made sure to kill anybody that looked at him like that even if the costs were obscene, but obviously, this time, he could not. He would have the Phoenix of Envy to deal with if he dared.

    In rare situations like that, he would have to hope that he could withstand the delivery or hope that somebody else killed the deliverer, but obviously, this time, that would not be the case.

    Nobody on this continent dared to kill the Creatures in Green. Nobody but the Phoenix of Envy himself, and obviously¡­ that would not happen.

    The Fae leader was intent on seeing his destruction and had more than enough ways to ensure it without lifting a finger. That was how powerful a few of the Creatures in Green had grown. Of course, he was still immensely powerful himself, but if all the Creatures in Green gathered to kill him. That would be his end. The Phoenix of Envy wouldn¡¯t even need to show up.

    He understood all of that and more the moment the Fae leader gave him that face. So, without hesitating, he turned towards the mass of Blood Fiends and ignored the Fae. Before the Fae Leader could say anything more than ¡®you¡¯, he had already sent an order to his entire race, causing them to follow him with mixed emotions with the predominant one being fear, as he rushed to the edge of the continent.

    He was fleeing immediately.

    Unfortunately, 3/4 of the way there, a mighty force of Monsters (with a few of them bearing green symbols on their heads) had intercepted and attacked them without even asking them to surrender. This army only continued to grow the longer the ferocious war went on and not before long even Creatures in Green and Demon Kings had begun to show up, laying waste to the Blood Fiend race.

    By the time he had reached the shore and wiped out the surrounding forces of Envy with the help of his Fiend Lords and other strong Blood Fiends, only a paltry 12,000+ of the previous nearly 200,000+ Blood Fiends were remaining.

    ¡­

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    That event was by far the biggest loss that the Blood Fiend race had suffered to date and even a few of his more careless Fiend Lords had perished in the battle. This was mostly due to the fact that unlike any other war in the past, the Blood Fiends couldn¡¯t hide, retreat or even use the environment to their advantage. It had been very clear where they were going and their enemies knew it. They had been forced to run through an open grassland, a small and sparse forest, and a desert, facing innumerable attacks all the way.

    But they did it. They had managed to escape from the forces of Envy and with the help of Fiend Lord Jin and a few other Blood Fiends with the rare Ice Affinity, they had slowly ventured into the sea.

    A little more than a year had passed since then and the Icy Road that they had been building all this time had grown extremely long. Ghost had seen all kinds of terrific Sea Beasts and Sea Monsters and they were all quite interesting. Sometimes, when he was in the mood, he would kill them for fun and collect their body parts to facilitate his new hobby. It was unfortunate that he had been forced to abandon all the Devil and Fae materials, but he tried not to dwell on that. If he thought about what he had been enduring in the South Continent the last few decades, his blood would boil. So instead, he liked to think about his future.

    Even with his lack of experience outside of the South Continent, he could tell that the Phoenix of Envy was something completely unnatural. Not only had it been the first creature to enter his continent, proving that it was already a being like no other, but it had also kicked out 2 powerful Emperors who had long established deep foundations that should have kept them safe.

    What were the chances of running into something like that once again? It had to be impossible, it just had to be. Because otherwise¡­

    Ghost felt a shiver run up his spine as the images of past events passed through his mind. However, it was at this moment that he caught a change in the scenery. A change in the endless blues.

    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ land right?¡± Ghost murmured to himself. ¡°It¡¯s quite big, even from here... Can I have finally found another Continent?¡± He had seen many islands on his journey and had even stopped at a few to boost up his reserves, after all, he couldn¡¯t always drink the blood of his fellow Blood Fiends. It got quite boring. However, what he wanted to find was another Continent. Even after suffering defeat after defeat, his ambitions still knew no bounds. He had always desired to be Kaiser and that had not changed. That WOULD not change. But he would not be Kaiser of a pitiful island. No, that would never be enough. He had the potential to rule a large Continent and he would not allow himself any less. It may be harder with the massive decrease in the number of Blood Fiends but everyone who was left was strong, smart and most importantly resilient.

    ...But was that even a Continent in the first place?

    As he mulled over the question with mild hope, he suddenly remembered that he had someone, or rather something, he could ask who would give him a definitive answer.

    ¡°System. Is that a Continent?¡± Ever since things had fallen apart and all that he knew had turned on its head, he had been relying on the System more and more for answers that he himself could not answer.

    DING!

    <Yes. That is a Continent.>

    DING!

    <Congratulations Host, you have discovered another of the 5 Grand Continents; The East Continent.>

    ¡®FINALLY!¡¯ Ghost inwardly roared with bubbling glee. But as plans for conquest began to rumble through his mind he couldn¡¯t help but think of a familiar face that he had not seen in a long time.

    ¡®...I wonder where Asura ended up. Could he be on this Continent¡­? I hope not. I¡¯m truly tired of seeing his ugly face. Anyways, he left from another direction so it should be fine.¡¯ Ghost thought with narrowed eyes.

    Strangely, the thought of Asura dying never crossed his mind.

 Ch.157 Happenings of the World (1)

    Eridel¡¯s all-seeing gaze rolled over the multiple eye-catching events occurring all over the World.

    The Blood Fiends were about to invade the East Continent where they would eventually stumble upon either the Burning Nines or the Yoloria Empire, the Empire established by Empress Gloria, the High Human Queen- now Empress, who had 9 mixed Kings/Queens under her direct command.

    Gaia had become a full-fledged goddess of creation and had erected her own religion called the [Divine Syndicate of Genesis], its domain of influence had been expanding without any competition and now, its reach had extended out of the Western Forest and had even seeped into other central locations of power. Now, everybody on the continent knew about Gaia, the so-called Eldest god of Heaven and almighty Dragon goddess of Creation, causing the knowledge of gods to be fully exposed to the Central Continent. Most people didn¡¯t believe it too much considering the fact that there wasn¡¯t much evidence, but when they remembered the golden beam of light that had emerged from the Dragon Mountain but had been seen all over the continent, they couldn¡¯t help but feel extremely wary.

    J?rma was, as always, becoming increasingly powerful. She had become so large that it had become public knowledge that she was the ¡®3rd¡¯ Celestial Beast, and her control over her powers, most specifically her Evil Eye of Petrification, had become abnormally uncanny. Clearly, she was more than just brawn. Her siblings, Drako, Lily and Hiculu, were also more powerful. They were all at the 4th Realm and had unlocked even more of their innate powers. Drako¡¯s fire was extremely feared by many and was something that even some of the most powerful figures on the Continent tried to avoid. Lily¡¯s power of illusions and enthralment had grown and Hiculu, who now had 4 heads, was a fearsome figure whose powerful poison struck fear even in the hearts of the Continent¡¯s 2 Celestial Beasts.

    Raiko the Golden Tiger, had become a Beast Emperor with 5 King/Queens under his banner. A Tiger Queen, someone who he had been raising to be his wife, only for her to fall in love with someone else; a cunning but loyal Wolf King, a mighty and fierce Bear King, a charming and intelligent Monkey Queen and finally, a battle-hungry yet wise Eagle Queen who loved the hunt. All of them were in the 4th Realm thanks to Raiko¡¯s vast resources and they were quietly thriving in their respective territories. At first, Eridel had felt a little sorry for Raiko¡¯s failed attempt at love even if he had seen it coming, but when he took a peek into his Soulmate Link out of curiosity and found out who it was attached to, he couldn¡¯t help but call the Golden Tiger a lucky bastard. But perhaps the woman was the lucky bastard? After all, Raiko was only 1 of her 2 Soulmates.

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    Moving along, it appeared that interesting things were taking place in the sea. Powerful figures were emerging like it was nothing and the average power of the sea dwellers were only continuing to rise. Alas, this was at the cost of lives upon lives upon lives. At this point, it wasn¡¯t rare to suddenly see a large section of the sea become red with blood as a result of a terrible carnage. However, it wasn¡¯t like they were ALL senselessly killing. Having gained more and more intelligence along with their increasing accomplishments in cultivation, they had learnt how to maximise their gains. Powerful Sea Beasts and Monsters had learnt how to take control of those weaker than them and have them diligently work for them. These creatures became the Kings and Emperors of the Sea. The only reason it took them so much longer than the creatures above the Sea was because of the fact that they were so used to killing and killing and killing that it had become instinctive. There was no pity and there was no mercy, in fact, there wasn¡¯t even anything interesting to do in the Sea other than killing. For them to gain control of their instincts and use their indomitable auras to force others into doing the same, was much more impressive than the Beast and Monster Lords above the Seas. And going by the current course of events, it looked like multiple Emperors were about to enter an all-out war which would give birth to the first Kaiser of the Sea, something much more powerful than a Continental Kaiser.

    Over in the South Continent, the Demon god of Envy, Honourable Brother, was planning something so heinous that Eridel couldn¡¯t help but ¡®frown¡¯ with his non-existent face. But thinking about the crazy thing that he had implemented into his World before he knew of its quite possibly life-ending costs, he felt like those very costs weren¡¯t so ugly anymore. Because with that, he knew that even if the Honourable Brothers plans actually began to come into fruition, he would be able to put it all to an end without having to directly kill him. Still, he would rather that the world, yes world, deal with it themselves.

    Other than that, because of the demon gods hyper focus on his plans and lack of care for what the rest of the continent were doing. The Devils and Fae of the Forest of Bloody Origin had begun to not only recuperate peacefully, but also claim the entire territory of the now fleeing Blood Fiends. This was another thing that made him ¡®frown¡¯, after all, the Devils were really and truly quite evil. If it wasn¡¯t because of the Paragon Devil, who, thanks to the 7th aspect of his inherited Divine Demon Physique [Free from Fate] was free from his innately evil desires, and the 5th aspect of the Divine Demon Physique [Divine Ruler], which made any and all people who considered him their leader adopt his own way of thinking and morals, Eridel really might have had to give the same treatment that he was reserving for the Honourable Brother and other future demon gods.

 Ch.158 Happenings of the World (2)

    As for the barbarians who used to live in the Forest of Dawn along with other illustrious races like the Elves and Divine Dragons¡­ Well, they weren¡¯t doing good at all. As a matter of fact, their situation was quite a sorry one. Although they had Beast-like constitutions that allowed them to absorb energy from the meat that they eat and a ferocity that wasn¡¯t inferior to any predator, the competition that they had was just too great. Elves who had a Tree of Life, Spring of Life and a supreme aid like Ciera, Divine Dragons whose bodies naturally grew up to be very large and extremely powerful, Beast Emperor Raiko and his Beast Empire, and finally, Dodo the Guardian of the Forest and his Glacial Saint Deer Clan. None of these factions were something that the fledgling Barbarian Clan could compete with, and as a result, not only was the Barbarian Chief not in the 4th Realm like the other Mutated Human race progenitors (Crying Ghost and the High Human Empress), but they had also had to flee their home in search for a safer territory!

    This was definitely going to become a blight in their history if their progeny lived to tell the tale, but who knows, maybe this could end up becoming the greatest decision that they ever made.

    Moving on, Eridel was actually very fascinated with something that was going on within the Celestial Desert, the desert in the South of the Central Continent that Celestial Beast Apis had claimed as his territory. Although it wasn¡¯t exactly a peaceful territory considering the fact that it was still a desert and lacked an adequate amount of naturally growing food, it was still the most peaceful territory of its kind. This was because Apis, their regional lord, had long ago kicked out or outright exterminated the more violent races in his territory. Having suffered from the torment of the more crueller races like the Sun-lit Hyenas and the 4-legged Death Vultures before becoming a Celestial Beast, he had been exceptionally vicious to them when he had finally gained power. In fact, as soon as he had woken up from his Celestial Transformation and realised how powerful he had become, his executions began immediately. But that was not what Eridel found interesting. Instead, he was far more interested in the 3 to 4 metre tall humans that had large ears and prominent tusks sticking out of their mouths.

    Quite some time ago, the last remaining Humans of the desert had stumbled upon the apocalyptic 500 metre tall figure of Apis the Celestial Elephant and had nearly died from the gaze that was cast towards them. They fully expected to be killed without resistance and immediately prostrated themselves in hopes that the nightmarish being wouldn¡¯t care about them. However, unexpectedly, it was at that moment that a large flock of 4-legged Vultures chose to attack them. They lamented their fate and despaired, but unlike what they were expecting, they heard a furious elephant roar that was so loud that it shook the lands and damaged their ears. Without pause, Apis crushed the entire flock of vultures with a single blow from his trunk, inadvertently saving the lives of the last remaining humans in the South of the Central Continent. Without being long winded, after being saved by the majestic Celestial Beast in such shocking fashion, they decided to fully pledge their allegiance, or servitude to be specific. More than a decade later, the Celestial Beast, who was pleased with their adaptability, intelligence and loyalty¡­ decided to do something that no other Beast had ever done.

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    The humans, who had become quite prosperous in this time had simultaneously become fanatical about Apis, the Beast who was quite literally their Lord and Saviour. They treated him like a god and this only increased every time they saw him accomplish world-breaking feats that no other being could. It wasn¡¯t long before they began to think and do the strange things that situations like this caused to those that were more ignorant, but one of those things was asking for the Celestial Blood of their Lord, and as one can guess, Apis had obviously agreed. Despite the absurd request, he did it. He gave out his blood freely, not knowing the effects it would cause. As a result, those humans became what they were now, the first Beastkin in the Eridius World. To be exact, Celestial Elephant Beastkin. But make no mistake, Celestial Beast Blood wasn¡¯t something so easily ingested. In fact, other than the chief of the tribe who was the strongest, everyone who was granted the blood imploded, and even with the chief it was a very close call, and that was after seeing what happened to others and only taking a few sips instead of chugging it down. Blood from powerful Beasts, especially Celestial Beasts, was extremely valuable, but it was even dangerous if you weren''t careful.

    But speaking about humans becoming powerful, the situation in the North Continent was going really well. Although Seraqiel¡¯s unique path of power was unable to be passed on just yet because of a lack of specialist equipment, Gabriel had been able to pass on his various martial arts along with their shared Essence Cultivation Technique that allowed them to more efficiently absorb the ambient Magical Energy into their Magic Cores and convert it into their own Mana, more than 10x faster than the basic cultivation technique that every Enlightened Being was born with. Thanks to this, they had been able to claim large amounts of territory from the Undead infested continent and now had the entire Southern Sector under their control. They were still hidden of course, hidden away in their secret bases to prevent the Original Undead from ending everything they fought for in a single moment, but everybody on the continent who had a well functioning brain knew that the Southern Sector was owned by the humans, and if you wanted to enter, tread carefully.

 Ch.159 Three Classifications of Undead

    However, in contrast to the increasing circumstances of the North Continent¡¯s southern sector, the situation of the rest of the continent was rapidly declining. It was becoming increasingly brutal and the few remaining Beasts who were actually of the living, had either been mercilessly killed or converted into the undead. But that did not mean the slaughter had ended or even slowed, no, it was just as chaotic as ever, and this was because of the existence of the mutant undead.

    So far, there were 3 known classifications of undead in the Eridius World; Original Undead, Lesser Undead and Mutant Undead.

    The Original Undead were the beings that had been killed and then forcefully assimilated with one of the Slime Abominations ¡®children¡¯ that were created with the skill called [Reproduction], and although there were only less than 30 of them left, they alone possessed an iron-clad grip on the rest of the undead world and were completely insurmountable. This was because as pseudo-descendants of the Slime Abomination, they possessed the same (but to a much minor extent) ability to absorb some of the Strength, Durability, Agility and Intelligence of whatever they ate. There used to be a lot more Original Undead on the continent, but after they all gathered in the Forest of Death, they all slaughtered and devoured each other until there were only 37 of them left.

    The Lesser Undead were beings who had recently died, but had somehow received a vast infusion of Undead Essence. It was possible for ancient corpses to be converted this way but the amount of Undead Essence needed made it an extremely rare occurrence for it to happen naturally, and quite expensive for someone who wanted to personally create the Undead themselves. These Lesser Undead aren¡¯t too different from abominations in the fact that they are always in a state of discomfort if they don¡¯t syphon any Life Force, and for this reason, they are always seeking to devour more and more. Unfortunately, as soon as any Life Force enters their bodies, the comfort and pleasure it gives them only lasts for a few seconds (kind of like a drug) before it is immediately converted into Undeath Essence. This Undeath Essence increases the power of the Undead, but to the Lesser Undead who lack intelligence, power barely means anything to them, all they want is to stop suffering.

    But speaking of intelligence, the fact that they¡¯re all dumb is not quite true. The intelligence of a Lesser Undead is connected to their strength, it¡¯s just that the ratio is so appalling that a Lesser Undead had to be in the 3rd Realm just to have the barest amount of Self Awareness. Luckily, so long as they kept eating living beings and surviving, they could raise their strength and subsequently their intelligence.

    (For the record, these so-called Lesser Undead are usually the only kind of Undead on most other planets, and are normally just called ¡®the undead¡¯.)

    The Mutant Undead were much more impressive than the Lesser Undead and although it wasn¡¯t a unique existence to the Eridius World, they were very rare. Throughout the many locations in the universe they had different names, for example, the Unhallowed Region of the Lolay Galaxy called them Greater Undead, but there were other names like Higher Undead, Unique Undead and Perfect Undead, but in Eridius, they were just called the Mutant Undead.

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    The methods to create these beings were surprisingly numerous, but the reason for their existence in Eridius was because of one thing and one thing only, and that was the Forest of Death which had become a ¡®Sacred¡¯ Land. The ambient Magical Energy in that Forest had long since become something else entirely. It was of course still energy, but unlike pure Magical Energy or even a normal Sacred Land¡¯s ambient Magical Energy, it had a large mixture of affinities which was already extremely rare, but its predominant ones were Undeath Essence, Death Essence and something reminiscent of Chaos, something that was definitely because of the Abomination, who¡¯s very presence had created it.

    And because of this strangely-mixed nefarious energy, any corpse (that wasn¡¯t already an Undead) that stayed in the Forest long enough, would automatically become a Mutant Undead. Mutant Undeads were much more powerful than regular Undead and had a much easier time gaining intelligence, the interesting thing was that as they became stronger, they actually began to regain the memories that they had when they were alive. The only thing was that 9.9/10 times, they didn¡¯t care for them, they only used the useful knowledge and discarded things like emotions and relationships with their previous loved ones. But that was not the only unique thing about them.

    The other thing about them is that¡­ they actually preyed on other Undead! In fact, devouring other Undead was far more beneficial for them than living beings. Normally, Undeath Essence within an Undead was like the various blood types of humans, which meant absorbing one of a different type could cause serious issues. However, EVERY Undead''s inner Undeath Essence was unique and it was impossible to find another Undead with compatible Undeath Essence, which was why regular Undead rarely ever attacked each other, talk less of eat each other.

    But this wasn¡¯t a problem for the Mutant Undead. The Mutant Undead possessed the amazing ability to absorb the Undeath Essence of other Undead and make it completely theirs, allowing them to become stronger much faster than a Lesser Undead. But this is not to say that they would forsake living beings for other Undead, nay, they liked both. It just so happens that other Undead were much tastier, and it was because of this that the continent was still so full of slaughter.

    The North Continent was by far, the most depressing location in the entire Eridius World. And that came with more ¡®tangible¡¯ problems than it sounded like it should, but truth be told, calling those things tangible was a very big stretch. After all, what they really were called was Resentful Spirits and they were exactly what they sounded like they were; The remnant souls of the dead that possessed a hatred so deep that it could evaporate the seas or freeze the deserts.

    A desire for revenge so abnormally heavy that even when they should have lost all intelligence and departed to the Reincarnation Cycle, they absolutely REFUSED.

    These were generally the type of people who say things like ¡®Even if I were to be reduced to 2 eyeballs, I will stare you to death¡¯... and genuinely mean it.

 Ch.160 Resentful Spirits, Emerging Ghosts

    These were generally the type of people who say things like ¡®Even if I were to be reduced to 2 eyeballs, I will stare you to death¡¯- and genuinely mean it. And as could be expected, they were not normal at all; even before they died and became the aberrations that they were. There had always been something wrong about them, something that wasn¡¯t quite right up in their heads. But do not confuse that for something evil. The desire for revenge in on itself wasn¡¯t necessarily born out of malicious intent, oftentimes it was only a means of self-preservation that prevented one from falling into degeneracy.

    Some people need to know that they weren¡¯t weak; that if they were pushed enough they could turn into wrathful beasts that weren¡¯t to be trifled with, that if it came down to it they were just as fierce as anyone else and were not helpless prey. But then there were the people who decided to take revenge on a person who they perceived to be weak, standing up to them. That¡­ was more in line with the concept of ¡®evil¡¯, the sin of pride to be exact.

    Nevertheless, when this desire for revenge was pushed to unbelievable extremes even after death, a Resentful Spirit could be born. No, it was almost certain it would be born. The only time that they couldn¡¯t be conceived was if there was no ambient Magical Energy to facilitate it; that¡¯s why the idea of a ¡®ghost¡¯ existing in a Low Tier World was a joke.

    In truth, in most situations a Resentful Spirit wasn¡¯t that much of a worry. Their constitutions were innately imperfect and as a result their lifespans were extremely short. This was because although they had a new ¡®body¡¯, it was terribly malformed and impure, which caused it to constantly lose its ¡®vitality¡¯.

    This new body of theirs was a Spirit Body, something that was composed of unique energy called Spirit Essence, a type of Soul Energy that was to a Soul what flesh and blood was to a biological body, hence a portion of the name ¡®Resentful Spirit¡¯, but not only were most Resentful Spirits spawned with a very sparse amount of it (because of the fact that most Souls didn¡¯t need any other vessel than the physical entity they were residing in, and thus didn¡¯t have a Spirit Essence in the first place), but they also had other harmful essences mixed into their Spirit Bodies that caused them small malfunctions.

    One of these malfunctions was periodic memory loss; over the duration of their short ¡®life¡¯ time they would experience bouts of complete memory loss, and would even lose a portion of it permanently before the rest came back. Eventually, they would lose all memories and wouldn¡¯t be too different from the moping Souls in the Reincarnation Cycle. Quite a sad fate. But that was not nearly the end of their problems.

    The most pressing one was that although the conversion of a flesh and blood body to a Resentful Spirit¡¯s Spirit Body was a special phenomenon that formed some of the required Spirit Essence, it was not nearly enough. It was too thin and lacking in quality, and don¡¯t forget the other harmful essences mixed within it that slowly damaged it over time.

    In conclusion, a newborn Resentful Spirit was like a very, very, VERY malnourished person who had been afflicted with diseases and poison. If nothing happened, the longest they would live was a week, but it was common for them to die within a day.

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    However, didn¡¯t they say that the heavens always left at least one door open for everybody? Who knows, but that was certainly the case for Resentful Spirits.

    Although they could not be touched or be seen by the living or even the undead (because of their lack of substance that was barely higher than the lowest level energy), that did not mean that they could not be touched or seen by each other. When a Resentful Ghost met another of its kind or any other being with a Spirit Body (collectively called Spiritual Beings), they were driven by an instinctive desire to assimilate the other and make themselves more ¡®whole¡¯.

    Yes, Resentful Ghosts had an ability similar to the Mutant Undead to devour and assimilate other Spiritual Beings. And this not only gained them more Spirit Essence which made them quite a bit stronger, but contrary to expectations, the process actually expunged some of the harmful essences within the ¡®body¡¯, granting them more ¡®health¡¯ and a longer ¡®lifespan¡¯ alongside a reduction of the problems innate to a Resentful Spirit¡¯s Spirit Body.

    If enough Resentful Spirits gathered together, or a Resentful Spirit that was lucky enough to keep finding other weaker kin met a certain milestone, then eventually, what was known as a Ghost would be born. A true Ghost.

    And that¡¯s when things became problematic.

    Ghosts were an evolved form of a Resentful Spirit (and a few other Spiritual beings), and they had perfectly pure Spirit Bodies that were absent of any imperfections. And in this state, they could control the density of their bodies. The degree at which they could do so was correlated to their strength, so most of them could only become transparent at best¡­ but they could be touched. And they could touch others.

    And although they were finally ¡®whole¡¯ and no longer needed to syphon Spirit Essence from others, that did not mean that they would stop. They, like any other being with self-awareness, desire more, more and more. More strength, more intelligence and more evolutions.

    And now, they could prey on the living who had complete Souls that they could devour. Although it wasn¡¯t the Soul itself that they wanted, when devoured, all of its energy would be converted into Spirit Energy; which was far more beneficial than the Spirit Energy of a Resentful Spirit.

    With the ability to control when they were seeable and tangible, if they were careful enough and preyed on those that were weaker than them, they would rarely ever face any kind of resistance.

    And in the Eridius World where specialist professions like Ghost Hunters or Spirit Warriors had yet to even be thought about talk less of practised, these Ghosts would eventually grow to be extremely powerful.

    Currently, there were 5 Ghosts that had achieved their second evolution and had become something known as Ghost Lords.

    2 were in the Sea, another 2 were in the North Continent, and the last was in the South Continent; That Ghost had long become a Creature in Green under the banner of Envy and had a larger edge than others of its kind, but not even he was the strongest Ghost in Eridius.

    That title went to the one and only Ghost King on the planet; Bararak from the North.

 Ch.161 Looming Doom

    Bararak was a fearsome figure and although he wasn¡¯t as famous as other hegemony figures of the North Continent, courtesy of his unparalleled stealth abilities, he was just as powerful and his strength was only continuing to grow. After all, there weren¡¯t many people on the continent who could defend against his unique abilities.

    However, although the threat of a Ghost King who could devour souls as he wished was incredibly high, Eridel paid little mind to it when faced with other matters concerning the North Continent.

    A solution for the constantly spawning Resentful Spirits had already been devised and eventually, they would all become one of his many strengths instead of the festering blight that they were. He had far bigger problems on hand and one of them was mere seconds away from discovering something that would irreconcilably destroy his plans if he let it happen.

    This person was none other than the Wraith King, the Demon King, who after being chased into the the Slime Abominations lair by the Original Undead had somehow suddenly returned a few years later as an Original Undead himself, with power so incontestable that he became the very thing that all the Originals had been fighting each other to become:

    The indisputable leader of the 32 Originals and the sole ruler of all Undead! 32 because 4 of them had died!

    The Wraith King had undoubtedly experienced a great turn around and his power had explosively grown, he had even become an Original Undead himself with a mutagenic Undeath Essence that had fused with the extremely corruptive Demonic Energy, making him much stronger than the other Original Undead even if they had the exact same Cultivation levels as him, but this clearly pointed towards a connection with the Slime Abomination itself.

    As a matter of fact, the reason that the Wraith King had so quickly become the Lord of all Undead wasn¡¯t just because he had slaughtered 4 other Originals. Although that had certainly helped, there was more to it. The true reason that the other Original Undead had finally given up resistance and submitted to the Wraith King after his domineering display was because of one thing¡­ And that was the aura of the being who had made them what they were. The aura of their Ancestor who should have been sealed, radiating off of the Wraith King in billowing waves that caused them to instinctively shiver with primordial fear.

    Clearly, the Slime Abomination was inhabiting the Wraith King. Perhaps not literally but it was definitely in control of everything that the Wraith King did. And as Eridel watched, the Wraith King, or rather the Slime Abomination in the form of the Wraith King, lifted up its ghostly head like a snake that had detected prey and gazed towards a particular direction with a terribly eerie focus.

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    The Slime Abomination¡­ had found the home of the Humans.

    And if nothing happened, the final remaining Humans on the North Continent would end up extinct like their peers in the South Continent and Eridel¡¯s plans for them would be reduced to dust.

    But¡­

    ¡®How could I possibly let that happen?¡¯ Eridel thought to himself as he began to form his avatar in a certain location.

    ¡­

    [North Continent, Southern Sector, Unknown Forest]

    In a quiet Forest that was seemingly absent of any cognizant lifeforms or even other Undead, the ¡®Wraith King¡¯ stood, or rather floated next to a Tree in ¡®his¡¯ true form. The way he looked at it was as if it held all the secrets to the universe and even his Spirit Sense which could no doubt expand across many miles, was now only 50 metres large, sacrificing visibility over a large amount of space for extremely honed focus on a small area.

    As a result of this, he was able to realise that this unassuming Tree, no, the entire space around him¡­ was not as it seemed! It was an illusion!

    Thanks to the many beings that he (the Slime Abomination) had assimilated when he was free, he had an abundant amount of knowledge about many things and illusions were one of them. Furthermore, thanks to a few strange Beasts like the Sky Bounding Bunnies and the Violet Baleful Oxes, he even had a few illusion abilities himself.

    And as such, when he came to this Forest looking for the humans that he had been interested in for a while, he realised that everything that he was seeing was fake. It was all an illusion and it seemed to be stemming from this very Tree.

    The ¡®Wraith Kings¡¯ Spirit Sense shrunk from 50 metres to 5 metres, completely enveloping the entire Tree with even greater intensity and threatening to reveal all of its secrets.

    But just as the Slime Abomination felt like it had discovered something, a blinding light suddenly burst into existence with ferocious and majestic might. The light emitted an aura so boundless that for the first time since the Abomination became what it was now, it felt the threat of death. This was extremely terrifying, after all, with its wealth of life-saving abilities and its own aberrant constitution, death had become a concept that was as irrelevant as the blue sky. Nothing could kill it!

    But now, what was the situation? This clear and unadulterated feeling of looming doom. He had to flee! The Slime Abomination didn¡¯t even take into consideration that he wasn¡¯t even here in his own body and immediately tried to flee, the Wraith King¡¯s ethereal cloak that was previously flowing calmly now fluttering wildly in a sign of clear agitation.

    ¡°Now, now~... No need for that, I just arrived! Come, come, let us chat.¡±

 Ch.162 Bullying the Slime Abomination

    The voice was like a tangible mist that integrated into the Wraith King¡¯s body and completely stopped it from moving. However, the Abomination hiding within didn¡¯t even pause before trying to forcefully cut off the connection between itself and the Wraith King in the next moment, not even caring about the possible large amount of time it would take to find another host that it could take control of. Its instincts were telling it that It had to flee and to flee immediately, and that was exactly what it would do.

    But the result was failure.

    No matter how much it tried, it could not destroy the portion of its consciousness residing within the Wraith King at all. In fact, it couldn¡¯t do anything! The Wraith King¡¯s body had been hijacked and any attempt to do anything other than speak was no longer under the Abomination¡¯s control.

    How terrifying!

    For the first time in a very long time, the Slime Abomination felt fear completely flood its mind. No, even before it had become an Abomination it had never once felt like this. Never even encountered something like this! What on Eridius was this light and where had it come from?!

    Alas... There was nothing it could do other than to helplessly watch as the golden light, which had been endlessly growing and filling the entire Forest with its presence, suddenly began to contract.

    It was like it had imploded, collapsing into itself so quickly that before the Abomination could even make sense of what was happening, what looked like a very tall male human with long white hair and golden eyes had taken its spot and all the light had vanished. But that notion only lasted a second or 2 before the Abomination realised that the man WAS the light! The terrifying aura was originating from him!

    ¡®How could this be?! How could anybody be this strong?!¡¯ The Abomination inwardly screamed with shock and fear.

    Its memories as the calamity that had single-handedly almost wiped away all life on the North Continent let it know that other than the¡­ strange talking Cloud that it had once encountered, nobody else should be stronger than itself. But what was the situation? What seemed to be a human¨C a human of all things!¨C was standing before it and relegating it to a state that it didn¡¯t even dare to make a single sound!

    ¡®HOW?!¡¯

    ¡°Good, good. You can still feel fear to such an extent.¡± said the man.

    His hands that were peacefully crossed behind his back fell to his sides and he began to walk closer, each step making the Slime Abomination feel like a portion of its existence was being scrubbed out.

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    ¡°I was wondering. After all, most emotions can only be truly felt and processed by the Soul. But I suppose that even your many brains can help you to understand that you are mere seconds away from nihility.¡±

    ¡®Nihility is¡­ Nothingness! Non-existence! The absolute end! But how?!¡¯ The Slime Abomination thought with rising horror as the System helped it to comprehend the meaning of the word through the magic of the [common language].

    The man finally stopped walking closer when he reached just 2 metres away, which in proportion to the Wraith King¡¯s 13 metre height, was very close.

    ¡°I don¡¯t expect you to understand too well, but what you are feeling isn¡¯t just the threat of your body, or should I say bodies¨C dying, but something more than that. You are¡­¡± The man paused and then for some reason raised both of his arms up. Was this the attack?! Is this the end?! Little did the Abomination know, it was just for dramatic effect.

    The man blinked as if in confusion¡­ and then his lips twitched as a wry smile spread across his face, seemingly comprehending something that caused him to once more drop his arms to his sides.

    ¡°Wow... Although I am unable to read the thoughts that are no doubt flickering through your mind, I don¡¯t need to to be able to see how much your fear is rising. The Wraith King¡¯s ethereal cloak is practically about to fly off! How could you be so¡­ pitiful?¡± The man said with a sigh.

    Unfortunately, the words brought the creature nothing other than increasing fear. It couldn¡¯t feel ethereal things like embarrassment or humiliation because ultimately, there was no pride or dignity to protect in the first place. The Abomination didn¡¯t have a Soul at all.

    ¡°Fear so dense that I¡¯m half expecting to feel it.¡± The man said with a slow shake of his head. ¡°But what¡¯s more interesting is that despite my sincere attempts, my voice isn¡¯t changing that at all. How wonderful, I have learnt today that my voice''s ability to affect emotions requires the target to have a Soul. Or something like that.¡±

    The man just kept talking and talking but most of it was just flying over the Slime Abomination¡¯s head.

    ¡°Anyways, as I was saying before, what you are feeling is not just the threat of your body dying, but actually the threat of everything that you are completely ceasing to exist. Nothing of you would remain, and if you had a Soul to erase along with everything else, it could only be imagined the state you would be in. You might have even comprehended the intent of fear!¡±

    ¡®Yes! That is what I am feeling! I¡¯M FINISHED!¡¯ The Abomination inwardly screeched with terror, still not daring to speak outloud despite being capable. The Wraith King¡¯s ethereal body spazzed out even more and looked a few seconds away from distorting out of its humanoid shape and dispersing into the wind.

    ¡°But no need to worry, I have no such intentions.¡± The man said with a sudden cheery smile as his aura abruptly vanished, taking along with it the feeling of destruction that had been plaguing the Slime Abomination¡¯s mind.

    ¡°I have come here with a proposition. A deal so to speak. And spoiler alert, you are not allowed to refuse. Otherwise despite my noble and loving heart that could not bear to even harm even a single blade of grass¡­ I really will be forced to erase you.¡±

    The man said with the brightest smile that the Slime Abomination had ever seen.

 Ch.163 The Guardian of the Continent

    However, the Slime Abomination was not deterred by the smile at all, even with the mass of knowledge that it had obtained from humans telling it that generally, a smile was meant to display good intentions.

    Humans were simple creatures and most of them took whatever they saw at face value, they had barely even scraped upon the concept of deception like the more cunning races such as the Lupines and the Vulpines had done and believed whatever was displayed to be true. So for one of them to have come up with the grand illusion that encompassed the entire Forest was extremely irregular, something that had left the Abomination perplexed for a long time. But it was because of this very illusion that the Abomination didn¡¯t dare to underestimate the man before him, didn¡¯t for a second dare to trust the smile on his face.

    He could be the very person that had created the illusion after all, and that would make him very much capable of doing as the Hyenas did; Smiling whilst they separated the flesh from your bones.

    Despite the fact that the soul-gripping aura had vanished and the Abomination was even free to move as it wished, it didn¡¯t dare to do so in the slightest. In fact, if it were possible, the Abomination would have frozen the Wraith King¡¯s ethereal cloak so that it would stop moving so erratically and so eye-catchingly.

    It didn¡¯t want to provoke this creature in any way!

    ¡°You still won¡¯t calm down? Even despite many concessions? ¡­Could it be that you are doubting the sincerity of this Heavenly Lord?! Are you seriously daring to provoke me?! WHAT INSOLENCE! DIE FOR YOUR SINS!¡± the man roared to the sky as his aura burst out once more.

    The terrified Abomination desperately tried to run away but found its movements once again restricted, sending an additional wave of fear through its many hearts. It could do nothing but tremble as its life was once again hung by a single thread, a thread that was even smaller than the last. But just as it was thinking for sure that this was the end, the aura once again disappeared.

    ¡°Cough, cough. Sorry, little one. I¡¯ve just always wanted to say that ever since I was a young buck with no strength. You must forgive me.¡± The man said as his demeanour did a complete 180.

    ¡®What is even going on?!¡¯ the Abomination thought after finally regaining the ability to do so. It had never before met such an abnormal being!

    ¡°Actually, I have come here because there is something that I want to test.¡± The man continued as a sharp light appeared in his eyes.

    ¡°You are acquainted with a being known as¡­ Cleo, yes?¡± The man asked as one of his eyebrows oddly rose. But the Abomination didn¡¯t concern itself with that and hastily answered the question.

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    ¡°No.¡± the Abomination spoke for the first time in the Wraith King¡¯s body, its voice deep and dark but echoey and illusive.

    ¡°...¡± Golden eyed man

    ¡°...¡± Slime Abomination

    ¡°WHAT?! EVEN AT THIS POINT YOU DARE TO LIE?!¡± the man roared.

    The Slime Abomination¡¯s many hearts simultaneously skipped a beat. ¡°I do not know of a being that is named Cleo! I do not lie!¡±

    ¡°...Aaahh~ I see. It¡¯s because you little ones are always trying to fight so much, never coming together to hold hands and watch the sunset. Tut tut, you guys really need to change. You don¡¯t even know the name of the second strongest being you ever met!¡± The man said.

    Immediately, an image popped into the Abomination''s mind. ¡°You mean the Cloud?¡±

    ¡°Yes I mean the Cloud. His name is Cleo.¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°Ahem, anyways.¡± The man clapped his hands together. ¡°What would you say¡­ if I said that I have the ability to grant you the same kind of power that Cleo has, hm? What would you say if I could make you an¡­ Anomaly.¡±

    ¡°...You could do that?¡± The Abomination wasn¡¯t quite sure what an Anomaly was, but It had never lacked intelligence and was quickly able to infer that an Anomaly was what the Cloud was and was the reason for its power, and that somehow, if the man was not lying, it was something that the Abomination itself could become.

    As the implications of becoming such a thing began to bloom in its many brains, desire likewise began to seep in. But in comparison to the fear that was already there, it was like a few droplets of water entering a basin of poison.

    ¡°Oh yes, and quite easily too. So what do you say? Want it?¡± The man asked with a nonchalant smile.

    ¡°I do.¡±

    ¡°Good, good~¡± The man said in a jovial tone as he nodded his head up and down. ¡°No hesitation, that¡¯s nice. But you see, the good things in this World aren¡¯t free.¡±

    The man suddenly held up his arms in what seemed to be a helpless gesture and was now shaking his head, but the Abomination would never mistake the cunning light in the man¡¯s eyes for anything other than mischief, the dastardly behaviour that the vulpines were famously known for. Unfortunately, there was nothing that it could do about it.

    ¡°If you want to become an Anomaly, you¡¯re going to have to agree to a few things for me.¡±

    ¡°...And what is that.¡± The abomination asked, feeling more than a bit wary of the man¡¯s intentions.

    ¡°First, you will now become the guardian of this entire Continent. It would become your duty to make sure that the Continent does not suffer extensive harm and that no race on this continent ever goes extinct.

    Second, you will also stop your endless consumption of the beings on this continent. It¡¯s fine to devour those that provoke you or to devour corpses that are not undead, but never devour beings that are self aware.

    Lastly, you are now my subordinate. When the time comes, you will fight for me or defend for me and obey all of my orders. Do I make myself clear?¡±

 Ch.164 An Abomination Becoming an Anomaly?!

    ¡°No more¡­ eating?¡± The Slime Abomination asked, confusion, reluctance and discomfort clear in its tone, which was quite something considering its lack of Soul and inability to feel most emotions. Perhaps if it could feel the more intricate emotions like a normal living being could it would have yelled out with despair, something that Eridel found quite amusing.

    He had been silently studying the Abomination this entire time and had learnt quite a bit, and it seemed that short from death, nothing truly worried it. At the end of the day, no matter how smart it had become because of its many brains, it was still an Abomination and its only desires were to devour more and more life force and obtain more and more evolutions. Nothing else.

    ¡°You can still eat, but only within the boundaries I have set.¡± Eridel said with a smile.

    ¡°...You want me to guard the Continent?¡± The Slime Abomination asked.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Why me? Why not the Cloud?¡±

    ¡°I already have other plans for Cleo, he¡¯s needed elsewhere. And so, what better than the next strongest being on the continent to become its guardian?¡±

    For a moment there was silence.

    ¡°...You keep addressing the Cloud as ¡®he¡¯, it has a gender?¡± the Slime Abomination suddenly asked.

    Eridel blinked. ¡°...Not really. Not yet at least.¡± He hadn¡¯t expected such a question.

    ¡°Then why do you say ¡®he¡¯?¡± the Abomination pressed.

    Eridel looked up to the sky as his right eye twitched.

    ¡°That is not something that you need to worry about, child. Instead, you should be thinking about your new duties as a Guardian.¡±

    Eridel was absolutely not going to tell it that he had simply assumed the cloud¡¯s gender.

    ¡°But that is not my purpose.¡± The Slime Abomination responded. ¡°My purpose is to harvest life and all the power it has to offer. Even before I became an Abomination and I was just a lowly Slime Monster, the only thing I knew was to kill.¡±

    ¡®So it¡¯s aware of its identity as an Abomination¡­ Most aren''t.¡¯ Eridel thought.

    Most Abominations across the universe were unaware of what they had become. Even the intelligent and self-aware ones were commonly deluded, thinking that they were perfectly fine even if they were most certainly not. It was like something was preventing them from knowing what they truly were and it was an oddity that even the golden orb that had granted him so much knowledge had not provided any info on. However, clearly, the Slime Abomination was a cut above those deluded Abominations.

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    ¡®Well it¡¯s not too surprising. With the amount of intelligence that it amassed in all this time, it can probably still utilise the System.¡¯

    ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll pick up a thing or 2 once you get a brand new Soul.¡± he said out loud. ¡°Either way you can¡¯t refuse, so you better start thinking.¡±

    ¡°...How do we start?¡± the Slime Abomination said after a while.

    Eridel pointedly gazed at the Wraith King before him whose intangible cloak was still fluttering wildly, albeit not as bad as before.

    ¡°You can start by getting out of that body first. I¡¯ll be waiting for you at the cave.¡±

    With a single thought, his body was replaced by beautiful golden lights that showered his surroundings in a fantastical display of might. Eventually the lights disappeared and he was nowhere to be found. But in reality, he had already relocated himself to the cave he had sealed the Slime Abomination¡¯s true body in.

    Slumped ahead of him was the giant form of the Slime Abomination in all of its pulsing and sticky glory. It was of course still wrapped by the Golden chains that sealed most of its capabilities and nothing had changed at all.

    He was still unable to read the Abomination¡¯s mind, but he had been suspecting that the main reason that it had chosen to make the Wraith King an Original Undead instead of a corpse was because it had the desire to escape. Perhaps it thought that it could find a method to escape using the Wraith King¡¯s body. Something utterly futile.

    Well, whatever the case. There was no longer a need to escape, Eridel was going to let it out himself.

    The truth of all this was that he just wanted to see if it was possible for something that was ¡®alive¡¯ but without a Soul to become an Anomaly. And what better target than the Slime Abomination? If the transformation was successful, the Slime Abomination would become something so special that even calling it a Calamity Grade Abomination would become a mockery. To have such a thing under his control was not something he was easily willing to give up.

    A few more seconds passed before the heavy chains moved and emitted loud sounds that signified the fact that the Slime Abomination had returned its consciousness to its body. It wiggled for a moment in what seemed to be the equivalent of a stretch before settling down.

    ¡°It¡¯s good to see you. Are you ready?¡± Eridel asked as a grin once more crept its way across his face. He was very excited to see what would happen. If the process failed, the Slime Abomination would likely die and it would be a rather great loss. After all, Calamity Grade Abominations didn¡¯t grow on trees. But if he succeeded¡­

    ¡°No. I would like-¡± the Slime Abomination began

    ¡°Great! What a courageous and valiant young kid! Let¡¯s get started!¡± Eridel interrupted, completely ignoring the Abominations troubles.

    ¡°Brace yourself!¡± He yelled with an exhilarated voice and a wild grin as he lifted his arms up to the sky.

    WHOOOOOOOOM!

    Suddenly, enormous amounts of Magical Energy began to flood the cave, and it was so quick that in a span of a few seconds, the amount of Magical Energy in the area had become so concentrated that it began to become visible.

    The cave was suddenly filled with golden mist, the sparkling and ethereal kind that you would expect to be surrounding precious treasures or lucky items. And all of it was being vacuumed into the Slime Abomination¡¯s body!

 Ch.165 Blue Tribulation

    ¡°ROOOOOOOOOARRR!!!¡± The Slime Abomination let out a loud eldritch roar that sounded like it had come from all kinds of nightmarish creatures that had clawed their way out of the abyss. And it was such a terrifying sound that even the Undead above that rarely ever experienced fear began to either flee in random directions or collapse to the ground in varying states of paralysis. But perhaps that was because they knew EXACTLY who was screaming.

    Eridel on the other hand was grinning widely with glee. Clearly he was enjoying himself. However when he noticed that the Abomination that was seemingly trying to grow in size was being suppressed by the golden chains wrapped around it, his eyes narrowed. The reason that the chains were still there was because of 2 reasons. He found the fact that it was suppressing the Abomination¡¯s aura useful, after all, if left uncontrolled, it had the capability to corrupt surrounding Magical Energy and turn it into something else, something that he suspected could cause complications. So although the corruption took a while, Eridel had been of the mind of destroying all possible factors that could cause failure. But looking at the state of things, it was best to just let things run its course.

    ¡®Well, no matter. If it fails, it fails.¡¯ Eridel thought with a slightly dampened mood.

    With a single click of his fingers, the chains shattered into tiny motes of light before disappearing altogether. And as expected, the Slime Abomination¡¯s power which had been restricted for 45 whole years, burst out with unrestrained desperation like an apocalyptic volcano.

    The aura completely filled the space, adding its multi-shaded grey colours into the golden mist and radiating a powerful sense of death that even made Eridel¡¯s eyebrows rise. But others were not as calm. Those that yet to leave the Abominations direct domain of influence collapsed on the spot, and those that had fallen immobile above the Abomination¡¯s cave, completely lost consciousness. It was quite the terrifying sight.

    But the truth of the matter was that, technically, the Slime Abomination wasn¡¯t actually the 2nd strongest being on the Continent. After all, it had been sealed for 45 years and hadn¡¯t even been able to enter the 4th Realm yet, unlike the other hegemons of that time that had immediately entered the 4th Realm as soon as the barrier to the realm had been removed.

    The Abomination had been sealed before it could enjoy the unlocked 4th Realm. Its current cultivation at the moment, even though that was bound to change at any second, was at the 9th Stage of the 3rd Realm. So how could it be that with just its peak 3rd Realm aura alone, it was sending everybody including the Original Undead, fleeing or unconscious? Well, that was all accountable to 1 thing.

    Bloodline suppression.

    The Slime Abomination was the progenitor of all Undead in Eridius, and coupled with the fact that it had assimilated countless other bloodlines into its own, that gave it an overwhelming advantage over those that were tied to its Bloodline, and it was not something that could be easily circumvented.

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    Be that as it may, the Original Undead who were all around the 4th or 5th Stages of the 4th Realm and the Wraith King who had been boosted to Stage 6 were still capable of easily beating the 3rd Realm Slime Abomination silly, but that was only if they could overcome their innate fear.

    As it stands, they, with the exception of the Wraith King, were more than comfortable with running away. And soon, it was looking like the great chance that the Wraith King had over his Sire, was about to slip away.

    The Anomaly Transformation, along with the White Tribulations Circle that was beginning to form in the sky, would more than assure that.

    Gold, White, Blue, Red, Rainbow. These were the 5 Grades that a Tribulation could use and each one was more fatal than the last. Eridel had previously predicted that the Slime Abomination would suffer a single White Tribulation Light and then 2 Blue ones. But now, with the Anomaly Transformation added into the fray, things were likely to be different. That was the 2nd reason why he hadn¡¯t wanted to remove the chains but it didn¡¯t matter anymore.

    ¡°ROOOOOOOOOARRR!!!¡± The Slime Abomination continued to roar as its body endlessly soaked up the ambient Magical Energy and continuously grew. In fact, Eridel could even see what looked like golden liquid swirling beneath the Abomination¡¯s outer layer. He had no doubt that it would eventually fade away, but he couldn¡¯t help but shake his head as something that he had already guessed before was finally confirmed.

    No other living being, undead or not, would be able to do what the Slime Abomination was doing. They would simply implode. Even if they had special techniques or physiques that enabled them to endlessly devour Essence like J?rma¡¯s Sky Devouring Bloodline or indomitable bodies that could withstand large amounts of stress, none of them could close to the Slime Abomination¡¯s aberrant constitution. Their bodies just simply wouldn¡¯t be able to take the extremely rapid amount of changes.

    Eridel¡¯s eyes narrowed. He really wanted this once in a lifetime opportunity to succeed.

    WHUUUUM! A loud sound came from up above.

    Eridel¡¯s eyes narrowed even further.

    ¡°As expected¡­¡± He mumbled as he let out a sigh and looked up to the sky, his peerless eyesight piercing through the ceilings of the cave network and zoning into the Slime Abomination¡¯s Tribulation Circle which had just turned blue in colour.

    ¡®3 guaranteed Blue Tribulations¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as his brows furrowed. ¡®And there''s even a chance of the last one being red. How miraculous.¡¯

    But it was also dangerous. Very dangerous. And if Eridel didn¡¯t want to turn that blue colour red, or God forbid rainbow; he dared not intervene. Although helping someone else in their Tribulation was possible, the requirements for doing so no matter how strong you were were very strict. And the consequences for ¡®unauthorised¡¯ assistance were at best, very, very painful¡­ but it was most likely for all parties involved to die.

    Eridel did not meet these ¡®helping requirements¡¯ and as such, the Slime Abomination was completely on its own.

    ¡°...Good luck.¡± He whispered.

 Ch.166 Inheritor of the Sin of Pride?

    *FLASH*

    As the Abomination continued to grow, the giant Blue Tribulation Circle above gave its first pulse, signifying the start of its energy gathering. 2 more pulses and the Abomination would be forced to withstand the attack of the first Tribulation Light or die.

    30 seconds later

    *FLASH*

    The energy gathering speed for the Slime Abomination¡¯s Tribulation was multiple times faster than what Eridel had experienced in his own Tribulation, but that was to be expected. His Tribulation Circle had been more than double the size of his planetary body in order to be capable of dealing with him, the amount of energy it needed to reach saturation was too high, which was much to Eridel¡¯s benefit. Who knows if he would even still be standing here without such long intervals.

    Unfortunately, the Slime Abomination would not enjoy such benefits.

    40 seconds later

    *FLASH*

    ¡°...!¡± Eridel.

    ¡°GAOOOOOOOO!¡± The Slime Abomination let out a roar of fury and disdain as it instinctively sensed the judgement coming from the Tribulation above. But before it could even make sense of what it was feeling and why it was feeling that.

    BAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

    A blue blinding ray of light descended from the ceiling of the cave as if it were an illusion, and then slammed into the Slime Abomination with the impact of a shooting star.

    ¡°EIIIYAAAAAAHGHHHH!!!!!¡± The Slime Abomination let out a terrified scream of pain as chunks of its slime evaporated in an instant. This was without a doubt, the most damage that the Slime Abomination had ever suffered in its entire life. After all, even before it became an Abomination, it had been ridiculously lucky enough to never encounter a being that could contend with it, and that was why it had even managed to rise to the 3rd Stage of the First Realm in the first place.

    But it was this exact blind luck that was putting it in this predicament in the first place. The harvesting of Fortune was something that would always end up in suffering, and now was Fate¡¯s time to collect.

    Meanwhile, Eridel was looking on with amusement. Despite the terrific damage that was done, it wasn¡¯t something that the Slime Abomination¡¯s grotesque physique couldn''t recover from, especially since it was still being flooded with Magical Energy. He was having high hopes. But he couldn¡¯t help but idly wonder what would happen if the Slime Abomination also had a Soul to be targeted as well.

    Perhaps, in that scenario¡­ This would have been the end of the Abomination of the North.

    The fact that the Slime Abomination didn¡¯t have a Soul was actually the reason that Eridel originally didn¡¯t give up all hopes of having an Anomaly Abomination. After all, other than Gaia who had her own Soul Cultivation technique, and the Phoenix of Envy whose Soul was unfairly upgraded alongside his body and energy by the Essences of Envy, nobody else on the Planet (other than a few special people like Ciera who had obtained memories from Eridel) even knew what a Soul was, talk less of having the ability to train it.

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    The minute upgrades to the Soul that they received in every of their Essence Cultivation breakthroughs was absolutely not enough. A Blue Tribulation light would have dissipated their defenceless Souls so quickly that they wouldn¡¯t even know it when they died.

    Luckily, the Slime Abomination didn¡¯t even have a Soul to be attacked.

    Eridel raised his right hand and then clenched his first as if he was squeezing something. In the next moment, something in his hand seemed to explode and golden light engulfed the entire cave. When the light had gone, he along with the Slime Abomination were nowhere to be found.

    However, not even a blink later, both Eridel and the Abomination had reappeared on the land above the cave with another flash of light. They had teleported.

    Having noticed that sooner or later the Abomination would become too big to fit inside of the cave, Eridel had taken the first opportunity to relocate the Abomination to the outside world, allowing them both to directly witness the terrific beauty of the Blue Tribulation Circle and the peerlessly white Tribulation Cloud that surrounded it.

    Another benefit to this was that the Abomination could now see what was attacking it and do its best to defend itself. This was the most that Eridel could do to help the Abomination, and it was only possible because the Tribulation Light had just been fired and it was currently on cooldown. If he so much as pushed the Abomination even if the Tribulation Circle was just in its pulsing phase, then he would have been in deep trouble.

    Eridel sighed as a mild feeling of helplessness took hold of him for the first time in a long while. But he wasn¡¯t going to dwell on that. For now, he was going to take this short moment of reprieve to focus on a few other things. The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse for example.

    They were doing quite well and thanks to his connection to them, he could monitor whatever they were doing at all times. Currently, the Creature of Conquest had already developed a Soul and it had been fully confirmed that she was female. But this was to be expected, her personality was built on the foundations of the memories she had absorbed and it seemed that the first meal that she had ever had (the purple skinned Eonixian girl), had left the biggest imprint.

    The other Horsemen were doing pretty well and they were increasing their strengths very quickly, but it would take them a longer while before they could catch up with their Eldest sister and form their own Souls.

    Eridel also gave cursory glances to people like the girls he had marked in the Yamelon High World and other creatures in his own World who he had high hopes for. He already had guesses for the entities who he thought might be taking 5 of the 6 remaining deadly sins, but he couldn¡¯t find anyone on the planet that was worthy of inheriting the Sin of Pride. The High Human Empress had mellowed the more knowledgeable she became of the world, and people like the Crying Ghost had critical flaws that barred them from the Sin of Pride.

    Eridel himself wouldn¡¯t be able to inherit Pride even if he was capable of bearing a Sin. After all, it was very hard to be as intelligent as he was, and genuinely think that he was the number 1 unparalleled being in existence, greater than the Universe itself. But It was that kind of¡­ retarded thinking, that was just 1 of the requirements of inheriting the Sin of Pride. Which was why he and the High Human Empress would never be eligible.

    Eridel rolled his eyes. Whether or not an inheritor of Pride would be born, he already had his hands full with other things and didn¡¯t need to think about it. Especially not right now.

    1.5 minutes later

    *FLASH*

    The Second Tribulation Light had begun to charge.

 Ch.167 Chaos Transformation! Obtaining the Chaos Element!

    Both the cloud and the Tribulation Circle began to grow in size, and by the 3rd pulse, the entire Tribulation Circle had become 3 times bigger, a testament of its greater might.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

    Just like before, a blue ray of light descended from the sky to strike the Abomination, drawing a woe inducing scream from its many mouths once more. The only thing that was different was that the size of the Tribulation Light and the scale of the damage had increased exponentially.

    In fact, it was so bad that despite regrowing some of its mass thanks to the ¡®other¡¯ evolution it was undergoing, this newest attack had vapourized half of its body into nothingness, reducing its size so drastically that it was even smaller than the time it got hit by the first Tribulation Light. But still, it lived.

    It was smoking quite terribly, emitting a strange (but not repulsive) smell, and screeching out wails that would even leave a Banshee incapacitated¡­ but it would recover once more. What Eridel found fascinating was that as intended, the Tribulation Essence left in its body was changing it at a cellular level. This was unlike the effects that it had on others where it would only raise the quality of body, soul and essence. This was something quite permanent, something that was being encoded into the Abomination¡¯s DNA and changing it permanently. And yes, this meant that whatever the result of the effects, it would be passed on to the descendants that it might have from here on forth.

    But why? Eridel didn¡¯t quite know. No other Abomination (In the Eridius World) had ever reached the 4th Realm before so he didn¡¯t know if it was a special phenomenon that was unique to them. But he had a strong suspicion that it was a result of the fact that from a cellular level, the Slime Abomination was ALREADY changing, already becoming something that much greater than before. Perhaps the Anomaly transformation which was being aided by the Eridius System, had made use of the Tribulation Essence to implement some changes.

    Well, whatever the case, there was nothing he could, or even would, do about it. Although the Tribulation had gone into cooldown and he could now do whatever he wanted to the Slime Abomination for the next 2 minutes or so. He wasn¡¯t capable of altering the changes it was undergoing. He could pause it or even reverse it, ending the Anomaly transformation then and there, but he had no way to make it behave normally anymore, no way to freely choose what he wanted the cellular changes to be. He was powerful, very powerful, but not that powerful. He would of course not defeat the entire purpose of him being he by stopping the process, so he could only watch.

    Besides, he was sure that no matter what, the changes wouldn¡¯t be that excessive. After all, the purpose of Tribulation Essence at its core was to refine the entirety of someone''s being and remove impurities, making a being more pure and more in harmony with themselves, not to mention a lot more powerful and talented. It was only the strike of Tribulation Light whose purpose was to deal out punishment on behalf of the Omnipresent Laws of Fate and disperse the Fortune.

    So what much difference can be made if the Tribulation Essence was only doing a bit more than it was supposed to? Eridel could only see it being correspondingly more beneficial. But still, he didn¡¯t let such a simple and naive thought take precedence in his mind and opted for a wait and see approach.

    2 minutes later

    Eridel¡¯s eyes narrowed as he began to notice peculiar changes taking place within the Slime Abomination. For some reason, the various cells within its body that denoted its affinity for elements and the like, seemed to be on the verge of doing something crazy, something so shocking that just the idea had his fingers twitching. But surely not.

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    Surely, what he was seeing was not the Slime Abomination¡¯s body attempting to fuse all of those Affinities into one. Surely, the Abomination that had started as a lowly Slime, was not about to undergo the special phenomenon that gave rise to the birth of ¡®that¡¯ affinity.

    But all it took was one effortless glance at the System acting within the Abomination for him to see that it was aiding the Abomination to do that very thing and Eridel¡¯s eyes constricted. It was true! It was true!!!

    The Slime Abomination, this aberrant creature that had begun as the lowest of the low of all Monsters, this mere 4th Realm entity with a Quality of Being that wasn¡¯t even that high¡­ was trying to not only form Chaos Essence, but the Chaos Affinity!

    ¡®Madness!¡¯ Eridel almost spat out.

    His skin paled, honest to god paled as an understanding of what was going on crossed his mind. Of course, there was no blood in his Avatar to genuinely cause such a reaction so it was just purposeful theatrics. But he was still incredibly flabbergasted!

    The Chaos Element! The terrifying essence that was rumoured to be the dawn of all things, the very essence that was said to have caused the creation of the Universe and of all of its Elements¡­.. Harnessed by a mere SLLIIIIIIME?!

    Eridel stared at the Slime Abomination with wide shocked eyes, looking shell shocked, but then-

    ¡°¡­WHAT A JOKE!!!¡± he roared out as various emotions flickered through his mind at superluminal speeds.

    It was real. The Slime Abomination had somehow achieved a situation in which it was being ¡®blessed¡¯ with the opportunity to become a lifeform that was attuned with Chaos. An ultra rare event that almost never happened.

    But the joke¡­ the joke was that it was even rarer for it to succeed! And if it didn¡¯t succeed, the only other outcome was death! The Slime Abomination, the treasure that he had placed a lot of hopes on, was done for!

    In memories provided by the Golden Orb, beings many times more qualified to inherit the Chaos element had perished. The Slime Abomination had no hope!

    But what had caused this?! Was it the Tribulation Essence? Or was it because the various Elements in its body had reached saturation thanks to its transformation to Anomaly? Or was it because of the underlying Laws of the unprecedented Anomalies themselves that had opened this gateway to doom? Eridel did not know!

    It was infuriatingly frustrating, and he almost wanted to stay here no matter how long it took so he could discover the truth to his answers, but he knew that would be foolish. In fact, he had to leave, and now. The failure of the Chaos Transformation always caused serious environmental damages and he wasn¡¯t sure that his 6th Realm Avatar would be able to withstand it even if the transformation was initiated by a 4th Realm being.

    ¡®FUCK!¡¯ Eridel crudely roared. What made him feel even worse was that he knew that the Chaos Transformation was optional. It was something that was unbelievably hard to obtain, but something that could also be activated or not at will once obtained. you could decide to use it whenever you wished. Which meant, if the Slime Abomination had bothered to wait for the right time, it could have become an Anomaly Abomination with an Affinity with Chaos! How impressive would that have been?!

    But the fool (and Eridel was also looking at himself at this), had probably been helplessly driven by its instinct to evolve no matter the cost, causing such a premature and suicidal decision to be made.

    ¡°Aaaaagh¡­¡± Eridel sighed as he began to forcefully smother his emotions, something that had become easier to do ever since he had elevated the Flame of his Will (back when he had undergone his own Tribulation).

    ¡°What a severe loss.¡± Eridel muttered. However, even though his tone, body language and facial expression had become relaxed. Just one look into the golden eyes that looked like they were about to start leaking lava, and even a fool would know that it was all a lie. He was very, very, very angry. And he wasn¡¯t quite ready to let go of that particular emotion.

    But it was just as he was about to disperse his Avatar, his mind already making all kinds of calculations to ensure that something like this would never happen again, that a flare of a very familiar energy that he had been expecting but had nearly forgotten about because of all of the¡­ chaos, emerged from the Slime Abomination¡¯s body, snatching his attention.

 Ch.168 The Slime Abominationâ€™s Soul

    A unique energy signature began to rise from within the Slime Abomination but it was extremely fragile. In fact, it was so feeble that if Eridel wasn¡¯t as capable as he was, he wouldn¡¯t have detected it at all. But not only could he detect it, but he knew exactly what it was.

    It was none other than the Slime Abomination¡¯s Soul.

    ¡­Clearly, despite the continuous interruptions of the Chaos Transformation and the Tribulation Lights, the Anomaly Transformation has not halted at all. Instead it had sped up!

    According to Eridel¡¯s calculations based on prior experiences, the creation of the neo Soul should have taken at least 3 more minutes, and that should have happened AFTER the physical changes. But obviously, nothing was going as planned anymore and Eridel didn¡¯t even feel like reacting anymore.

    What had just happened had not saved the Abomination. Not even in the slightest. In fact, it had only ensured its death even more. After all, going by the rapidly ballooning size of the Tribulation and the nearly-imperceptible-but-still-there red aura that was beginning to surround it¡­ The Soul, the very defenceless Soul, had just been targeted by the Tribulation.

    Eridel looked up at the sun.

    Really and truly, the Slime Abomination was probably the most lucky but unlucky person he had ever met¡­ in person. He couldn¡¯t help but wonder if Fate or the so-called heavens were dipping their fingers into the Abomination''s life, trying its hardest to make sure that the Abomination perished.

    If things had gone as normal, the Abomination should have begun to form its Soul after the Tribulation had already ended, ensuring its complete safety. But instead, its Soul had chosen right before the final strike of the Tribulation, the most dangerous time of all, to form.

    Even if the Tribulation didn¡¯t correspondingly rise along with the Abomination¡¯s new found potential and stayed at a regular Blue Tribulation, it still would have been enough to erase the Abomination¡¯s Soul, probably ending its physical body right along with it.

    The Slime Abomination was finished, and if those increasingly terrified screams and screeches were to be believed, it knew it too.

    ¡®Unbelievable¡­¡¯ Eridel thought with faint exasperation. The things that were happening were too bizarre and they were completely out of the scope of his current understanding. But although he probably should have started leaving by now, he couldn''t help but feel like he had to stay. Like this was an event that he absolutely could not miss.

    It was probably how a mortal Scientist felt when they found themselves lucky enough to witness the birth of a star¡­ or the death of one.

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    ¡®Well, whatever¡­ Even if I stayed, it wouldn¡¯t matter. The Tribulation Light would kill it before the Chaos Transformation ca-¡¯ Eridel was thinking, but then his eyes abruptly widened.

    ¡°nnNNNNNAAAAAAAARRRRGHHHH!!!!¡±

    Suddenly, the Slime Abomination let out its most terrifying roar yet. An apocalyptic roar that was so horrifying and loud that not only did it reach impossible distances, it also erased the Souls of those that were too close, causing the bodies that they resided within to drop like flies. Only the trees were able to stand firm, but their Souls too, the primitive and fragile little things, had evaporated like smoke.

    Only the giant Tree of Death which had become a Spirit Tree, and Eridel, whose Soul was incomparably mighty, were completely unaffected. But other than them 2, every other Soul in the vicinity had vanished. However even though this looked like a purposeful malicious attack on the Abomination¡¯s part, Eridel knew better.

    Feeling the unshakable grip of death, the Slime Abomination had likely been forced by sheer desperation to rapidly harness every drop of potential within its body, including its growing an incomplete Soul. But the thing was that since its Soul had been blueprinted by its body (unlike lifeforms that are naturally born) and was therefore imprinted with some of the qualities of Chaos, the roar of desperation that it had released, powered by its others paths of power, had caused severe damage to the Soul of those in the vicinity.

    It was this Chaos Soul that had caused Eridel to be surprised, but not shocked. After all, he had, to some extent, expected that to happen. All prior Anomalies had Souls that were attuned with the same Affinities that their bodies were attuned with. For the same principle to occur with the almighty Chaos was certainly stunning, but he had seen others (within his inherited memories) with Chaos Souls before.

    The actual thing that caused him to be shocked was the depth of the blooming emotions that he was sensing within that roar. Other Anomalies had emotions too, but their Souls in comparison to the Slime Abomination¡¯s Soul could be considered normal or even average. Nothing should have stopped their Souls from perceiving and feeling emotions as efficiently as a normal lifeform could. But for the Slime Abomination who had a Chaos Soul? Emotions should have been far, far harder to process.

    That was the downside of a Chaos Soul. They had great power but their emotions and thoughts were always in disarray. Only far, far into the future would they learn to ignore the chaos within their thoughts, or even rarer, manage to calm it.

    Eridel didn¡¯t know how the Abomination did it (and this was becoming increasingly annoying), but somehow, its emotions which it had just obtained, were exceedingly stable. Well, when in comparison with a normal Chaos Soul¡¯s emotions that was.

    The despair that it was currently emitting had all the rights to be turbulent.

    But it wasn¡¯t just despair that he could sense. In fact, the despair that it was feeling barely caught his attention. After all, that was always something it could feel if its life was threatened enough. What really caught his attention was the feelings of regret. The feelings of injustice, the feelings of sadness, the feelings of unwillingness¡­ but most importantly, the feeling of Gluttony.

    ¡®Oh boy¡­¡¯ Eridel thought.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

 Ch.169 The Sin of Gluttony

    A loud explosion was heard as what looked like a black tsunami rose to the skies from every direction. It was extremely daunting, but what was even more appalling was that in reality, the black phenomenon was something that was emerging from locations all over the planet.

    ¡°The Sin of Gluttony¡­ No inheritor had emerged because those that were worthy had yet to meet a certain threshold. But as soon as this Abomination obtained a Soul, it immediately became the Inheritor? Ah, but then again¡­ Who else is more fitting?¡± Eridel muttered as a wry smile crept onto his face.

    The strange phenomenon that looked like black tsunamis charging in from every direction, was actually the collective Essence of Gluttony that had been growing within the Eridius World. A vast majority of it had emerged from people themselves. After all, each time somebody felt any of the 7 deadly desires for a prolonged amount of time, the essence of that desire would begin to grow within them. 9.9/10 times this would have no effect and could not be detected, so most people were completely unaware.

    The other places where the Essence of Gluttony could be found was in the rare special locations where multiple events driven by gluttonous desire had taken place. These places began to slowly grow their own Essence of Gluttony over time, and at a certain point, if enough Gluttony Essence had been formed, they would begin to proliferate themselves with or without the gluttonous actions of others. An example of this kind of special location could be a gluttonous king¡¯s feeding ground.

    All of the Gluttony Essence across the World was being summoned (with the majority coming from the Seas and the North Continent itself) to complete the action they had been concepted for, and that was to form the mark of Gluttony and fuse with their Inheritor.

    Using the word ¡®luck¡¯ to describe what had been happening to the Slime Abomination for the last 5 minutes would be a gross understatement, and it seemed that the final Tribulation Light, or rather the Laws of Fate who were its wielder, were in complete agreement.

    VRUUUUUM!

    A powerful sound vibrated through the air as the Tribulation Circle that had already been adjusting to its new power, began grow again. But this time, the imperceptible red aura that had emerged in the last growth completely enveloped the entire Tribulation Circle without hesitation.

    Just like that. The Slime Abomination was now forced to face off against a Red Tribulation Light just like Eridel had been, 45 years ago. Of course, the one that Eridel had withstood was quite a few times stronger because of the fact that he had attacked it beforehand, but a Red Tribulation was still a Red Tribulation in the end and now the Slime Abomination was at risk of being deleted.

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    Quite literally.

    Although a Blue Tribulation would destroy one¡¯s body and soul upon death, there were still ways to revive such a person if you were powerful enough. Using the Laws of Time was just one example. But anyone who was killed by a Red Tribulation would CEASE to exist. It was so terrifying that even if Eridel himself were to scour the World Archive and look into the past, he would never see that person again. They would have been removed from the fabrics of reality.

    The Rainbow Tribulation was even worse. If anybody died to a Rainbow Tribulation not only would they cease to exist, but they would also be removed from all memory. Everything they had done would have been wiped from history and nobody would remember a single thing about them, not even Eridel. In fact, it was quite possible that some kind of impossible monstrosity had already been born, something infinitely times more aberrant than he or the Abomination, but had ended up dying to a Rainbow Tribulation. Eridel would never know it.

    Thankfully, that was not what he had to deal with here. The Red Tribulation was daunting yes, but he had already expected the Slime Abomination to die. It pinched a little that it would become something permanent and unchangeable, but only because it was a blow to his ego. Nothing he was capable of doing would save the Abomination and it irked him. However, he would learn from this experience and become greater.

    Meanwhile, the large sea of Gluttony Essence had finally arrived directly above the Slime Abomination, high up in the sky but underneath the Tribulation. It caused the surroundings to look like the sun had already fallen and night time had arrived, but this only lasted for a little while because the Essence of Gluttony was already coalescing together at a rapid pace.

    Eridel¡¯s eyes narrowed. Now that he thought about it, with the most innate power that the Sin of Gluttony gifted its wielder [Devour], along with the stupendous assimilation power that Slime Abomination itself had¡­ there was actually a chance that it could fuse with the mark of Gluttony so quickly that it would be able to complete its Soul creation and obtain a new outrageous peak of power just in time to face off against the Red Tribulation Light.

    ¡®¡­!¡¯

    There was still a problem with the strength of the Slime Abomination¡¯s Soul, but if it intentionally repurposed most if not all of the Gluttony Essence into it¡¯s Soul, then there was actually a chance! A chance to survive! So long as a tiny bit of the Body and Soul remained, Eridel knew that Abomination would be able to make a comeback, especially since it was evolving and becoming a completely new creature. A Chaos Anomaly Slime Abomination, not to mention an inheritor of Gluttony. Oh yeah, it was also Undead. An Undead Progenitor in fact.

    What would it even be called? Abominable Anomaly Slime of Gluttonous Chaos? Anomaly Slime of Chaotic Abominable Gluttony? Undead Chaotic Anomaly Slime of Gluttonous Abomination? There were so many choices.

    There was also the fact that unlike other Anomaly¡¯s, the Slime Abomination would be able to obtain a human form immediately, after all, it was still an organic lifeform and adhered to the Essence Cultivation System. Upon reaching Realm 4 and overcoming the Tribulation, it would instantly obtain an Enlightened Form even if it was an Abomination. How wondrous would that be.

    A brilliant light flashed across Eridel¡¯s eyes.

 Ch.170 ASSIMILATE! DEVOUR!

    (Slime Abomination POV)

    ¡°AAARRRRGGGHH!¡± The Slime Abomination continued to roar as it had been doing all this time. Agony still a living current coursing through its every cell.

    ¡®I WILL NOT DIE!¡¯ the Slime Abomination inwardly roared, something that it had been unable to do just a few minutes ago.

    Originally, when the Tribulations had first begun, the Slime Abomination had not possessed the ability to think. After all, it had been relying on its multiple brains to possess a semblance of a mind, so when those were all simultaneously fried, naturally, the pseudo-mind that it had been granted with had also combusted.

    However, not that long ago, the System had suddenly congratulated it for the feat of obtaining a Soul, a Chaos Soul at that. Something that whilst initially confusing, soon became a source of great wonder when it swiftly realised that it was once again capable of even feeling confused in the first place. This so-called Soul had returned its metaphysical capabilities and more.

    In the beginning it was quite bad. The Slime Abomination could only think one stream of thought at a time and it was slow, but as time passed and the Soul that it could now feel as closely as its body began to grow, the Soul¡¯s capabilities rapidly began to expand. Opening numerous parallel thought streams were once again possible, but to an even greater extent, and thought processing speed was much greater than before. Simply outstanding, but what was a cause of slight confusion were the new emotions that it was rapidly experiencing.

    A few of them being the boiling rage and insufferable humiliation.

    What it was currently undergoing was nothing other than unjust. Yes, it now knew what justice was. Something that quickly became infuriating considering the fact that the concept had completely abandoned the Slime Abomination.

    These so-called Tribulation Lights that the System had said were supposed to temper its being, were clearly trying to accomplish something else, and that something else was destruction. The Tribulation Lights clearly wanted nothing other than the Slime Abomination¡¯s end, and it could feel it.

    Why else would it be powered up 2 more times? Why else would it nullify each and every bone of survival that the Slime Abomination had managed to grasp on? Hm?

    ¡­It¡¯s because the Tribulations were UNJUST! Everything about the Tribulation Lights and all that they stood for were UNJUST! Not only did they want the Slime Abomination¡¯s death, but they also wanted to remove it from existence as well. The Slime Abomination had felt the threat of nihility just over 10 before and would never forget it.

    But unfortunately for the Tribulations, they had underestimated it. They had messed with the wrong Slime!

    Just as the Slime Abomination could sense its impending Doom, it could also sense a great incoming boon. It seemed that even if the Tribulations were unjust, the laws of this world were not! Something great was coming and the Slime Abomination was going to grasp it like it had never grasped anything before. It would NOT ALLOW ITSELF TO DIE!

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    IT WOULD DEVOUR THE TRIBULATIONS AND FEAST ON EVERY LAST BIT OF IT FIRST! EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!!!

    ¡°ROOOOOOOOOOAAARRRRRRR!!!¡± The Slime Abomination roared out with fury and a sudden infliction of crazed hunger. And then finally, something changed. Something above, something possessing unbelievable yet familiar power, was rushing to meet it. The Slime Abomination could not see it (because it had lost the ability to see after the first Tribulation Light) but it could instantly tell that this was the boon. This was the thing that was destined to save it!

    ¡®IT¡¯S HERE! YES! YES! BE DEVOURED BY ME AND BECOME MY STRENGTH!¡¯ The Slime Abomination crazily roared as powerful instincts within itself began to steer its actions to do one thing.

    ASSIMILATE! DEVOUR!

    BOOOOOOOOOOM!

    An explosion resounded throughout the forest as the boon slammed into the Slime Abomination. Almost immediately, the Slime Abomination was able to recognize the boon as some kind of complex symbol that possessed boundless energy. But instead of feeling any pain from the impact, the Slime Abomination only felt pleasure as the strange yet familiar essence quickly began to seep into its pores. There was also a lot of information about what it was unfolding within its mind and the Slime Abomination began to feel elation.

    ¡®Hahahaha! Yes! More! More! So good! Too good! What is this feeling?!¡¯ The Slime Abomination inwardly babbled as it felt joy for the first time. It had been chosen by the Sin of Gluttony! How could it not feel joy!

    ¡®MORE!¡¯

    Feeling ravenous for the energy it now recognized as Gluttony Essence, and also pressed for time, the Slime Abomination instinctively activated the precious skill that carried it to where it was today. [ASSIMILATE!]

    WUM!

    As every part of the Abomination¡¯s body began to release a suctioning air, the Slime Abomination felt a sudden increase of pressure as the Gluttony Essence forced its way into its body even faster.

    The Slime Abomination revelled in the feeling of joy as it rapidly felt its powers increasing, the very nature of its body changing as the multiple evolutions began to fuse into one, promising untold power if it managed to survive. But then all of a sudden, a voice that it would never forget began to speak directly into its mind.

    =Do not forget that you are still within the grip of death, Child. If you wish to survive the final Tribulation Light, you must guide all of the remaining Gluttony Essence into your Soul.=

    ¡®It¡¯s him!¡¯ The Slime Abomination thought with a flash of fear. But then all of a sudden, it registered what was said and didn¡¯t like what was being said at all.

    ¡®I am NOT a child. I am 172 years old and there is no other lifeform on this Continent older than I. You must respect that.¡¯

    =...= Golden eyed Man

    ¡®...¡¯ Slime Abomination

    =...= Golden eyed Man

    ¡®...¡¯ Slime Abomination

    Just when the Slime Abomination was about to become confused, it suddenly felt a very familiar threat of doom, and all the brand-new feelings of shame, indignation and the desire for respect that drove it to say those things, fled. Soul-deep fear replacing it and talking all the space.

    The dangerous feeling only lasted for a split second, but it was enough to teach it several lessons.

    =Just hurry up and direct the Essence of Gluttony to your Soul. You will need to do that if you have any hope of Survival.= Came the voice of the Golden eyed Man once more.

    Not daring to resist, the Slime Abomination hastily complied.

 Ch.171 The Slime Abominationâ€™s New Form

    (Eridel¡¯s POV)

    It took a little while, but eventually, the Slime Abomination was able to locate its Soul and send all the incoming Gluttony Essence towards it, nourishing it and skyrocketing its creation. Soon, the Soul would reach completion and the power it would wield would be vastly incomparable.

    How interesting would a Soul powered by both Chaos and Gluttony be? Eridel didn¡¯t know. But he was willing to do anything to find out. Only, there wasn¡¯t anything he could do other than to advise the Abomination to power up its Soul, and even that was only possible because the Tribulation was still adjusting to its new power and didn¡¯t care about anything he might say that could be considered intervention.

    He could only hope that that would be enough.

    3 minutes later

    ¡®Any moment now¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as he noticed the Slime Abomination¡¯s Soul trembling, signifying that it was at 99% completion and that it was a hair¡¯s breadth away from becoming a fully functioning Soul. At the same time, Eridel realised that the Slime Abomination¡¯s body had also experienced abrupt changes.

    Not only had it become extremely smooth and transparent unlike the sludge-like form that it had earlier, but its previous flat grey colour had experienced a unique change. No longer was it just grey, but it was all kinds of grey. From the lightest grey can get without being confused for white, to the darkest grey can get without being confused for black. And the colours were not static, they swirled around beautifully like an illusive galaxy, sometimes moving slowly and sometimes moving quickly. Eridel had a suspicion that the speed depended on the Abomination¡¯s emotions, but he couldn¡¯t confirm.

    But besides that, the Slime Abomination was no longer sticky. Its body glided across the ground like a drop of water on glass and it no longer splattered. And even though there were no longer any random shapes like arms, tentacles, maws and wings sticking out of it, Eridel knew that they could be resummoned or unsummoned in an instant.

    Lastly, not only was the Slime Abomination now 150 metres big all around, possessing a huge size that was no doubt an effect of the Anomaly transformation, but the air around it gave off shimmery ripples as if the Abomination was extremely hot. But Eridel knew that that was not the case. In reality, this was an effect of the Slime Abomination¡¯s Chaos Affinity (just like the swirling grey colours) and just looking at it could directly damage somebody''s Soul. Definitely an effect of the Chaos transformation. But for those who could withstand its insanity-inducing effects like Eridel, the shimmery waves presented a beguiling sight that made the Slime Abomination¡¯s look more ethereal.

    All in all, the Slime Abomination had become quite the thing to look at. Even Eridel had to admit that it had transitioned from one of the ugliest things on the planet to one of the most beautiful. In fact, he could already imagine the legends and myths that would be told about it in a few thousand years.

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    But all of this made it clear that the Slime Abomination had completed its physical Evolution.

    It was now 99.9% Anomaly (waiting for Soul completion), 100% a being of Chaos, 100% Abomination (Even though it was no longer plagued by the deficiencies of a normal Abomination), 100% Undead, and roughly 72% Sin of Gluttony. But it would be way more accurate to say that the Slime Abomination had fused all of those things together and was now 100% that.

    Truth be told, calling it the Slime Abomination was no longer appropriate, and a new name was in order. But there was a time for everything and whether or not the Slime Abomination would still be alive in 10 minutes was still extremely dubious.

    Thankfully¡­

    Eridel smiled.

    The Soul was just about complete.

    WUM!

    A flash of Soul Aura burst out of the Slime Abomination¡¯s body, speeding past Eridel¡¯s Avatar and descending into the distance.

    That was the Soul Pulse. Eridel¡¯s first Soulmate; the Pink Gaseous Planet, and every other Anomaly before that had released one whenever their Souls had been created. Not that it was exclusive to Anomalies. Everything that gained a Soul artificially or through whatever method released a Soul Pulse upon creation.

    But the Slime Abomination wasn¡¯t just emitting a Soul Pulse. On top of that was the fanfare and myriad lights that were dancing through the sky, the telltale sign that almost every heavenly treasure emitted when they were born/created. The lights for the Slime Abomination were, of course, all kinds of grey. Something that was directly tied to its affinities and was nothing special. But the music that was playing on the other hand, was very different to what was heard from the birth of the other Anomalies.

    Their music would be considered nothing other than heavenly, but this music could only be considered malevolent. It was still beautiful to hear, albeit a little eerie, but the emotions they arose were definitely nefarious. Instead of making one want to clap their hands in celebration, they made one want to sacrifice somebody¡¯s head as a celebration.

    Thankfully, nobody other than Eridel and the stationary Giant Death Tree were close enough to hear it, otherwise there might have been a serious problem. But even if all of Eridel¡¯s favourites were here and they began to kill each other, he wouldn¡¯t care.

    After all, when that Soul Pulse had brushed against him, he had felt a very familiar contraction within his own Soul which temporarily dizzied his senses. Something he had only experienced once before.

    ¡°...Seriously?¡± Eridel muttered, his voice possessing the slightest tremble. Clearly, his emotions had once again run amok. That was how baffled he was.

    He couldn¡¯t believe it.

    Within his Soul, 1 of the 5 unattached Soulmate links had finally changed. No longer was it straight and unconnected, it was now fluid like a snake. Instead of being transparent and colourless, it was now dark gold. Rather than being dead and silent, it was now filled with life and emotions, specifically ravenous desire and confusion.

    The Slime Abomination¡­ was his Soulmate.

 Ch.172 Eridelâ€™s Second Soulmate!

    ¡°No¡­¡± Eridel absentmindedly whispered as fear began to rise.

    Slowly, he crouched to the ground. Placed his elbows upon his knees, rested his palms together against his lips and closed his eyes.

    ¡°No¡­¡± he whispered once again.

    The fact that the Slime Abomination was his Soulmate was shocking news, but for a second or 2 he had been quite interested. After all, the Slime Abomination had immense potential that was still growing. It hadn¡¯t even comprehended an Intent yet (which it could now do since it has a Soul), which meant that It still had room for an explosion of potential. Who wouldn¡¯t want to have such a partner for eternity?

    He wasn¡¯t even worried about the Slime Abomination not suiting his sexual tastes either, since that was impossible. One way or another, the Slime Abomination would obtain an appearance and personality that was so to his liking that it would be as if ¡®she¡¯ (and never a male, because Eridel is only sexually attracted to females) was divinely crafted by the heavens solely for him.

    But¡­

    Only a second later did he remember that this Soulmate of his¡­ was very close from never existing ever again. Not even just dying. The Red Tribulation was extremely dangerous, and even with all the peculiar upgrades that the Abomination had received, there was still a chance of her fading into just a memory.

    If that happened, even Eridel wouldn¡¯t be able to bring her back to life.

    Normally that wouldn¡¯t be such a problem. Eridel had barely met her so he couldn¡¯t possibly be attached, and talented figures died even more unjust deaths all the time so there was no need to dwell on it. Eventually, other talents on the level of, or even surpassing that of the Slime Abomination, would arrive and he would be able to protect their existences better. No problem at all.

    Accept there was a problem. A very big problem.

    Eridel knew the effects of what having a Soulmate die would do to a person, even if they had never met. In such situations (never having met before), the living Soulmate would permanently feel like something was missing, and as a common consequence, might fall into hedonism in pursuit of that ¡®something¡¯. Such a person¡¯s will would eventually degenerate and their prospects for cultivation would collapse.

    In Eridel¡¯s case where he had met the Soulmate but had never really associated with her, regret would plague him for the rest of his life. The thoughts of ¡®what if¡¯ would never be fleeting, and like in the first example, his will would eventually begin to decline. Even if he tried to alter his own memory to forget said Soulmate, it wouldn¡¯t work. He would only end up like the first example, but worse. When a planet (even a sentient one) that was already half-crazed with the desire for evolution began to feel like something was ¡®missing¡¯, the catastrophe could only be imagined.

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    Lastly, there were the type of people who had achieved the relationship you would expect of typical Soulmates, star-crossed lovers. Whenever such people had their Soulmate die, it wasn¡¯t hard to guess what would happen next. Death. Suicided to be specific. Some would attempt to bring the World down with them (Hahaha.), irrationally angry that the World would allow their Soulmate to die. But eventually, it would almost always end with death.

    Thankfully, Eridel didn¡¯t belong to that first category.

    ¡®¡­Hopefully I don¡¯t end up in any category.¡¯ Eridel thought as he forcefully tried to quell his rampaging emotions. But they only continued to bubble and boil until he leapt to his feet with a roar.

    ¡°FUCK! This wasn¡¯t supposed to happen! The Tribulation Laws weren¡¯t even supposed to shackle me! I created it! I could have ended this Tribulation in an instant! FUCK! I wasn¡¯t even supposed to have a Soulmate either! FUUUUUUCK!¡± Eridel raged, current emotions and ignored emotions of the past affecting him.

    That was the thing about Immortals, gods or irregularly long-lived individuals (including reincarnators or people implanted with centuries or more worth of memory). They were expertly capable of managing how they act and were almost always in control of their emotions. But when they snapped, it was always a sight to behold.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t make any fucking sense! What kind of creator has to abide by his own¡­¡±

    Whilst Eridel swore up a storm, the last few effects of the Slime Abomination¡¯s divine celebration completely faded away. The Slime Abomination was now without a doubt a complete Anomaly, and the powers it came with were hers to wield.

    The Mark of Gluttony was very close to being fully assimilated and soon, the people all over the World who had succumbed to the enthralment of Gluttony (just like in the time the Honourable Brother had become the Sin of Envy) would be released from their dreams.

    All of those that had succumbed had forever changed. The way their bodies would react to Gluttony Essence was now utterly different, and the Sin of Gluttony would never be far away from them whether the Slime Abomination survived or not. The Sin of Gluttony was here to stay.

    Perhaps in a couple years, Creatures in Black would start to appear just like the Creatures in Green had. And if the Slime Abomination managed to survive, who knew what further methods she could use to augment her followers using her bestowal ability as an Anomaly.

    All it would take was a Contract, and a new sub-species would be born.

    The Super Ant Colony of the Burning Nines, the Golden Humans of the Heavenly Sun, the Blood Fae and High Devils of the Blood Tree, Zion the Lunar Lion Kaiser and the other Creatures of the Moon, Dodo the Guardian of the Forest of Dawn and Progenitor of Glacial Saint Deer Clan.

    All of these powerful creatures and races had been created by the wills of Anomaly¡¯s. Their powerful Contracts upgrade beings who might have been ordinary, into unprecedented geniuses whose might could never be overlooked. One could only imagine what would happen if the Slime Abomination, who was both an Anomaly and a Sin, was to put her full efforts into upgrading someone using all of her means.

    Something amazing, that¡¯s for sure.

 Ch.173 The Essence of Tribulation

    1.25 minutes later

    BOOM!

    A wave of Gluttony Essence burst out of the Slime Abomination¡¯s body as the Mark of Gluttony finally completed its fusion process. The Slime Abomination was now the Sin on Gluttony.

    ¡°OOOOOOOOOOEEER!¡± The Slime Abomination let out a roar of triumph, but unlike its previous roars which although dangerous to the Soul were almost completely ineffective against a physical body, this roar possessed a hair-raising effect that could cause a weaker listener¡¯s brain to directly leak out of their skull.

    But that¡¯s not where the changes ended. As opposed to the sound of the Slime Abomination¡¯s voice becoming more eldritch or abyssal in correspondence the increasing terror of its nature, the voice had actually becoming enchanting; kind of like sound of a whale underwater but a few times deeper and multiple times more beguiling.

    It was such a deceptive sound.

    But clearly, when the vicious nature of Chaos, the purity of the Tribulation Essence, the majesty of an Anomaly and the enthralment of a Sin, was combined into an evolution, the results were distinctly quite strange.

    But understandably so.

    47 seconds later

    *FLASH!*

    Eridel, who had long regained control of his emotions, was standing peacefully to the side with his muscles relaxed and his face serene. But the moment the red light shining down from the above experienced a brief flash, his fists clenched.

    The time of reprieve granted to the Abomination had ended. The time to gather strength or marvel at what was already gained had ended. Now was the time to see if that strength would be kept.

    The Slime Abomination fell silent.

    2.5 minutes later

    *FLASH*

    3 minutes later

    *FLASH*

    ¡®This is it.¡¯ Eridel thought, his Planetary Core pounding like an agitated heart beat. Sensing the imminent strike he decided to close his eyes. A mortal gesture. Closing one¡¯s eyes would never prevent reality.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    A red pillar of light descended from the Tribulation Circle and crashed into the Slime Abomination in the blink of an eye. The resulting effect was so terrific that the entire Continent and surrounding Sea felt it. The might of the Red Tribulation.

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    As for the Slime Abomination?

    Well¡­

    3/4 of it was gone. A whole three quarters of the Slime Abomination¡¯s Body and Soul had evaporated like smoke, and more of it was quickly joining.

    Eridel¡¯s eyes widened. His pupils¡¯ constricted.

    The entire World trembled.

    ¡°EiiIIaAIiiAiaIAIIAiAIiaiAIaiIIiaiIIIaIaAARGiIiacCHH!!!!¡±

    The Slime Abomination let out a ghastly scream of pain as the Tribulation''s hostile energies continued to ravage her insides. Eridel could also feel an echo of the pain through the Soulmate link, something that was also being eroded along with the Slime Abomination¡¯s Soul.

    But there was nothing he nor she could do about it, so like this, the Slime Abomination experienced torment of the likes she had never felt before for 12 more seconds. Helplessly allowing more of her Body and Soul to disappear. And now, her previous 150m domineering size had been reduced to a pitiful 25, half the size she had been when she was wrapped in the sealing chains.

    But then something changed.

    A black coloured smoke began to billow out of the Slime Abomination¡¯s body. Gluttony Essence. The unique energy that the Slime Abomination had only just obtained. Without a doubt, the Slime Abomination was trying to save its life somehow¡­ But contrary to expectations, not only did she not get any better, she actually got worse.

    The elimination of her Body and Soul had picked up in speed by about 3 times!

    For a half of a split second, Eridel was appalled and had the urge to order the seemingly suicidal Slime Abomination to cease her actions immediately. Something that definitely would have backfired if he was foolish enough to do so. But then he caught sight of something that made him instantly swallow back the words even without the threat of joining in on the Tribulation. And he began to grin.

    ¡°Good! Good! Who would have thought that in such a situation she would think of such a thing! Hahahaha!¡± Eridel burst out laughing.

    Whether it was due to a stroke of luck or a spark of genius, the Slime Abomination had managed to bypass her fear of certain doom in order to perform a last ditch action that could have accelerated her demise if her guess was wrong. But it paid off.

    Using her newfound powers of Gluttony, she had begun to [Devour] large amounts of her own body and Soul, including the unrefined Tribulation Essence inflicting those areas. So yes, whilst this was effectively tarnishing her cultivation since she had to release what was devoured back into the air (in the form of black smoke; Gluttony Essence), it was saving her life.

    Perhaps if she had more control of her powers, she would have been able to use a technique that would allow her to devour harmful essence, release it back into her body, and repeat until the essence was more tame. But that was too much to ask for the new Sin of Gluttony.

    Nevertheless, Eridel was ecstatic. His Soulmate¡¯s chances for survival had just shot up!

    To be honest, his desire for her survival was probably 98% for his own self-preservation. 1% of it was because he was interested in what a creature like her could become, and the last 1% out of curiosity for what they could be. What was the epitome of his desires? What would she become that she would so perfectly match him? Well, whatever. He needed her to survive and the semantics didn¡¯t matter.

    57 harrowing seconds later

    Up above, the Tribulation Circle abruptly vanished and the Tribulation Cloud began to disperse. Eridel was gazing at it with pure eyes absent of any emotions when a sudden spark of enlightenment flashed through them.

    ¡°One can earn Power¡­ but can they keep it? That is the essence of Tribulation. But if that is the essence of Tribulation then that must mean that it is a Law of Fortune and to some extent Fate. After all, those are the driving forces that steer these Tribulations. Ha¡­~ The ¡®ever-so-imperceivable¡¯ Laws of Fate.¡±

    Eridel turned his attention back to the ground where something smaller than a metre was releasing so much smoke that it couldn¡¯t be seen.

 Ch.174 The Slime Abominationâ€™s Enlightened Form

    With a strange expression on his face, he walked over to what was clearly the remains of the Slime Abomination until he was close enough that the smoke was caressing his face.

    ¡°This is¡­¡± Eridel¡¯s eye twitched. ¡°Haa...~ At least she survived.¡±

    When the smoke finally faded away, what was revealed was not a small ball of slime, but actually a small human child of around 10 years old.

    She had pale white skin with a soft silver moon-like hue, long silver hair that reached her waist and sharp black nails.

    Eridel blinked.

    His eyes scouted every inch of her unclothed body, trying to see if he would feel any kind of sexual attraction but it ended in failure.

    ¡®Hmm. I was slightly worried that my Soulmate would tempt me into pedophilia but I guess not. Well it makes sense. She¡¯s supposed to become the so-called woman of my dreams, not spawn as it. And since every sexual fantasy that I have includes mature woman she¡¯s very clearly not ready yet. For me to not feel lust at this moment is as it should be.¡¯

    He could tell that she would definitely grow up to be a great beauty (even despite looking half dead) but it was just that. No sexual attraction of any kind.

    Eridel released a small sigh of relief and then smiled. He had known that this would happen but with the Soulmate mechanics becoming a part of the World¡¯s Integral Laws he was a little worried that he would fall victim to peculiar ¡®upgrades¡¯. Luckily, that was not the case.

    Looking at the fragile girl who looked a few breaths away from death, and then thinking about the giant monstrous Slime that had once pushed the North Continent¡¯s inhabitants to the brink of extinction, Eridel couldn¡¯t help but marvel at the irony.

    Technically, the Slime Abomination should have been given a fully matured Enlightened form like everyone else that had come before her. The Crystal Dragon King, Wraith King and Asura had all been blessed with adult Enlightened Forms right away. So why was the Slime Abomination different?

    Was it because that deep down in Eridel¡¯s degenerate Core, that this was the type of body that he secretly desired?

    No. Of course not.

    The real reason why she looked like a child had nothing to do with Eridel and was all to do with what she had done to herself in order to survive. In order to rid herself of the Red Tribulation Light¡¯s harmful unrefined essence, she had essentially destroyed the majority of her own cultivation.

    Unlike Enlightened Beings like Humans and Elves, creatures who relied on an Enlightened Form to become humanoid (like Beasts and Monsters) had an appearance that was heavily tied to their cultivation.

    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

    Now that the Slime Abomination had fallen into the first Realm of Essence Cultivation, her Enlightened Form reflected that. And it wasn¡¯t just her Enlightened Form either. Before she had transformed, Eridel had seen that her true form had been reduced to 1.6 metres and was completely incomparable to her previously domineering size of 150 metres.

    ¡®Well whatever, what was lost will be regained. But more than that I can actually use this to her advantage. If I temporarily wipe her memories and send her to live off with the Humans, she can live out her ¡®childhood¡¯ in relative peace and develop a healthy mind until she¡¯s ready to reclaim what she was.¡¯ Eridel thought as he crouched down to her side, pressed a glowing hand to her forehead and began to heal her Body and Soul.

    ¡®There could be a slight problem with her growing up too fast if she cultivates too fast or growing too slowly if she does the opposite, but with proper seals placed in a timely manner, that wouldn¡¯t matter too much. At least now that she has an Enlightened Form, she can cultivate by absorbing ambient Magical Energy into her body and won¡¯t need to rely on her Devouring abilities or the Slaughter Path of the Monster Race.¡¯

    Thinking about it, the Slime Abomination had quite a lot of methods to gain strength, no? Eridel felt a tendril of pride at the thought.

    ¡®Well I suppose it makes sense that only reality-bending freaks like her are worthy of being my Soulmate. Haha~¡¯

    1 minute later

    The Slime Abomination¡¯s body twitched. Thanks to Eridel¡¯s efforts, her Body and Soul which she might not have ever been able to heal to perfection on her own (due to the insidious nature of the Red Tribulation and the nigh permanent damage it had caused), had been perfectly healed. But that was 17 seconds ago and it was only now that she was stirring.

    Eridel could feel the girl¡¯s energy levels abruptly rising and he knew that she would be waking up any moment now.

    5 seconds later, the Slime Abomination¡¯s eyes snapped open. And yes, snapped. That was the only way to describe how quickly it was done along with the impact the eyes themselves had when they were revealed.

    ¡°Whistle¡± Eridel whistled in approval.

    Her sclera was normal enough, but her Irises and Pupils meshed into one black colour that was so dark that they resembled twin pools of abyss. They sucked in surrounding light and radiated a feeling of hunger and chaos so dense that it had Eridel raising his brows. But instead of moving around crazily like the 2 volatile emotions would suggest, her eyes were completely stable. They moved here and there in apparent confusion but they moved so smoothly and steadily that Eridel had no doubt that this was the influence of her Slime nature at play.

    According to his inheritance, most Chaos creatures had eyes that were just as erratic as their energies. They twittered about in every direction like ravenous beasts and were just as ugly. But apparently, the Slime Abomination had not been branded with that particular fault. In fact, Eridel was certain that the Tribulation Essence that she had absorbed and assimilated into her DNA had removed most of the faults that normally came with a Chaos Transformation. Probably a big factor as to why she survived it too.

    ¡®Hmm. The Tribulation Essence had both caused the Chaos Transformation and protected her from it. Wonderful.¡¯ Eridel thought dryly.

    But back to the topic of the Slime Abomination¡¯s eyes. Eridel had also noticed that they bore the markings of an Eye of Power; similar to the 10 Evil Eyes on Eridel¡¯s planet. They were basically ineffective at the moment, but Eridel was sure that they would begin to display their secrets once the Slime Abomination gained more power.

    But that was quite a while away. Currently, the Slime Abomination was making small wiggles on the floor, unable to control her new humanoid body.

 Ch.175 Her Fear, His Fascination

    It was to be expected. The Slime Abomination wasn¡¯t even used to bones and muscles talk less of such a complicated humanoid body. Although Eridel was sure that she could convert the solidity of her body parts back into softness of her natural Slime body and still keep the same shape, it would be useful to learn how to work a natural Humanoid body.

    After all, such softness wouldn¡¯t work well against any kind of counter force. For example, if she were to try to stand up in such a state, the gravity pressing down from above along with her upper body weight would cause her legs to deform. If she was intelligent, she would keep most if not all of her body the way a natural humanoid body should be, and then convert parts of it into slime if she so wished.

    Going by the Slime Abomination¡¯s numerous attempts at sitting up without unnaturally deforming or slithering, it could be said that she was quite the quick thinker. The urge to revert to her Slime form must be riding her so the fact that she was still in this form showed intent.

    Eridel smiled and peacefully crossed his legs while he waited for her to get the hangs of things. It shouldn¡¯t take long, after all, the memories of the many humanoid beings that she had devoured in the past should begin to help her soon.

    6 second later

    The Slime Abomination¡¯s energy levels that had been rising the entire time seemed to reach a certain threshold because suddenly, her hair which had been a normal silky silver suddenly experienced a grand transformation.

    Firstly, the single silver colour split into the many grey colours of her true body, transforming something that was once just gorgeous into something that was extremely dazzling. But on top of that, not only did it begin to softly float without any stimulation from wind, but it also gained a slight transparency, which allowed one to see the few rand sparks of light hiding within that resembled stars.

    ¡°Woah¡­¡± Eridel muttered under his breath.

    Just with the improvement with her hair alone, she had seemingly transformed into an transcendent fairy. But with the juxtaposition that her nightmarish yet enchanting eyes proposed, her beauty became so impactful that it was actually quite stunning.

    Eridel had known there was something unnatural about her hair but he hadn¡¯t known what. Who knew that it was just because it was lacking juice and needed a bit of energy to show its true nature.

    Calling her a divine beauty would be quite an understatement, and that was even despite the fact that she was a child possessing little to no sexual allure. ¡­But this presented a problem. Her eyes were already abnormal, but this hair? Nobody with a functioning mind would believe she was a regular human. Even the pale skinned Original Undead would find it easier to blend in with the Humans if you removed the Cultivation factor.

    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    Well, no matter. Eridel would just add that to the list of seal-

    Suddenly feeling eyes on him, Eridel looked down just a few centimetres to see the¡­ fearful gaze of the Slime Abomination focusing on him.

    ¡®Ah¡­¡¯ His voice had alerted her.

    Up till now, the Slime Abomination had clearly been disorientated and hadn¡¯t thought too much about what was in her surroundings, most likely focusing on her new body and its functions. It didn¡¯t help that he was also suppressing his presence and was undetectable if she didn¡¯t look at him with her eyes or hear him with her ears.

    But the jig was up now, she had found him. And she was scared¡­

    ¡­Quite understandably so though. She had been bullied quite a bit by him for the last 30 minutes and she wouldn¡¯t easily forget it. Plus, there was a possibility that she knew that he was the one that had sealed her in that for 45 years. After all, it wouldn¡¯t take much to connect the dots between the golden light that had initially sealed her in the cave and the golden light that had been shining from his body back in the Forest. Not to mention the fact that he had easily unsealed her as if he were the owner of the chains¡­ which he was.

    Originally, this shouldn¡¯t have been a problem. In fact, Eridel had wanted the Slime Abomination to fear him. Fear was a great motivator for hedonistic beings like the previous Slime Abomination and it had worked out well, but now¡­ she had ended up becoming his Soulmate. For his own Soulmate to fear him was quite inconvenient.

    ¡®...Guess I¡¯ll just erase her memory of my Jonas avatar too.¡¯

    ¡°W-who are you?¡± The Slime Abomination asked, her childish voice slightly trembling.

    ¡®A regular voice¡­¡¯ Eridel noticed that her voice, although as cute and pleasantly sounding as a child¡¯s voice could be, was just that. No double layered voice or supernatural allure, nothing that gave the same impact as her eyes and hair. She sounded just like a regular girl. But who knows, maybe that would change in the future. Either way, it didn¡¯t really matter.

    Speaking of which, the reason she was a girl in the first place probably had a lot to do with the fact that as a Slime she possessed the [Reproduction] skill. Something that Ant Queens and the like also possessed. Although Slimes don¡¯t possess genders, when the Slime Abomination became a humanoid the most logical option for her gender was female rather than male. For the same reason the ¡®Ant Queens¡¯ are only female, a Slime that can reproduce should only be female.

    Eridel thought of all of this in an instant before refocusing on his little Soulmate.

    ¡°The Creator.¡± Eridel answered her question with a slight smile.

    At that, the Slime Abomination fell silent. The term ¡®the creator¡¯ didn¡¯t mean much in this time period since there was no knowledge of gods or the like, and it was likely that she thought that he was just being purposely ambiguous. Still, she didn¡¯t speak again, probably not wanting to ¡®anger¡¯ him by probing further.

    Not that Eridel cared. Even before he met his 2 Soulmates he had already deeply plotted a method to obtain a true incarnation, something much more impressive than this flimsy avatar that lacked life. It was in that form that he would start a new life and eventually gather his Soulmates, so whatever impression that they had of ¡®Jonas¡¯ didn¡¯t matter too much.

    So like this, the frightened Slime Abomination and the fascinated World Avatar continued to awkwardly look at each other.

 Ch.176 Pinnacle of the Dragon Mountain

    After a while, the Slime Abomination finally broke the silence.

    ¡°...Are you¡­ happy?¡± she asked in a tentative manner, causing Eridel to widen his eyes.

    ¡°...Why do you ask?¡±

    ¡°I can feel it¡­ I think.¡±

    Although Eridel had expected it, to hear it voiced that his emotions were now privy to another being was something else.

    ¡®This is the life now I suppose.¡¯ Eridel thought with an odd mixture of emotions.

    Technically, he could block his emotions from his Soulmate if he so wished, something that other Soulmate pairs on the planet would be able to do if they became proficient enough. But¡­ The feeling of sharing emotions with somebody you could trust (or rather should be able trust) was a novel experience that he found himself wanting to explore.

    Either way, he was going to seal her memories and when he did so he would have to block the entire Soulmate link from her end. Having this moment now should be fine.

    ¡°Well, to put it simply, we are each other''s other half; Soulmates.¡± Eridel didn¡¯t mind being a bit truthful now since she would soon lose recollection of the event.

    ¡°...What does that mean?¡±

    ¡®She¡¯s losing her fear.¡¯ Eridel thought with interest. He hadn¡¯t directly ensured it but by numerous functions coming into play, Soulmates normally had an intrinsic sense of trust for one another. It was a very weightless emotion, but at times, it could influence subconscious thoughts.

    This along with her Anomaly Soul and the many other things she had gained in the last 30 minutes (Chaos, Gluttony, 4th Realm, Human form, Soulmate bond) must be causing her curiosity to slowly override her fear.

    For an insignificant moment, Eridel almost replied: ¡®it means that I will always take care of you.¡¯ A saturated line that he had used many times in the past with various levels of success, mostly positive. But in this context, not only would it have sounded disingenuous, but it would have caused her to remember all the contrary actions he had done to her in the past.

    Funny though, since this would have been the only time he¡¯d have said the line without it being a complete lie.

    He opted for a different approach. ¡°It means that we¡¯re important to each other. Our Souls are tied-¡± Oop, her face squeezed at that. It was quite cute. ¡°-together by Fate and it allows us to sense each other''s emotions and enhance each other''s powers.¡±

    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    ¡°How? Why?¡± she responded with scepticism heavy in her voice.

    Likely, to her, the concept of the ethereal thing called a Soul being ¡®tied¡¯ with another was just too dubious. She had only recently gained a Soul so her knowledge of what they were and what they could do was next to nothing, it wasn¡¯t surprising.

    ¡°I do not quite know.¡± Lol. ¡°-But that is what the heavens have chosen for us.¡±

    ¡®Forgive me for lying my dear, but right now, even if I wanted to be truthful, you¡¯re a bit too stupid to understand.¡¯ Eridel thought.

    ¡°...You think I¡¯m a fool, don¡¯t you?¡± The Slime Abomination asked with slight heat in her voice. ¡°But what you do not know is that I have the memo- I have lived a very long time and I have accumulated knowledge from all over the Continent. What you are explaining¡­ This so-called Soulmate thing¡­ I have never ever seen it before in my entire life. You really-¡±

    Eridel clicked his fingers and her eyes immediately closed as she fell unconscious. But before she dropped to the ground, he instantly flashed to her side and caught her by her shoulders.

    ¡®How annoying.¡¯ He thought with amusement.

    Initially, he had wanted to talk with his Soulmate to see how it would feel. After all, this was his Soulmate. And unlike his first one he could actually talk to this one. But clearly, she wasn¡¯t ready yet. Their minds were in no way compatible and if he stayed here, he would have to be answering questions from dawn till dusk.

    But he wasn¡¯t worried in the slightest. This was her after JUST obtaining a Soul, so the fact that they were even able to talk in the first place was already a miracle. Other millennial old bastards who untimely found their Soulmates at a young age wouldn¡¯t be as lucky as Eridel.

    Still though, he didn¡¯t want to have to keep answering such questions so he decided to hasten his plans. It was time to take the Slime Abomination to the human settlement where she would spend the next couple decades or so.

    ¡®But first¡­¡¯ Eridel thought as his hands began to glow with a golden light. ¡®I need to place a few seals. Ah, now that I think about it. I can also make that little girl adopt my Soulmate so that she can not only give her protection, but also teach her Magic. I guess I¡¯ll have to make another Grimoire then.¡¯

    ¡­

    [Central Continent, West Forest, Dragon Mountain]

    (2 Months Later, Still Year 172)

    At the highest peak of the Dragon Mountain, the peak where the Crystal Dragon King lived, a Dragon covered in golden scales peered out of the entrance of the cave and gazed at the starry sky.

    Obviously, this was not the purple crystal scaled Dragon King that should have been there. This was Gaia, the only living Creation Dragon on the planet and even more impressively, the Eridius World¡¯s goddess of Creation.

    Clearly, the Dragon Mountains highest peak had changed owners. But it wasn¡¯t a surprise. All of the Dragons on the planet, even the Eastern Divine Dragons, held this Dragon goddess with the highest regard. Even the other races on the continent greatly respected and/or feared her as they gradually understood what it meant to be a god, even if they knew that she was a ¡®fallen¡¯ one. It would have been weirder if she HADN¡¯T been gifted the Dragon Mountain¡¯s highest peak.

    Currently, this Golden Dragon that had raised to such a revered status in such a short time and claimed the pinnacle of the Dragon Mountain was peacefully resting as she revolved the Faith Energy within her body, converting it into Divine Energy as she thought about all the things that she witnessed since her revival.

 Ch.177 What it means to be a god

    To Gaia, this World was nothing short of an aberration. A dream-like existence that sparsely made any sense.

    From the very day she had woken up, all kinds of crazy things had begun to reveal themselves one by one. And most of them were actually things that were beneficial to her. For example, she was now a goddess. A goddess that could travel beyond the planet''s boundary at that.

    Sacred Lands? The uber rare treasured territories that the most powerful factions in Sigothia had to spend innumerable resources to artificially create, and even more to exclusively occupy? She had seen over 10 of them in just this tiny Continent alone, and she hadn¡¯t even fully explored it.

    What was worse was that these Sacred Lands that were usually owned by the most prestigious gods or ingenious immortals, were being freely occupied by Beasts that had never even touched the 5th Realm.

    And she was sure that nobody else outside the continent had reached the 5th Realm either, after all, the shackles to the 4th Realm and beyond had apparently only been released 45 years ago. That was not enough time for anybody who didn¡¯t possess both precious cultivation resources and impeccable cultivation techniques to reach the 5th Realm.

    The 4th Realm was a great hallmark to be in but it was also a depressing one. Cultivating was already hard (even if this World didn¡¯t make it seem like that), but after reaching the 4th Realm the difficulty increased exponentially. Only the great talents, hardest workers and alchemy chuggers could continue from there. But the 7th Realm? Forget it.

    Too difficult.

    But not everything about this so-called Eridius World was good. She had come across many daunting things that she was worried about such as the Monster race and the rabid creatures of the Sea. There were also locations that she had encountered that she had dared not to tread, even going as far as to ban the entire Dragon race from entering.

    But those things couldn¡¯t compare to the threat that she had felt from the 7 beings known as the Demon gods, a concept she had never heard of before; Beings who were said to be the embodiment of the 7 deadly sins.

    All those years ago, not too long after that strange man called Eridel had transformed her into a goddess, the entire world had been rocked by the awakening of its first Demon god, the Sin of Envy. It was an absolutely terrifying event and not something that she would easily forget.

    Of course, she hadn¡¯t known what was going on at the time. How could she? But fortunately, thanks to her new status as the goddess of the Eridius World, when she had made her half-hearted attempt for answers from the System, she had actually been obliged. The system had told her of The 7 Deadly Sins, the 7 Demon gods who would eventually rise 1 by 1 to rule over the Monster race.

    Unfortunately, when she had asked the System what their purpose was, she had been met with silence. Quite different to the times she had been told that ¡®she was unqualified to know¡¯. If it had said that, she would have known that at least there WAS a purpose, she was just not allowed to know it. But now, even though she thought that there was one, she could never confirm it.

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    Ever since then, she had made attempts to collect any information about the Sin of Envy that she could find, only to meet with failure. The effects of Envy¡¯s awakening were easy to find, especially since they appeared within her own territory, but news about a being that could possibly be the Sin of Envy was nowhere to be found.

    Which meant that he or she was not on this Continent.

    When she had finally reached that conclusion, she had been struck by my multiple feelings. Worry and even a little bit of fear at the fact that despite the Sin of Envy not even being on the continent, the effects of its awakening still brought up troubles all over the continent. Some joy at the fact that she would not have to be forced to deal with the threat before she had gained adequate strength. And finally, contrary to the last feeling; regret.

    Regret that she would not be able to deal with the threat before it grew even bigger. 15 Years ago (Year 157), she had finally gathered enough faith energy to enter the 1st Realm of the Divine Path; a cultivation system that was on par with the Essence Path and the Anatomy Path. Before then, she had been relying on the arduous Anatomy Path as she slowly gathered Faith Energy. But now that she was in it, gathering Faith Energy was multiple times easier than before, and she could now use the energy to form Divine Energy; something similar to but much greater than Mana.

    The reason it had taken her 30 years to get to that point is because, before she could convert Faith Energy to Divine Energy, she needed her Divine Territory; a small (for now) pocket dimension that would exist with her Divine Core. But creating such a thing, as one could expect, required enormous amounts of Faith Energy. So for 30 years, she had been expanding her faith. Making the Dragons and other subordinate races pray and create things in her name; 2 things that gave her Faith Energy.

    The Divine Awakening 15 years ago (which she had renamed ¡®Divinity Reclamation¡¯ so that it would fit into the weaving of lies) was an amazing event. The Dragons had adored her and nothing unexpected occurred. Well, the boy called Theodore that she had noticed was tainted by the Essence of Envy was a bit unexpected since she had been of the mind that she had exposed and gotten rid of all of them, but even that finding was a sign of good luck. Because for some reason, the Essence of Envy didn¡¯t affect the boy¡¯s personality too much like it did the others, so she had decided to keep an eye on him instead of exposing him so that she could study the effects of the Essence of Envy.

    All in all, her Divine Awakening was a great success.

    She had become a true goddess in every sense of the word unlike the pseudo goddess that she was before. And with that new status, she had been regretting the fact that she wouldn¡¯t be able to deal with the Sin of Envy. Because now, she was sure that with her own might along with the powerful forces she could rally, the Sin of Envy whoever it was, would be able to do nothing but die.

    But that was nothing but a pipe dream. It was already unrealistic for her to bring her forces to the other side of the continent, talk less of across the seas and into another continent.

    Her mood grew worse when she remembered that through studying little boy Theo, she had been able to find out that unlike a regular god, a demon god didn¡¯t need someone to act upon their Sin ¨Cin their name¨C to reap the benefits. They just had to do it. And whether or not the person wanted it or not, they would form Sin Essence and a portion of it would go to the Sin Inheritor.

    But unlike them, despite the fact that she was the goddess of creation, she couldn¡¯t just obtain Faith Energy from anybody who created things. They needed to create things in her name for her to gain Faith Energy and it was completely unfair. Demon gods were clearly a cut above regular gods and it was absolutely daunting.

    What¡¯s worse was that another one had awakened 2 months ago and it was none other than the Demon god of Gluttony.

 Ch.178 The Heavenly Sunâ€™s Changes

    There were now 2 Demon gods in this world. If before, the situation could be called dangerous, now it was critical. Gaia could already imagine that it would take more than a few average gods to deal with a single demon god, but the only god she knew of was none other than herself.

    Thankfully, her divinity was nothing to scoff at. Creation was omnipresent and was not something that could be avoided. Being the goddess of Creation, if she played her cards right, she would be able to get the entire World to revere her, making the gap between her and the demon gods diminish greatly.

    However, that was too hard of a project and would take a lot of time. And even in the situation that she did accomplish that, wouldn¡¯t there be more demon gods by that time? If there were still only 2 at that time, perhaps she could overcome them using other techniques from her past life. After all, she wasn¡¯t just a goddess, she was also an ex-immortal that had lived thousands of years. That meant that there were many things that she would be able to use in this life to grant herself a greater advantage, with fighting experience being the least of it.

    In comparison to that, even though it was clear that the Demon gods possessed a lot of raw might, there were things that an old Soul like hers would be able to do that that small children like them wouldn¡¯t be able to do.

    ¡­But 3, 4 or more Demon gods?

    She would definitely die even if she rallied the help of the entire Continent.

    Perhaps she was wrong. All of her ideas of their strength came from mere speculation and not concrete fact. She hadn¡¯t even seen a single one of them yet, talk less of their fighting prowess. But then again, perhaps the situation was even more lethal than she was guessing it to be.

    Gaia sighed.

    It had been a long time since she had had to worry so much for her future. When she had become an Immortal, although it was a whole new playing field with even more dangerous enemies, retaining her life or even avoiding all kinds of hostility altogether became much easier. She had been able to leave the World!

    Back then, if she had aggravated someone she wasn¡¯t able to deal with, she could have just fled to another Planet. Although Sigothia was her home, the place her heart resonated with the most¡­ most of the time, she wasn¡¯t even in the Desolate Region.

    She would either be in the Mithril Region since it was not only the safest location but also the best in terms of commerce, or the Dragoria Region. The latter was because there was a really powerful man there who had hoped to win her heart. He had always managed to protect her and shower her with resources ¡®without expecting anything back¡¯, and had never gotten mad at her. Honestly, if she hadn¡¯t found out about the other hundreds of women that he gave the same treatment to, she would have given her body and heart to him long ago.

    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

    Besides that, she also sometimes travelled to other Regions, but never ever to the Unhallowed Region. For obvious reasons, if she offended a big player there, even one weaker than her; that Region would become her final resting place. It was for that same reason that she had only visited the Kong Eternal Region once. The place was really amazing and quite welcoming, but sometimes they were a bit TOO welcoming.

    If a single arrogant young master decided that he wanted her, she would never be able to leave the Kong Eternal Region ever again. There were numerous stories of female immortals from other regions being forced to marry into the Kong Eternal Region after a single visit. Not that they were all unwilling, but it was still true. There had even been a case of an Evil goddess (World Sinner) being forced to marry a young master from the Kong Family¡¯s main branch. That had been quite the shock all over the Galaxy.

    Luckily, when Gaia had visited there, she had been able to mask herself using a special technique and got what she went there for without encountering a single big player that would have seen through the facade, and left very swiftly. In and out, very simple. Since then, she had never tested her luck again.

    Thinking about her old life, Gaia sighed once more and then shook her head. She needed to focus on the now.

    Closing her eyes, she resumed her Faith Energy to Divine Energy conversion.

    ¡­

    [West Continent, Central Lands, Heavenly Sun Domain]

    At the peak of a luscious mountain filled with various verdant life, a gigantic golden flame that was 30 metres tall peacefully floated in the middle with majestic lustre. This was, of course, the Heavenly Sun Flame. The very same Heavenly Sun Flame that had caused this same mountain to become a wasteland filled with nothing but ash 45 years ago.

    But obviously, things had changed. For one, this mountain was no longer a land of ash and was now filled with golden grass, trees packed with golden leaves, bountiful Magic Herbs and more. No doubt the most beautiful of them all were the trees. Not only were they pristine and gorgeous, but they also rained down tiny embers that looked like golden snow.

    Clearly, this land had become a Sacred Land because of the Heavenly Sun¡¯s existence.

    And speaking of the Heavenly Sun, its size had also increased by quite a bit. Before it was only 10 metres tall but now it floated at 30 metres tall, proving that it had increased in power just like the Sacred Volcano had.

    he [Syphon Essence] skill was indeed a great one.

    But that was by far not the extent of the changes around here.

    ¡°SHEEEEEEEEEERRR!¡± The majestic cry of a legendary bird sounded.

 Ch.179 Pharaoh, The 2nd Heavenly Sun Apostle.

    Swooping down from the sky came a giant bird that had a wingspan of 160 metres. It looked quite similar to an Eagle, only, it was multiple times more domineering and was far more elegantly shaped. Furthermore, its feathers were completely white with an undertone of gold, and they were alight with golden coloured flames. Lastly, it had 2 eyes that were similar to Liyanda¡¯s (completely gold and blazing), but it also had a 3rd eye on its forehead that was very similar to J?rma¡¯s Eye of Petrification, but instead of red, it was a pale blue. It too carried the distinct impression of flames.

    Without a doubt, this was a very interesting figure.

    Other figures that were clearly of the same species were following it from a distance, however, not only were they much, much smaller, but their feathers, although similarly alight with golden flames, were only pure white in colour and had no golden undertones. Neither of them had a 3rd eye either and their 2 regular eyes, which were also gold, still retained a normal white sclera and bold black pupils.

    Looking at all of these birds, it didn¡¯t take much to guess that the Heavenly Sun had adopted a new species.

    The giant bird finally landed not too far from the Heavenly Sun and bowed down to it immediately, keeping its head down in a show of subservience for a whole 5 minutes before standing up tall again. Looking at it now, not only did it have a large wingspan which only a legendary bird like the Phoenixes and the Purgatory Vermillion Birds had when they entered the 4th Realm, but it also had a respectable height of 56 metres. This bird was completely awe-inspiring.

    But somebody seemed to disagree.

    ¡°Hey, Eagle. Now that you¡¯ve finished acknowledging the Lord, get out of my way. You¡¯re blocking my sight.¡± a bold female voice spoke, not a single ounce of awe or respect to be found.

    The giant bird twisted its head to gaze at the tiny female to its side. In the next moment, it suddenly began to transform without warning, rapidly shrinking in size until what remained was a 2.2 metre tall male human.

    But of course it wasn¡¯t a human. And if the fact that the man had just transformed wasn¡¯t a dead giveaway, then surely the flaming white-feathered wings that were protruding from his back was.

    In this form, the bird-now-man had long white hair that had golden undertones just like his feathers, and he was incredibly handsome. But other than the wings, the man¡¯s only other beast-like feature was the talons that replaced a normal human¡¯s nails. Of course, the 3rd eye was still there, but considering the fact that it was very obviously an Evil Eye, calling it ¡®beast-like feature¡¯ was a bit inappropriate.

    Right now, all 3 of those eyes were narrowed as he focused his attention on the female human before him.

    She had long wild golden hair that tumbled to her ankles, a delicious figure that could entice any man and blazing eyes that were completely golden. She gave off the demeanour of an unruly and domineering woman, but this coupled with the pure seduction of her body only caused one to want to subdue her and possess her.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    ¡°Liyanda... How many times must I tell you not to call me that?¡± The man said with a deceptively cold voice as he advanced towards the girl, stepping so close until they could feel each other''s breath.

    ¡°Well I just said it. What are you going to do about it?¡± Liyanda replied without a hint of fear as she stared into the man¡¯s eyes that were just like her own (minus the third one).

    The man raised up his hand and caressed the woman¡¯s cheek in a slow, sensuous manner. It looked like a loving move, but in just a single second a bead of blood had appeared and was now trickling down her face.

    ¡°Hmm¡­¡± the man hummed as he watched the blood drop off of her chin. ¡°If you were anyone else, I would have already eaten you.¡± he said bluntly. Then he dropped his hand and backed off. ¡°But of course I won¡¯t.¡±

    Liyanda suddenly smirked. ¡°Wow¡­~ The little eagle that I saved that day has become so bold. Whatever will I do.¡±

    ¡°Golden Roc, Liyanda. Golden Roc. I am no longer an Eagle and have risen far, far above my past self. At least acknowledge that.¡± The man responded, indifferent to the girl¡¯s apparent amusement.

    ¡°Sure, sure, Pharaoh. Sure.¡± Liyanda said flippantly. But then her face suddenly became serious. ¡°So¡­? How did it go?¡±

    Hearing her question, Pharaoh closed his eyes and sighed before seeming to gather himself again. ¡°I had to kill a few of them to make them take me seriously,-¡± Liyanda¡¯s face tensed. ¡°-But eventually, I did get to meet the Phoenix King. And as could be expected, he was quite furious with what I had done and almost attacked me.¡± Liyanda¡¯s frown grew. ¡°But, when I explained myself and my reason for coming, he directly punished those trashy guards of his without hesitation. It was quite amusing~¡± Pharaoh said with a smirk, the first show of emotion since he had arrived. But it slipped away in the next moment.

    ¡°Anyhow, the arrogant King actually agreed. As a matter of fact, he even took me to meet the 9 Flame Queen and both of them have agreed to help when the time comes. What¡¯s more is that they both spoke of gaining help from other Continents, something we had not thought of before.¡±

    Liyanda¡¯s already-luminous eyes brightened further. ¡°Wonderful! I was still worried before, even after knowing that the 2 other rulers of this Continent were likely to aid us. After all, if what that Duck said was to be true, the being known as Envy has already conquered an entire Continent with his army and he¡¯s only going to get more powerful. If he¡¯s truly set sight on our Continent like the Duck said, then we are really in deep trouble.¡± Liyanda said. ¡°Though¡­ I¡¯m surprised at how easy it was for the Phoenix King and the 9 Vermillion Bird to agree to help us. Did they not doubt you at all?

    Pharaoh shook his head. ¡°A little bit. The Phoenix King only asked me for Envy¡¯s appearance and I told him what the Duck told us. From then on he believed me completely.¡± Then he seemed to realise something. ¡°Hey, do you reckon they know each other? They¡¯re both Phoenixes after all.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s very likely¡­¡± Liyanda said absentmindedly, then she shook her head. ¡°In any case, all we can do now is continue to raise our strength. Whether we gain extra help or not is up to the other 2 Rulers.¡±

    ¡°Right¡­¡± Pharaoh said and then turned to look at the Heavenly Sun Flame. ¡°I will do anything to protect my lord, even if I have to ignite this Eye of Cremation and blow myself up to do it.¡±

    He then turned back to look at Liyanda, who was staring back at him. All of their eyes burning with zeal.

 Ch.180 Discovery of a New Enlightened Species

    [East Continent, Yoloria Empire, City of Glory]

    The High Human Empress, or rather Gloria, peacefully sat on her throne with her cheek resting on her closed fist. But she was not the Gloria of before. Her appearance had changed drastically. Her long golden silky hair had been replaced by tendrils of light, her irises had been replaced by orbs of light, her skin had actually become paler but was even more enchanting than before, her bust and hips had become more alluring and her visage even more so. She was positively stunning, and that was somehow even more pronounced with her increased height that reached 191 centimetres. A whole 11 centimetres taller.

    Sitting naked on the Throne the way she was, she was the perfect picture of gentle serenity and noble beauty. However, that was a complete deception. In contrast to the peaceful state of her appearance, hundreds of thoughts were passing through her mind like it was nothing. And not a single thing showed on her face.

    Clearly, her already aberrant brain had definitely moved, more so than what the increment of Essence Cultivation could provide? But how?

    Well... If not because of the obvious Anatomy Refinement she had been practising, what else could it be?

    Somehow, the High Human Empress had not only discovered Anatomy Refinement, but she had also created her own special technique. Normal Essence Cultivation would very rarely ever change someone¡¯s appearance so greatly, talk less of replacing one¡¯s natural hair with something as ethereal as light.

    Just like there were Essence Cultivation Techniques, there were also Anatomy Refinement Techniques that one could use just by sitting down and revolving their energy. Each technique still caused huge amounts of pain but at least you could stop it before death whenever you wanted, unlike Raiko, who was always testing how much death was repulsed by him.

    The more special techniques could do things like what had occurred to Gloria. Which was to not only make a body more perfect, but also forcefully increase the body''s attunement with a certain element to the point that it caused outward changes.

    Of course, such a feat was actually incredibly difficult and hard to accomplish, but since Gloria was a First Generational Being, every part of her body was incredibly malleable, making it much easier for mutations and the like to occur.

    It was quite shocking that someone who was only 172 years old had created a technique like this without any guidance or inheritances, but thinking about the ridiculousness that was her intelligence, it could be said that something like this was only a matter of time. Her first experiences with Anatomy Refinement had only increased the pace.

    As she sat on the throne with such accolades practically radiating from her pores, one couldn¡¯t help but think that she looked like the perfect Empress. Only her personality was left questionable. How had it changed after all this time?

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    *Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

    ¡°Come in.¡± Gloria¡¯s melodious voice sounded. That too had improved.

    A pair of large doors 40 metres in front of her opened as 2 people made their way in. One of them was a tall male with blonde hair and aquamarine eyes, and the other was a similarly sized female with brunette hair and silver eyes. Of course, as High Humans they were both very attractive, but in front of the Empress it was relegated to nothing.

    The 2 of them then walked forwards in an orderly manner, both of them in sync like they had practised it many times before and then they took a knee 5 metres away from the Empress. Her blinding eyes boring into them like intangible weights.

    ¡°Your Majesty!¡± They said at the same time.

    Clearly, the High Humans had been advancing their culture.

    For a moment, the Empress remained silent as she stared at the people kneeling before her. Only responding 30 seconds later when sweat had begun to seep out of their skin.

    ¡°What is the matter?¡± Her voice autocratic and strong yet soothing and charming.

    ¡°Reporting to your Majesty, we have received news from the Southern Border that a new species has been spotted.¡± said the female with brown hair and grey eyes.

    ¡°...A new species?¡± The Empress questioned, the slight dizziness bleeding out of her posture as she straightened up and rested her elbows on the armrests of her throne.

    ¡°What kind?¡±

    ¡°According to the Alphonse King, they¡­ they are not Beasts or even Monsters, your Majesty. They look just like us.¡± replied the female.

    The empress'' eyes brightened even further. ¡°I assume the Alphonse King isn¡¯t foolish enough to mistake a group of Enlightened Beasts for an actual new species¡­ Well, not that Enlightened Beasts are so quantifiable that a group of them could actually form in one place. Quickly, explain their appearances to me.¡±

    This time the male with blonde hair and aquamarine eyes responded. ¡°Apparently they appear perfectly humanoid like us High Humans, only they are slightly shorter on average, have very pale white skin, red eyes, sharp nails and sharp teeth. Only their hair seems to possess a more diverse capacity.¡±

    ¡°Oh? Quite Beast-like. I would be slightly worried if it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Alphonse King lived to tell the tale.¡± The Empress said with a small smile as she thought about the boy she had raised into a capable man.

    ¡°A new species that looks like us¡­ Although I had always expected another Enlightened Race to exist, it is still a little stifling to think about. To think that one would suddenly appear on this Continent¡­ What is their strength like?¡± the Empress continued.

    ¡°This¡­ The Alphonse King said that they would always swiftly retreat when approached and would never fight, thus he has no idea of their strength. However¡­ he has said that they possess a very vicious and blood-thirsty aura that even surpasses that of the Creatures in the Burning Nines, and that they are definitely evil and we should prepare for their attack.¡±

    At that, the Empress stood up from her throne, every one of her movements smooth and graceful. But her eyes were like twin suns as she stared at her 2 subjects.

    ¡°Did anybody manage to learn the name of their species?¡± She asked, her voice even more imposing than before.

    ¡°...Blood Fiends, your Majesty. They are called Blood Fiends.¡±

 Ch.181 Number 1 Under The Heavens No Longer

    ¡°Blood Fiends?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, your Majesty.¡± The female responded.

    ¡°What a malicious name.¡± The Empress said as she began to walk forward. ¡°I¡¯m going to the Alphonse Kingdom. Gather some others and look after the Palace.¡±

    ¡°¡°Yes, your Majesty!¡±¡±

    2 steps later, the Empress disintegrated into motes of light that flew in all directions before vanishing.

    ¡­

    [East Continent, Yoloria Empire, Alphonse City]

    Placed directly in the middle of the Alphonse City was a giant castle made of rock, wood and a few pieces of metal. This was the palace belonging to the ruler of this small city; Victor Alphonse, otherwise known as the Alphonse King, titled after the Alphonse Forest that he and his small band of trusted Knights had conquered alone 32 Years ago.

    Not only is he a peak talent, but he is also a first generation graduate of the Zenith Academy and could be considered half a son to the Empress. Of all the first generation graduates, he along with 8 other people were chosen by the Empress to be the Kings and Queens of the 9 other cities outside of the City of Glory.

    It was this very man that was exiting the palace with haste as 7 other individuals followed him a few steps behind. Every one of them carried sharp weapons that looked like they were made from both rock and metal and possessed strong glares that spoke of tough characters.

    Going by the way they were all acting, it was apparent to everyone else that they meant business, so they all got out of the way with smiles, unlike other times where they might have tried to greet their King or his special band of knights.

    However, before the Alphonse King could get very far, a zap sound was heard and a woman made of golden light materialised not too far away from him.

    Who else could it be other than the Empress herself, Gloria.

    Victor was already smiling when the light faded away and revealed the unparalleled beauty that was his Majesty. Not a second later, every pedestrian in the vicinity had prostrated themselves, whereas the King and his 7 knights took a knee.

    ¡°¡°¡°We welcome your Majesty!¡±¡±¡± they all yelled.

    ¡°Mm¡± The Empress made a small sound of acknowledgement. Then she turned her brilliant eyes towards her citizens and said. ¡°You may leave.¡±

    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

    They all stood up with sheer awe on their faces, gave a quick 90? bow and then scurried off to different locations in silence. But not too long after, sounds of amazement and jubilant conversation could be heard as the citizens reached a distance where they thought that the Empress would no longer be able to hear them. Of course, they were wrong. But the Empress inwardly smiled at the thought of them not wishing to disturb her. It was not something she had ever ordered them to do (outside of unique situations), so it was quite heart-warming.

    ¡°Victor.¡± She said out loud as she focused on the man.

    ¡°Yes, your Majesty.¡± His voice was firm and steady, but the smile that he was trying to suppress was not going away at all.

    ¡°It¡¯s good to see you after 5 years.¡± She said as she revealed a small smile. But whilst the smile was minute, Victor felt like he had found a peerless treasure.

    ¡°I feel the same, your Majesty.¡± His voice trembling with emotion. Each and every one of the Empress¡¯s smiles were like gold that could only be found with luck or relentless pursuit. Ah, but her smile was much more beautiful than gold. ¡®!!!¡¯ Victor temporarily felt like he had committed blasphemy by comparing the Empress''s smile to mere gold. However, before he could begin to construct grand poems about the Empress¡¯s beauty, grace, magnanimity, power, intelligence, talent, peerlessness, majesty and more¡­ The Empress spoke once more.

    ¡°Whilst I would like to catch up with you, I am here for a different purpose. Come, take me to where you last saw the Blood Fiends.¡±

    ¡®Ah¡­¡¯ Victor was temporarily dumbstruck. But then he realised what was going on in the next moment and began to speak.

    ¡­

    [Central Continent, Forest of Dawn, Glacial Saint Deer Clan Territory]

    In the Northern region of the Forest of Dawn was a paradise that was only accessible to herbivores that refused to hunt other lifeforms for supplement, and this territory was owned by the Glacial Saint Deer Clan, or to be more specific, their progenitor: Dodo, the Guardian of the Dawn Forest.

    He was a powerful Elk that had unknowingly formed an Apostle Contract with Ciera when she had first formed, but because Ciera was an Anomaly that had no limiters like the other Anomalies did, the benefits Dodo had gained from the Apostle Contract were so much more stupefying. It was so much so that for the next 50 or so years, he had been the undisputed strongest lifeform on the planet. But obviously that was no longer the case.

    Driven by unholy lust that contrasted his holy-looking appearance, he had decided to stall his cultivation and focus on enhancing the cultivation of other Deer-type Beasts in the hopes that sooner rather than later, they would reach a size he could safely fornicate with.

    The result was the Saint Beast Deer Clan.

    However, even if he had been diligently cultivating all this time, he still would have lost his position as ¡®number 1 under the heavens¡¯. Over time, the Eridius World had given birth to a lot more aberrant beings and Dodo just didn¡¯t have the qualifications to compete.

    Well, not that he cared. His life was filled with endless peace! Who cared about fighting? He had all the pu- all the beautiful respectable Deers that he wanted! And even though he was duty-bound to protect Ciera, his great benefactor (who by the way, he loved very much), there was not a single time in history where she had suffered any form of assault.

    Though, he would like to rough up her Heavenly father if he could, that bastard has disappeared off somewhere for over a hundred years, ignoring all the times the girl had cried out her heart for him.

    ¡®Tch.¡¯

 Ch.182 Show me your love~~

    R-18 WARNING! This chapter is is filled with sexual content and viewers discretion is advised.

    But come now, you know what kind of novel you picked up. There has always been an R18 tag and that has never been hidden. So for that reason, this will be the first and the last time you see a ¡®R-18 WARNING¡¯ before the action happens. Next time it will just happen.

    ___________________________________

    In the middle of a small clearing surrounded by trees (trees that had leaves that looked like they were made from ice), there was a rather large pile of soft looking bluish-white bushes in the centre. And casually laying on those bushes were 4 enchanting figures that looked like they had descended from the high heavens. 3 of them were female but the last was male.

    The males was, of course, Dodo. He had long white hair, luminous but pale blue eyes, a pair of antlers on his forehead that were made of ice, a perfect 2 metre tall physique and pale skin.

    Currently, he was gazing up at the sky through the minuscule gap that the clearing provided, thinking about the day before when he had gone to visit Ciera, only to find her crying.

    ¡®Tch.¡¯ Dodo inwardly tutted as his mood soured. ¡®Go check out your Daughter, you heavenly bastard.¡¯

    He let out a sigh but ultimately didn¡¯t do anything. He didn¡¯t even dare to speak the words out loud lest he find himself dead. Even till this day, he still remembered the pressure he had felt from the powerful but invisible being that had been there when he had become the Guardian of the Forest. To be honest, he didn¡¯t really know who or even what Ciera¡¯s father was, but every one of his instincts told him that he, or it, was something completely beyond his scope of understanding.

    He let out another sigh.

    However, before his mood could descend even further, he heard a scuffling sound that indicated that one of his wives (a concept he had learnt from the Elven Queen), had woken up and was now moving. But just as he was about to lift up his head to see which of the 3 it was, he felt a zing of pleasure erupting from his crotch as something wet and soft slithered across its surface.

    ¡°Nngh~¡± He grunted a little and closed his eyes as he let his head fall back to the bush.

    ¡°Feeling better, my lord?¡± A bewitching voice asked, and then he felt the same sensation occur once more.

    ¡®Aaah, So it¡¯s Chica!¡¯ Dodo thought as he felt loving emotions rise in his heart. Chica was an Oceanic Chital Deer and the only one left of her kind in this Forest. Compared to his other 2 wives, she was definitely the smallest and that wasn¡¯t because of her cultivation either. But when it came to things like this, her heart was definitely the biggest!

    A feeling of wet softness engulfed his rod and he let out another moan of pleasure. But this time he had better control over his bearings and reached out a hand to caress her head.

    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

    ¡°I¡¯m feeling much better already, Chica.¡± The girl must have heard him sigh and decided to make him feel better. ¡°When did you wake up?¡±

    ¡°Not long ago, my Lord¡­~ Mmmah~ What is bothering you~? Tell your Chica¡± Chica spoke, taking a break to devour his rod in between.

    And as pleasure coursed through his veins once more, Dodo couldn¡¯t help but sigh once more, but this time it was one of happiness.

    ¡®Aaah¡­ I¡¯m so glad that we discovered this special technique.¡¯ Dodo thought, proud of his supreme unparalleled intellect.

    Ever since he had discovered that sexual pleasure didn¡¯t always have to come from directly mating, it had opened up a new world for him and his many mates. It had begun when an innocent leg had brushed against his morning wood (the day after his first night sleeping in his Enlightened Form), causing a surprising yet familiar pleasure. And when he had spoken about this with his mates, they had been open to the idea of exploring what this might have meant.

    Ever since then, they had all developed these special techniques to pleasure one another through trial and error. However, only his 3 wives were deserving of his own special techniques, the others were only there to increase his progeny or pleasure him when his wives weren¡¯t available.

    ¡°My Lord?¡± came her voice again.

    ¡®Ah! She asked me a question.¡¯ Dodo thought.

    ¡°Sorry, sorry. You are just too good at this and caused me to¡­- Oooh~ Caused me to forget myself.¡± Dodo wittily replied. ¡°Hah¡­You don¡¯t need to worry too much. I was just thinking about poor Ciera.¡±

    ¡°Ah¡­¡± Chica let out a small sound.

    Suddenly, Dodo felt delicate hands grip on to his biceps, followed by the blood-boiling sensation of a curvaceous body sliding up his own. And in the next moment, the gorgeous face of Chica appeared above him like a rising sun.

    She had long sky blue hair, unblemished white skin, dark blue enchanting eyes and same coloured antlers, a height of 1.7m tall and a relatively flat chest. But even though her chest paled in comparison to his other 2 wives, her slim waist, wide hips and shapely legs had no equal.

    ¡­She was truly beautiful.

    After seating herself on his lap and adjusting herself into a position that allowed his rod to nestle itself in between her buttcheeks, she brought up her hands to his face and held it delicately but steadily, showcasing a rare sign of dominance as she stared unwaveringly into his own eyes.

    However, the smile that graced her lips was soft, endearing and filled with endless love, so much so that it rendered him unable to look away.

    ¡°My Lord is indeed kind¡­¡± Chica began as she caressed his cheeks. ¡°But I¡¯m sure there¡¯s nothing to worry about. Ciera is a very strong girl and will surely either come to terms with her current situation or find a substitute that will love and cherish her, just like you do me.¡±

    Her smile then became a little wicked and she rolled her hips so that both of their sexes rubbed against each other, causing both of them to moan with pleasure. Then she lowered her upper body to his chest, allowing him to feel her pebbled nipples and silky hair before whispering into his ear in her most enticing voice yet.

    ¡°Please, my Lord¡­ Show me your love~~¡±

    ___________________________________

    Attention! (£þ?£þ)?

    I am aware that some people might be upset about the fact that a ¡®side character¡¯ is getting his own ¡®scene¡¯ before the MC, so I am here to say¡­ What are you going to do about it?! Hahahaha! You peasants, I¡¯m the KING! I can do whatever I WANT!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!

    Ahem, I¡¯d also like to say, don¡¯t worry. Eridel¡¯s time will come. (???)

 Ch.183 Dodoâ€™s Wives

    ¡°Please, my Lord¡­ Show me your love~~¡±

    Dodo felt his body positively vibrate with vigour as he heard the enthralling words. And thus, not willing to wait a second longer, he pulled himself up along with Chica using his core muscles with effortless ease, so that they were now face to face and passionately staring at each other, and then lifted her by her small waist before dropping her back down on his rod. And he wasn¡¯t gentle about it either.

    ¡°Aaaaaaah~~!¡± Chica let out a long heavenly moan as Dodo began pistoning into her like his life depended on it, but it didn¡¯t take long before he switched their positions one more time and he was now driving into her from above with a force that might have injured normal women, but clearly, if the noises she was making were anything to go by, she loved every bit of it.

    However, because of the careless noises that they were both making, it didn¡¯t come as a surprise when extra body parts began to rub themselves all over Dodo¡¯s body. Enticingly wet tongues, incomparably smooth hands, the unmistakable bouncy softness of delectable breasts.

    ¡®This is the life!¡¯ Dodo inwardly yelled as he shoved himself as deep as he could inside of Chica and then deposited his fluids without abandon. His roar mixed with her own keening moan as her snatch strongly gripped his rod, signifying her own release and enhancing his own. The perfect rhythm that he was so proud of was destroyed and his hips couldn¡¯t stop bucking as pleasure wracked his nerves. But such was always the case when his wives were involved.

    After releasing everything into her womb, he dropped down to Chica¡¯s chest in contentment and decided to temporarily wind down and enjoy the caresses of his wives, even if he could already go for another round. More than the lust of his wives, he desired their love and liked to soak in it at any given moment.

    However, 30 seconds later, a deeper but equally seductive voice called out to him.

    ¡°Dodo~ You¡¯re not tired are you~?¡±

    ¡®Ah, Freya.¡¯ Dodo immediately recognized the voice and a smile spread across his face. He rolled off of Chica and sat up so that he could see all of his wives.

    Other than Chica, there were 2 other transcendental women that were looking at him with smiles that held their own unique emotions for him. Sitting on his right (next to Chica) was Lumi. She had long curly white hair, shimmering silver eyes, stone-grey antlers, pale skin and a golden ratio body. She was a genius Reindeer with an affinity for the Wind Element and was the 2nd love of his life. But it was not her that had spoken.

    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Sitting on his left was a very eye-catching woman, and when one looked at her, the first thing on their mind would always be ¡®Big.¡¯ And that was because of her dynamic proportions.

    First of all was her height. She was tall, even taller than him with her 2.3m height. She had long black hair that fell to her calves, black jewel-like eyes, huge wing-shaped antlers that looked like they were carved from black crystals, dark skin that was rare in this part of the Forest, and ¡®body dimensions¡¯ so explosive that they jiggled with every movement. Her breasts, buttocks and thighs were absolutely unrivalled. Chica may have better shaped legs, but her thighs lacked the thickness of Freya¡¯s.

    Freya was a Moose and had an affinity for Metal. But not any ordinary sort of metal. A long time ago, she had found a special ore called Zinion. It was black, very reflective, and at first glance even looked a little fragile. But that was utter deception. Till this day, Dodo had never encountered a heavier Ore. Even the Eridius System had stated that its unique factors were its exponential weight and sturdiness.

    By now, Dodo had realised that everything attached to the planet was incredibly hard. Even a common tree or bush on the ground. However, if a part of it naturally (or through herculean influence) broke off of the ¡®main body¡¯ (like the branch of a tree), it would gradually lose its Worldly protection and eventually become much more normal. This was why he was easily able to agree when the Eridius System had said that Zinion was much sturdier than most objects. Stones, common ores and the like could not compare at all.

    Freya had managed to comprehend the essence of Zinion and was all the more powerful for it. It was also thanks to this connection that she was so big. Of course, as a Moose (the biggest type of deer), she was already destined to be big. But the Zinion Metal affinity made her even bigger. And also much heavier. But luckily, with his strength, her weight was nothing to him and he was able to play with her body as he pleased.

    ¡°Me? Tired?¡± Dodo shot out his right arm to grab the girl by her arm and then threw her to their make-shift bed. He Ignored the heavy thump sound that sounded like a giant boulder had just dropped, and then turned to Lumi and threw her down too, drawing a joyous squeal from the girl.

    ¡°If I don¡¯t breed the lot of you until you all pass out, I am not Dodo! The Guardian of this entire Forest!¡±

    The next few hours were filled with pleasurable moans as Dodo made do on his promise.

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: As mentioned earlier, because of Eridel¡¯s purposeful intentions, unique features that are only accessible to 1 side of a species'' gender, e.g, Lion Manes, Deer Antlers and the like, are actually now accessible to the other gender. However, they look different and could be recognised as feminine or masculine almost immediately.}

 Ch.184 Special Cultivation?

    ¡°NNNGH!¡± Dodo groaned out loudly as he let out a final load deep into Freya¡¯s womb. The girl herself was seemingly roaring but not a single sound came out of her mouth. Her face twisted in rapture clearly showcased everything she was feeling so it didn¡¯t come as a surprise, but it was truly a thing to behold when a few seconds later, her eyes rolled back and she passed out.

    To make a girl with such a tough constitution pass out with pleasure was impressive. Even more so when you realised that she was the last of Dodo¡¯s wives to do so, meaning that even after spending effort to finish off the other 2, he had still been able to do the same to Freya.

    Truly remarkable.

    The man in question didn¡¯t even seem all that fazed. He merely switched to a crossed-leg sitting position and then stretched his arms above his head with a contented sigh.

    ¡®My wives are undoubtedly the best female creatures ever created.¡¯ He thought with smug pride. ¡®If anyone were to ever touch them...¡¯ A dangerous light flashed across his eyes as thoughts of violence uncharacteristic for a peaceful Elk filled his mind. But then all of a sudden, they sparked with a different light.

    ¡®Right, before I forget¡­¡¯ He turned his attention to the ground around his makeshift bed. There, was a giant sheet of ice covered in protruding icicles of varying sizes. They glowed with a profound light and just a single glance was enough for Dodo to gain a bit of comprehension on the mysteries of the Water/Ice Laws. But it wasn¡¯t just that.

    Accompanying the spires of Ice were black shards of metal that looked like Zinion. But it wasn¡¯t Zinion. Thanks to past experience, Dodo didn¡¯t need to investigate to already know that they were inferior copies. However, unlike real Zinion, this ¡®inferior¡¯ copy was exuding the same strange light that the ice was releasing, and as one could guess, studying it would provide remarkable success in the comprehension of Metal Laws.

    Dodo quickly closed his eyes and began to focus on the Laws of Water/Ice as he had done many times before.

    For some reason, whenever he started mating with his 3 wives, if they began to go ¡®all out¡¯, they would begin emit the Laws of their specific Elements, and if they did it long enough, it would begin to alter reality and create these special domains that aided their comprehension of the Laws exponentially. On top of that, in this state, whenever they climaxed, they would release a special energy inside of their fluids that the other would be able to absorb. And it was such a miraculous energy that it boosted all 3 aspects of their beings; Body, Soul and Essence. He didn¡¯t know why such a thing only occurred with his wives and not his other mates, but he simply attributed it to them being special.

    Whatever the case, it was not something that he could change. He had already tried multiple times, hoping that the phenomenon would boost all of their powers, but he was met with failure each and every time.

    Well, it didn¡¯t matter much. According to his knowledge, no one else was receiving such abnormal benefits, and even if there were, they were definitely in the minority, so he didn¡¯t mind the fact that his regular mates had to train just like anybody else.

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    Dodo briefly opened his eyes to look at his 3 wives.

    Normally, when he had finished breeding them, all 4 of them would use this time to comprehend their respective Laws using the strange domains. But talk less of the fact that Chica¡¯s and Lumi¡¯s domains had already disappeared with time, none of them were even awake to enjoy it even if it hadn¡¯t.

    ¡®Hehe~ Serves them right for provoking this Saint¡¯ Dodo thought shamelessly with a wide grin. However, he soon resumed focus and gathered his hands to the centre of his crossed legs.

    Meditation was another thing that he had learnt from the Elves. Its overall effects weren¡¯t all that beneficial to him since he was almost in perfect control of his mind and didn¡¯t need any special positions or breathing patterns to help him reach a state of enlightenment, but it did slightly improve the circulation of Mana in his Mana Circuits, and as such, it was something he liked to do whenever he was cultivating.

    Like this, he continued to simultaneously absorb the special energy of his wives¡¯ fluids and comprehend the Laws of Water/Ice. The domain would be disappearing within 20 - 30 minutes and he intended to capitalise on every single second of it.

    Or so he thought.

    A mere 2 minutes later, his senses discovered something that caused his expression to greatly change.

    Standing at the edge of his clearing and looking at him with an imperious gaze was a female Elf. She was, without a doubt, the most objectively beautiful female he had ever seen. Visage, body, demeanour, everything was on point. However, recognizing her identity immediately, he didn¡¯t dare to profane her even in his thoughts and revealed a surprised smile.

    ¡°Titania!¡± he called out with half joy, half confusion.

    Yes, standing not too far away from him was the Elven Queen herself; Titania.

    Her appearance hadn¡¯t changed much over the years, she still had her untainted pure white long hair, star-like eyes and green skin. Actually, she was quite a few times more beautiful than the image of the Queen she had been when they had first met. (The reason it was put like that was because he had been a regular Elk back then and had 0 attraction for humanoids.) But the ¡®clothing¡¯ she was wearing was vastly different to their prototype.

    It had started with mere sheets of ¡®cloth¡¯ that would wrap around the body and cover the so-called ¡®private areas¡¯. Back when they had first been invented, he had only felt slight disdain for them. But now, looking at the immaculate design of white, green and gold that hugged her curves, he couldn¡¯t help but feel a little stunned.

    What he had once considered useless and even a little annoying, was now something that was enhancing the Elven Queen¡¯s beauty by at least a fold.

    ¡®I must obtain some for my wives.¡¯ He thought with great seriousness.

    ¡®But truly¡­ even without those clothes, the Elven Queen is definitely the most beautiful woman of all.¡¯

    He truly thought that. But although he thought that, he didn¡¯t really feel it. In his mind, nobody could compare to his 3 wives. Their noses may not be as chiselled, their cheekbones not as high and their lips not as bow-like, but for some reason, it was these ¡®slight¡¯ deficiencies that made them perfect to him.

    To be honest, the Elven Queen could be considered TOO beautiful. He wouldn¡¯t deny that he lusted for her at times, but for the most part, he thought of her as a great friend and actively tried not to think of her in that way. And even if he didn¡¯t, the lust he felt for her was nothing compared to the near ironically burning desire he felt for his wives.

    Shaking his head, he spoke once more.

 Ch.185 Slapping Each Other With Talent

    ¡°It¡¯s been far too long, Titania. What brings you here?¡±

    Although they were great friends, the last time they had seen each other was 5 years ago (Year 167), and that was only because the Elves had suffered a brutal rebellion that had damaged their foundations, and he felt compelled to give out a helping hand. If not for that, the time that they had spent apart would have been much greater.

    It¡¯s not that they didn¡¯t like to see each other, they did. It¡¯s just that as Rulers who had so many people to look after, they were always busy. They had to commit to increasing the power of themselves and their people and it didn¡¯t help much that they were half-competing with each other. They were allies, but their races were too different to be perfectly friendly.

    Even if they were great friends, best friends even, it wasn¡¯t possible to convince their respective races to emulate that. Beasts couldn¡¯t even talk to other races unless they were in the Seeking Beast Realm (3rd Realm), and Elves were too obsessed with beauty, grace and controlled power, causing them to treat Beasts with disdain.

    It was already a miracle that they treated his own people nicely. He had seen how they treated the Beasts in Emperor Raiko and Dragon King Drako¡¯s territories when they had the strength advantage. But that was none of his concern. He was far more interested in why the Elven Queen had personally come here to speak to him. It had to be something important.

    Normally, they would send a messenger beforehand to either request a visit to the other¡¯s territory or request the other to visit their territory. This prevented any misunderstandings and allowed each other to prepare for the event. But clearly, Titania didn¡¯t want to waste any time. Either that or what she wanted to say was extremely important and not something she wanted to disclose to a mere messenger.

    ¡°I come with daunting news¡­ But first, I must express that it¡¯s good to see you after all this time, Dodo. How do you fare?¡±

    Hearing her voice, Dodo¡¯s eyes widened slightly.

    Something about her voice had changed. Before, it was always beautiful to hear, but now it was positively enchanting. And he wasn¡¯t saying that as a flowery description. Although what he knew about the Soul was next to nothing, he felt like¡­ if he was a weaker being, her voice might have addled his mind, perhaps even compelled it. How could this be?

    ¡°Your voice¡­¡± He spoke out with an obvious question in his tone. If it was someone else, he wouldn¡¯t have acted this way. That would portray his ignorance and give the other person a slight upper hand, and all for nothing since they would either deny him or outright lie. But with Titania, such worries were irrelevant.

    ¡°Ah, I forgot since it¡¯s been a while now. Actually, I experienced a fortuitous encounter some years ago and comprehended a bit of the Laws of Sound because of it. Not bad, right?¡± She responded with a cheeky grin at the end.

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    ¡°Truly?!¡± Dodo asked in shock.

    ¡°Truly.¡± Titania nodded with a trace of pride.

    ¡°Wow¡­¡± Dodo slowly shook his head in wonder. ¡°As expected of you, to be honest.¡±

    Titania smiled.

    Comprehending new Laws was difficult. Really difficult. Dodo was a 1st generation genius that had lived for 172 years and still, he had not comprehended a single Law other than the ones that were ¡®gifted¡¯ to him by Ciera (Life and Water/Ice). And although a big part of that was because he had no predecessors or scriptures to learn from, it still showed how herculean it was to comprehend a single Law.

    But Titania had apparently comprehended her 3rd Law. Her first and second (Life and Wood) were granted to her by the Tree of Life, or at least, that¡¯s what they all thought, it¡¯s not like they could ask the non-sentient tree. But this 3rd Law was something she had probably comprehended on her own.

    ¡®How did she do it? What did she encounter?¡¯ Dodo thought. But he didn¡¯t ask those questions out loud. Instead, he opted to change the subject.

    ¡°Before you beat me to death with your talent¡­ take a look.¡± Dodo half-turned his body and gestured to his sleeping wives surrounded by the mythical remnants of their activities. ¡°As you can see, I¡¯ve been faring extremely well. I still have not learnt why this happens to us whenever we mate, and as you already know, the System refuses to provide answers, but it has truly been beneficial.¡±

    Titania walked a few steps closer and peered at the sleeping women, but more specifically at the glowing spires of ice and metal shards.

    ¡°Because of it, the cultivation speed of me and my wives have increased by Beast King bounds. I am now a 3rd Stage Enlightened Beast and my comprehension of the Laws of Water/Ice has increased to 7%.¡±

    Titania looked at him with her mouth parted in surprise. ¡°7%?! So quickly?!¡± She was flabbergasted. The increase in cultivation was definitely impressive but she had already surpassed that level long ago (even if it was because of the long period Dodo had spent not cultivating), but hearing about the increase in Law comprehension was almost like a slap to her face.

    She turned to his 3 wives, pointedly ignoring the copious amount of semen covering parts of their bodies and asked. ¡°Them too?¡±

    She could sense how much their Essence Cultivation has increased for herself, and so the answer should have been obvious, but she felt like she had to hear the confirmation to believe it.

    ¡°Indeed. Their comprehension of the Laws has reached around 2-3%. Chica¡¯s has even reached 4%. Can you believe it? 4%! Although it¡¯s most likely due to our similar affinities, can you see how much of a genius my wife is? Haha!¡± Dodo said with a shit-eating grin.

    ¡°Ah, sorry, sorry. Let me not brag too much. What about Alan, ey? I haven¡¯t heard about him in a while. What¡¯s his cultivation now? What about his Law Comprehension? Has it increased much? Hahahahaha!¡±

    Titania¡¯s eyes narrowed, but she ultimately chose to ignore the jab and shifted her gaze downwards where she could find the cause of all of this.

    ¡®Should I¡­?¡¯

 Ch.186 Visitors From Another Continent?

    Dodo saw where Titania¡¯s focus had shifted to and he immediately knew what was going through her head, causing his sleeping rod to stir. But he immediately put a stop to that train of thought and shook his head.

    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it,¡± he spoke with a tincy bit of disappointment. ¡°You already know that it only works with my 3 wives. I highly doubt that that would change with you, regardless of how powerful you are.¡±

    ¡°Hmph¡± Titania¡¯s face twisted in distaste. ¡°I wasn¡¯t even considering it. I merely tried to see if my new-found strength would enable me to peer into the secrets of your penis.¡±

    Dodo wryly smiled. He was pretty sure that she was lying, or at the very least, lying about not considering what they were both thinking of, but telling the truth about trying to appraise his penis.

    ¡°So? Did you find anything?¡± He asked with an innocent expression.

    ¡°No.¡± She responded curtly.

    ¡°Really? Are you sure?¡± He asked with mock seriousness.

    At that, she chose to ignore him, but her eyes narrowed in warning.

    Dodo suppressed a smirk. Whilst on the outside he looked honest, on the inside he was laughing goofily.

    ¡°Ahem, never mind that... So what has brought you all this way? Surely it¡¯s as serious as I¡¯m imagining it to be.¡± He decided to change the topic once more, but this time to the main one.

    Titania remained silent for a few more seconds as she continued to glare at him, but then her chest heaved and she let out a sigh.

    ¡°If what I am told is to be trusted¡­ big trouble is about to strike not just this Forest, and not even just this Continent, but the entire World.¡± Titania spoke grimly.

    ¡°...What?¡± Dodo asked awkwardly, thinking that Titania was making a lame joke.

    What kind of trouble could affect the entire World? And even if something like that existed, how could it possibly succeed with the Heavens itself¨C or whatever Ciera¡¯s father was¨C watching over the entire World. Titania should know this so surely she¡¯s joking. Was she trying to get back at him?

    ¡°Actually, I heard all of this from Drako, who heard it from his big sister, who funnily enough heard it from the Western Dragons.¡±

    Dodo just stared at her as if she was talking about a Mountain sprouting legs and running away.

    Seeing his obvious disbelief, Titania rolled her eyes. ¡°I¡¯m telling the truth, Dodo. When have I ever made jokes like this?¡±

    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

    Dodo¡¯s heart began to beat faster, but still, he decided that he was going to take whatever she said with a grain of salt. ¡°....So? What did they say? What¡¯s the problem?¡±

    ¡°Apparently, 3 beings from another continent had arrived from the West where they encountered the Dragons. 2 of them were in the 4th Realm with one of them actually being in the middle stages, but the 3rd being was just someone in the 3rd Realm.¡±

    ¡°Middle stages?!¡± Dodo asked in shock.

    Everybody knew how difficult cultivation became after the 4th Realm. It could simply be expressed by the fact that the World¡¯s top geniuses had taken 127 years or less to get there, but in 45 years had barely scraped the 5th Stage. Although Dodo didn''t know how it was in other Continents, he only knew of a handful of people that had reached that stage in this Continent, so to hear of a foreigner that had reached the middle stages (4-5-6) was quite astonishing.

    But still, this was certainly not helping Titania¡¯s claim of a supposed Worldwide threat. What could a single middle-staged-4th-Realm-being possibly accomplish alone? This Continent alone had a few of them. The other 2 foreigners didn¡¯t even need to be mentioned.

    ¡°Yes, the 6th Stage to be exact.¡± Titania replied.

    ¡®!!!¡¯ Dodo shivered.

    In this Continent, only J?rma the Devourer had reached the 6th Stage. But rightfully so. The overpowered Snake had too many reasons for power to naturally flow through her veins. She had even comprehended 2 different Laws entirely on her own. Well, her Earth Laws were allegedly something that she had comprehended by studying her Eye of Petrification, but that eye was effectively a part of her own body. It had become a part of her talent and no one could deny it. But even if that wasn¡¯t the case, it did not in any way dispute the fact that she had comprehended the Laws of LIFE without ANY assistance. Really and truly, in front of J?rma, nobody could compete.

    Except that apparently wasn¡¯t true anymore.

    ¡®How impressive could this foreigner be if they rival our Continent¡¯s strongest, even if in only cultivation.¡¯ Dodo thought with awe and slight fear.

    ¡°Who are they?¡± He couldn¡¯t resist asking.

    ¡°Heh, you probably wouldn¡¯t believe it, but I think you, me and Ciera might actually know one of them.¡± Titania said with a reminiscent smile.

    ¡°What? Who?¡± Dodo asked, confused. Other than the goddess who he hadn¡¯t even met in person, he didn¡¯t know of anybody who had the potential to reach the 4th Realm¡¯s 6th Stage any time soon. Not that he knew of the goddess'' cultivation, but she was a fallen goddess who had reclaimed a bit of her divinity. Her cultivation shouldn¡¯t be too far behind, and soon, she would be zooming past all of them.

    But other than her, he didn¡¯t know of anyone, talk less of a foreigner. Even Titania, with all her inheritance, intellect and access to the most special Spring of Life in existence, along with the Tree of Life that continued to reveal more and more surprises as time went by, was only in the 4th Realm¡¯s 4th Stage. A Stage above him.

    According to her, this would have been different if there were better cultivation techniques for them to learn from, but to him, that was all speculation. They were pinnacle 1st Generation geniuses (secret information provided by Ciera), and yet still, cultivating was too difficult. Would the so-called ¡®better¡¯ techniques really help all that much?

    But he didn¡¯t care about all of that right now, right now, he was far more interested in finding out the identity of the foreigner that they might have known in the past.

    ¡®Who could it be?¡¯

 Ch.187 Welcome Back To The Central Continent

    ¡°Do you remember the day the World obtained Magic?¡± Titania asked.

    Dodo paled slightly. Once again, thanks to inside information from Ciera, they had realised that the 2 times that the World experienced apocalyptic changes were because it had evolved. He knew that the first time was because magic had been introduced to the World, or something like that, but nobody, not even Ciera, knew why the World had undergone a 2nd Evolution. What were the requirements? Perhaps an oversaturation of Magical Energy? He didn¡¯t know, and nor did he care much. But he very much remembered the details of both doomsday-like events.

    ¡°Of course I remember.¡± He responded.

    ¡°Then surely you must remember the Chicken.¡± Titania said with a sparkling smile.

    Hearing that, Dodo¡¯s eyes warmed up with nostalgia. ¡°Haha! Of course, of course! Till this day, that is the bravest Chicken I know. ¡­Wait. Could it be him? I know that he achieved a strange Evolution after jumping into the Spring of Life, and perhaps it provided him with enough talent to reach the 4th Realm, but he is clearly not a foreigner.¡±

    ¡°Oh? And so you know where he went after disappearing into that light?¡±

    At that, Dodo couldn¡¯t reply. He remembered that after flying out of the Spring of Life, the Chicken (but by then a more noble fire bird), had been swallowed by a giant beam of light that had descended from the sky, and then had vanished along with it.

    ¡­Did that light somehow transport him to another Continent?

    ¡°That¡¯s what I thought.¡± Titania continued. ¡°Of the 3 foreigners, 1 of them were told to look like a bird made from golden flames.¡±

    ¡°That¡­ Sounds nothing like that Chicken. First of all, he was definitely made of flesh and blood, even after his evolution. He only became covered in flames not made from them. And on top of that, the flames were a regular reddish-orange colour. Not gold¡­ But I refuse to believe that you¡¯re stupid. What else do you know that makes you think that both of these people are one and the same?¡±

    Titania smiled.

    ¡®Sure enough, there¡¯s something else.¡¯ Dodo thought.

    ¡°The truth is that when they turned up at the Forest of Origins, those arrogant territorial Dragons actually attacked them. Of course, at that time they didn¡¯t know what they were competing against and ended up dying, and as a result, a few of the Supreme Dragons were notified and it became quite bad.

    In fact, I heard that Misali, the Supreme Dragon of Water, almost died. And on the other side, although the 3rd Realm Beast that came with the other two wasn¡¯t hurt in the slightest, Chad, the Chicken- or rather Chad the King of Phoenixes, paid a grievous price to protect her, almost dying in the process.¡±

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    ¡°He actually managed to survive the attacks of multiple Supreme Dragons?!¡± Dodo was starting to feel dizzy from the repeated shocks to his mind.

    By now, everybody knew that there was more to overall strength than just Essence Cultivation and Anatomy Cultivation. Species played a big part of it too. A Realm 4 Rat (If that even existed) would never be able to defeat a Realm 4 Dragon. Even if it had the advantage of 3-4 Stages.

    Most people just chalked it down to the difference in physical build, but some people thought it was more. However, a rough hierarchy of the most notable species on the Continent had been established, and everyone believed that the Dragon Race was in the top 5.

    What had that Chicken become that it was able to deal with multiple Supreme Dragons?

    ¡°Indeed. I heard that it is because of a special flame that his body hosts that allows him to heal from injuries, on top of the fact that the constitution of his body is very strange. I also heard that it didn¡¯t take long for him to reach full recovery after the fight despite his previous perilous situation.¡±

    ¡°Wow¡­¡± Dodo muttered in awe as he tried to picture the scenario in his mind. ¡°You said he became a Phoenix? A Phoenix King? Is that what he is now?¡± Dodo continued.

    ¡°Something like that. I don¡¯t know the specifics.¡± Titania replied.

    ¡°And you said that he hosts a special flame? Is it similar to the Dragon King¡¯s flame? An Earth Flame?¡± Dodo¡¯s voice became a little tight at the end. Everybody knew about the Earth Flames, and they were about as coveted as the Evil Eyes. Even a regular Spring of Life couldn¡¯t compare in value.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know about that either. The information passed through many ears to get to mine, it¡¯s not like I could obtain every detail.¡± Titania replied. ¡°However, I would say that it¡¯s very likely.¡±

    ¡°I agree. ¡­But wait, the more you talk the less I believe that he¡¯s the Chicken of back then. Quickly, tell me what you know.¡± Dodo demanded impatiently.

    Titania rolled her eyes, but still began to speak. ¡°I heard that to stop the fight which kept on escalating, Chad started spouting out claims about World encompassing danger and the need to hear him out. Only, the Dragons were even more disbelieving than you were, and kept on attacking.

    It was only when he finally said that he knew of 2 powerful people from this Continent that they began to halt their attacks. He described those people as a green humanoid woman, and a Dear-animal with white fur and Antlers of ice. He also said that he had found those people in the largest Spring of Life that he had ever seen¡­ on the day of the first Doomsday¡­ Sound familiar?¡±

    ¡°This¡­¡± Dodo wryly smiled. ¡°Although he could still be someone else¡­ if what you are saying is true then I can not deny the strong possibility¡± Dodo said. ¡°But how did he end up in another Continent?¡±

    Titania softly shook her head. ¡°He said he doesn¡¯t know.¡±

    Dodo sighed, but then thought of something. ¡°How did he know he was back on our Continent? If he was truly whisked away, he shouldn¡¯t know how to fly or whatever back to this Continent. Even if he got lucky and managed to find this one again, how did he know that it was the one that he came from? How did he know that we were definitely here?¡±

    ¡°Good question.¡± Titania said with a smile that Dodo reciprocated. ¡°Well, apparently, the Dragons asked the similar questions, and the result was that when the foreigners had arrived on this Continent, the System had congratulated the 2 that weren¡¯t Chad for finding a new Continent. But instead of congratulating Chad, it had only said something along the lines of ¡®Welcome back to the Central Continent¡¯.¡±

    ¡°...It has to be him.¡± Dodo thought after a moment of silence.

    ¡°I¡¯m glad we¡¯re on the same branch.¡± Titania said with an even brighter smile. ¡°Now, would you like to hear about the things that he said?¡±

 Ch.188 The Beyond

    ¡°Of course, tell me everything.¡± Dodo insisted.

    ¡°Great, because for the first time in the history of the Continent, there¡¯s going to be a giant gathering that will include all the leading figures of the races that have 4th Realm Beings. Obviously, that includes you and I, so grab your so-called Guardians of Peace and let¡¯s go.¡± Titania said. ¡°I¡¯ll be bringing my Grand Elders, Drako will be bringing his Dragon Lords, and Raiko will be bringing his Kings and Queens.¡±

    ¡°I¡­¡± Dodo¡¯s mind stalled as he processed the alarming information, but then his eyebrows rose as a thought struck him. ¡°Am I the last one to know about all of this?¡±

    ¡°Obviously.¡± Titania replied with a roll of her eyes. ¡°The Dragon goddess told J?rma, J?rma told her brother Drako, Drako told his best friend Raiko, and they told me first because they¡¯re still somewhat scared of you.¡±

    ¡°Unbelievable¡­¡± Dodo muttered as he facepalmed himself. That incident was over 100 years old and yet those boys still held qualms about him. Where was the spirit of a Predator Beast?!

    ¡°And wait, what do you mean by ¡®so-called¡¯? My Guardians of Peace are 100% legitimate and have never strayed from their purpose.¡± Dodo said, feeling a little insulted.

    ¡°Hmph, I just think that their names are a bit too grand for what they actually represent.¡± Titania said with a snort.

    ¡°How so? Their purpose is to protect the peace of the rightful dwellers in my territory. Not too different from your Grand Elders, if I do say so myself.¡±

    ¡°Do you not hear yourself?¡± Titania said before turning around and walking back to where she came from. ¡°I would expect someone titled as a Guardian of Peace to be much like yourself, a powerful figure with mysterious powers but most importantly a person who would protect anyone, regardless of the affiliation, if it were for a noble cause¡­ Not just an Elder, or Grand Elder for that matter.¡±

    Dodo eyed her back with narrowing eyes ¡°I do not protect everyone.¡±

    ¡°Yes you do.¡± Titania responded.

    ¡°What about Igneel and his followers?¡±

    ¡°They deserved it.¡±

    ¡°Baro?¡±

    ¡°Do I even need to reply?¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°You should start preparing now. I¡¯ll be leaving with Drako and Raiko in 3 hours. You know the usual spot. If you¡¯re not there with your people, that¡¯s your loss.¡±

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    Leaves surrounded by mystical green light began to materialise around her body, swirling around her without any wind and emitting an intimidating aura.

    ¡°Wait!¡± Dodo called out, causing her to pause where she was. ¡°...What about the Barbarians?¡±

    She turned her head back to him and stared into his eyes, the glow from her own white eyes increasing with the Mana she was stimulating within her body. ¡°What do you think?¡± And then she disappeared, leaving a bunch of glowing leaves that eventually vanished into thin air.

    Dodo tilted his head up to the sky and sighed.

    ¡­

    [East Continent, Yoloria Empire, Outskirts of Alphonse Forest]

    Up above the sky, night had arrived and the Moon shone brightly. It was a beautiful and peaceful sight. But on the land below, In the very outskirts of the Alphonse Forest where the trees met the giant mountain that separated it from the Sea, there was no peace to be found.

    The leaves shook wildly as a horde of shadowy figures with red glowing eyes descended from the mountain and began to bound from branch to branch, making their way deeper into the Forest. And at the head of these figures was what looked to be a man with malevolent eyes that were the brightest of all.

    He came to a stop on a rather big branch and lifted up his clenched fist to the side of his head, causing the other figures to also stop where they were. And as a result, now that they had stopped moving so swiftly, it quickly became apparent what they were.

    The human-like bodies, the unnaturally pale skin, the red irises and the aura of blood-thirstiness¡­ Without a doubt, it was the Blood Fiends. And clearly, they were here on a mission.

    Ghost turned back to his people and raised his arms.

    ¡°My people¡­¡± He began, using a concentration of Mana into his Larynx to increase the volume of his voice, but not so much that it would alert anybody else. With only the 300 people that he had brought with him today, it wasn¡¯t difficult.

    ¡°We are the almighty Blood Fiend race, a race so powerful that we once held an entire Continent at the cusp of our fingers. Even the Lord of all Monsters that owned 4 Demon King Armaments had to take care when facing us¡­ But as you all know, in recent years, we have suffered setback after setback and have finally fallen to this state. And do you know why?¡± He paused for dramatic effect, but as expected, nobody was foolish enough to actually think that that was a window to speak.

    ¡°It is because of jealousy. Envy to be specific... But it¡¯s bigger than what you think. Has any of you ever asked why that abominable creature landed on our Continent, and actually pondered instead of asking out of helpless rage?

    Have any of you ever genuinely wondered why Envy came for US? Because I can tell you right now, it is not coincidence.

    The true reason¡­ Is the jealousy of the Beyond!¡±

    Gasps rang out in response to the shocking words.

    ¡°Yes. The Beyond that you fools idiotically worship. The faceless, bodiless entity that you Imbeciles desperately beseeched to nurture our lands and enrichen our strengths. That is the cause of our downfall.

    I thought for a long time, and this is the only conclusion to the series of events that landed us in this situation. When you headless donkeys asked and asked and asked, begged and begged and begged¡­ did you ever stop to think of what would happen to you when you gradually began to stop? When you forgot about the entity that must have gotten used to your senseless praisings and shifted your praises back to me, your true progenitor and creator?

    My people¡­ The answer is very simple. The Beyond is jealous and it wants us dead.¡±

 Ch.189 Impaled

    Murmurs broke out at that and there were even a few whimpers of fear.

    ¡°Silence!¡± Ghost demanded and instantly a deathly silence settled over the gathering.

    ¡°...As you all know, the Beyond is powerful beyond measure and isn¡¯t something we can defend against. But, for it to personally deal with us is a mockery towards itself. Why should it have to take care of insignificant beings like us, when it has other means?¡±

    Ghost paused once more, but this time somebody actually took that moment to speak up.

    ¡°Sire, you can¡¯t mean¡­¡± came the voice of a dark haired Fiend Lord.

    ¡°It¡¯s exactly what you¡¯re thinking. Envy was sent by the Beyond itself¡­ That abnormal creature is not normal and it never, ever was. It is not a Beast or a Monster that somehow rose to prominence through unnatural means, but instead something much, much more alarming.¡± Ghost spoke, looking directly at certain individuals as he did so.

    ¡°...It is the jealousy of the Beyond incarnated.

    All of you here are the best of the Fiend race and have all experienced the horrors of Envy for yourselves. But even if you hadn¡¯t, you should all be very familiar with the feeling that the creature or any of its followers arose in us all whenever it got close. After all, it caused no shortage of rebellions that damaged us from within.

    But why is this so? Why is it that a ¡®Beast¡¯ could be so powerful that it could directly influence the concept of Envy and Jealousy itself¡­? It is because it was NEVER a Beast. That creature that calls itself Envy, is quite literally Envy itself! The Envy of the Beyond! And it wanted us DEAD!¡± Ghost pseudo-roared, and then fell silent.

    ¡°...But why are we not dead?¡± He asked softly. ¡±We all know that for the past 10 years, Envy has been more than powerful enough to wipe us all out, so why are we not dead? Why did it never appear when we were making our escape? Why did it not appear even when we had slaughtered some of its precious Creatures in Green? It is because¡­¡± Ghost clenched his fists.

    ¡°The Beyond has lost interest in us... After our countless years of pain, suffering and loss that had finally caused us to scurry out of our own Continent, its anger has finally been appeased. We are free¡­

    Did you hear that? We are free! FREE! NO LONGER WILL WE HELPLESSLY SUFFER THE IRE OF THAT JEALOUS ENTITY ANYMORE, WE ARE UNSHACKLED BEINGS AND HAVE THE FREEDOM TO DO ANYTHING! AND WITH OUR NEWFOUND FREEDOM, GUESS WHAT WE''LL DO?! WE WILL CLAIM BACK ALL OF OUR GLORY! STARTING WITH THIS CONTINENT! LET¡¯S GO!¡±

    Ghost turned around and leaped to the next tree and then the next. ¡°ROAR! ROAR TO YOUR HEART''S CONTENT! LET THE PITIFUL DENIZENS OF THIS FOREST KNOW OF OUR ARRIVAL! LET THEM FEAR AND SCURRY AWAY LIKE RATS AS WE ONCE DID! LET US WASH AWAY OUR SHAME!¡±

    ¡°¡°¡°RAAAAAAAAHH!!!¡±¡±¡± ¡°¡°¡°HISSSSSSSS!!!¡±¡±¡±

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    The Bloods Fiends roared, hissed and screamed with the rage, resentment and excitement that their Progenitor¡¯s words had incited within them, following behind him without hesitation and making their way deeper into the Forest. Tonight, the blood of many would spill.

    The leaves of the trees shook furiously as the horde jumped from one tree to another, announcing their presence without hiding and causing flying Beasts to squawk as they evacuated into the sky, the Beasts that could travel underground to burrow as quickly as the could and the ones who¡¯s only option was to run didn¡¯t to stampede with all their might without any hesitation.

    They could all feel the threat of the impending menace that was the Blood Fiends, even without the howling. However, before Ghost and the rest of the Fiends could even get very far, a lone voice that relegated every other sound spoke out.

    The voice; regal and feminine, was like a pillar of holy light surrounded by demonic spires when compared to the malicious howling of the Blood Fiends, but it didn¡¯t seem to lose out in impact at all.

    ¡®Who?!¡¯ Ghost was completely shocked by the foreign voice. Someone he didn¡¯t know had managed to slip into the midst of him and all of his Fiends and none of them, not even he, had detected it? How was that possible?!

    ¡®Could it b- No! NO! I refuse to accept that I would stumble into another unfathomable enemy. It must be a trick, or some kind of special affinity or technique. But in the end, in front of overwhelming power there is nothing that petty tricks can accomplish.¡¯

    He had learnt that lesson himself very well.

    Despite his tumultuous thoughts, his facial expression hadn¡¯t experienced a single change. After living such a hard life for nearly 200 years, he had long learnt how to school his mannerisms when under pressure. No, especially when under pressure. He only allowed things like rage or shock to show on his expression when there was either no point in hiding it, or to provoke the people on the receiving end into doing or feeling something else. Only rarely did his mannerisms escape his control these days.

    ¡°I was wondering when you were going to come out. Finally had enough of hiding?¡± He tilted his head up and spoke out loudly so that everybody in the vicinity, including the mysterious interloper, could hear.

    Obviously he was lying, but by saying this, he would dispel a portion of the fear and unease that his people were likely feeling, and make the unknown entity wary. With such great hiding skills she must be proud of it, and so by announcing that he had been aware of her presence all this time, it should definitely rattle her.

    ¡°Oh?¡± The voice spoke out again, this time with a slight undertone of amusement. ¡°You knew I was here the entire time?¡±

    ¡®She doesn¡¯t sound rattled¡­ But she¡¯s probably pretending.¡¯ Ghost thought with suspicion.

    ¡°Exactly. But to be honest, I find your ability to hide very impressive. You actually managed to deceive everyone here but me despite the fact that they are all my strongest followers. What a powerful skill.¡± Ghost spoke with a smile. ¡°And so in light of this, I would like to offer to spare your life if you come here and teach it to me.¡± The best lies were filled with truths. Ghost had learnt that too.

    ¡°¡­¡±

    The air was filled with silence and he knew he had her.

    ¡°I have one question.¡± All amusement gone.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Ghost asked, ignoring the excitement welling in his soul.

    ¡°Why are you looking above¡­ When I am right in front of you?¡±

    ¡®?!?!?!¡¯ Ghost blanched in shock before hurriedly trying to leap away. But it was too late. Before his feet could leave the ground a sudden very familiar pain struck him heavily.

    CSSSSHHHH!!!

    Blood sprayed out from the gaping hole in his stomach.

 Ch.190 The Blood Fiend Progenitorâ€™s Martial Arts

    Ghost completed his leap backwards and landed on the floor but the damage had already been done. The hole in his stomach that was about the width of an arm taunted him as it brought back memories of all the previous times that he had suffered the same injury, and a mixture of rage and fear cascaded him.

    After having barely survived the assault of Envy and the weird Blood Tree in the South Continent, the 1 thing that scared him the most was power that he could not understand. The ability to attack him whilst not being detectable definitely classified as such, and on top of that, the attack just had to be similar to the one that had nearly destroyed him in the past. The one that constantly replayed in his mind over and over whenever he rested his head to sleep. It came as no surprise when he felt the increasingly familiar feeling of fear.

    But at the same time¡­He was furious. Bone-shakingly and hair-raisingly furious.

    ¡®Again and again and again and again and again! WHY?! Why must I suffer so much?! Why must I always be met with such foes?! All I ever wanted to do was eat! All I ever wanted was to become so powerful that nobody could deny me anymore! Is that so much to ask for?! WHY?!¡¯ Ghost gritted his teeth with anguish as madness began to sink his mind.

    ¡°BEYOND!!!¡± He roared out loud, no longer having the willingness to keep up the facade of control. Not that there was much need for it. Everybody had already seen the humiliating attack and knew that his bravado was a lie.

    ¡°BEYOOONND!!!¡± He roared out once more. ¡°IS THIS YOU AGAIN?! ARE YOU SO USELESS THAT YOU CANNOT FORGET ABOUT A SINGLE MORTAL LIKE ME?! ARE YOU HONESTLY THAT WORTHLESS?! WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO TORMENT ME LIKE THIS! WHY?!?!¡±

    ¡°Umm¡­ This ¡®Beyond¡¯ that you keep speaking about. Do you mind elaborating?¡± Spoke out the female voice.

    Ghost¡¯s attention snapped to the branch that he had just been standing on, where, standing like an Empress of the highest plane of existence, was the most beautiful female he had ever laid eyes on. In fact, she was so visually attractive that for a brief moment, the cloud of rage pulsing through his brain cleared and a feeling of utter bafflement clutched his mind.

    She had perfectly unblemished white skin, a potently feminine figure to tantalise all eyes, hair of literal light that spilled to her hips, irises that resembled the sun itself, a height of 190 or some centimetres, and a autocratic yet gentle demeanour that dazzled the senses. Her right hand was also covered by red liquid.

    ¡®...What is that? How could a mortal look like that?¡¯ Ghost thought. ¡®¡­Wait. Wait! She isn¡¯t a mortal, is she! She must be another creature of the Beyond sent to destroy me!¡¯

    The woman dropped her raised arm to her side and it was then that Ghost identified the red liquid coating the entirety of her lower arm and hand to be his blood. It dripped to the ground with perfect fluidity and pierced the silence of the atmosphere with each drop.

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    Evidently, it was that very hand that was responsible for the hole in his stomach, and just like that, his rage returned with crackling vengeance.

    ¡°GHASTLY CREATURE THAT DOESN¡¯T BELONG ON THIS PLANET; DIIIIE!!!¡± Ghost roared, but although his cognitive abilities had seen much better days, he still wasn¡¯t foolish enough to challenge that creature alone.

    ¡°FIENDS! THE BEYOND REFUSES TO LET US GO AND HAS SENT US ANOTHER CHALLENGE! BUT THIS TIME IT IS ALONE AND CANNOT DEFEND AGAINST THE LOT OF US! PRESENTED WITH THIS OPPORTUNITY, LET US SHOW THE BEYOND EXACTLY WHAT WE FEEL ABOUT IT! SUBDUE HER! BREED HER! TORTURE HER! SLAUGHTER HER!!!¡± Ghost bellowed with all his might, infusing his Larynx with so much mana that his voice travelled across the entire Forest, including the city within.

    It was a small tactic that had the dual purposes of shocking his people into action and striking fear into the heart of his enemy, but although the former goal had successfully been achieved, the latter seemed to have completely failed.

    The sight of every crimson eyed Fiend converging onto the lone woman had to be an intimidating one, but she stood there undaunted, never looking away from his own eyes until the endless bodies in between them left no more room.

    The fear in his heart that had been suppressed by his rage jerked, threatening to break free from its imprisonment as the mounting undeniable facts leading to one truth threatened to dominate him into cowardice.

    But he refused!

    Gathering mana into his legs, he leapt straight towards the woman that he knew was still standing in the same place (thanks to his Spirit Sense, which he was now realising had not helped him for a second when she was hiding). He ignored the bodies that were being battered to the side by his stunt, intending to use them to hide his own body till the very last moment, even if she was very well using the same Spirit Sense, and gathered the majority of his Mana to his arms using a specific set of Mana Circuits that would have created a pattern if they were visible, but the concentration of Mana increased the closer it got to his hands and was at the peak of concentration at his fingertips.

    This was the best ratio of Mana distribution for his fighting style when he was going on the offensive, and the result caused his arms to glow red, his fingertips emitting red light like they had been replaced by carmine stars and almost vibrated with the power they withheld.

    Unlike other Blood Fiends, he had not been blessed by an Element and had no affinity for them. He didn¡¯t even have an affinity for the Blood Element like the Devils did. Of course, that was not to be confused with Blood and Blood Essence. His affinity for those were perfect and unparalleled. But that affinity only assisted him in the syphoning of the power they held, meaning that if a Human or other lifeform that had no affinity with Blood Essence tried to absorb it, they could probably only harness 5% of it, whereas he, with his perfect affinity, would obtain the entire 100%. Something that had resulted in his rise to the 7th Stage of the 4th Realm.

    However, that did not disprove the fact that he could not shoot lightning bolts or fire balls like those with Elements. It was a pity, but other than the times that he wasn¡¯t trying to forcefully change that through his many experiments, he didn¡¯t dwell too much on it.

    Instead, he focused on perfecting his martial arts. Martial arts that this woman was about to hold the full brunt of.

 Ch.191 Blood Fiends vs High Humans

    Ghost finally made his way through the sea of bodies and caught sight of the abnormal woman once more, her eyes boring into his own as if she had not lost sight of him the entire time¡­ But things were not as he had expected.

    For starters, there were an additional 8 humans that appeared around her, materialising into existence at the same time that his Spirit Sense picked them up and staring into the sea of Blood Fiends with noticeable wariness but even more courage. Obviously, they had been using the same technique that the strange woman was using, but the other even scarier alternative was that rather than them all using the same technique, it was that strange woman that was extending her own ability to hide to others, and only now chose to reveal them.

    However, although Ghost gave this matter surface-level considerations, he didn¡¯t care to ponder any deeper. All he desired in this moment was for the blood of his foes to drench his body and for the rest of their body parts to become the materials for his next creation, whether it was 1 foe or 9. The rage flowing through his veins wouldn¡¯t be satisfied by anything else.

    Besides, those pitiful Humans, even if they were a strange variant called ¡®High Humans¡¯ that had managed to reach the illustrious 4th Realm, were still only at the first Stage. He couldn¡¯t detect much from their obvious leader even now, but he could tell that she was much stronger, probably in the 7th Stage like him, maybe even the 8th or 9th. But each and every one of those extras were in the bonafide 1st Stage. Utter trash.

    Perhaps they would be able to make waves elsewhere¡­ but here, where he had with him Fiend Lords that had reached higher stages like the 3rd and even the 4th, they would only become the nourishment that would enrich the powers of his people.

    ¡°SLAUGHTERRR!!!¡± Ghost roared out as a crimson aura flared around, enhancing the colour of his red hair and completely red eyes.

    ¡°¡°¡°SLAAAUUUGHHTERRRR!!!¡±¡±¡± The Fiends echoed back, striking terror into the residents of the Forest. They descended onto the large branch where the High Humans awaited (the branch being big enough to safely withstand about 20 people), and heads immediately began to fly.

    Unfortunately, they were not the heads that he wanted. These heads held red eyes that were frozen in shock, not the golden or other eye colours of his enemies. His Blood Fiends were somehow already dying, and it was even in such a quick and effortless manner.

    ¡®How?!¡¯ Ghost inwardly growled, his rage and frustration climbing even further. He was losing control of everything and nothing made sense anymore. The Blood Fiends that had just died were only in the 1st Stage, but that was still no excuse for that appalling display! They were fighting HUMANS! To die in such a fashion was not only a disgrace, but it was also supposed to be impossible!

    A Blood Fiend versus a Human was like a Lion versus a Rabbit. If they had even roughly the same cultivation, a Human would always, always, always suffer defeat. But what was this situation? What was he seeing?

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    A DISGRACE! A DISGRACE OF THE AGES!

    However, infuriated to the skies and back that he was, his battle instincts honed by over a hundred years of merciless warfare refused to allow his rage to cloud the fact that for such a reality-bending sight to happen, there had to be a cause, and he had to be extremely wary of it.

    Perhaps High Humans had more innate capabilities than just talent in cultivation. Did they have divine strength? Perhaps sharp retractable claws that could take off heads in a single moment?

    He soon found out that the answer to those questions was no.

    The real reason appeared the glowing weapons constructed from Mana that were being wielded by their owners to separate his Blood Fiends into multiple pieces, leaving trails of light in the air and humming with power as they went.

    ¡®What is that?¡¯ Ghost questioned with astonishment. But he didn¡¯t have much time to think any further, his body had finally arrived at the branch and if he didn¡¯t want his own head to fly, he better start fighting.

    Sending a bit more Mana into his legs, he bounded forwards once more and instantly arrived in front of one of the humans, this one being a tall male that had blue hair and dark eyes. The colour of his aura and by proxy his Mana was a vivid blue colour and carried the distinct nature of Water Affinity. The weapon he carried was a thin sword of the exact same colour and was easily identifiable as a masterful concentration of Water Elemental Essence.

    But unfortunately for him, Ghost wasn¡¯t at all like those beheaded Blood Fiends and there was nothing that could save him from death.

    His clawed hand struck out with mind-boggling speed and created its own trail of red lights that tore through the air with malevolent viciousness. Only, before it could meet its intended target, a flash of Golden light zapped through his peripheral vision, and suddenly instead of striking flesh he was striking the flat side of a golden sword. This one much wider than the last and humming with power that was completely incomparable.

    Naturally, it belonged to the newest bane of his life.

    However, he didn¡¯t get shocked and his instincts drove him to instantly strike out with his other hand with an even greater speed, aiming at the location that he had subconsciously calculated the owner of the sword to be, based on the position and trajectory of the sword.

    This experience was something that he had gained thanks to his numerous clashes with Demon Kings that wielded all sorts of weapons, with the clashes against the Lord of all Monsters being the most enlightening.

    *WHOOSH*

    Unexpectedly, he failed to hit his target once more, his old target having been displaced in a manner that he- expectedly, failed to understand. But now that things had slowed down a few tics, he used that moment to actually focus on what he was striking at and caught the sight of the woman bringing her upper body back to a vertical position.

    He quickly understood that she had dodged by leaning backwards and decided to push further whilst her balance was still disturbed. But in the back of his mind his mood was only continuing to drop.

 Ch.192 HATE! HATE! HATE!

    Ghost churned his Mana through his body at full throttle and savagely swiped at the woman with his claws. And at last, his attack made contact with flesh, ripping open her chest and spewing blood into the air. However, for some reason, unlike regular blood, her blood seemed to have a slight golden undertone.

    But Ghost wasn¡¯t surprised. In fact, he would have been surprised if her blood was normal. After all, all the great figures he had seen in the past had blood like this, with the only difference being the colour. Asura¡¯s blood had a black undertone, Envy¡¯s blood had a green undertone (although much more noticeable than the undertone of the others), and his own blood had a brighter red undertone.

    He didn¡¯t know the cause, but it seemed to be a hallmark of extremely powerful figures, which this woman obviously was. But if he didn¡¯t care too much to think about it back then, he certainly wasn¡¯t interested in thinking about it now.

    He swiped out with his other arm, taking pleasure in the ever-so-slightly widened eyes of the woman who he was sure was suppressing outward emotions, and even more pleasure in the blood coating his fingers. Had had to get another hit in! He needed more blood!

    *Bizz!*

    With a flash of golden light the woman disappeared and reappeared a few steps back, and in the same moment, 2 of those High Humans that weren¡¯t fending off other Blood Fiends dashed forwards with their weapons and slashed/thrusted towards him.

    However, he wasn¡¯t the same fool that he was many years ago. He would never forget the day he had laughed at Asura for trying to attack him with all 4 of his weapons from over 20 metres away, thinking that he had gone mad from frustration, but it was that moment of carelessness that almost caused him to be destroyed by the following crescent lights.

    ¡°USELESS!¡± He roared, leaping towards the figure on the right and striking down with a heavy blow. But at the last second, he changed the trajectory of his attack and swung towards the right of the High Human¡¯s back where he suspected the woman to appear. She obviously didn¡¯t want her people to die so she would definitely try to save this one.

    Unfortunately, although he had the right idea, his estimations were a little off. The woman appeared to the left side of her subordinate, a little in between the man and him, and slashed down with her sword of light with a speed that he simply couldn¡¯t bring his body to react to.

    Like that, he lost his entire arm.

    Thanks to his unparalleled innate regeneration abilities, the hole in his stomach had been close to closing. But now his arm was gone, and even if he wasn¡¯t in the middle of a fight and focused his energy on regenerating it, it would still take a good few minutes to get it back.

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    Despair threatened to breach his heart but he shoved it back, instead allowing the rage that was already occupying his heart to overflow.

    From the beginning of this fight, he had always known that it was pretty much hopeless. Talk less of her ridiculous ability to hide and her obvious affinity with the rare and illustrious Light Element¡­ her speed was just too much. Speed had been the very thing that he had primarily relied on to retain his life against foes like Asura and Envy. Both of them could easily release powerful attacks that could rearrange the constitution of his body if the attacks landed, so if he wanted his lifespan to remain intact then he better get out of the way as soon as possible, and it was when he was at a safe distance that he could begin to use his words if all else failed him.

    But this woman¡­ This woman was so fast that he could barely see her move! Talk less of dodging her attacks! Every of her attacks so far, even if just 2, had managed to hit him and damage him severely. Against this woman he could not defend himself!

    But¡­

    But looking at the emotionless eyes that gazed at him as if he were a nobody, and looking (with his Spirit Sense) at the growing number of Blood Fiends that had suddenly decided to flee, knowing very well that he would not be enjoying the luxury of leaving this place to deal with them¡­ something in his head went off. Something in his head snapped.

    ¡°AAAARRRRRRRRGHH!!!!¡± Feeling utter hate churning through his veins like a tangible liquid he roared to the skies with unadulterated wrath. His vision warped to red and many things in his brain began to shut down as fury sparked across his skin like an electric current, leaving only thoughts of anger and slaughter.

    From the beginning, he had always been oppressed, always been the underdog, and always been the weak one. There was always someone there to crush his wants and desires. Always.

    First it was the chief of his tribe back when he was a human. His desires had been as simple back then as his situation. All he wanted was food, enough food to fill the belly and that was all. But no. He was always denied. So driven by madness, madness almost like the one he was feeling now¡­ He killed that man and drank his blood, causing him to become the Blood Fiend that he was today.

    Later, when he thought he was finally free to do as he wished without having to be afraid of being punished, the Lord of all Monsters struck terror across the entire Continent and he was once again living life on the edge, his desire to be the strongest a thing he could only dream about.

    Later, when he gave up the dream of being the strongest individual and found more promise in the strength of the masses, he desired the conquest of the Continent and made many sacrifices to make that happen, doing his best to even get the foolish Monsters under his banner. But like clockwork, the Phoenix of Envy arrived and his desires were dashed.

    Here he was again, dreaming of claiming back the power that the Blood Fiend race had once held, and perhaps obtaining more, hoping that things would be better this time. He had left that accursed Continent, right? Things can¡¯t be the same, right? Right?

    But no. No.

    NO! LIKE CLOCKWORK, ANOTHER BEING HAD APPEARED TO DASH AWAY HIS DREAM!

    ¡°AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!¡± Ghost roared again, stumbling backwards as wrath and anguish flooded his soul.

    ¡®BEYOND! BEYOND! BEYOOOOOND!¡¯ Ghost inwardly screeched as blood began to drip out of his eyes like crimson tears.

    ¡®WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO!¡¯

 Ch.193 Birth of Wrath, Death of Wrath

    Ghost chaotically gripped his own face, uncaring of the damage that his sharp claws were causing to his skin and flesh as he continued to stumble backwards. At this point, it didn¡¯t even matter anymore because even if he was afraid of pain, which he was not, he was no longer capable of feeling his own body.

    All he could feel was the terrible heat of rage, so much heat that it felt like he was being roasted alive. But more than that, even his 4 other senses were beginning to malfunction.

    Every sound, other than the heartbeats of the people in the vicinity including his own, had faded to near nothing.

    His vision had lost every colour other than red and blurred at the edges, but he could see the blood pumping blood vessels of the various lifeforms surrounding him with a clarity that he had never experienced before. Even the beating shape of their hearts beneath their skin had become visible.

    He could smell it too. As a matter of fact, he couldn¡¯t smell anything other than their blood, and that too with an unprecedented clarity. It was completely abnormal. His body was changing in a way that he didn¡¯t understand and it should have been frightening. But all he could feel¡­

    *SHIIIICK*

    WAS RAGE!

    Blood poured out of the wounds that he had just torn open on his face, neck and chest. But they healed nearly instantly as a dark red aura, unlike his previous bright crimson aura, began to leak out of his skin like a semi-tangible light, radiating a feeling of such calamity and hate that it caused those in the vicinity to feel like their end had come.

    ¡°I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU ALLLL!!!¡± Ghost roared before pouncing forward.

    Or at least, that¡¯s what he tried to do. For some reason, only his head had moved, and it was spinning around and around, causing his vision to swim.

    ¡®Huh?¡¯

    ¡­

    Gloria stood a few metres away from the beheaded creature, feeling a little flabbergasted by what she had witnessed¡­

    Not too long ago, the man had roared to the skies before asking why something called ¡®The Beyond¡¯ hated him, and then all of a sudden, a terrible feeling had struck her heart, and before she knew it, the clouds had been dispersed by the arrival of a strange dark red construction that resembled a symbol of sorts.

    That symbol had radiated such a malevolent feeling that for the 3rd time in her life she had felt pure fear. In its presence, she couldn¡¯t even move, so she was barely able to prevent herself from dropping to her knees, talk less of assisting Victor (the Alphonse King) and his Knights.

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    So all she could do was watch as the Blood Fiend that she had priorly judged as intelligent and cunning, descended into madness as he screamed and screamed, seemingly ignorant of the giant symbol above his head.

    This continued for a short time as the symbol seemed to be gathering energy from distances she could not see the end of, and then it decreased in size and slowly sank into the strange creature¡¯s forehead before disappearing.

    This abruptly freed her and her people from its horrible influence, much to her relief, but that was not the case for everyone else. Suddenly, a replica of the symbol had been engraved on a majority of the Blood Fiend¡¯s foreheads, and they began to howl like mindless and furious Beasts, their eyes glowing even brighter than before. However, they never moved. They stood still and stared blankly into space as if they had fallen asleep standing.

    And in that moment, she knew what she was looking at. Previously, when a green aura of envy had encompassed the world, followed by the black aura of hunger; It had caused a few of the people in her populace to fall into a trance before experiencing abnormal changes that all resulted in them being put on her KOS (Kill-On-Sight) list.

    Clearly, this was happening for a 3rd time. And she had no doubt that if she were to return to her Empire, there would be another set of her citizens that she would need to add to her KOS list. Which of course, she didn¡¯t want. So she made a rapid and rather reckless decision considering the circumstances, and calculated the risks.

    It was then that the man burst out with a baleful aura that carried the properties of the Symbol that had merged with him, saying that he would slaughter them all, proving that his senses were gradually returning to him. So she knew that she had to act quickly.

    Hence, without hesitation, she utilised the greatest movement technique in her arsenal to appear in front of the man, knowing that he had to be disorientated from his recent changes, and used her strongest and quickest attack technique to separate his head from his body, followed by his limbs. Effectively cutting him into 6 pieces.

    Like that, the leader of the so-called Blood Fiends, had died. Each of his pieces lifelessly fell to the ground and rolled in different directions with a few of them even falling off the branch of the giant tree, but it was the face of the head that was frozen in shock that held her attention.

    Today, her eyes had been opened. She had always known about the phenomena of the ¡®coloured emotions¡¯, but she did not know how they had come to be. Now, she knew. Of course, she didn¡¯t know the specifics, but going by the prior course of event, It seemed that certain people were chosen by a coloured emotion to become its host, and their ascension would cause beings all over the world to fall into its thrall if they lacked a certain amount of willpower. How interesting.

    ¡®System. Is there a way I can make use of this?¡¯ Gloria asked, but there was no response.

    In the past, Gloria had been able to make use of the System to obtain the things that she sought, but sometimes, actually most of the time, she would be met with silence like this. But she wasn¡¯t mad. Thinking of the gravity of what the body of a host of coloured emotion could mean, she knew that the chances of the System providing any information were extremely low. To expect it to give answers would be foolish.

    However, she was not deterred. She fully intended to study the body of the host and obtain its secrets, perhaps she could learn how to influence the minds of others the way a coloured emotion can, or at least its ability to share its power with others.

    But just as she moved forward to gather the 6 separated body parts, they very suddenly began to glow with a dark and ominous red light.

 Ch.194 Eruption of Wrath

    Currently, Eridel¡¯s avatar was floating in the sky above the North Continent, having a conversation with living Storm Cloud, Cleo. There were some things that he wanted to make sure were put into motion before he finally met up with his self-proclaimed daughter, Ciera.

    However, that was of course, not all he was doing. He was paying attention to many things at the same time and the turbulent events in the East Continent were certainly one of them. The ascension of the Sin of Wrath was something that he had always expected, so although it had managed to disturb Cleo even all this distance away, it had been nothing to him.

    But contrary to the relief of Cleo, when the ascension process had come to an abrupt end, he was shocked. His brow creased and his smiling lips melted into a frown.

    ¡°Well, this is quite the predicament.¡± Eridel muttered.

    ¡°What¡¯s wrong, Jonas?¡± came an innocent androgynous voice.

    Eridel shook his head. The death of a Sin could result in some pretty disastrous results if not dealt with properly. But obviously, the residents of the planet weren¡¯t advanced enough that they knew how to correctly deal with such things. So for a moment, Eridel was tempted to deal with it himself. But in the end he decided not to.

    This would be an important lesson for the World.

    And as for Ghost dying? Well, although it was sad for such a talented figure to die, it didn¡¯t mean too much. Especially since dealing with Resentful Spirits was another thing that the World hadn¡¯t learnt to do.

    The Resentful Spirit formed by the ex-host of Wrath was definitely going to be a force to be reckoned with. Eridel wouldn¡¯t be surprised if the entire Resentful Spirit stage was skipped and Ghost became, well, a Ghost. A true Ghost.

    Eridel sighed. ¡°Nothing¡¯s wrong Cleo¡­¡± He looked at the gigantic cloud that rolled about as lightning coursed through its entire body. It was truly an amazing sight to behold.

    ¡°So, are you ready to become one with the Heavens?¡±

    ¡­

    ¡°Run!¡± Gloria shouted out before flashing towards the 2 slowest people in her group, grabbing them by their necks and flashing away again. The others also didn¡¯t dare to slack and immediately followed after their Empress with their greatest speeds.

    Naturally, the Fiends below that hadn¡¯t been incapacitated fled as soon as they grasped the situation. In any case, everything had already fallen apart. Their Progenitor had died and they were surrounded by death. The only option they had was to flee as quickly as possible if they wanted to live to see another day.

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    However, although they all shared the desire to escape the imminent danger that they were sensing from their progenitor¡¯s corpse, they did not share the capability to achieve such.

    The Fiend Lords and those that were close to that level managed to run far enough, but before the others knew it, a loud explosion sounded out and everything faded to black. They had died without resistance.

    But whilst they had fallen into darkness forever, those that had managed to survive could only see an endless crimson. Dark red light flooded the Forest and even spilled out of it like a tsunami, and the pressure that it released was so haunting that a number of weaker creatures that didn¡¯t die from the explosion ended up dying from fear.

    But that was not the end.

    For a few of those that were enshrouded by the dark red light, nothing really happened. They felt fear and worried for their lives but ultimately, that was all. They had a willpower that was stronger than others. But those that had a weaker will, and that was the majority (Beasts and Enlightened races alike but especially Beasts) ending up being infiltrated by the dark red light.

    In other words, the Essence of Wrath seeped into their bodies without restraint. Which of course, resulted in some rather drastic changes.

    A lot of them died, but those that didn¡¯t directly skipped the [Follower of Wrath] Stage and directly became something akin to Envy¡¯s [Creatures in Green], gaining random features that signified their attunement with Wrath like dark red skin or fur, dark red eyes, dark red horns, dark red hair, etc.

    In a single moment, creatures all over the Southern Region of the East Continent had become [Creatures in Red], a few of the Blood Fiends and even a couple of the Fiend Lords that thought they had escaped included. Outside of that, the number of followers of Wrath across the world had increased dramatically.

    Now, at this moment, that wasn¡¯t that much of a problem. The followers of Wrath and Creatures in Red barely knew how to use their new-found powers, talk less of knowing how to cultivate it. So at most, they only gained a sizable boost to all of their current powers. And more than that, thanks to the innate qualities of the Essence of Wrath, many of the beings that had been afflicted had lost their minds to endless anger, attacking anything in sight without finesse regardless of the power level of their target and dying as a result.

    However, this would eventually change. Many of the followers of Wrath, especially the Creatures in Red, would begin to adapt to the new Essence coursing through their veins. They would begin to find the best ways to utilise their wrath, learn how to prevent it from taking over their minds and even how to use it to damage the minds of others.

    Eventually, they would become a very serious problem, much more problematic than the other Sin followers that weren¡¯t under the direct control of their Sin source.

    [Central Continent, West Forest, Dragon Mountain]

    The Dragon goddess had claimed the highest peak of the 15 Dragon peaks for herself, everybody knew that. But what they didn¡¯t know was that 9 other Peaks had also changed owners. But once provided with such information, it didn¡¯t take much to guess which 9 figures were so special that they had taken the homes of 9 Supreme Dragons.

    Without a doubt, it was the 9 Dragons of Destruction.

 Ch.195 Evolution of The Strongest Dragon of Destruction

    When the Dragon goddess had claimed the highest peak for herself, she had taken the 9 Dragons of Destruction along with her despite their nature which could be considered anathema to her own.

    Normally, a creature of creation and a creature of destruction would never be able to coexist in harmony, even if the Laws that they represented were as interlocked with each other as Yin and Yang. However, there were always outliers, and the relationship between the Dragon goddess of Creation and 9 Dragons of Destruction were one of them. Gaia adored her 9 Destructive siblings, especially the calm-as-lake Calmilla and ferocious-as-fire Aeshma, and she always treated them well.

    Aeshma had grown over the years and wasn¡¯t as reckless as he used to be, thanks to the careful guidance of Gaia herself alongside the continuous association with his twin sister Calmilla. And If things continued to go like this, then there was no doubt that Aeshma would become a powerful and respectable Dragon that bore a fierce loyalty to the Dragon goddess that had taken care of him. But as it seemed¡­

    BOOOOM!

    Fate had other plans for him.

    A great mass of dark red light descended from the sky and flooded into the 2nd Peak¡¯s cave with the force of a great avalanche, and before the giant sleeping Dragon within could even react, his crimson-scaled body had already been infiltrated.

    Aeshma woke up with a frightened roar as the malevolent energy violently thrashed throughout his body, attacking his mind and causing his thoughts to blur. But as the knowledgeable would expect, there wasn¡¯t much that it could do to resist as the Essence of Wrath began to make changes to his body.

    His size, which was already 80 metres long, began to swell, his muscles beneath the scales increasing in density and efficiency in horrific fashion. On top of that, the area around his wings bulged about grotesquely as if something was growing underneath, this also occurred on his tail and the sides of his head and it was very strange to look at.

    Soon enough, the roars of fright began to warp into deep bellows of rage.

    ¡°GOOOOOOOOWWWWRRRRRR!!!¡±

    Chaotic lights of dark red (representing Wrath Essence) and bright red (representing Destruction Essence) swirled around the mutating Dragon in a violent manner. The transformation was so chaotic and blinding that it looked like the Dragon was undergoing the worst level of cultivation deviation, which meant that instead of becoming an abomination, he was directly going to blow up.

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    However, that didn¡¯t seem to be happening. Though, in situations like these, one could never be certain. But in any case, the commotion that this caused did not go unnoticed. Yelled words and roars could be heard from outside the cave and they were increasing in number, but ultimately, there was nothing they could accomplish.

    The chaotic energy within the cave prevented them from entering if they wanted their lives to remain intact, and the Dragon they were trying to call the attention of had long lost the ability to hear, talk less of respond.

    Currently, Aeshma was screaming with agony and stimulated rage as the mutation- no evolution; this could no longer be called a mere mutation- began to enter the next stage.

    His scales began to drop off, something that was already a painful experience; but soon enough, his reverse scale was also going to peel off, and when that happened, the word pain would not be enough to describe it. And if the tears, shaking eyes and whines of terror were anything to go by, the Dragon knew it.

    However, before his scales could finish the process of falling off, the bulging things beneath his skin finally revealed themselves.

    *SHICK!*

    Aeshma¡¯s flesh and skin were shredded as a second pair of wings erupted from his back, causing his current roar of pain to spike in intensity as shock and pain flooded his nerves. This second pair of wings were smaller in size and completely lacked scales unlike the first (although that was quickly changing), but they were still impressive to look at.

    Unfortunately, before Aeshma could adjust to the new additions to his body, a second pair of horns erupted from the sides of his skull (black and surrounded by swirling red lights like the first pair of horns), joined by a row of spikes that matched the design of his horns appearing all over his tail.

    Aeshma¡¯s scream which had previously been sheer and desperate, had been abruptly cut off. Because the scream that he had attempted to achieve in that moment was not something that his throat was willing to withstand. But anybody who looked at the crazed pupils that were constricted to the point that they nearly disappeared would know that the pain Aeshma was feeling was not something they could imagine, and his reverse scale had not even fallen off yet.

    Looking at the blood that was leaking out of the new additions to his body as if they were foreign objects that had pierced through his flesh to appear where they were, one might even pass out out of fear. But on the topic of those injuries, it had to be said that they were quite unnatural, because whilst it wasn¡¯t uncommon for some evolutions to cause one to go crazy with pain, they were rarely ever this¡­ violent.

    This mostly occurred when a person tried to reject an evolution/mutation with all of their will. It provoked the evolution to be a bit more forceful with its transgressions if it wanted to succeed, and oftentimes caused a lot of injury. But the worst case scenario would be for everything to go haywire, causing the recipient of the evolution/mutation to die or become an abomination. That would be quite bad.

    But whether that would happen to Aeshma or not was yet to be known. In the meantime, it was better to focus on the Dragon¡¯s Mana Core where the Essence of Wrath had finally come into contact with the Essence of Destruction.

    ¡­Things were about to become troublesome.

 Ch.196 Coalescence of Wrath and Destruction

    TSSSSSSSSS!

    As soon as the 2 essences came together, a loud sizzling sound broke out into the air with deafening force. It was as if somebody had put 2 different volatile solutions together and they were about to detonate.

    The Essence of Wrath besieged the Mana Core with the violence that was innate to its nature, but it was definitely not prepared for the appearance of the equally violent (if not more so) Essence of Destruction. The Essence of Destruction immediately put up a fierce defence and the 2 essences ended up in a fierce struggle, much to Aeshma¡¯s misfortune.

    The pain he was experiencing was just too much. The feeling of the 2 violent energies fighting it out in his Mana Core and Mana Circuits caused him to feel as if his life was coming to an end.

    ¡®I¡¯m about to die!¡¯ He thought, but not with words. The assault that his mind was enduring didn¡¯t allow him to form any. What he was feeling was something akin to a freefall. He was falling down from the sky without wings, and any moment now he would collide with the ground and die without resistance.

    Absolutely horrible.

    As helplessness descended over him like a heavy blanket, his last few thoughts before everything turned black was a desperate yearning for help. The distorted faces of Gaia and Calmilla disintegrating into nothingness.

    ¡­

    Meanwhile, on the outside of Aeshma¡¯s cave, an assortment of Dragons were hovering in the air as they tried their best to observe what was happening inside. All shapes, sizes and colours could be seen; However, despite the domineering sight that they collectively provided, the mood was clearly one filled with dread.

    They had all heard those harrowing screams before they had fallen silent. That alone was enough to shock them, but to know that those shrill, terror-filled screams had belonged to Aeshma? The hegemonic and dauntless Aeshma?

    Their blood had long chilled. What kind of unspeakable things was the strongest Dragon of Destruction experiencing that it could force those kinds of noises out of him?

    At the head of them all was of course the golden goddess, Gaia, but she was the most worried of them all. Ignorance was bliss and the wise were burdened. She knew that everything occurring inside of that cave was the doing of the new 3rd sin and that no matter what happened, whether Aeshma survived or not, he would not be the same little brother that she knew.

    For some reason the new Sin had managed to thoroughly sink its claws into Aeshma. Before now, it had been pretty obvious knowledge that those who were enthralled by the Sins were those with weak wills or those with excessive affinity with the specific Sin. However, even in the latter case, those with strong wills were easily able to shrug off the enthrallment of the Sins.

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    Aeshma, the arrogant Dragon of Destruction, should have been more than capable. But what was the situation? If those screams were filled with any more horror, even the gods of death and darkness would be shifting their feet.

    This situation was clearly unique, that could not be refuted. But Gaia was not the littlest bit happy. Quite the opposite. Whatever this new Sin was, it did not work like the others. The effect it had on people was too sinister. Unlike the prior 2 which would at least allow an individual to retain their mind (even if they did undergo a personality shift), this new Sin caused those that it had enthralled to go completely crazy.

    Most of them were a few steps away from mindlessness, and the only thing they wanted to do was kill. They had no regard for the strengths of their opponents and attacked without any hesitation.

    Disregarding the abnormal abilities that they seemed to gain as an exchange, the ruthless mantra that this 3rd Sin represented was not something she wanted anywhere near the already temperamental Aeshma. It had taken her years to teach him how to control his innate rage but now, it looked like all of that effort was about to be destroyed.

    2 minutes later, the dual energies within the cave flared even higher as they entangled even more, causing the Dragons watching from the outside to put even more distance in between themselves and the cave, but then all of a sudden, the voice that had fallen silent long ago suddenly squealed out loud with such force and ferocity that they all knew his throat was ruined. That unholy sound was not something that could be produced without sacrifice.

    But more than that, each and everyone of them felt an instinctive tingling on that 1 special scale beneath their necks, their one and only reverse scale. It was such an odd feeling that caused them to feel repulsed, but it didn¡¯t take them long to figure out why.

    A few of them felt a shiver run down their spine.

    Aeshma¡¯s reverse scale had been brutalised. They didn¡¯t know how or why, but they could instinctively feel it. For some reason, the more powerful a Dragon became, the more intune they were with their fellow brethren, but it had never reached the extent that they could feel each other¡¯s suffering.

    But thinking about it, It could be that the pain that Aeshma was feeling was so high that it met some kind of requirement, or perhaps the mutation or evolution that Aeshma was clearly undergoing had caused him to have a higher connection with other Dragons. Something that surpassed even their connection with the goddess.

    What a ridiculous evolution.

    Having known that of the 2 energies they were sensing, one of them belonged to Aeshma, it didn¡¯t take much to guess that something was happening to his Mana. But it was only when his reverse scale had been savaged that they knew he was gaining a full-body makeover.

    But still, a number of them had felt the pain over shedding scales, including the reverse scale. But it had never caused them to¡­ make that kind of sound.

    Suddenly, the energy within started to recede. It was over. However, before they could let their guard down, their great goddess yelled out.

    ¡°Retreat!¡± And then she flew off extremely quickly, almost becoming a golden streak in the air. And so, not daring to disobey, they all flew after her. However, some of them still yearned to learn of what had occurred to Aeshma, and intentionally slowed down their speed whilst looking back. That would be the last mistake they made.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!

 Ch.197 When Destruction and Wrath Become One

    A gigantic explosion erupted from the cave, releasing a wave of crimson-red energy that was so nefarious in nature that it actually began to slowly erode the ambient Magical Energy. Not enough to make any significant kind of effect, but enough that if that energy was constantly released into one place, with enough time, that place would definitely be ruined. And that was even despite the innate defences of the planet.

    So what would happen when that kind of energy came into contact with ordinary lifeforms? The answer was provided very quickly. All of the Dragons who didn¡¯t get out of the range of the explosion on time were swiftly dealt with a hefty amount of damage, but that was the least of their troubles, because they were soon besieged by the malevolent energy and within a few seconds their bodies began to erode.

    Fear and agony clawed at their hearts as they tried their best to purge the heinous energy out of their systems, but their ordinary Mana simply could not combat the newly combined essence of Wrath and Destruction. A mere 47 seconds in they had all died with half of their bodies destroyed; open flesh and even bones exposed. But it didn¡¯t end there.

    Their bodies naturally fell out of the sky and crashed into the Heavenly Dragon mountain, beginning a long journey to the bottom that would certainly reduce what was left of them to paste, but before that could even happen, the destructive essence continued to claim the rest of their bodies, only coming to a stop when the only thing left of their bodies were a bunch of very damaged bones and a few scales.

    All of this was watched by the remaining Dragons in the air, and they were very frightened. None of those Dragons that had died were weaker than the 4th Realm. Although none of them were Supreme Dragons or even Elder Dragons, they were still in the 4th Realm. And yet, they had died so quickly, and in such a gruesome manner too.

    What on Eridius was the meaning of this?

    Gaia¡¯s eyes narrowed as she watched the pitiful remains trickle down the mountain. This was beyond her expectations. Naturally, having watched the evolution process for quite some time, she had already suspected that there was a possibility of neither the Essence of Destruction or the Essence of the ruthless Sin winning over the other, and consequently reaching a state where they either disappeared together¡­ or fused together.

    Obviously, the latter scenario is what had occurred, creating an energy so vicious that its mere existence eroded the things around it. It wasn¡¯t hard for Gaia to observe what was happening to the ambient Magical Energy. For such a thing to occur¡­

    Gaia let out a long sigh.

    It had to be known that energy was immaterial, it could be absorbed, it could be expelled, or it can even change states and forms, but there weren¡¯t many things in existence that could cause it to be directly destroyed, even if slowly. Such things were extremely rare to see and weren¡¯t too inferior when compared to the Laws of Chaos, an existence that was even more incomprehensible, but Aeshma had obtained this power.

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    However¡­ at what cost?

    Having 100% affinity with the Laws of Destruction, his personality had always been one that was concentrated around brutality. He had an innate desire to ruin all things, something that his twin sister also had despite her calm nature, and it had taken him a very long time to learn how to act civilised.

    The only reason his twin sister had always been able to remain peaceful was because her comprehension of destruction imitated the sea. The sea had many states and ¡®calm¡¯ was one of them. On the other hand, Aeshma¡¯s comprehension of destruction imitated fire. Fire was a chaotic force that was always raging and destroyed everything it touched. Fire had no peace.

    Although Aeshma being a complete sapient lifeform with infinite capacity to learn prevented him from being a slaughter machine, it was still quite impressive that he had learnt to associate with his brethren, even forming selfless bonds with certain individuals.

    But now, there was a new, equally vicious energy that his body was hosting, something that had fused with his Laws of Destruction to form something new, and that new energy had thoroughly integrated itself into his body, down to his very DNA, by riding the waves of an evolution.

    There was absolutely no way that he would remain the same.

    And as if to announce that, a roar that could only be labelled as hell-raising exploded out of the cave. It was a roar that sounded both sharp and deep, courtesy of its multi-layered effect, but none of that information was enough to convey the amount of HORROR that it had inflicted on every lifeform that could hear- save for Gaia.

    Every one of them, including the Crystal Dragon King, felt terror clutching at their hearts with a death-like grip as the roar continued to go on and on, increasing in volume, depth and ruthlessness as it did so. It was as if they were insignificant rabbits in front of a mighty yet hungry apex-predator and there was nowhere to escape.

    They had only felt this kind of feeling from 2 people before; Gaia and J?rma, the 2 existences on the Continent closest to the title of Kaiser, but now, all of a sudden, there was a 3rd.

    Everybody remained silent as the knowledge of what this meant sunk in, and their fear only continued to grow. Normally, having another supreme existence in one¡¯s race was a thing of great joy. This should have certified their race as the rulers of the continent without contest, however¡­

    There was one more thing about the roar they were hearing and the aura that was accompanying it. And that was that it was by far, the most evilest thing they had ever experienced. Gaia and J?rma¡¯s auras and roars induced similar levels of fear, but that was just instinctual fear to the mighty. But not only did Aeshma¡¯s roar induce the same feeling, it also made them feel as if they were in front of a being who wanted them to SUFFER, rather than just die.

    Whatever had happened to Aeshma, he was now 100x times worse, not 100x better.

 Ch.198 Not Done Growing, Here Come the Lights

    Suddenly, a dark red blur flashed out of the cave entrance and ascended into the air at an unfathomable speed, but they weren¡¯t so stupid that they would be oblivious to its identity, of course they knew it was Aeshma. However, although they now feared him, they were curious about his new appearance. Would he gain new dazzling scales? Would he change colours? A longer and more flexible tail? Spikes? Serrated teeth? Sun-like eyes? Or even an elemental body like those 2 weird Phoenixes? Clearly his evolution was a pinnacle one, so what would it look like?

    They were not prepared for the sight of 6 crimson eyes, an extra pair of horns, an extra pair of wings and even an extra pair of legs. No other Dragon with such abnormal features had appeared before. The spikes trailing down his back and tail were more normal, including his much bigger size and the completely different scales that were an interesting mixture of dark and light red colours that shimmered as he moved, almost like a chameleon but much more interesting, but that was where the normalities ended.

    Four horns, four wings, Six legs and SIX EYES? What was the meaning of this? Had his evolution been inspired by a spider? Had-wait¡­ had¡­ had he somehow gotten his hands on the [Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique]?! The illustrious technique that allowed a Beast to steal the genes of another?!

    ¡­Impossible!

    172 years had passed and there were many cases of Beasts using the Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique, causing it to be well known. But even if it wasn''t as famous as it was, the Dragons would definitely still have known of it. After all, it was because of this very technique that those false Dragons in the east exist.

    However, although the technique was definitely amazing, they quickly wrote it off as the cause of Aeshma¡¯s new form. It was really impossible, for a multitude of reasons too. But first and most important of all was that Dragons could not use it.

    Their goddess had told them that it was because they were the perfect species and didn¡¯t need to steal other genes, which they could definitely understand, but some of them were still envious. It was truly a great technique.

    But more than that, even if Aeshma DID get his hands on the technique, there was no way they could use it. All great techniques had many limitations and this one wasn¡¯t exempt.

    Since they didn¡¯t possess the technique themselves, they didn¡¯t know all the information, but from what they did know, there were 2 restrictions that prevented Aeshma from using the technique even if he did have it. And that was the incompatibility between a Dragon like him and something like a Spider, and the apparent fact that the technique could only be used when breaking through the Magic Beast Realm (Realm 1) to the Spirit Beast Realm (Realm 2).

    It had to be known that not all Beast would evolve because of a breakthrough, normally they would only get bigger and stronger. Evolutions were a special phenomenon that only occurred rarely, and that was putting it nicely, but the Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique triggered it every time. Of course, the technique could only be used once. It wasn¡¯t possible to break through to the Spirit Beast Realm over and over, but once was definitely enough.

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    Aeshma was far above the Spirit Realm, so it was really and truly impossible for him to have any relations to that technique. However, his evolution was just that astonishing.

    ¡­But wait.

    Something suddenly dawned on them. Something that Gaia had already been worrying about for some time now. Before all of this, Aeshma had been close to the peak of the 3rd Realm, the 8th or 9th stage to be a bit more specific, so this evolution, no matter its cause, should have been tied to his breakthrough to the next realm.

    However, in such cases, the 3 Tribulations lights were supposed to strike first.

    Sometimes an evolution and a Tribulation could occur at the same time, but that was only when an irregular evolution or mutation triggered an upgrade in strength that pushed them over the threshold of the 4th Realm, instead of them getting a normal upgrade in power, causing the evolution and the Tribulation to take place at the same time. Very similar to what was happening to Aeshma.

    But there was not a single Tribulation light to be found at all. What was the meaning of this? On top of that, everybody knew that after each Evolution to the 4th Realm, they would be compelled, almost forced into taking the form of their Enlightened Body. Very few people could resist this compulsion, but why do so? An Enlightened Form was something to take pride in, why ignore it? It didn¡¯t make sense.

    The Crystal Dragon King looked at Aeshma, whose aura seemed to still be growing, and a thought crossed his mind. ¡®Could it be¡­?¡¯ His eyes constricted into thin lines and his heart jumped.

    ¡®Has Aeshma not yet entered the 4th Realm?!¡¯

    It was just as he was thinking this that Aeshma let out another horror-inflicting roar. His aura which had been growing steadily began to fluctuate as its growing speed jumped by many times, his 6 completely-red-eyes that looked like they were about to leak blood glowing even brighter than before.

    At the same time, a cloud so impossibly white that it could have only been formed by the heavens began to materialise in the sky above Aeshma¡¯s body, and at the centre of this cloud was a very, very familiar circular formation.

    The Tribulation Circle.

    Never in their wildest dreams could they have predicted that Aeshma had not yet entered the 4th Realm, but was about to do so now, which would grant him another massive increase in strength¡­

    Apparently, he was not finished growing.

    The Tribulation cloud and circle greatly expand, revealing it to be none other than a White Tribulation, causing great waves of shock to crash through their hearts. Previously, only Gaia had received a White Tribulation from the very 1st light. Even J?rma¡¯s White Tribulation had only started from the 2nd, not the 1st. Essentially, a sequence of Gold-White-White.

    Did this mean that Aeshma and their goddess were on the same level?!

 Ch.199 Back to Back Evolutions

    Aeshma gave a rebellious roar at the tribulation. It was a sound that was so incredibly soaked in fury that the bystanders even wondered if he had something personal against it, but that was all. Even he didn¡¯t dare to attack it. Nobody did.

    They had all learnt their lesson.

    The Tribulation didn¡¯t act beyond expectations and after 9 pulses and 3 strikes, Aeshma had been reduced to a steaming mess; his body barely managing to stay on its 6 feet. However, even then, he continued to stare at the sky with his 6 bloody eyes as if it had murdered his entire family and desecrated their graves.

    Really and truly, Aeshma had become a mad Dragon. There was no other way to explain his behaviour. But even though they probably shouldn¡¯t be anticipating the following growth that every Tribulation survivor was rewarded, considering what it meant for someone like that to grow stronger¡­ they couldn¡¯t help it.

    How much further could this mad Dragon grow?

    The air of expectation was extremely dense as every Dragon watched transfixed.

    ¡®This is it.¡¯ They thought. They could feel the surrounding Magical Energy converging into Aeshma¡¯s body like a slowly growing tsunami that was coming from all directions. They felt like they were watching the birth of a legend, and the awe they were involuntary feeling wasn¡¯t in any way inferior to that of the awe they experienced when they were watching the Divinity Reclamation of their goddess.

    So other than Aeshma''s blood-curdling growls, it was extremely silent. And as the surrounding Magical Energy continued to gather, the tension in the air only increased.

    Some of them even began to sweat. It was just too exciting! However, a smaller but growing group of them consisting of the more intelligent minds were wondering why it was taking so much Magical Energy and why it was taking so much time.

    Normally, the breakthrough to the 4th Realm occurred almost immediately after the Tribulation, sometimes taking up to 10-15 seconds if the person was really, really talented, but it had been 40 seconds now.

    Was Aeshma really that terrifying?

    They didn¡¯t know, but they shivered at the thought.

    Finally after half a minute more of waiting, they heard it. The sound of a pop. It was barely audible and they could hardly hear it, some of them even felt like they imagined it. But without fail, they all felt that the time had come.

    The tension had broken and the terrifying tsunami was about to crash!

    WHOOOOOOSH!

    ¡°ROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!¡± Aeshma let out his most dignified roar yet as Magical Essence flooded his system, and what happened next caused quite an amount of eyes to boggle.

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    Aesma grew. Nothing special at face value, after all, he was entering the 4th Realm. Of course he was growing. But it was the speed at which he was growing¡­ that was simply ridiculous.

    Their eyes follow him with astonishment, going up and up and up just to keep track of him. And soon enough, they began to realise why his breakthrough had taken over a minute to gather all the Magical Energy needed.

    Aeshma¡­ Aeshma was not becoming an Enlightened Beast. He was becoming a Celestial Beast!

    ¡°WHAT?!¡± ¡°HUH?!¡± ¡°IMPOSSIBLE!¡± ¡°THIS-!¡± ¡°HOW?!¡±

    Sounds and words of astonishment broke into the air as the gravity of the situation dawned on them.

    ¡®A Celestial Beast?! Seriously?!¡¯ The Crystal Dragon thought with shock. He was completely and utterly flabbergasted. Till date, he had only heard of 2 Celestial Beasts; Apis the Celestial Elephant and Jungo the Celestial Monkey King, he was sure their weren¡¯t anymore of them on the continent because such gigantic beings weren¡¯t the kind of creatures that could just hide if they wanted to.

    Apis being an innately tall Elephant was 500+ metres tall as a Celestial Beast, whereas Jungo, a monkey that was of course smaller than an Elephant, was 400+ metres tall. But 400 metres tall was still a terrifying height and wasn¡¯t something that an ordinary Enlightened Beast that averaged on 70-100 metres tall could compete with.

    But more than that, Celestial Beasts had mysterious powers that nobody had enough information on, so even without their daunting size, they were still insufferably imposing. And now, Aeshma was about to become one of them? Even with the ridiculous abilities he already had?

    The Crystal Dragon King gritted his teeth. Dragons were much bigger than Elephants, so how big would Aeshma become as a Celestial Beast? Wait, forget that, he had just finished an evolution but now he was already undergoing another one? What kind of abnormal creature was this?

    For the first time in his life, the Crystal Dragon King felt insignificant. When Gaia had surpassed his strength, he had taken it as a matter of course. Gaia was a goddess, the goddess of creation itself to be exact; From the beginning she had been far, far above him in strength, it was only that she had received a dastardly injury that caused her to have to ¡®slowly¡¯ regain her strength from scratch.

    Aeshma on the other hand was a regular mortal like him, who on top of that had only entered the fold of the Dragons when he was already in the 4th Realm. But now, look at the situation¡­

    It truly made one feel worthless.

    Going back to the source of attention, Aeshma was still growing with seemingly no end in sight, but there were some new additions. Mainly, the forming of the Celestial Runes; the supernatural runes that were customary to every Celestial Beast. Most of the people here had seen them before, as the upper echelons of one of the strongest races in the Continent, they had all made at least one visit to the Celestial Desert where Apis ruled and another to the Jungle of Gold where Jungo ruled.

    They had seen the Celestial Beasts in the flesh, and they both had the mind-twisting runes that their eyes found uncomfortable to look at, some of them feeling much more than discomfort when they actually attempted to comprehend them.

    Aeshma was gaining these too. Bright red runes that looked like they were made from divine light slowly appeared over his body. However, as jealous as the bystanders were, they could tell that he was once again in a world of extreme pain.

    After that first heaven-challenging roar, he seemed to be doing better, standing steadily on his feet as he glared at the sky with hatred as he soaked up all of the Magical Energy. But as soon as those Runes began to appear, he directly crumpled to the ground without a single sound. Only his head seemed to be barely resisting as he, for some reason, tried to glare at the sky once more.

    But any moment no-

    DUM! Aeshma¡¯s massive head fell to the ground.

    Aha, yes, as expected, he passed out. He actually passed out from the pain.

 Ch.200 Soul Enslavement?

    The spectating Dragons were still spellbound and didn¡¯t even realise that Aeshma had passed out until a few seconds later, but before they could fully recover and think of what to do next, a sea of Destruction-Wrath Essence emerged from Aeshma¡¯s body and formed what looked like a cocoon around him.

    It happened in an instant and there was nothing they could do about it. The energy quickly became solid and compact and even without testing it, they could just tell that trying to breach that cocoon would require herculean effort that they weren''t quite sure they were capable of using.

    So just like that, silence was once more returned to the 15 Peaks.

    None of the Dragons spoke. The awe and fear in their hearts was gradually fading but there was still enough to leave them dazed, staring at Aeshma¡¯s growing cocoon stupidly as if they had mental issues. Each and every one of them had their own thoughts about the situation and they felt like something had to be done, but ultimately, none of them felt qualified enough to make judgements about the situation. So one by one, they turned their heads to their spiritual figure.

    Gaia, the goddess of Creation itself.

    In all this time, Gaia had not made a single sound. She had only watched the events unfold as if they meant nothing to her, but thinking about it, that¡¯s how it should be right? No matter how crazy Aeshma becomes, he¡¯s still a mortal; How can anything he can accomplish amount to anything in front of a Primordial goddess like Gaia?

    These were the thoughts running through their minds, and as they continued to watch the indifferent face of Gaia, some of them let out a breath of relief whilst others actually began to feel more confident.

    But no matter their reaction, they all simultaneously thought that no matter what happened, their goddess would protect them. Their goddess would guide them. Everything was okay.

    The faith that they had in Gaia grew and they all secretly prayed for her wellbeing, hoping that she could quickly regain her past strength and lead them to glory.

    ¡®Our goddess¡­¡¯ some of them thought with zeal in their eyes as they gazed at the Dragon with scales of brilliant Gold.

    ¡­

    Contrary to their thoughts, Gaia was quite worried. Once again, ignorance was bliss and the wise were burdened. The Laws of Destruction were not in the slightest inferior to Creation, in fact, its battle potential was actually greater. But she had been able to suppress Aeshma and the others because of her knowledge, her greater experience with cultivation, her techniques, and the helpful fact that Beasts, especially young Beasts, were very willing to obey the strong. Thankfully, that wasn¡¯t something that was different to other Worlds.

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    But now, Aeshma had gained a significant increase in power and his Essence now consisted of 2 extremely powerful Laws. She didn¡¯t know if what the Sins were could be considered a Law, but they were definitely on the same level. Considering this, even if Aeshma had not gone mad, how could he be so willing to obey every word of Gaia like before?

    Yes she was a goddess, yes her techniques still gave her a much greater edge and yes her position in his heart should have caused him to submit, but¡­

    Aeshma was no longer the Aeshma of before. She would be surprised if he didn¡¯t attack everything in sight as soon as he woke up. The pure unadulterated rage she had sensed from him was only matched by eldritch Abominations that possessed a hatred for everything in existence including themselves.

    Such hatred was not sane.

    The introduction of that new Sin in Aeshma¡¯s body had made him much stronger, so strong that it was unbelievable, but it had ruined him. She wholeheartedly believed that. So this begged the question, what was she going to do about it? She obviously could not ignore such a dangerous threat so she had to think of a solution.

    She had been thinking for quite some time now and she had a few ideas, but she had not made a decision. After all, In a situation like this, she did not want to make a mistake. So, the first and most painful idea was to simply kill Aeshma as soon as the cocoon was removed.

    As the age old adage goes, prevention is better than cure. Perhaps it was the wiser choice to completely remove the threat that was Aeshma, rather than leaving him alive to grow even more powerful than he was now.

    But she did not want to do that. She had spent a lot of time with the Dragon and she had grown quite fond of him. Plus, what would others think of her if she were to so easily give up on one of her strongest ¡®followers¡¯ just because he stepped into the deep end. At the very least, she should be given a more acceptable reason. No need to kill him as soon as he arose from his evolution.

    However, she didn¡¯t bury the idea. If she sensed something that could really endanger her and her people if he was left alive for even a minute longer¡­ she would deal with him.

    Another idea was to somehow get him to learn a special mental technique that would help him control himself. It was a really good technique that she used herself called [The 9 Pillars of Heartfire], its uses were many and it could even help to enhance the Soul itself, but it was very difficult to learn. That was one reason that she hadn¡¯t shared the technique with others, but the main one was purely because she didn¡¯t feel the need.

    It was a very special technique and what was treasured should be kept secret. On top of that, what if some powerful figure like the one known as Eridel traced back the special techniques that she handed out to her and decided to read or heavens forbid, devour her soul. Soul devouring techniques were so rare, so rare that even she, as old as she was, had never seen one and had only heard of them. Usually, the only thing that could devour Souls were Spirits and special Beasts, but she hadn¡¯t heard of them being able to steal information from their soul devouring so aiming for her for information would be useless.

    However, spinning this back, she now slightly regretted having not taught the techniques to at least the Destruction Dragons, as risky as it was.

    Her last and final idea was to enslave his Soul. As an immortal who had lived for many, many years, she possessed an array of techniques that she used to consider evil when she was an insignificant mortal. Soul Enslavement was one of them.

 Ch.201 Gaiaâ€™s Resolve

    If all else failed and she didn¡¯t want to kill him, enslaving him was an option. Perhaps then, she could work out a method to restore his mind through various experiments. She had other ideas that might have worked too, but they were either even more ruthless than temporarily enslaving his Soul, or even more idealistic than trying to teach him a mental technique when his mind was already gone.

    ¡°Haah¡­¡± Gaia imperceptibly sighed.

    She had to admit that this was a problem created by her negligence. Ever since her Soul level had reverted to its origin state because of her reincarnation, her mind had been opened to the influence of things like normality bias, which, along with other things, had caused her to become complacent.

    Normality bias was a unique cognitive function that made a person ignore or even deny things that they might have seen or heard, simply because it didn¡¯t (in that moment) make a lick of sense. For example, someone might feel a sudden sharp pain in their arm, but because there was no rhyme or reason for why that might have happened, they came up with half-hearted excuses, perhaps thinking that it was the positioning of their arm that caused the pain, even if they knew deep down that their arm did not give any prior discomfort and couldn¡¯t suddenly just give a sharp pain. Or even ¡®better¡¯, they outright ignored it.

    The pain¡¯s gone, everything¡¯s back to normal. No need to think about it anymore since I don¡¯t even know what happened in the first place.

    What a mistake. But what else could they do? Dig underneath their skin to find the reason for a sudden random pain in their body, each and every time it happened? No. That¡¯s not how an intelligent species operated. There was always something more important to think about and unless it wasn¡¯t a big problem, if they couldn¡¯t make heads or tails about it, it tended to be ignored. Of course, this changed when a being ascended and they began to take everything and anything into account when making decisions, but that''s besides the point.

    In Gaia¡¯s own case, the normality which she was biassed to was that people with strong wills were able to resist the influence of the Sins. And so, each time she might have been given a prompt to make defences against the enthrallment of the Sins, she pushed it to the back of her mind.

    After all, she was extremely busy. She needed to prioritise the more pressing things, right? Something that isn¡¯t an immediate or even an intimidating problem can definitely wait, right?

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    It was notions like that, coupled with other more minor things like the innate pride that coursed through her blood as not only the 1 and only Creation Dragon, but also a goddess and ex-immortal from a Law World, that caused her to ignore the threat of the Sins Enthrallment.

    Now look at the situation.

    But if there was 1 life lesson thing that she had learnt as an immortal that would never leave her no matter what state her Soul was in, it was that EVERYTHING was her fault.

    All the good things and the bad things that happened in her life were all her fault. If she was beaten and tortured, it was her fault. She should have been strong enough to defend herself, or she shouldn¡¯t have placed herself in a situation where someone who wanted to torment her could gain access to her. If she was robbed, it was her fault. Her security shouldn¡¯t have been so low that it was breachable.

    Likewise, if she suddenly became a goddess like she was today, it was her fault. It was her mind that had attracted the man that made her a goddess. Becoming the spiritual figure of all Dragons in the Dragon Mountain? It was naturally her own fault. It was all the scheming that she had done in the past that had allowed her to seamlessly make every Dragon on this mountain a devout or her Divinity.

    Everything that happened to her was her fault. So the fact that Aeshma had been¡­ ¡®reduced¡¯, to this state- was very much her fault. She should not have ignored the threat of the Sin¡¯s enthrallment, no matter how insignificant it had previously seemed. She should not have allowed arrogance to pervade her mindset, no matter how big the list of her accomplishments were. And she should not have become complacent, no matter how ironically peaceful her time in this crazy World had been.

    Now, she was going to have to rectify her mistakes.

    She hardened her resolve and contracted her wings, causing her large body to descend. And with a few graceful flaps here and there to steer her direction, it became obvious to everyone watching that she was making her way over to the growing encased form of Aeshma.

    She¡­ had made the decision to enslave his Soul.

    ¡­

    Far, far below, in a different location of the Origin Forest, 3 humanoids stood at the peak of a rather large grass hill. It was tall enough to pierce through the canopy of tree leaves, which allowed the 3 standing at its peak to gaze at the sky without any obstruction, but compared to the Dragon Mountain in the distance, it was very, very small.

    The 3 standing at the top of this hill were none other than the 3 visitors from the West Continent; The 9 Flame Queen, the Phoenix King¡­ and the Phoenix Queen. All of them peered up at the sky with difficult expressions on their faces.

 Ch.202 Birds From The West

    ¡°Chad¡­¡± The Phoenix Queen called out worriedly as she shifted her attention to the man on her right. However, despite the wariness she was feeling due to the situation in the sky, seeing Chad¡¯s visage, she fell into a slight daze.

    The Phoenix King looked incredibly handsome as always, nobody could dispute that, but it was somewhat rare for her to see him looking serious like this. His golden eyes burning like eternal flames, his similarly coloured flame-like hair billowing with the wind, his spotless and imposing wings burning with the ferocity that could only belong to a warrior, his brow furrowed and his jaw clenched¡­

    She liked the look of it. A lot. She felt a little guilty because the emotions that created that face weren¡¯t exactly good ones, but no matter what she tried to tell herself her lady bits warmed. Something she was accustomed to feeling whenever she was with this man.

    Chad lowered his head to look down at her and almost immediately his eyes softened, turning the previous vicious and boundless flames into gentle and harmless ones that melted her heart. The worry she had been feeling greatly dissipated.

    ¡°Do not worry, Aliana. With me here nothing can harm you.¡± Chad said as he tried to gather her in his arms. But despite the reluctant effort and the discomfort it took to do so, she held his arms before he could grab her (ignoring his steel-like muscles that compelled her to swoon) and spoke out with steel in her voice.

    ¡°Stop it¡­¡± She moaned.

    Err. Her voice was not supposed to sound like that.

    Chad smirked before dropping his arms, but before she could sigh with relief or disappointment, he held her hands together within his own and leaned closer with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

    ¡°Yes, yes. My blue rose is a cruel and powerful Ice Queen, how can she possibly be caught snuggling with a man?¡±

    Aliana blushed heavily. ¡°Will you-¡±

    ¡°Are you two actually serious? Are my eyes and ears deceiving me?¡± A sharp and very angry voice spoke out.

    Chad let go of Alina with a roll of his eyes and they both turned to face the source of the voice, which naturally turned out to be the 9 Flame Queen. A livid and fuming 9 Flame Queen; who was almost leaking dark red flames out of her eyes.

    But despite the vicious expression contorting her face, she was still an extreme beauty. In fact both Aliana and the 9 Flame Queen were. But where Aliana was the epitome of grace and elegance with a hint of mischievous allure, the 9 Flame Queen had seduction carved through every inch of her body with a pair of dark mysterious eyes that drew everyone in.

    Aliana had pale skin, straight long icy blue hair and similar coloured eyes, her bust and behind weren¡¯t as dynamic as she probably wanted it to be, but she possessed such a unique and delicate femininity to her overall shape that she didn¡¯t lose out to others at all. The feeling she gave off was similar to that of an ice sculpture of a goddess; Delicate yet imposingly majestic.

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    But on the other hand, the 9 Flame Queen, who still had not obtained an actual name yet, was almost Aliana¡¯s complete opposite. Her skin was tanned, her hair was mainly dark red with bright red highlights, her eyes were narrow and seductive with her irises being an even darker red that looked like wine, her bust, hips, buttocks and thighs were the things of dreams, and she even had plump, biteable cupid-bow lips to top it off. Sexual enticement at its finest.

    But more interesting than those features, at least to Chad and Aliana, were the 4 horns adorning her skull (2 on the sides of her head and the other 2 on her forehead). Those dark red horns that never stopped burning were unlike anything they had ever seen or sensed before. They radiated a harrowing feeling of killing intent and were one of the few main reasons why Chad had made the decision never to let his guard down around her; Evidently, the fact that she was not fully a Beast could be sensed.

    But besides that, the only similar thing between the 2 girls was their height, both being around 175 cm tall, and that was it.

    The 9 Flame Queen venomously glared at the 2 rulers of the Phoenix race with her aura beginning to leak out of her skin in the form of dark red flames, her horns and eyes beginning to glow menacingly.

    ¡®This woman is too much!¡¯ Chad thought inwardly with frustration. The 9 Flame Queen¡¯s personality was always like this. She was incredibly sexy, even he had to admit, but she was just too violent! The amount of crazy things she had done just because something had angered her was sickening, and he had always wanted to punish her somehow, but what could he do? She was stronger than him!

    Chad didn¡¯t know how she progressed so quickly, but she was at the 6th Stage, whereas he was at the 3rd Stage. Although he knew that he was talented enough to fight people in higher stages because of the fortunes that had been bestowed upon him, he was very sure that the 9 Flame Queen could accomplish the same thing, perhaps to an even greater extent, relegating his advantage.

    Between the 2 of them there was no comparison.

    Fortunately, they could be considered allies, especially since something even more monstrous than her was coming for them¡­

    Chad¡¯s mood dampened even further as he thought about his despicable brother. Still, despite the insecurities assailing his heart, he spoke out confidently with a placating smile.

    ¡°Relax 9 Flame, no matter what¡¯s going on above, the Dragons would have to deal with it first before it can ever affect us.¡± He made an instinctive move to stand in front of Aliana, but changed his mind halfway with a little reluctance, allowing her to stand beside him.

    Ever since he had taken Aliana as his one true mate, turning her into the Queen of all Phoenixes, she had made the decision to, in her own words, ¡®reform herself as a true queen and make herself equal to him so that she didn¡¯t shame him.¡¯ Something that he had mixed feelings about.

    He appreciated it a lot, after all, to have a powerful mate who could take care of the Phoenix race with him was amazing, but¡­ It meant that he had to hold back a lot when he felt the urge to protect her. Alas, what can he do? He could only support her in this endeavour and hope that she could quickly reach his level, removing some of the worries that he had.

    *WHOOSH*

    His chain of thought broke when the 9 Flame Queen¡¯s aura flared even higher.

    ¡®Fuck! Is she going to punch me again?¡¯ Chad grimaced as held his arms up.

 Ch.203 Hot and Cold

    ¡®Fuck! Is she going to punch me again?¡¯ Chad grimaced as held his arms up.

    And indeed, a long perfectly tanned leg swept towards his head with domineering might that sent a chill down his spine. Not quite the punch he was expecting, but a brutal kick that was quite a few times worse. The 9 Flame Queen was really mad this time, she even dared to use those perverse kicks of hers!

    Not even thinking for a second that he could block it, he swiftly leaned backwards and narrowly dodged it, his pupils constricting greatly as he watched the tantalising murder weapon flash across his view as if it was an executioner''s blade. And for all intents and purposes, it might as well have been one.

    He quickly regained his bearing and made 2 hops backwards, but as he did so, he caught sight of something that made his heart almost burst out of his chest.

    Aliana, in all of her ethereal beauty, was swinging a punch at the 9 Flame Queen with a Mana enhanced fist and a very angry expression.

    ¡®No!¡¯ Chad¡¯s face paled.

    Actually, despite his very real near-death scenario, he knew that the 9 Flame Queen wasn¡¯t actually out to kill him, no matter how angry she was. After all, not only was the 9 Flame Queen in 6th Stage Enlightened Beast (4th Realm), she was also quite accomplished in Anatomy Refinement, with her legs being the primary focus of that refinement. If she really wanted to kill him or at least cause him severe harm with that single kick, she could do it. But she didn¡¯t.

    At the end of the day, they were definitely allies. She knew that he could dodge her kick at that speed and probably only wanted to frighten him, letting him know how angry and serious she was. If she wanted to hurt him, a simple punch that¡­ wouldn¡¯t take his life, would suffice¡­

    The 9 Flame Queen was in control of her actions.

    But, seeing Aliana rush towards that unscrupulous menace with such hostile intent that would undoubtedly be returned in kind, he imagined the worse.

    Gritting his teeth, he swivelled around, using his mana to assist him in the unnatural movement, and successfully redirected the velocity of body; so instead of moving backwards he was now moving forwards, however, his speed had been sacrificed by over 10 times. This manoeuvre of his had only given him the total value of a single step forwards. But it was enough. When his feet finally met contact with the ground he quickly sent a good portion of his mana into his legs (which inevitably doused them in golden flames) and immediately pushed off with all of his strength.

    Was he trying to attack the 9 Flame Queen? No. That would be foolish and very counterproductive. Instead¡­

    He flashed by Aliana¡¯s side before her fist could even land on the awaiting Vermillion Bird¡¯s contempt-filled face and grasped her by the waist, pulling her to his side and putting an end to the heart-attack inducing punch. But because he had sacrificed control in order to achieve maximum speed as soon as his legs had touched the ground, his body ended up helplessly speeding past the 9 Flame Queen, dragging Aliana along with him.

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    Fortunately, he was a bird and was very adept in the air. After travelling roughly 20 metres he regained some control of his body and was able to land on his feet, kicking up a cloud of dirt as he skidded to a stop.

    And when he did come to a stop, he pushed Aliana behind him, no longer able to condone her desires for independence. Finally, he faced the 9 Flame Queen, his body tense despite the fact that his mind was telling him that none of them were in danger.

    Like this, a tense moment passed as the cloud of dust gradually dispersed. 2 sets of glowing eyes, gold and blue, staring at a pair of red ones.

    Eventually, the 9 Flame Queen was the one to break eye contact first and returned her attention back to the sky. But the 2 rulers of the Phoenix race continued to stare at her with uncanny focus, holding each other in a tense manner with their chests visibly heaving as if they were about to go feral.

    Soon enough, the 9 Flame Queen couldn¡¯t take it anymore and looked back at them with a look of annoyance.

    ¡°Hmph, you should take a look at yourselves. Such wild eyes, you look like you¡¯ve reverted back to the Magic Beast Realm and are going feral. If you don¡¯t stop looking at me like that I¡¯ll pluck out both of your eyes.¡±

    These words only caused the two of them to clutch each other even tighter.

    9 Flame Queen¡¯s eyes narrowed. She had miscalculated. She didn¡¯t know what was up about the relationship between these 2 Phoenixes but it was absolutely not normal. It was especially strange because in the beginning, these 2 individuals could not hate each other any further.

    One was an arrogant King, and the other was the daughter of that King¡¯s most hated enemy and his violated mate. The fact that she was alive was a miracle in on itself, so it wasn¡¯t surprising when she obtained information stating that the child born between that accursed union was living a very sorrowful life, along with all the other Ice Phoenixes, but perhaps even more so.

    However, in later years, she had heard that the King had developed a somewhat unnatural obsession with the girl, so much so that it was beginning to affect his duties and people were beginning to find out. And it was indeed so.

    When she travelled to his territory for a meeting, the girl had been there, working as a slave and cleaning the room with a spiteful face. When she stated that such a lowly girl wasn¡¯t worthy of listening to their conversation, he had growled at her and told her that what he did with his slaves and where he placed them was none of her concern.

    Of course, she punched him for that. How dare he speak to her like that? But she didn¡¯t fail to notice the burning blue eyes that glared at her in response. Very strange. On top of that, Chad was adamant about the girl staying, so she gave him a few more punches. But not because she was all that angry, but because she wanted to test something.

    And lo and behold, the girl, the slave! Started growling at her! What?! WHAT?! A mere creature in the Magic Beast Ream? 3 Realms below her?! She still remembered her shock back then.

    So deciding that it was worthy of further investigation, she allowed the girl to stay, and during the entire meeting, the 2 Phoenixes kept taking peeks at each other, their innocent eyes turning into hate-filled glares when they caught each other staring.

    ¡­What kind of joke was this?

 Ch.204 The Mad Kingâ€™s Mate

    Years after that passed and she started to hear even more intriguing information. The Phoenix King had not only begun to personally train the girl, even feeding her with precious Magical Herbs and corpses of powerful creatures, but he had also begun to make abnormal disappearances with her.

    The official statement was that he had taken her to secluded places where she could fight powerful Beasts (but of course not too powerful) without distraction, and although many many people had believed that in the beginning, herself included, things changed when people around the King began to notice changes in his personality.

    Before, his entire demeanour carried the razor sharp edge of resentment and suppressed rage that made the people around him feel wary. As a Phoenix, he was innately graceful so it wasn¡¯t too bad, but back then, Chad was truly a wild card that would blow up at the most random of times.

    But then one day, he came back from who knows where with a blue haired humanoid girl in his arms and a wide smile on his face!

    Naturally, the first thing that shocked everyone was the smile. Apparently he hadn¡¯t smiled in years and the sight of it caused the many Phoenixes to be dazed, but she didn¡¯t care about that. The next thing that caused everyone to be shocked was that he was carrying a female in his arms and that they were clearly intimate.

    This was great news to them, after all, ever since Chad¡¯s previous mates had died, he had had not only discarded all the female birds he had been impregnating in hopes of increasing his Phoenix army, but he had also completely stopped having relations with females. But obviously, with a female in his arms and a wide smile on his face it was a sign that things were about to change and they were glad, they didn¡¯t even care that the female, with her big blue wings on her back, was clearly an Ice Phoenix. The King¡¯s happiness was their happiness.

    But she didn¡¯t care about that information either, whether Chad would sulk for eternity or not was none of her concern.

    It was the next piece of information that stunned not only her, but everyone else on the Continent. And that was the fact that the identity of that female was none other than the slave girl, the daughter of the so-called Despicable Brother. But although that was quite a bit surprising, quite a few people had suspected the relationship between her and the King and weren¡¯t too surprised. The ACTUAL shocking factor was the fact that¡­

    She¡­ SHE WAS IN THE 2ND REALM! How could a mere Spirit Beast POSSIBLY access the Enlightened Form of an Enlightened Beast?!

    That simply wasn¡¯t possible!

    Or at least, it was supposed to be.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    But here the girl was in the flesh, glaring at her like an anxious mother as she clutched Chad¡¯s side with her very humanoid fingers. Even now, despite the fact that she had met with the girl multiple times since the event, she still felt a little of the shock that she felt back when she first found out.

    And even now, despite being pressured from all sides, Chad had absolutely refused to reveal how it happened... Sometimes, she really wanted to kill him.

    In any case, after that event, although their relationship wasn¡¯t immediately revealed, the treatment of all Ice Phoenixes across the Continent had improved drastically, being treated no different from the Pure Phoenixes. Even the slaves that she had captured or bought with resources had to be returned to the Pure Society without harm, or there was the promise of war.

    That threat from the King even sent a chill down her own spine, talk less of others. Not that she wasn¡¯t afraid of him, but even she did not want a repeat of the great war that spanned across the entire Continent. Actually, something like that would be very beneficial to her cultivation, after all, she was still half Monster, a Demon King at that, and that came with benefits that could be fully excavated by the act of killing.

    But she wasn¡¯t fully a Monster anymore and¡­ she had descendants that she¡­ cared about. So she decided to give back the Ice Phoenixes without making too much of a fuss. Of course, as the strongest being on the Continent, she wasn¡¯t someone that could be bullied or threatened into doing anything, so she made him pay for those Ice Phoenixes in resources. Thankfully, after a few complaints about the price and rude name-callings that she almost punched him for, he paid and that was that.

    It had to be said that initially she wanted the secrets of Aliana¡¯s transformation, but the response was that if she kept pressing about it, he would kidnap those Ice Phoenixes forcefully, ignite their Mana Core¡¯s so that they were destined to explode, and throw them right back at her, turning the entire Purgatory Forest into a frozen wasteland whether she survived or not. And that that would be the start of the war.

    What a personality shift that was. Hehe, it was kind of exciting thinking back on it. But she hadn¡¯t found it so funny back then, so she had to admit, she was actually cowed into stepping back and asking for resources instead. Hmph, it wasn¡¯t that she was scared, it was just that although she herself didn¡¯t need to fear exploding Phoenixes too much, the same could not be said for her territory and the people within.

    In fact, even if she could somehow perfectly protect her descendants, just the thought of multiple exploding ice phoenixes rearranging the topography of her Forest and turning it into an icy wasteland was enough to make her make concessions.

    Normally, such a thing was not a worry. After all, even the Despicable Brother didn¡¯t dare to do such a heinous thing. And even if he did, he definitely would not be sacrificing the amount needed to turn the Purgatory Forest into a wasteland, it was just too big of a cost. But there was something in Chad¡¯s eyes, something that she would notice in his eyes each time something threatened his so-called ¡®one true mate¡¯, that made her believe him.

    And that was one of the best decisions she had ever made because in the future, there was an event that ended up causing very severe harm to Aliana, so much so that she almost became a cripple. Hahaha¡­ This resulted in a 5, not 1, not 2, not 3, but a 5 year long lesson that the entire Continent would never forget.

    Heh, in any case, years had passed since then and here they were. She, the 9 Flame Queen, did not dare to touch this mad King¡¯s mate. What was he dancing around for?

 Ch.205 The Power Of A God

    A minute or two passed and Chad and Alianna began to gradually calm down, soon feeling embarrassed about their overreactions. Alianna even started to blush a little as she let go of Chad and took a couple steps away from him.

    It was always like this. They knew that they were overly protective of each other and even a small offence to one of them would provoke the other, but they couldn¡¯t help it.

    Chad coughed into his hand before forcibly relaxing his body and putting on a comfortable smile. ¡°Er, my apologies, 9 Flame. Please do not take offence to my actions.¡±

    The 9 Flame Queen¡¯s lips twitched, amused but also annoyed by the obnoxious facade. This guy really knew how to act. She stared at him with narrowed eyes for a moment before turning her body around and looking at the sky.

    ¡°All is well, but focus now and do not be distracted again. That thing in the sky is not to be taken lightly.¡±

    Chad and Alianna frowned before they too started to stare at the sky again. Actually, although they looked at the sky as if they could see what they were vaguely detecting, that simply was not true at all.

    Yes, Chad and the 9 Flame were in the 4th Realm, and they also had astonishing foundations that made them even greater than their peers. But it was definitely not enough. To peer at the 15 peaks of the Dragon Mountain from the ground (using Spirit Sense or not) was just not possible for people like them, talk less of Alianna who was in the 3rd Realm.

    But that being said, the cause of the malevolent aura was so great that its aura had descended down the mountain to a point where all 3 of them could sense it. So although they could not sense the cause in the slightest, they could sense its aura, and the vicious brutality within it caused them to worry greatly. The Creature or object that could emit such a thing was definitely not to be taken lightly.

    ¡°Hmm¡­ Phoenix, don¡¯t you think that this Aura possesses similarities to that of your brother¡¯s?¡± 9 Flame suddenly spoke out.

    Chad¡¯s face twisted. ¡°Don¡¯t you dare call that- that, that¡­ person, my brother.¡± He wanted to say something a whole lot worse than ¡®person¡¯, because that heinous cretin did not qualify for that term at all, but because of how intune he was with Alianna, possessing the ability to notice each of her movements and sometimes even her emotions, he quickly recognised that her head was downcast and felt a flash of sadness that wasn¡¯t his own.

    Having heard the cruel stories about her Father, Alianna had come to hate him like anyone else. But at the end of the day, she was still his daughter. But make no mistake, the sadness that she felt was not because of some small amount of filial piety that upsetted her any time her father was insulted, not at all. What she felt was great, great shame.

    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    Although the Phoenixes back home had warmly accepted her in the beginning, happy for the changes that she had brought within their King, it only took 5 or so years for people to get used to the fact that the King was once again an ¡®all-benevolent¡¯ one, and that her presence, for all intents and purposes in their view, had achieved its purpose.

    They felt that there was no longer a need for them to respect her as they did before. Now of course, that didn¡¯t mean that they suddenly treated her badly. A lot of people had come to know her and like her, regardless of her high status. But there were also the people who Chad liked to call spiteful and jealous right before he killed them, that would say things that she had to admit, hurt her feelings.

    ¡®Daughter of evil, impure schemer, pretender, weakling¡¯. Things like that. But the ones that hurt her the most were the references to the relationship between her and her father, mostly because that was the only statement that was true, something that she could not make a rebuttal against.

    The resentment she had towards her father only continued to grow.

    Noticing Alianna¡¯s plummeting mood, Chad had to prevent himself from gritting his teeth and glaring at 9 Flame. It¡­ was not her fault that what she said had inevitably hurt Alianna¡¯s feelings. He said that over and over again in his mind before he felt the fire within him calming once more.

    Taking a glance at Alianna, he noticed that she had raised her head again with a somewhat indifferent face, and secretly sighed.

    ¡®Good girl.¡¯ He thought. If she wanted to be a true Queen and not rely on him, then she needed to be strong in both mind and body, possessing a will that burned for all to awe... But he swore, each and every time she was hurt, he felt it with 2 times the effect.

    He could only hope that by the time Alianna became the Queen that she wanted to be, he would still be in one piece.

    Reluctantly returning his attention to the 9 Flame Queen, who was looking at him with a worsening mood that he, at this point, could not care less about, he spoke out with a pensive tone. ¡°That person is not my brother, but you are right. I too have noticed the similarities in their auras. They both somehow give off the vibe of both a Beast and a Monster¡­ quite similar to you actually.¡±

    The 9 Flame Queen¡¯s eyes narrowed even further. At this point, she was going to end up closing them altogether.

    ¡°But it¡¯s more than that. Something intrinsic to their Mana is so much higher in quality than yours, or anyone else''s I¡¯ve seen.¡± Then his eyes widened as a thought struck him. ¡°...Anyone apart from the so-called Dragon goddess, that is.¡±

    ¡°You mean¡­¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right. That bastard may have become something similar to a god.¡± Chad said with a bit of a growl in his voice.

    ¡°This is all speculation. We need answers. Don¡¯t make such ridiculous assumptions before then.¡± The 9 Flame Queen said with a huff before returning her attention to the sky, but both rulers of the Phoenix race noticed that her luscious tanned skin had paled. They weren¡¯t much better either.

 Ch.206 Limitless Soul The Almighty

    As the 3 Phoenixes below worried, the group of Dragons above watched with tight nerves as their goddess approached Aeshma¡¯s cocoon. The thought of something happening to her had them holding their breaths, even as some of them tried to beat themselves up for even thinking such ¡®impossible¡¯ and ¡®blasphemous¡¯ thoughts.

    But they couldn¡¯t help it. Aeshma¡¯s aura was too ominous and it was growing by the second. Even all the way in the sky where they had flown to to avoid the explosion brought by his sudden evolution, they still felt a peculiar feeling of suppression that caused them to feel helpless. It was terrifying.

    But neither of them could bring themselves to voice it out loud. They would say things like ¡®The goddess has got this, just watch¡¯, or ¡®Heh, Aeshma may be causing a fuss for some reason, but in front of the goddess he¡¯s nothing much¡¯. And the closest they came to admitting their obvious fear was ¡®Aeshma¡¯s pretty terrifying right now, but there¡¯s nothing to worry about with our goddess here¡¯.

    It was quite stupid. Their feeble sense of security stemmed from the fact that Gaia was in front of them, ready to protect them in the case of an emergency, and the thought should have humbled them. But of course they weren¡¯t, they were Dragons. A domineering race that had suppressed almost all others races with their sheer might, and on top of that, they were a race- the only race, that had not been created by Eridel, possessing a few traits innate to most biological beings that Eridel had chosen not to add into his created races. How could it be them if they weren¡¯t at least a little illogically arrogant?

    And even as Eridel¡¯s avatar sat on a gigantic branch of the Tree of Life, listening intently to the joyful words of his pseudo-daughter Ciera with a benign smile on his face, a portion of his attention was definitely focused on the happenings of Aeshma¡¯s situation. How could it not?

    He inwardly laughed at these Dragons, but it wasn¡¯t too bad. Life was filled with infinite possibilities that could be explored, and the more variables there were, the more chances of a fantastic phenomenon revealing itself there were. It was for this reason why he permitted the existence of a dangerous being like Aeshma, even creating a race like the Monsters that he had designed to have the specific urge to destroy and kill. It was all for this reason that he soon planned to create the Angel race.

    Only when opposite sides of duality clash can something truly magnificent be found. At least, that was what he thought.

    ¡°Dad, do you really mean it? I¡¯ll find my Soulmate someday?¡± Ciera asked with big shining green eyes.

    ¡°Of course! I even have a few suspicions of who or what he may be, but this Heavenly father of yours doesn¡¯t dare to create false expectations.¡± Eridel responded with a pompous nod.

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    ¡°Hmph, ¡®Heavenly father¡¯, you¡¯re so cringy. Just admit that you created something that got out of your control and you can no longer calculate it. Daddy you¡¯re a faker!¡±

    ¡°Ah!¡± Eridel yelped like he had been struck by lightning.

    ¡­

    Meanwhile, Gaia had finally arrived before Aeshma¡¯s giant-and-still-growing cocoon, in fact, it was so big that it had reached the point that Gaia, who was quite big herself- being a 4th Realm Dragon goddess who was also adept in Anatomy Refinement, could actually easily stand on it as if it were a stable platform instead of a growing cocoon. And that was what she did.

    She landed upon the cocoon, gingerly at first because she was not sure if the material was as hard as it looked, but when she slowed the flapping of her wings and slowly disabled the innate technique that most flying Beasts had that allowed them to lower their weight when in flight with mana, she realised that the Cocoon could easily take her weight, so she folded her wings behind her back and took a comfortable step.

    But her mood was still grim; she had to act quickly. The best way to enslave someone¡¯s Soul was when they weren¡¯t even conscious enough to form a resistance. Even enslaving a ¡®willing¡¯ Soul would form difficulties because it was like trying to poke your own eye, you would instinctively resist. Regardless of your wishes to harm yourself, your body, or rather in this case your Soul, would never agree.

    Only very powerful beings, extremely unique individuals or strange races, would be able to be in complete control of their body or soul, talk less of both.

    In any case, even if Aeshma was awake, he definitely would not be willing to have is Soul enslaved. Well, not that he had the mental faculties to actually think like that giving his obvious state of madness, but the point still stood. She needed to enslave him before he woke up.

    After a brief moment of hesitation, she began the activation of the [Limitless Soul Brand] technique for the first time in both of her lives. This was a very, very special Soul Enslavement technique that she had practically died to obtain in an inheritance sight, even though compared to the other things in that place it could have been considered gum under table. But that was how special the creator of that inheritance was.

    In fact, she could without shame state that if that person was to have stuck actual gum under the table, so long as he created that gum, she would pick it and chew it for the rest of time.

    Limitless Soul The Almighty; that was his name, or at least his most used title. He was a being who had not only pioneered Soul Cultivation, but also a being that had apparently reached the rumoured 10th Realm in Essence Cultivation, the Limitless Realm. Any one of his belongings were priceless treasures that the entire Universe would fight for, and she, a mere Realm 7 Immortal, had obtained one of them. She may have died a short few weeks later because of the relentless pursuit of others, preventing her from capitalising on any of her gains, but it was still the greatest achievement of her entire life.

 Ch.207 Soul Cultivation

    Gaia funnelled her Divine Soul Essence directly into Aeshma¡¯s Soul, something that would have immediately initiated a strong backlash if he were conscious but only caused minor rejections now. Actually, the Soul was so complex that even such minor rejections would have caused the plans of most people to fail, but she was not normal at all. At the peak of her previous life she had reached the 48th Stage in Soul Cultivation.

    Such a cultivation was enough to classify her as a peerless genius in most of the Lolay Galaxy, not that she let that fact be known to the public, because that would have resulted in her being coveted to the point of having no choice but to sell her loyalty.

    Not that that was an entirely bad idea, after all, if she sold her loyalty to the Kong Eternal Family then she would have been able to obtain access to special Soul Techniques that weren¡¯t accessible to the public, preventing her previous situation of having a high Soul Cultivation but having almost no Soul Techniques to efficiently utilise it, and granting her a brighter future. She might have even been able to secure at least a pseudo protection for the Sigothia World, which was a wonderful idea.

    But the plan had flaws and the few risks involved possessed lethal consequences.

    There were all kinds of strange techniques and abilities all over the universe and the ability to steal someone¡¯s cultivation could be considered elementary level amongst them. If the Kong Family had the ability to steal her Soul Cultivation, the chances that they would choose to do so weren¡¯t low at all. They didn¡¯t become the strongest family in the galaxy by playing nice with everyone, and they could be just as ruthless as anyone else.

    Gaia couldn¡¯t help but think of these thoughts as she shaped her Divine Soul Essence into the unique sigil that was shown in the Limitless Soul Brand technique.

    Soul Cultivation was very similar to Anatomy Refinement in the way that they both had no established Realms, only endless Stages (with the same big boost being gained every multiple of 10), and made the Soul stronger in the same way that Anatomy Refinement made the body stronger. But different from Anatomy Refinement was that not only was Soul Refinement much harder to accomplish, but there were also different types of Soul energies that could fuel it, similar to Essence Cultivation.

    In Essence Cultivation, Mana could be formed by all kinds of energies, including Law Essence, with each having their own pros and cons. Similarly, Soul Cultivation, or to be more specific, the very Soul itself, could be fueled by different types of Soul energy. Only, there weren¡¯t nearly as many choices to pick from as there were in Essence Cultivation.

    Mental Energy was the most basic Soul energy, her Soul Cultivation was powered by this energy in her past life. But there were others like Spirit Essence that was mostly exclusive to entities like Spirits and Ghosts, Matrix Energy that was generated by extremely unique techniques that converted knowledge, especially that of the mathematical kind, into unique soul energy, Magic Soul Essence which was a sort of fusion essence caused by a special synergy between Soul and Mana- this, she was now learning was what Aeshma currently had; his Soul having the same ruthless properties as his Mana. Divine Soul Essence which was what she and other gods had, and the most spectacular of them all, Primordial Essence.

    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Not much was known about Primordial Essence, and although she had run into a few people that owned it, even getting a feel of it herself from their soul undulations (which was why that she could identity that it was somebody¡¯s Primordial Essence that had aided her in converting her previous Laws of Destruction into Laws of Creation), they were all lofty figures that she did not have the hopes of prying information from.

    In any case, with her new Divine Soul Essence and past life experience, her Soul Cultivation was bound to experience nothing but success in this life. In fact, despite the fact that she was cultivating all 3 paths of Cultivation, her Soul Cultivation was already in the 11th Stage, which was a phenomenal feat!

    And although Aeshma possessed the illustrious Magic Soul Essence which was on the same level as Divine Soul Essence, or even above (depending on the affiliated mana type), he was only in the 1st Stage of Soul Cultivation. Nothing compared to her.

    She weaved the last bits of the Soul Brand into his Soul- which she had also noticed was growing in tandem with his body, and sighed breath of relief. She took a step back to marvel at her work but couldn¡¯t help being distracted by the growing size of his Soul.

    Soul size was another aspect of the Soul that could aid its cultivation, and a bigger size was equivalent to having a greater foundation, but although it also had the useful feature of increasing the max amount of Soul Essence, it had the universal flipside of increasing the amount of Soul Essence needed to upgrade the Soul. But still, most people including her believed that the bigger the Soul the better, so she was a little envious of Aeshma¡¯s current condition, but only a little. The price he was paying for this was too big.

    Gaia sighed, feeling sorry for Aeshma¡¯s condition.

    In any case, what was done was done. She could only hope to prevent the same thing from occurring to anyone else and making sure that kept Aeshma in control. Perhaps one day he would recover his mind, and she would do almost anything to aid the process if that were possible.

    Taking one last look at the Soul Brand and pushing away the small strand of pride that tried to rise in her heart, she withdrew her Divine Soul Essence.

    Immortals and gods all possessed ridiculous amounts of comprehension, so as long as a technique was explained with the sole purpose of teaching and not trying to hide in a sea of riddles, most immortals/gods would be able to perform the technique on the first go, which was what she had just done, so it wasn¡¯t anything to really boast about.

    But still, to perform a technique created by Limitless Soul The Almighty on the first go? Hehe, she actually had to suppress her emotions from falling into giddiness despite the grim situation. The technique was extremely straightforward and could be learnt by any other immortal or god just as easily, but still! A Limitless Soul Technique! Limitless you hear?! Limitless!!!

 Ch.208 The Celestial Dragon of *********

    Gaia waited a few moments for her mind to settle before taking off into the air and flying back to the group of Dragons. The Soul Brand had been successfully completed without a hitch and all that was left now was to activate it whenever she needed to.

    With this, she would be able to forcefully control Aeshma¡¯s actions however she pleased, and on top of that, she could even use the Soul Brand to send his mind into an eternal sleep whilst she still used his Soul to control his body. So his madness would not become a problem.

    But even then, these were only the most minor of all the Limitless Soul Brand¡¯s uses. There were quite a few more, and she was very sure that if they had been discovered in her previous life, she would most likely not have had a Soul to reincarnate after the grand trouble it would attract inevitably found her.

    The reason why the Limitless Soul Brand Technique had been ¡®mostly¡¯ ignored, allowing her to have the chance to snatch it, was because there were all kinds of Soul Branding/Sealing/Enslaving techniques out there in the Universe and there was no reason to be desperate for another, even if it was created by Limitless Soul The Almighty himself.

    But do not be confused, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that the bigger factions and unfathomable elites were racing against time to gather the more impressive techniques, they definitely would not have left the Limitless Soul Brand technique behind. After all, it was still a Limitless Soul Technique, even if it was ¡®just a Soul Brand technique¡¯, and that could never be looked down upon.

    So although they were smart enough to realise that not all things were as it seemed, causing them to send some of their weaker forces to fight for the technique and others of its apparent calibre, it had not been enough to deal with her and her other companions.

    Haha, she said ¡®not enough¡¯ as if many of those companions had not died in the crossfire.

    Haah¡­

    In the end, things had already happened and there was nothing that she could change. But even if she could change the past, she definitely would still have obtained that technique by any means necessary. The only thing she would have liked to change was the number of deaths on her side, but if those numbers were necessary to secure the technique, then so be it, that was their fate. The Limitless Soul Brand technique was just that precious.

    Yes, it was a technique that was used to brand Souls, enslaving them with unique functions that most other techniques did not have. But as said before, that was just its most basic function.

    Another use, was the ability to syphon the energy of the Soul that was branded, causing the users Soul Cultivation to experience a swift and almost seamless rise.

    Another use, was to actually dual cultivate Soul Energy between both Souls, enhancing them both, but of course, at an understandable lower speed than the previous use.

    Another use, was to flood the branded Soul with the users on Soul Essence, causing the branded soul to convert into a vessel/avatar Soul for the user, without it breaking.

    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    And there were more.

    All of these galaxy-altering abilities had been compacted into a single technique, and she had obtained it. It was like a wondrous yet fleeting dream, but it was real. This was really real.

    But still, having obtained this technique, she had always been worried about the Fortune she must have obtained to do so, and that was a very worrying thought. Everyone who was strong enough knew that fortune was a real thing and if you monopolised it too greatly without giving back, it would be SNATCHED from you in the most ruthless way possible. So, hoping to balance out her fortune and karma, she had been doing selfless deeds, blessing others'' lives and giving back fortune the only way she knew how.

    It was a very inefficient method, but what else could she do?

    But then she broke through to the 4th Realm, which allowed her to obtain a few surface level answers about its purpose (from the System), and she found out that one of the purposes of the Tribulations was to allow the inexplicable concept of Fortune to be taken back from herself safely, and returned to Fate where it had originated from!

    Wow! Just wow!

    Who would have thought that-

    TSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

    Out of nowhere a strange hissing sound could be heard, catching the attention of every Dragon in the vicinity. And at the same time thanks to the Soul Brand, Gaia noticed immediately that Aeshma had abruptly woken up.

    CH! CH! CH! CH! CH! CH!

    As the repetitive sound of something cracking tore into the air, it became very clear to Gaia and the others that Aeshma¡¯s evolution was coming to an end.

    Cracks could be seen ripping into existence all over Aeshma¡¯s cocoon, and each of the gaps released smoke that was an ominous two-toned red colour, and it hissed into existence with an unmistakable nefarious quality that sent a shiver down the spine of everyone who witnessed it.

    Everyone except the Golden dragoness in front who watched with narrowed eyes.

    ¡®System¡­¡¯ She called out inwardly. ¡®What kind of Beast has Aeshma become?¡¯

    <The being known as Aeshma has evolved into the Pseudo-********* Beast Species: Celestial Dragon of Ruination>

    Gaia was stunned for a moment, but she soon regained her bearing as a question emerged in her mind.

    ¡®What a domineering name¡­ But I was half expecting you to ignore me again. Does his Quality of Being not exceed mine? Or has he become something unique to this World that all gods are allowed to learn of like the 7 Deadly Sins?¡¯

    <Wrong.>

    Gaia waited for a bit (not without feeling uncomfortable knowing that Aeshma¡¯s Quality of Being had surpassed hers) before realising that the System was not going to elaborate on its own.

    ¡®...So why am I allowed to know the name of his species, even to some extent the grade of his species? Also, why actually tell me the grade if the most important part of it is censored?¡¯¡¯

    <The being known as Aeshma has entered a Master and Slave pact with the host, thus allowing all of his information to be accessible. The species of the being known as Aeshma has evolved into a realm that the System cannot comprehend; the only information accessible is that it is not complete, only pseudo.>

    ¡®!!!?¡¯

    Gaia was stunned once again.

    ¡®......Is it above the Law Beasts?¡¯

    <Undoubtedly.>

    Gaia felt her blood cool.

    ¡®What on Sigothia has Aeshma become?¡¯

 Ch.209 A New Scope On What It Means To Be Evil

    Something above a Law Beast¡­ She couldn¡¯t even imagine it. What could possibly be above the Laws? Even the 3 Limitless Beings that her galaxy had been lucky enough to learn about had powers that were based on the Laws.

    Limitless Soul the Almighty, the most high profile one of them all, was famous for the Soul Laws that he pioneered.

    Endless Darkness the Friend; also known as ¡®The Darkest One¡¯ and ¡®The Friend of the Abyss¡¯, a mysterious but still universally renowned being, was most famous for his Darkness Laws and his abnormal connection to the Abyss.

    And finally, Eternal Light the Sovereign (or Sovereign Eternal Light), obviously known for taking the Laws of Light to its highest possible stage.

    Of course, these beings naturally had other Laws and Intents that they specialised in, some that they probably fused with their main laws, but they were still just that. Laws and Intents or an amalgamation of them. That¡­ still did not surpass the Laws.

    But perhaps she was wrong. No, she was definitely wrong. It was completely impossible that Aeshma, an insignificant Beast in the grand scheme of things, would chance upon a power that was allegedly above the Laws, when the 10th Realm Beings did not have it.

    It was either that they had it, or perhaps something even greater than that, and she had just discovered something unbelievably precious that would give her insight onto the path to becoming a Limitless Being, or nobody had it and what the System was telling her was its own misunderstanding brought by cluelessness.

    Gaia¡¯s heart rate was disturbed as she thought about these things, her eyes sparkling with wonder. But soon, her attention was dragged back to the main attraction.

    CHAAAA!

    All at once, the cocoon surrounding Aeshma¡¯s body shattered apart with a loud sound that was soon followed by a whooshing sound as the 2-toned red smoke was fully released into the atmosphere. All other sounds had been silenced, and it sent the hearts of the viewing Dragons into their throats.

    Even the lesser Dragons far below, the 3 Legendary Birds gazing from a distance on a lonely hill, the ignorant Beasts that crawled the Forest and the weakest of all Humans that shambled as they did their duties, were swallowed by silence as fear that they did not know the origin of clutched their hearts.

    All sounds apart from the whooshing smoke far above (which they definitely should not have been able to hear from their distance), had been devoured, and even colour seemed to dull.

    The humans shivered and fell to the ground with some even passing out, the Beasts in the Forest prostrated themselves with quaking bones, the Legendary Birds on the hill wore grim and pale faces, and the Lesser Dragons in their caves all looked up at the source with shock, feeling an unnatural connection to the pandemonium above.

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    But one of those Lesser Dragons, one with ordinary grey scales that spoke of a lack of specific affinity, yet unnatural neon green eyes that even slightly lit up his cave, felt a little more than just shock and fear.

    He seemed to be feeling¡­ Hostility? He didn¡¯t quite know himself, but something about the thing above made him feel tight. He clawed the ground a little to give relief to the growing violent feelings in his heart but it barely worked.

    He had only felt this a few times before, and each of those times was when he encountered one of those strange creatures that had a strange black marking on their head. The gluttonous pricks that only knew how to eat until they died. But how could one of those fiends be at the most sacred place of their Dragon Mountain? It just wasn¡¯t possible, especially with the presence of their goddess.

    ¡®Just what-¡¯ Theodore began to think, but he was swiftly interrupted.

    ¡°ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!¡±

    A world-shaking roar tore through the silence with the impact of a collapsing star, sending waves of shockwaves that instantly knocked out everyone below the 4th Realm, including the Realm 3 Phoenix Aliana, neither 9 Flame Queen of Phoenix King able to help her.

    Up above, the Elder Dragons weren¡¯t faring well either. Only the Supreme Dragons along with their King and goddess were able to cope without suffering, but all of them apart from their goddess felt complete and utter terror.

    And that was because with the roar that summoned wild winds and shook the entire Forest, the smoke had dispersed enough to allow his body to be seen. And what a terrifying body it was.

    Glossy scales that were a mixture of dark and light red that shimmered as he moved, neon red runes that ravaged the senses patterning his body, 6 eyes of the same neon red with no other colour to be found, 4 pitch black horns swirling with 2-toned red lights, 6 legs, 4 wings, and spikes that were similar to his horns trailing down his neck to the tip of his tail.

    And then there was the size. A terrifying, heart-palpitating height of 700 metres and a length of over 1000.

    What?

    What?

    What?

    ¡­What the heck was this existence?

    The aura Aeshma released put a new scope on what it meant to be evil. The desire for destruction and the end of all things was so palpable that the Crystal Dragon King felt like if he stuck his tongue out, he would experience how it felt to taste an emotion for the first time.

    This¡­ This!

    ¡®He needs to die!¡¯ A single thought occurred simultaneously in the minds of many of the Dragons, the thought feeling nigh rebellious because of the urge to submit that Aeshma¡¯s all-out peak Dragon Aura caused them, but their instinctual reaction to eliminate a threat was much stronger, especially when those 6 terrifying eyes gained a semblance of intelligence and locked onto them.

    Without pause, as soon as Aeshma detected them, he opened his mighty jaws that looked like they could split them apart with a single bite, and began to send energy into his mouth, causing a ball of red light to emerge that got brighter the more energy was sent into it.

    Clearly, it was a breath attack.

    The Crystal Dragon King felt his throat constrict with fear.

    ¡°RU-¡± He wanted to tell everyone to run, but before could even complete the word

 Ch.210 A Familiar Voice

    ¡°RU-¡± He wanted to tell everyone to run, but before could even complete the word, there was another abrupt change in the situation.

    Gaia, their golden goddess, flew above before imposingly stretching out her brilliant wings and yelling out a demand with a single word.

    ¡°Yield!¡±

    And like her voice was magic itself, Aeshma¡¯s gigantic eyes that could easily be seen from their distance flashed with a golden light and he suddenly froze, his breath attack fading into nothing as if he had lost consciousness mid-attack.

    ¡®Wha-¡¯

    Not giving anyone time to think, Aeshma¡¯s oppressive sky-covering wings that had just been spread out to its limits, casting a shadow over the Mountain, folded behind his back with a snap. He then crouched down the lowest his body could go and bowed his head.

    ¡­?

    Was he¡­ prostrating himself?

    The Crystal Dragon King looked at all of this with wild eyes, his chest still heaving as if he had just flown a thousand miles non-stop. His carefully crafted composure completely collapsed.

    ¡®What¡­ just happened?¡¯ He thought with the most densest confusion he had ever experienced in his entire life. And wait a minute¡­ was it just him, or had the faintly distinguishable intelligence in Aeshma¡¯s eyes, that he had just gained, disappeared? They¡­ looked a little duller and lacked the keen intent to raze everything to the ground that had almost held him ensnared.

    He blinked.

    Once¡­ twice¡­ and then slowly turned his head to what was no doubt the course of this stupendous change in the situation. But even with his intentions to keep his movements slow, steady and measured, his neck still twitched and his wings still jittered. A result of the absurd amounts of adrenaline he still had rushing through his veins and the phantom urge to flee that had not completely dissipated.

    But he managed the movement nonetheless and there she was. The most beautiful dragoness he had ever seen, floating steadily in all her magisterial and shining glory.

    He was stunned. Completely.

    But¡­ in that moment, he knew what he had to do.

    He looked at the impossibly docile Aeshma, who¡¯s ocean-like aura was receding like the tide, and then to his fellow Dragons who were either looking at the goddess or the abomination, with looks of shock that he was sure he was mirroring himself.

    But he knew what he had to do.

    Summoning confidence from who knows where, he yelled out with his loudest voice.

    ¡°THE HEAVENLY GODDESS HAS SAVED US ONCE AGAIN! MY FELLOW DRAGONS, LET YOUR HEARTS IGNITE AND PRAISE HER HOLY NAME! LONG LIVE THE GODDESS! LONG LIVE THE GODDESS! LONG LIVE THE GODDESS!!!¡±

    Many faces were startled back into reality, but soon a chant had begun.

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    ¡°¡°¡°LONG LIVE THE GODDESS! LONG LIVE THE GODDESS! LONG LIVE THE GODDESS!!!¡±¡±¡±

    Eventually, even the Dragons below could hear it and began to pick up the chant, and like that, it didn¡¯t take long for the entire Forest to shake with the name of their goddess.

    Zeal and pure adoration zinged through the Crystal Dragon King¡¯s body as he stared at the imposing figure of his golden goddess, his mind replaying the scene of a single word causing the berserk Aeshma to submit.

    ¡®How Powerful! How beautiful! How dignified! Indeed, only a being like this could be a goddess! The goddess of all creation!¡¯

    His eyes shone and shivered with emotion.

    ¡­

    Gaia almost rolled her eyes at the zealous praise of her people, but she had to admit, it did feel good. In her past life, she had been a rather introverted individual, even for her kind (Immortals) that would sometimes spend centuries or even millennia in seclusion. So she had never experienced praise like this before.

    Of course, there were times that she would save a large group of people and they would praise her, but that was different. Not only would they have praised anyone else who saved them like she did, making it less personal and more of a transactional service, but the praises were certainly not as resounding as this one.

    ¡®So this is how it feels to be a god, huh. Not bad~¡¯ Gaia thought with amusement.

    She turned around to turn them to calm down, but just as she was about to do so, her peripheral vision caught the sight of what seemed to be a white humanoid figure, hovering in the distance. So naturally she turned back to look at it, but when she identified who it was her pupils constricted greatly.

    White robes, long white hair, unforgettable golden eyes¡­

    It wasn¡¯t easy to see from this distance and she was just barely able to make out the being¡¯s features (even with all 3 of her cultivation paths boosting her eyesight), but these were features that she would never forget nor mistake for anything else. And she had a feeling the man knew that, seeing as he was close enough for her to detect but too far for anyone else.

    Who else could it be, if not the man that turned her into a goddess, Eridel?

    Gaia frowned for a moment, but she made a decision very quickly. The only decision, really. She turned around once more and began to speak to her people.

    ¡°Everybody¡­¡±

    The chanting ceased immediately. Well, at least the chanting of the Dragons who were with her. The Dragons below were still shouting ¡®Long live the goddess¡¯, but it was fine since it wasn¡¯t their attention that she was trying to grab.

    She paused for a moment anyway before continuing.

    ¡°Everyone, the crisis that has befallen Aeshma has been averted.¡± She could practically see the Dragons holding back from praising her all over again, their eyes shining with barely restrained excitement. ¡°Unfortunately, his ailment has caused him to lose his mind so in order to prevent him from causing further harm I had to forcefully take control of him, but eventually, his mind will be restored to what it was and the Aeshma you know will be back, this I promise you.¡±

    That last promise was more for Calmilla. She wasn¡¯t here to hear it right now since she wasn¡¯t in the 4th Realm and wasn¡¯t allowed to come for her safety, but she was still a close individual to Aeshma (the closest other than her) and she would hear of the promise when the Dragons went back.

    ¡°For now, I want all of you to return. I have some things to do but I don¡¯t want to hear any of you saying bad things about Aeshma when I come back. What has happened to him is a tragedy and he should not be flamed for it. Go now.¡±

    She could see some of them wince at the dismissal, including the Dragon King, but they listened to her without hesitation.

    ¡°Take care, great goddess.¡± The Dragon King said with a bow, then he turned around and said. ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Before they all flew down, ignoring the 15 peaks that were almost completely occupied by the giant figure of Aeshma, and disappearing into the distance.

    Only when minutes passed and their presences had all disappeared, did a flash of golden light appear from her side, along with a very familiar sensual voice.

    ¡°Well, well, well~ If it isn¡¯t Miss Gaia. How wonderful it is to see you! Ah, but as exhilarated as I am to see you- honest! I must quickly advise you to get rid of that smoke. Your people will all die if it descends any further.¡±

 Ch.211 Daunting

    Gaia turned around and there he was. Unnatural golden eyes surrounded by endless whites. White hair, white skin, white robes. And then all of that  surrounded by a soft golden aura as if he was a deity from the Heavens Supreme Region.

    ¡®Hmm, he really did look like them¡­ Those damnable dogs.¡¯ All deities had a permanent golden aura that surrounded their bodies. It was probably tied to the fact they all had extreme affinities with the Element/Laws of Light. Not that that meant that their affinities were exclusive to light. She of all people would know.

    She forcefully shut down the memories of those harrowing days and focused on the man before her.

    Honestly, he wasn¡¯t the most handsome man that she had ever seen, after all, in just the small galaxy alone, there existed races, bloodlines, physiques and even techniques that made the owner impossibly appealing. Some of the more devious kinds even had the ability to forcefully raise arousal, and she had met them.

    Compared to them, although this man that called himself Eridel possessed looks that were far above the level of mortals and even standard immortals, it was nothing much. But still, there was something about his eyes and his voice that exuded boundless charm, so much so that it even held her enthralled. And he wasn¡¯t even using his Laws of Sound to aid him like he did the first time they met.

    She was only dazed for a short moment though. It didn¡¯t take longer than a second for her to extract herself from that state and soon her eyes widened when she comprehended what he said.

    ¡®Your people will all die if it descends any further.¡¯

    The ominous red smoke that Aeshma had released when he completed his evolution. Of course it was dangerous! Gaia felt like an idiot. Remembering how the explosion caused by his first evolution caused many Dragons to disintegrate to the point that only scales and bones were left, Gaia became a little worried.

    But when she turned to look at it she became a little confused. The feeling that the smoke gave off was deeply ominous and terrifying, this she already knew. But what was raised to attention was that although the smoke gave off a very scary feeling, it didn¡¯t strike her senses as something innately dangerous. It felt more like an aura.

    An aura could give off many kinds of feelings; Happy, sad, aggressive, scary, whatever. But most of the time it could never hurt anybody. It could possibly influence the emotions of others, but that was the greatest extent of most auras. And that was how the red smoke felt right now.

    Lethal, dangerous, oppressive. But harmless.

    But how could this be possible? If even Eridel was telling her about it, then it definitely possessed the ability to cause harm. How was it hiding? If the 2 Laws that created this new existence were anything to go by, then they should not be containing stealth abilities, so what was going on?

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    Could it be that its capability to cause harm was not something that she could comprehend? Was this thing called ¡®Ruination¡¯ completely beyond her scope of understanding?

    Many thoughts were being generated in her mind but she didn¡¯t have a lot of time to waste. She didn¡¯t want the smoke to delve any deeper. So without any more hesitation, she gave Aeshma an order through the new mental link formed by the Soul Brand.

    =Aeshma, get rid of that smoke.=

    Immediately, Aeshma lifted himself up from his prostrating position, causing barely audible sounds of creaking that Gaia suspected were coming from his gigantic muscles, and the sound of wind as his humongous body tore through the wind barrier. The former was more impressive because it spoke of how dense his muscles were, but the latter was only natural.

    For him to move with that big body of his and look like he was operating at the same speed as a regular Dragon could only mean that he was actually moving extremely quickly. After all, for a normal Dragon in the 4th Realm to lift their wings to its highest point from the lowest point, it would have to cross a distance of around 80-100 metres, but for Aeshma that distance was multiplied by at least 10 times. And yet he still crossed that distance in the same time frame that it took for a regular Dragon to complete the same movement. Essentially 1000 metres in 2 or so seconds. Of course he was tearing through the wind barrier.

    A normal Dragon was still quite big and could of course produce the same sound, but they could only achieve that by moving at their maximum speed (or close). As for Aeshma, it looked like almost any random movement from him would kick up the wind.

    So it went without saying that as he lifted up his chest and tilted up his head, flaring his wings out a little to steady his balance as he exhaled an almost visible breath of air, his 6 glowing eyes and gleaming teeth easily visible through the smoke, it formed quite the sight.

    WFFFFFFFF!

    Aeshma began drawing air into his lungs very audibly, and instantly, the lazily descending smoke stopped its aimless movement, instead changing direction and collectively moving towards the vacuum that was Aeshma¡¯s mouth and disappearing inside.

    This continued on for about 50 seconds before it came to a stop and all the smoke had disappeared completely.

    As Aeshma settled back down once more, his entire body glowing a little as if he had just received some magical nourishment, Gaia couldn¡¯t help but think that he had indeed become incredibly daunting. She¡¯d be very, very worried if she didn¡¯t have the ability to control him. She couldn¡¯t even give herself a guarantee that she could kill him even if she was forced to do so, and that was even with the special techniques that she knew of.

    Thankfully, she had the Limitless Soul Brand and his life was now hers to dictate. If she wanted him dead, it would take nothing more than a single thought.

    Hopefully, that would never happen and her desire to restore Aeshma¡¯s mind would come to fruition.

    ¡°Excellent, excellent~¡± came the voice of the golden eyed abnormality. Gaia turned to face him and saw him rubbing his hands together like a devious businessman.

    ¡°Now that that¡¯s over with, it¡¯s time to get to the main topic of my visit. Care to chat with me?¡±

 Ch.212 All For Naught

    Gaia felt a little apprehensive. What were the chances that right after using an unparalleled technique that the whole universe would drool for, a being like Eridel would appear right before her.

    It was suspicious. Way too suspicious.

    But what could she do? The power of a goddess was something granted to her by him, and she even had suspicions that the Primordial Essence that she used to become a Creation Dragon rather than a Destruction Dragon all those years ago was also something granted by him. After all, other than him, she hadn¡¯t so much as seen another Immortal, talk less of a being that could generate Primordial Essence.

    But even if both of those things were false, the fact that Eridel was much stronger than her still remained. She could practically feel the strength hidden beneath his skin like waves of radiation beating across her scales. It was horrifying.

    If Eridel really knew about her Limitless Soul Brand and came here to obtain the technique manual, she¡­ could not resist. It was very likely that her own life would be held hostage, and it would perish if she refused him, and considering the fact that she no longer had the means to undergo another reincarnation with intact memories, she would really have to cough up the technique just to preserve her life.

    But what was to say that he wouldn¡¯t kill her anyway? Who could bare the existence of another being with a Limitless Soul technique when you could easily kill them and become the sole owner.

    Gaia¡¯s blood cooled as she thought of these things, but she didn¡¯t lose her mind. She had been in many dangerous situations throughout the long duration of her previous life and would not crumble until she exhausted all of her options.

    No, even then she would not crumble. Even if she had nothing left to give, she would never allow her mind to collapse. That was the dignity of an Immortal.

    She began to concoct a plan. At this point, it was pretty much certain that Eridel was here for the technique. The coincidence was too big for that not to be so. She would definitely have to teach him the technique to prevent a bad outcome. But how would she preserve her life in the event that he decided to off her? Could she poison the technique- no. Too many chances of failure, not to mention he might even kill her before he later learnt that the technique had been sabotaged and needed her for the cure. Could she somehow pretend that the forces in Sigothia knew of her existence here and would retaliate if she were killed? Likely but not foolproof. Moreover, he had already expressed his disdain for this entire galaxy, talk less of a single Law World in its worst region. So how about a contract? Could she force one? The value of a Limitless Soul technique did not need to be expressed. Surely he would be willing to accept a contract that prevented him from harming her if she willingly gave the full technique without hiding or altering parts of it? He wouldn¡¯t gain anything if he killed her just for refusing so it was very likely. But¡­ but what if he could just read her mind and search for the technique without her consent? How would- wait! Earlier he had said ¡®Care for a chat?¡¯ If he had the kind of ability to search minds or souls, would he need to care about conversation? The allure of a Limitless Soul technique would surely make that unlikely. Also, in regards to him making her a goddess, she would be a fool if she believed that it was solely to obtain her knowledge on this galaxy. He also mentioned back then that he wanted her to be a ¡®partner¡¯ of his. Most likely a subordinate. He definitely had plans for her. So would he be willing to kill her when he could accept a harmless contract? Likely, very likely.

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    Although the thought of him using the method of ¡®fattening a sheep only to consume it later¡¯ was something she had thought about many times before, perhaps she could still include a clause in the contract to prevent him from killing her, then she would be safe from both threa- Ah! But what if he felt pressured and knew he couldn¡¯t agree for the sake of his ¡®future plans¡¯, causing him to¡­¡­¡­¡­..

    Gaia¡¯s brain burnt through energy as it forced itself to come up with a method to ensure survival.

    She didn¡¯t know it, but at that moment, her eyes began to visibly glow a little brighter. A result brought by her Will Flame (at the centre of her mindscape) burning more vigorously than normal.

    However, seeing as she hadn¡¯t responded to Eridel¡¯s question, he decided to speak up once more, but not without a devious glint in his eyes that Gaia caught when his voice snatched her attention, making her even more wary.

    ¡°Dear goddess Gaia, your silence pains me so. But no matter! I¡¯m sure you have a lot on your mind after such harrowing events. Poor, poor Aeshma~¡± He said with mock sympathy on his face.

    ¡°Alas!¡± He clapped his hands together. ¡°Time waits for no one. So with that being said, I would like you to¡­ help me out with something.¡± A slow grind spread across his face.

    ¡°You see, It¡¯s come to my attention that¡­¡± He took a pause again, his eyes twinkling as he delighted in her discomfort.

    ¡®This bastard.¡¯ Gain inwardly growled. ¡®Just say it and get it over with.¡¯

    ¡°That you¡­ are the PERFECT person to deal with a problem I¡¯ve been hoping to get rid of! Would you like to hear about it?¡±

    ¡®What?¡¯ Gaia blinked at the unexpected words.

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± She spoke out loud, her voice as steady as always as if her mind wasn¡¯t in turmoil.

    ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard about them. Those unruly punks. The 7 Deadly Sins.¡±

    If Gaia had eyebrows to raise right now, they would be raised quite high. ¡®What the heck is going on?¡¯

    ¡°They¡¯ve been causing quite a few problems for me and I want them all gone. I¡¯m sure you feel the same after the terrible peril that befell Aeshma so how about it? Are you willing to listen?¡±

 Ch.213 A Method For The Sins

    Gaia was stunned.

    This entire time, she had been so sure that Eridel was after her technique and had been furiously scheming for the best way out, but this was what he wanted to talk about? Now of all times?

    Was this a joke? Was he stalling for fun, knowing that he could obtain the technique at any time, or did he really have no desire to obtain the Limitless Soul Brand? There was no way he didn¡¯t know about it; the timing of his arrival was still too coincidental. Even if he wasn¡¯t aware that it was a Limitless Grade Technique there was no way he couldn¡¯t tell how special it was.

    But instead of trying to obtain it, he wanted to talk about the Sins?

    Something was clearly wrong, but what could she do? There was no way she would dare to mention the technique first. Instead, it was best to fully engage in this unexpected turn of events.

    ¡°...I¡¯m listening.¡± She spoke out, answering his question.

    ¡°Good, good, good. It would have been very saddening if you weren¡¯t.¡± He said dramatically.

    Gaia just stared at him. She was not in the mood to entertain his theatrics at all. Thankfully, all he did was sigh before continuing.

    ¡°Now I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware of the Sins and the great evil that they represent, but I think that you have greatly underestimated their innate might and growth rate. Otherwise you¡¯d be running across the world with the golden birdy below, looking for all the help you can get.¡±

    Gaia¡¯s heart rate picked up. ¡°Are the 3 Sins seriously so strong that the entire World needs to unite to defeat them?¡±

    That was quite the preposterous thought. Especially since magic had only been introduced to this World a little over a century ago. How could such a world-class threat already exist?

    ¡°Well, Gluttony and Wrath need their time. But Envy? Yes. If not dealt with swiftly, the entire world really would have to unite just to survive.¡±

    ¡°Then-¡±

    ¡°But since you and everyone else are incapable of stopping him at the moment, it would be wise to start looking for help in the other continents. Time waits for no one after all.¡± He repeated with a broad smile on his face, as if he wasn¡¯t talking about the possible end of this World.

    Gaia was silent for a while before she spoke again. ¡°Why is this World so strange?¡±

    Eridel kept smiling.

    Whatever, she wasn¡¯t expecting an answer anyway. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re not here just to talk. What method do you have that can deal with the Sins?¡±

    She didn¡¯t bother to ask him why he couldn¡¯t deal with the Sins himself. She¡¯d witnessed too many scenarios that prevented people who were overly strong, like gods, from interfering in worldly affairs. Besides, even if he could intervene, she really doubted that he¡¯d tell her the honest truth. It was really quite tedious.

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    ¡°I thought you would never ask~, now listen closely¡­¡­.¡±

    5 minutes later, Eridel had left¡­ And not once had he mentioned the Soul Brand technique.

    ¡­

    [Skies of Eridius]

    Currently, Eridel was cruising through the skies on his way to his next destination using his favourite form of transport; a soft and fluffy cloud. He was laying on his side with his head resting on his hand, and using the other hand, he tossed a strawberry into his mouth and began to chew.

    It wasn¡¯t the first time he had eaten since the creation of this avatar but it was still something he did very rarely, mostly because he didn¡¯t need to. But every time that he did so he found it quite enjoyable.

    Unfortunately, this time, his mind was occupied with other thoughts, with the abnormal technique that Gaia had used being at the forefront.

    Of course he had noticed it.

    Although he didn¡¯t know the depths of its secrets, he could tell that it was a very special Soul branding technique. The memories that he had inherited from the golden orb possessed very few techniques but all of them were galaxy-shaking. The Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique for example was one of them. Actually, the EBB technique that he had passed onto the Beast as an innate skill had been incredibly weakened. There were many limits in that technique that the true technique did not have, and it was because he had many supreme techniques like this (provided to him by the golden orb), that he had been able to come to his own understanding of the various laws which inevitably helped him create all kinds of miraculous things, like the Monster race. Of course, the fact that he was an actual planet and had affinity with all Laws also helped but that was besides the point.

    The point was that even with all of this knowledge and innate mental talent, he¡­ could not comprehend the runes on the Soul brand that Gaia had used.

    Eridel had a wealth of knowledge that could make countless Immortals like her lose control of themselves. But out of nowhere she had suddenly produced something like that? And with such relative ease too?

    How could it possibly not attract his attention?

    So without hesitation, he decided to speed up his plans in regards to the 7 Deadly Sins. All so that he could converse with Gaia and see how she reacted to his presence. It wasn¡¯t enough to watch with just his planetary vision, since he couldn¡¯t, or rather wouldn¡¯t, communicate with her that way. And no amount of looking would allow him to learn about the technique, so he had decided to conduct a test.

    Her reaction to his appearance had been quite telling.

    She already knew that he was far above her scope, which should mean that there was a chance that he knew of her technique or perhaps had better ones. But her reaction proved that she DEFINITELY knew that he didn¡¯t have a technique like that (or possibly had them in very sparse amounts), and that it was likely that he would do anything to obtain it.

    The first time he had met her, he had appeared with the persona of someone who considered a galaxy like this a bathroom. A complete waste, so to speak. Which implied that his background was very, very high. And yet, she still believed without any hesitation, that he would harm her or ever worse, just for the technique¡­?

    This meant 2 things. 1, that the grade of this technique was at the pinnacle, whatever the pinnacle was. And 2, that she knew that very, very well.

    Interesting.

    In the end, he hadn¡¯t spoken about it, opting to be nonchalant for the sake of relations. But he would be watching the interactions between her and Aeshma very closely. He might not have access to Gaia¡¯s Soul but he did have access to Aeshma¡¯s. If he saw something that he decided he needed, then he would¡­

    Well, it was pretty obvious.

 Ch.214 Central Continent Grand Meeting

    [Central Continent, Holy Land of Snakes]

    (2 weeks later)

    The Holy Land of Snakes was famed for various reasons, some being its geographical location (the centre of the Central Continent), the unnatural size and lusciousness of its organic resources and the fact that it was an actual Sacred Land, filled with bountiful resources and leaden with magical energy. But these facts actually paled in comparison to the knowledge that this land was home to the most powerful entity on the Continent, J?rma the Devourer, along with the rest of her Snake brethren.

    And as the name suggested, normally, only Snakes could be found on this land, with the exception of Human slaves that most powerful Beast factions owned, and on occasion, the Divine Dragons which could be considered their distant cousins.

    But today, for the first time in history, a grand meeting was taking place within this land with all the most powerful races on the continent invited.

    Giant snakes, blazing birds, winged dragons and serpentine dragons, icy furred deer, long-eared elves, large-eared Celestial Elephant Beastkin, golden monkeys and more. These amazing creatures were blazing with their natural auras and created a heart-palpitating sight that would shock anyone.

    But despite that, they were not the main attraction. That achievement went to the humongous figures of the Celestial Beasts, Apis the Elephant and Jungo the Monkey King, along with J?rma, whose massive size wasn¡¯t much inferior.

    It had come as a shock to the entire Continent when it was revealed that J?rma wasn¡¯t actually a Celestial Beast, instead being an Enlightened Beast who had only reached that size thanks to her prodigious bloodline, especially since that meant that she had an Enlightened Form, something that no one had ever seen. That would also make her like Gaia, the dragon goddess, since no one had ever seen her Enlightened Form either.

    But on the topic of Enlightened Forms, although almost every being here was in the 4th Realm and almost all Beasts, nobody was using their Enlightened Form. Some would think that it would be a good idea to use them since it would work as a flex, proving to everyone what Realm they were in, but nobody was willing to do that here.

    Everybody here had gone through the fires of war many times, causing them to become wary and cautious. So to come to a place like this and not be in their most optimal state for battle in case anything went wrong was simply foolish.

    In any case, this allowed the dignity and might of their true forms to be seen, and some of them weren¡¯t much less eye-catching than the 3 humongous beasts.

    Raiko the Beast Emperor of the East, a continent-renowned figure known for his impressive might and dazzling looks. His impossibly golden fur and pure white underbelly, distinct from any other tiger and daunting height of 100m tall, which was comparable to the Crystal Dragon King despite the vast difference in the innate size of their species (no doubt thanks to his great achievement in Anatomy Refinement), made him a sight nobody could ignore.

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    Dodo the Guardian of the Dawn Forest and Progenitor of the Glacial Saint Deer Clan, an impressive sight with luminous white fur and icy antlers and hooves that perpetually let out a cool mist. Although he was smaller than Raiko, he was no less dazzling and certainly not weaker.

    Gaia could naturally not be ignored with her brilliant scales of gold, height of 130+ metres and divine aura, the Crystal Dragon King was also a sight, Drako the Divine Dragon King, Lily the enchanting white snake, Hiculu the 4-headed poisonous snake, the 9 Flame Queen and the 2 rulers of the Phoenix race, even the Elven Queen with her prominent beauty and unique colours, especially considering she was wearing clothes, a novelty that most of those outside of the Dawn Forest were unaware of. The fact that she was so much smaller than the other hegemons meant almost nothing, all of them were startling sights to behold.

    But of course, not everyone here was a friend.

    For starters, the tensions between the 2 kinds of Dragons were almost a tangible thing. Gaia was naturally indifferent, but the 2 respective Kings were glaring at each other as if they would strike out at any moment. Too much blood had been shed between them and reconciliation seemed impossible, and If it weren¡¯t for the fact that they were surrounded by many other predators, some who were more powerful than they, then they definitely would have fought as soon as they laid eyes on each other, grand continental meeting be damned.

    There also seemed to be some tension between the Elves and the Golden Monkeys from the North, but nobody there was surprised. Something happened a few years ago which resulted in a feud of sorts and ever since then, news that a Golden Monkey had killed an important Elf or an Elf had killed an important Golden Monkey could be heard from time to time. Not that they knew why.

    But going by the leering gazes and obscene wagging tongues from the Monkeys, as well as the frosty resentful looks from the Elves, it wasn¡¯t that hard to take a guess or 2.

    There were other pseudo confrontations taking place in the gathering as everyone waited for the last few groups to arrive, but for the most part, there was no confrontation as heated as the between the 2 species of Dragons.

    But it wasn¡¯t all bad. Some groups were merry with each other, especially those that came from the same region (of course, that¡¯s if they were allies and not contesting for resources in said region), and there were even specific individuals that seemed to be exceptionally popular.

    Raiko the Beast Emperor for example, appeared to attract more conversations and smiles from people than even Gaia. Sure, a big part of that was because the latter was extremely aloof and didn¡¯t mingle much outside the True Dragon race, in contrast to the former who had journeyed far and wide, making allies and enemies all over the place- but it was still a great feat.

    The Elf Queen was another person who was exceptionally popular in the gathering. She was passionately conversing with others who seemed to be absorbed by what she was saying and didn¡¯t look at all bothered by the gazes from the Golden Monkeys.

    ¡°Queen Titania¡± came a feminine voice from above. The alluring and mesmerising yet deep voice immediately caused most of the other conversations to cease.

    Titania looked up and caught the gaze of J?rma, all 3 crimson eyes trained on her own. She was a little intimidated but didn¡¯t let it show on her face, keeping up her ¡®soulful¡¯ smile. But what the giant Snake said next caused her lips to involuntarily twitch.

 Ch.215 Nobody is Worthy

    ¡°I too am interested in these¡­ clothes. You really intend to start selling them?¡±

    ¡®She¡¯s interested? Huh? Why?¡¯ Titania thought in bewilderment.

    It wasn¡¯t secret knowledge that J?rma never used her Enlightened Form. The Enlightened Form provided many benefits for Beasts but the most important one of them all was the ability to absorb Magical Energy from the air for their own use.

    This could only be done in the Enlightened Form and wouldn¡¯t work if a Beast transformed back into their true form, so normally, by J?rma completely ignoring her Enlightened Form, what she was doing should be crippling her advancement speed, utter stupidity.

    But how could J?rma, the publicly known strongest creature on the Continent, be stupid when it came to cultivation? Rubbish!

    In actuality, because of her Sky Devouring bloodline, whether she was in her Enlightened Form or not, she would be able to swallow ambient Magical Energy like she was inhaling air, an ability that caused every Beast to go green with envy. But there was a limit to this ability, and that limit was essentially the size of her mouth and throat. See where this is going?

    J?rma in her natural form had a very, very big mouth. But her Enlightened Form would be restricted to the size of a regular human¡¯s, and contrary to popular belief, Snake¡¯s do not and can not unhinge their jaws to open their mouths wider, so she wouldn¡¯t even have that as a ¡®species benefit¡¯ (species benefit being something like flexible bones for a Snake or wings on the back for Birds), so naturally, she wouldn¡¯t be able to swallow as much Magical Energy.

    If she were to use her Enlightened Form to cultivate like others, she would actually be slowing down her cultivation speed. It made perfect sense that nobody had seen her Enlightened Form. So with all that being said, why oh why would she ever be interested in clothes?

    They would never be able to fit her large body, impossible. The clothes her people made were made for the usage of normal sized Enlightened races (Humans, Elves, etc). Putting in more effort for the Elephant Beastkin who¡¯s adults were 3.6 metres tall on average was definitely doable, but J?rma? A colossal sized Snake? Ha!

    Titania briefly saw the image of a huge black Snake wrapped in cloth and her lips twitched. No way! She definitely wanted clothes for her Enlightened Form, but why? Wait, maybe it was for someone else?

    Either way, she had to speak before things became awkward. But she wasn¡¯t embarrassed by the fact that she had been stunned, others were definitely thinking the same things as her.

    ¡°It is true, Queen J?rma. Do you¡­ wish to use them yourself?¡± She asked. A question that was on everyone¡¯s minds.

    ¡°And what if I do?¡± J?rma replied with a peculiar light in her eyes.

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    ¡°No problem, no problem at all! It¡¯s just, as you can probably guess, we can only shape clothes for the Enlightened. Do you want the clothes for someone else, or¡­?¡± She was probably being a little too nosy but she really wanted to know.

    ¡°Hmph.¡± J?rma harrumphed in apparent dissatisfaction. ¡°You Elves really like to dance around subjects. Just be honest, you want to know if I have use for an Enlightened Form, right?¡±

    Titania gave a slow nod.

    With the introduction of certain politics in the Elven Kingdom, it was natural that those who intended to utilise it or hide from it became more ¡®imaginative¡¯ with their words. She wasn¡¯t ashamed of the way she spoke at all as it had provided her many benefits in conversations with other rulers, but she was a little peeved at the open disrespect.

    However, what could she do? It was rare for the way she spoke to be identified, much less called out, but it wasn¡¯t the first time and it wouldn¡¯t be the last. Such a thing could only be expected from J?rma the Devourer, the strongest entity on the Continent. The pathway to power was filled with knowledge and the Devourer had definitely travelled it the furthest.

    Well, at least that was what she thought until she saw the 9 Flame Queen. When she had arrived, she hadn¡¯t made an attempt to hide her aura at all and instead flared it for all to see, and it was definitely not inferior to that of J?rma¡¯s, which was quite the shock, even if she had been informed beforehand. She quickly glanced at the flaming bird before returning her attention to the giant snake, where she caught her rolling her large eyes.

    ¡°How could it be possible for me to never use my Enlightened Form? I refuse to believe that it¡¯s completely useless to me. Sooner or later I will need it and when that happens I would like clothes to cover my nakedness. Nobody is worthy of mating with me and thus, nobody is worthy of the sight of my reproductive organs.¡±

    Complete silence spread across the gathering as all conversations ceased.

    ¡®Nobody is worthy.¡¯ The statement resounded through their heads like a mighty slap. What arrogance! Nobody is worthy of seeing your body? Of all the males on the Continent, nobody was worthy?!

    Of course, they understood the sentiment. By now, greater importance had been placed on the various erogenous zones of a biological body, and it had recently become disrespectful for a stranger to stare at them for extended periods of time without permission. At the very least, you were expected to give a compliment if you took the liberty. But sometimes, no matter how nicely you did it, if you were weaker you could be killed for it. This was especially prevalent in the Dragon race, particularly when looking at their females.

    Nobody knew why their attitude towards relationships were so different and why their 2 different genders seemed to have such a predictable mentality, with 1 being mostly dominant and the other submissive, but that¡¯s just how it was.

    But to bring things back full circle, they understood the sentiment of a powerful person like J?rma wanting to cover up her naked body. Most of them agreed that it was a tad bit inappropriate that the reproductive organs of a ruler can be so easily¡­ gazed upon and fantasised¡­ but to go ahead and say that NOBODY was worthy of mating with you? In front of so many great Kings and Emperors that lorded over entire races?

    How could they NOT feel the phantom slap?! But what¡¯s worse was that there was nothing that they could do about it! They were really all weaker! Even the only other person in the vicinity who was on par with J?rma¡¯s might was also a female, so they couldn¡¯t even say something like ¡®What about so and so?¡¯ to get at least a little get back. Not to mention that this meant that the 2, no 3 strongest people they knew of were now all female.

    J?rma, 9 Flame Queen, and of course, the Dragon goddess, Gaia.

    What kind of joke was this? Where were the male gods? Where were the male supremes?

 Ch.216 Musical Smoke

    Titania and a few of the other females in the gathering found themselves nodding. What J?rma said made sense. Almost everyone here was in the 4th Realm, with some even being rulers of entire races or even groups of races, so naturally, they were all proud.

    Although they wouldn¡¯t dare to go as far as to say ¡®nobody was worthy of mating with me¡¯, the people who were worthy were so few in number that they could be considered less than 5% of the Continent¡¯s population.

    When they were young, they had been pleased by the lustful attentions, finding the fact that they were desirable prospects for mating a wonderful feeling, but once again, they were all the most powerful figures in the continent, and that meant that most of them were 1st generation lifeforms, creatures that were even older than Magical Energy itself, which made them 172 Years old (Not counting the 1st generation Elves that spawn every month). In other words, they were old and had become immune to such juvenile pleasures.

    Nowadays, they were becoming increasingly discontent with the lustful eyes of lower lifeforms who could only stare and wish but do nothing. It was a little frustrating.

    But it wasn¡¯t so bad.

    In fact, most of them hung around their peers most of the time (for example, Supreme Dragons hanging out with other Supreme Dragons and Elf Grand Elders hanging out with other Grand Elders) and they didn¡¯t mind the occasional lustful attention from them at all, sometimes quite the opposite. After all, everybody wanted a mate eventually.

    On top of that, some of them would go into seclusion for long periods of time, and after all that time, almost any attention would be welcome after that.

    So it wasn¡¯t until J?rma had said such a shocking thing that resonated with their hearts that they even realised that they were having a problem, no matter how insignificant of a problem it was.

    Titania saw the change in faces of some of the people in the vicinity and felt a surge of joy. How could she possibly not? The more people interested in the idea of covering their reproductive organs, the more traction her clothing business would obtain!

    As for where the idea of a clothing business had come from, naturally, she had obtained it from Ciera¡¯s inheritance. When Ciera had gifted her with knowledge, clothes and business had been included in the memories - not necessarily together, but with the implementation of businesses in the Elven Kingdom, it didn¡¯t take long for the most valuable resources in the Kingdom to be sold via various businesses, with clothing being one of them.

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    Nevertheless, only a few of the Elven Kingdom¡¯s businesses had managed to stretch out of the Kingdom itself, dealing with other factions and raking in more resources. But the extent of that was merely the other neighbouring factions within the Dawn Forest and nothing outside. This did not mean she was not capable if she put in her best effort to expand the various businesses, but the return on interest was too low, especially in this dangerous World.

    Every ruler was competing with each other, overtly or not, and their entire race relied on their rulers to be as powerful as possible. So if she had actually made the decision to focus on business rather than cultivation, causing her cultivation to fall behind her peers, such a thing could put the whole Kingdom in jeopardy, and then what would be the point of all those businesses? They would only be devoured by somebody else! Ridiculous!

    But with what was going on now¡­ Titania saw an opportunity to make at least one of her businesses become continental! At a swift pace at that! If she could actually make the clothing business become continent-wide within 5 years, even 10 years, then the resources she would rake in from the entire Continent would make the time spent away from cultivating worth it by many folds! What a beautiful dream!

    All she would have to be worried about was having her life or that of her people be targeted because of the allure that a system that took from the entire continent would have, but she wasn¡¯t too worried. She had honed her charm for many years and knew how to de-escalate violent confrontations with many methods, but even if the only option left was to fight, not only was she very powerful by herself, but she¡¯d have the entire Dawn Forest alliance to back her up! She understood that if it came to that, they¡¯d probably want a cut of the business, but she could afford that. She might even get lucky and they wouldn¡¯t even think that the profit of an entire business could be divided, they were very likely to just ask for a big sum up front and leave her alone after that. What joy!

    The only variable in that situation would be Dragon King Drako, since his loyalty to his sister was greater than his loyalty to the alliance, but that could be worked out.

    ¡®This is wonderful!¡¯

    Thinking about the benefits that could come from this meeting, Titania¡¯s all-white eyes began to shine as her emotions temporarily slipped out of her control.

    But before she could say anything to provoke more people into feeling upset by their nakedness, the sound of buzzing could be heard in the distance. Her glowing eyes abruptly dimmed and her raised brows dropped. She didn¡¯t need to turn around to know what exactly had arrived behind her but she did anyway, but what she saw made her frown even further.

    ¡®They increase in number too quickly¡­¡¯

    A few thousand metres away, the sight of a white sparkling smoke could be seen encroaching the land towards them like a tidal wave, making a strangely melodious buzzing sound that got louder the closer it came.

    Soon, it got close enough that those who had never seen ¡®them¡¯ before could finally make out their true identity¡­ and they all felt shocked. For what they saw was a far cry from the odd musical smoke that they had perceived from a distance.

    Not even close.

 Ch.217 A Worrying New Species

    What appeared to be a dense smoke was actually a mass collection of many, many bodies. The bodies were streamlined and divided into 3 indistinct sections, and they had a total of 6 very thin legs that looked woefully impractical. Could they even walk? It certainly didn¡¯t look like it, especially since they all contained a pair of thin wings on their backs that they were using to fly.

    Those too, for that matter, looked completely ineffective, but they were flapping at an insane rate and they were clearly doing their job. The creatures flew through the air at a respectable speed and were rapidly approaching the gathering.

    On another note, each one could be considered small for a Beast (they were certainly not an Enlightened race with such an appearance), with only a few at the front having an imposing height of 40 metres or so. But compared to a lot of the Beasts here, even that 40 metre height was below average- which was strange since their collective aura was absolutely nothing to scoff about.

    More than a few high stage Realm 3 entities could be sensed in that group and there were even a short few at the 4th Realm. That had to be the creatures that were 40 metres tall because who else would it be, nothing else in the group was bigger. But still, why were they so small?

    The abnormality didn¡¯t end there either. Their bodies were very strange, looking like they had been made from a material similar to the Dragon King¡¯s crystals, which was strange since most Beasts were furred or scaled. They were mainly white in colour but had silver stripes laced across their entire bodies with only their legs and what was presumed to be their head being without. And they had 2 giant, weird looking eyes that were completely silver in colour, and a strange, very strange (but dangerous looking) mouth- that looked like the pincer of a crab, only much smaller and perfectly symmetrical. Another thing to add was that their entire bodies were glowing. They were all glowing like they had been directly imbued with moonlight.

    But ignoring the glow, those mouths¡­ They were definitely mandibles. And those creatures had to be insects, it was impossible not to notice at this point.

    As the insects flew closer, it became apparent that they were some sort of Bee. No, not a Bee, the Bees they knew of were more furry and rotund. These had to be the closely related Wasps.

    Those who were out of the loop couldn¡¯t fathom what they were seeing at all.

    They had of course seen Wasps and other insects before, but never had they seen a group of them with this kind of size, colour or amount of members (there had to be hundreds of thousands of them), and they certainly had not seen any kind of insect with strength that surpassed the 2nd Realm, talk less of the 4th Realm. The strangely enchanting sound they were making was also completely abnormal and the aura they were emitting was considerably daunting.

    What kind of Wasps were these and where on Eridius had they come from?!

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    Unlike them, the people who were in the know (which was most people) like Titania and J?rma, weren¡¯t surprised by their appearance at all. Obviously. But they definitely wore grim faces. After all¡­ the last time they had seen these strange creatures, their numbers were much fewer and there was not a single one of them in the 4th Realm.

    That was 7 years ago (Year 165), but look at them now.

    It was honestly terrifying to think about. They had just appeared out of nowhere, and when interrogated about their origins, they would only reply that they were blessed by the Moon.

    This led to some thinking that there was some kind of Moon god or goddess who was handing out blessings, causing some to actually start praying to it, thinking that their race were more worthy of its blessing and hoping to seek its ¡®divine favour¡¯, but so far, there had been no response to these prayers, and on top of the fact that the Wasps never claimed the existence of a god, the ¡®hype¡¯ for it had eventually died down.

    The Wasps simply called themselves [Moonlit Wasps] and generally didn¡¯t interact with other races. On top of that, despite their hyper uniqueness, their Quality of Being was still quite low, only reaching the level of a Ferret or a Vulture, meaning that on their own they were quite weak.

    But they were NEVER alone, and the unreal group mentality that they possessed along with the speed at which their cultivation progressed made them an incredible force that nobody with a functioning brain could ignore.

    Dodo looked at these insects with a difficult expression. As a Herbivore but most importantly a Guardian who advocated for peace, he admired the way these insects lived. They never caused unprovoked trouble, they kept to themselves, and they liked to create music like the Elves, something that he had also taken an interest in. They were great.

    But there was one tincy-maybe-worrisome-okay-maybe-extremely-bad problem. And that was that these Wasps were not herbivores; they were omnivores. And not only did they have a penchant for meat, but they also had a severe eating problem.

    The Moonlit Wasps had established a territory for themselves somewhere between the Centre and the North of the Continent, a decent location where many powerful Beasts had once resided. Keyword there being ¡®once¡¯.

    Without suspense, they had all been killed and devoured, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and peculiar intelligence of the Wasps. Could you imagine that sometimes they would employ their entire nest to kill a single creature if need be? They were that crazy.

    Eventually, without a supreme overlord to contend with, they had inevitably claimed dominance of their geographical location. They killed and ate and then killed and ate some more, only taking breaks to play songs and praise the Moon.

    Nobody knew why they hunted for so much food, especially since their actual capacity to eat wasn¡¯t that high. But the most popular guess¡­ was that it had something to do with their insane birth rate.

    Whatever the case, since they continued to expand their territory in accordance with their need for food, and showed no signs of slowing down, the day that they affected all the Supreme Lords in this meeting would soon come to pass.

    It wasn¡¯t a surprise that some harboured the thought of destroying them before such a thing could ever happen.

 Ch.218 All For One

    ¡®Insects?¡¯ 9 Flame Queen gazed at the incoming swarm with slightly shaking eyes. Since when did insects become so capable? Or was it that the insects in her Continent were trash and these ones were normal? But that probably wasn¡¯t likely. The weakness of insects was mainly a body issue rather than an environmental one; the size and density of their bodies was too lacking.

    This led to a bunch of problems, one of them being that they didn¡¯t even have enough room in their genetic makeup to have an affinity for any particular element. But the most pressing one of them all was the fact that their bodies were too weak to handle great amounts of Mana, talk less of raw Magic Energy. Hence, their path in cultivation was forever doomed to be short.

    Or so she had thought.

    Thinking back on it, she had always admired the single-minded unity that a few insects like the ants and wasps had when they pursued their goals. It was a little terrifying actually. Often enough times, she would see them performing feats far, far greater than what their individual bodies were capable of performing, just by chucking whatever amount of bodies that their task needed to be complete.

    There was a time that she had witnessed the corpse of a large eagle submerged in a sea of ants. She didn¡¯t know how it died, or why there were so many ants in one location¡­ but she had always had the harrowing thought that maybe, just maybe, those ants were the ones to do it.

    The ones to actually kill that eagle.

    This World was bountiful in resources, that was certainly so, but nobody would leave the carcass of an Eagle for ants to enjoy. For a Beast, the corpse of any lifeform was a source of strength and a source of strength was not something that could be ignored.

    But perhaps one of those pitiful herbivores did it. A few of them were strong enough. Maybe the Eagle had been overly bold and paid the price.

    But just maybe¡­

    If that really happened, if just regular ants were capable of killing an Eagle¡­ what could a colony that contained 4th Realm members be able to accomplish? What great feats would they be able to perform if they threw their ENTIRE colony onto a single task¡­ or a single enemy.

    Her powerful mind quickly conjured up scenarios of such a thing and goosebumps spread across her skin.

    How terrifying¡­

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    Chad and Aliana were having similar thoughts and their faces became grim like everyone else''s. Never had they ever seen insects like this before and it was a worrying prospect.

    The gathering fell into complete silence as they awaited the Moonlit Wasps with solemn demeanours. But as one could imagine, that silence soon broke apart as the Wasps came close enough for their music to fill the valley.

    Without asking, they found a space for themselves and soon settled down one by one. But where most of the other factions placed their least important members at the back and left their more powerful members at the front, these wasps settled into a circular formation that had their most powerful members safe in the centre and their less important members on the outskirts where they were the most vulnerable.

    But nobody who knew about their behaviour was surprised. Most insects were like this. They may have obtained greater intelligence and comprehensive emotions along with their expanding brains and cultivation, but they had not changed that aspect about themselves at all.

    Other races like the Glacial Saint Deers had more of a ¡®one for all¡¯ belief and relied on their powerful members to protect the rest, but these insects were clearly of the ¡®all for one¡¯ category and valued only their important members, doing all that they could to protect them even if it cost many of their own lives.

    And yet still, they had never seen a race more unified. There were no rebellions, there were no disagreements, and there was not a single one of them who wouldn¡¯t sacrifice their life for whatever benefit. It was strange enough to call it a phenomenon; a miracle of sorts.

    Gaia looked at the swarm of wasps with impassive eyes. She had seen and heard about powerful insects and other similar things, the worst among them being the Insecta Abyssi; terrifying creatures that had emerged from the Abyss with crazy powers and psychotic ambitions that inevitably led them to conquering Planets and even Worlds. Thankfully, such creatures had never looked the Lolay Galaxy''s way. She had only read about them in ancient texts.

    The point was, she wasn¡¯t afraid of the Moonlit Wasps that were far, far inferior. She could look at them like any other race, so long as they behaved themselves. And when it came to equality, it wasn¡¯t all about equal benefits. Equality also meant holding everyone to the same standard.

    ¡°Queen of the Moonlit!¡± she called out, once more breaking the silence which had returned due to the Wasps no longer moving, putting an end to their music. ¡°I believe you received the same invite as the rest of us. The one stating to only bring your highest upper echelons... So why is it that you have brought your entire hive? What are you trying to do?¡±

    Murmurs erupted as people began to show support to her question. They too wondered why the Moonlit Wasps were being so blatantly audacious.

    The Queen of the Elves had only come with a few Grand Elders, the Progenitor of the Glacial Saint Deers had only come with a few of his Guardians of Peace, Beast Emperor Raiko had only come with his subordinate Beast Kings, she herself had only come with the Crystal Dragon King and the Supreme Dragons, and even J?rma was only here with Lily and Hiculu, only 2 of her 10 or so Juggernauts. And the list went on.

    So it went without saying that nobody was pleased with the actions of the Moonlit Wasps.

 Ch.219 Evil Eyes

    ¡°If one must protect the Queen, ALL must protect the Queen.¡± An avalanche of voices broke out in response.

    A few people in the gathering looked unsettled at that, but Gaia merely narrowed her eyes.

    ¡°Do you know that by blatantly ignoring our rules and disregarding our authority, treating us with disrespect when we have treated you with kindness, that you are putting your Queen in danger?¡±

    *Bzzzzz*

    At once, every wasp began to flap their wings at extreme speeds. Apparently not enough to take off, but enough to create an ominous buzzing sound that filled the gathering with slight dread. Of course, the buzzing was still musical in nature, as seemed to be customary with these Moonlit Wasps, but it was far from the peaceful music that it was before.

    Clearly, they didn¡¯t take threats to their Queen nicely.

    But in response, every other faction began to release their aura¡¯s with unmistakable intent to cause harm. They had been wary of the behaviour of the insects, mainly because it was so abnormal and everything unknown was something to treat with caution, but when Gaia had pointed out that they were being disrespected, they all agreed but kept their silence, happy for Gaia to take control.

    But not only did the Wasps not relent, they actually dared to get angry?

    ¡°Filthy insects, you''re really bold! You want to fight? Come then, let¡¯s fight! LET¡¯S FIGHT TO THE DEATH!¡± Drako roared out as his long body coiled into the sky, he then turned his head back and called out. ¡°Brother Raiko! I¡¯m tired of these creatures, let¡¯s just kill them all!¡±

    The aura around Raiko became noticeably more dangerous as he glared at the Moonlit Wasps, but he didn¡¯t respond and didn¡¯t move either. As much as he wanted to help his sworn brother, he knew that nothing would come of it.

    And as he expected, something large and black flashed through his vision before Drako¡¯s body crashed right back into the ground.

    ¡°Drako¡± J?rma called out, her voice enthralling yet minacious. Nobody would think that the owner of that voice would be an Enlightened; It was too powerful, too daunting, too ¡®other¡¯. Raiko turned to look at her and felt a shiver run down his spine.

    ¡®Those eyes¡­¡¯ He thought with trepidation. All 3 of them were glaring at a Drako and they glowed extremely ominously. He wouldn¡¯t be surprised if his brother turned to stone the very next second.

    ¡°These are my guests. They are being very unruly at the moment but they are MY guests. Don¡¯t you think that you¡¯re also being quite bold by trying to attack them in my presence?¡±

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    Drako looked back at her as if he had already turned to stone. It took a short while for him to respond. ¡°F-forgive me, J?rma.¡± He felt a bit bitter, having to humble himself before so many people¡­ but it was his big sister who had taken care of him on many occasions. And even if that weren¡¯t the case, she was still an entity that possessed more than enough strength to make him submit.

    J?rma continued to glare at him for a few more seconds before she sighed, and looking at that, Raiko had the brief silly thought that she could perhaps kill lesser beings just with that sigh; he even briefly glanced at the weaker Moonlit Wasps, hoping to see a few of them perish on the spot, but of course nothing happened to them. A sigh couldn¡¯t kill people¡­

    J?rma looked at her dispirited brother before she stretched forth her large head and gave him a single lick on his head, in-between his 2 antlers. ¡°Just be mindful, Drako.¡±

    Her eyes looked softer when she retracted her head, and although her eyes still glowed, it was not as bright or scary as before. Clearly that effect had been created by a little bit of Mana.

    But just as a few people were inwardly thinking that J?rma¡¯s relationship with Drako was quite amusing, the eyes returned to- no, the eyes became 10 times freakier than the eyes she had directed at Drako, and they choked up with fear.

    The giant snake swivelled her head towards the Wasps and instantly, a great number of them turned to stone right then and there.

    Many people froze with shock, but the most shocked people of them all were definitely the Birds from the West Continent. Not because of the domineering fatality that left little chance to resist, although that was indeed frightening, but instead because of the startling similarity that the ability had when compared with the ocular power of a particular bird back on their own Continent. Pharaoh, the Golden Roc of Cremation¡­

    Pharaoh and his Golden Roc brethren were abnormal existences that had popped out of nowhere with a QOB (Quality of Being) that rivalled their own. It was extremely astonishing when they had first appeared since there had been little sign of the rising, but when they were first found they already had multiple existences in the 3rd Realm so the suppression that the Phoenixes and Vermillion Birds had jointly placed on them weren¡¯t very effective for long.

    Pharaoh, their alleged progenitor, was naturally the most unique of all the Golden Roc¡¯s, he had something called an Evil Eye and it was the Evil Eye of Cremation. It was a 3rd eye on the middle of his forehead just like J?rma¡¯s 3rd eye, but the difference was that it was pale blue in colour and gave the impression of blazing flames.

    What was scary was that he could use that 3rd eye of his to directly ignite someone with pale-blue coloured flames that were even hotter than Golden Roc fire, Phoenix fire and even Vermillion fire, and they would swiftly turn into ash. No build up was needed, no projectile was launched, he would just look at someone and they would start burning.

    Now he was looking at another being with a 3rd eye, and that person had looked at a group of people who ended up turning into stone. No build up was needed¡­ no projectile was launched¡­ With a single look, they had become statues.

    The effects may be different, but the 3rd eye and method of attack was the exact same. That HAD to be an Evil Eye.

 Ch.220 Let The Meeting Begin

    The effects may be different, but the 3rd eye and method of attack was the exact same. That HAD to be an Evil Eye.

    9 Flame Queen was having similar thoughts and she couldn¡¯t help but feel stiff. All this time she had felt indifferent to J?rma¡¯s cultivation that rivalled her own (4th Realm, 6th Stage) because at the end of the day, she was a Beast/Monster hybrid and that gave her an enormous advantage.

    On top of that, although her Beast heritage was average, her Monster half was nothing to scoff at. She was not only a Demon King but a Demon King of the Elemental race, arguably the most powerful race of Monsters.

    She may have lost dominion over the Elementals but her abilities and raw power had not been taken away at all, instead, they had been empowered when they had been combined with the lava powers that she obtained from her Beast heritage. So it was inevitable that when all of her biological qualifications were calculated together, it resulted in a QOB that became very hard to match.

    But she knew about the powers of an Evil Eye, and just look. No words needed to be said. There were a large row of deader than dead statues and they had been created by a single look.

    She was starting to think that her actions of overlooking this being were incredibly foolish and that she needed to evaluate the strength of her possible ally.

    ¡®What a blunder¡­¡¯ She thought. But truthfully, when was the last time that she had to consider anyone as a rival? The Phoenix race had more control of the West Continent than her own Purgatory Vermillion race, but that was because of the amount of time they had had to occupy the lands in comparison to her race, not to mention that her race was a much newer one. Chad himself was weaker than her and was no rival at all.

    She could only think about the Lord of all Monsters, Asura. The Demon King of the Savage Earthen Ogre Tribe who had¡­.¡­ haah~ She didn¡¯t even like to think about those times.

    The creature known as Envy, who was the progenitor of the Ice Phoenixes before then, was weak when she had first met him, and had only stayed for a few minutes when he became powerful. No other ¡®rival¡¯ had appeared ever since.

    As the 9 Flame Queen thoughts drifted to her past, the Moonlit Wasps who had been stunned into silence by the vicious show of power finally reacted with a burst of anger.

    ¡°¡°¡°SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!¡±¡±¡±

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    Loud chattering sounds could be heard as they kicked up a fuss, their wings beating even faster and some even taking flight. But still, true to their nature, instead of attacking (in vain) which would have no doubt left their Queen unprotected, they squeezed closer to her, trying their best to prevent any harm from coming her way.

    They ended up looking like a giant white and silver ball that convulsed strangely- and they made strange noises all the while. Even then, it could still be considered musical, but compared to the previous harmonious sound of before, the sound they were now creating was chaotic and utterly disorderly. It was like multiple songs were playing at once and it was loud; Very unpleasant to hear.

    But just before J?rma or even Gaia could interfere, a single voice spoke out.

    ¡°Calm down.¡±

    It was spoken softly, but it was still heard above the cacophony of cries as if the words had been spoken by a higher being, which of course meant that it had been amplified by Mana. It was something that anyone could do, but the voice immediately vanquished the chaotic sounds of the Moonlit Wasps and even caused them to settle down as if the previous events had never happened, which wasn¡¯t something that just anyone could do.

    A few people who looked at that were flabbergasted. The way the Wasps were acting, it was as if they would rip out their own wings out of anger at any moment, but within an instant they had suddenly settled down and even started looking around as if they were wondering what everyone was looking at. What was up with these crazy insects?!

    ¡°I apologise for the behaviour of my race and hope we haven¡¯t jeopardised any opportunities. The next time a gathering like this arises, I will try my best to leave the inessential members of my hive behind, or simply not attend in order to prevent grievances. Will you forgive me?¡±

    The same soft-spoken voice was heard again. At this point, although nobody could see her, they knew who she was. There was only one being who could command the entire Moonlit Wasp race and that was the Queen herself.

    And as one could expect of the ruler of the Moonlit Wasps, her voice was very feminine and melodious. But contrary to expectations, although her voice was clear and unwavering, it did not carry the regal quality that most other rulers had.

    But that was meaningless. Titania was even surprised by how well-spoken the Wasp Queen was. She herself had the aid of experience and a few inherited memories concerning the topic that let her speak like it was her profession, but the Wasp Queen did not. How did she learn how to talk like that?

    J?rma didn¡¯t care about any of that and simply gave a nod. ¡°You have been forgiven, but do not let there be a second time.¡± Her eyes returned to normal and she turned her head to look at everyone else.

    ¡°We have already wasted enough time. There are 2 groups that are still not here but I no longer wish to wait for them. It is finally time to get to the reason we are all here. The reason why every powerhouse on the continent has been called here today.¡±

    She then turned her head to Gaia and gave a small bow, a mere tilt of her head. ¡°goddess of the Dragons, over to you.¡±

 Ch.221 The Threat of Envy

    Gaia looked upon most of the various groups to make sure that she had their attention. But of course, that was just a manoeuvre to make herself look more important; after all, she already had her Spirit Sense spread across the entire gathering, it was pointless to move her head when she could already see all.

    Nevertheless, in the game of gathering attention and asserting lofty demeanours, she was scoring points.

    Each of their rulers met her gaze with varying emotions. Some indifferent, some worried, and some excited, but they all were earnest to hear what she had to say. That was all she wanted, so she began to speak.

    ¡°To cut the suspense, I will keep things short and precise. We, no- the entire World, is under dire threat.¡± A few eyes widened at that but she didn¡¯t pause to accommodate their surprise. ¡°There is a disastrous menace growing in the South and its powers are rising so quickly that it would soon reach the point that it would be able to subjugate or simply destroy us all. That threat is known as the Phoenix of Envy, or just Envy.¡±

    ¡°And as some of you can already guess, our guest from another Continent over here is part of the same Phoenix race, in fact he is the progenitor of their race and is as old as magic of this World like some of us here. His name is Chad and he must be treated with respect.¡±

    Everyone turned their gazes to the visitors from the West Continent with either interested or nonchalant eyes and Chad returned their stares with a simple nod. Gaia continued.

    ¡°Envy can be considered as a traitor of his race that went rogue after committing a heinous crime.¡± Gaia knew that the likelihood of the people listening to her knowing what the word ¡®crime¡¯ meant was all too low, but the context of her sentence should assist them in understanding what she meant so she continued.

    ¡°Unluckily for the Phoenix race, Envy received bouts of fortune that allowed him to grow and grow until he was powerful enough to challenge the Phoenix King to a war.¡±

    Actual gasps rang out at that. She wanted to ignore them to save face for the Phoenix King but someone interrupted before she could.

    ¡°goddess you jest! How can a descendant challenge the power of their ancestor?¡± The question was asked by one of the Celestial Elephant Beastkin, something she expected from the little fellows who were obsessed with Apis, but the murmurs of support annoyed her, especially when one of them came from her own side.

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    She turned to the left and looked at the blue scaled female Dragon who had snorted as if she also believed that what she said was a joke, or perhaps she believed what she said and was mocking the Phoenix King. It was the Water Supreme Dragon, Misali, the one who almost died trying to fight Chad and 9 Flame Queen when they had first appeared, despite having the backup of other Supreme Dragons.

    Noticing the gaze of her goddess, her face crumpled into one of guilt and fright, but Gaia didn¡¯t do anything further. Instead she continued speaking.

    ¡°I do not jest. In actuality, I am told that Envy isn¡¯t quite Chad¡¯s descendant, but one of the¡­¡± She briefly considered exposing Chad as an ex-chicken (most weren¡¯t aware) but decided against it. Such a thing would only result in some disdain from a few of the races which she didn¡¯t have time for.

    ¡°...bird¡¯s that he was born with. Chad later became a Phoenix, and the crime that the jealous Envy committed is related to the evil method that he performed to become a Phoenix of a different kind¡­ an Ice Phoenix.¡±

    Some people immediately looked at Aliana, identifying her blue coloured features and cold aura for what it was, but thankfully, nobody said anything.

    ¡°But eventually, his diabolical fortune came to an end and he was caught by the Phoenix King, who chose to torture him in an isolated cave with eternal flames, where he would burn forever. Or so everyone thought¡­

    Like a slap to everyone¡¯s faces, 2 or so years into his punishment, the Ice Phoenix unlocked a terrifying power. A power so great that it allowed him to rival the potential of the strongest gods. This power is called Envy, and it is 1 of the 7 Deadly Sins.¡±

    It went without saying that many eyes began to glow with passion. Power was the most important thing in this World, or at least this era, and everyone wanted to obtain it. What was more enticing than power that rivalled the strongest gods?

    Suddenly, a deep and ancient-sound voice spoke out. It was loud and many covered their ears with irritation. ¡°goddess Gaia, you as the goddess of creation, should be amongst the so-called strongest gods. Does this mean that you can deal with this¡­ Envy?¡± It was Apis, the Celestial Elephant who spoke.

    Gaia sighed in response. ¡°Everybody knows about my past. I, the goddess of creation, created much of what you all see. At my peak, I could erect or dismantle mountain ranges, spawn or evaporate oceans, generate or destroy continents, and could even create life. I created much of your species before Magic was even allowed to prevail in this World. Killing someone like Envy? Done with a single thought. Alas, I was betrayed¡­

    To keep things short, my divinity was rendered and I am now a shadow of what I once was. It will one day return to me, as I am an everlasting god, but that will take time. Time that I do not have if I want to deal with Envy alone. After all, the powers that Envy has allow him to gain power quicker than I do since his influence can spread much faster.

    Do you all remember the day of the Green Horror?¡±

    It took a moment, but eventually, many eyes dawned with realisation, before an expression of, well¡­ horror took place on their faces.

 Ch.222 Multi Continental Lord

    ¡°Do you mean to say that the day of the Green Horror was caused by Envy? How coul- Wait! Wait!!!¡± Lily exclaimed, her voice as seductive as her appearance even in her astonishment. A lot of heads turned her way since it was obvious that she had had an epiphany, but their faces were grim because it was very likely that they were thinking the same thing.

    ¡°I-I remember now. On e-each day of horror, everyone who succumbed to the different colours dreamed about strange things before a mighty figure that covered the sky appeared before them. They said it was like a g-god, and not the¡­¡± She turned towards Gaia. ¡°weakened god that Gaia is¡­¡±

    Gaia didn¡¯t react in any way, allowing Lily to speak with less worry.

    ¡°On the day of the green horror, the creature that appeared was supposedly a turquoise coloured bird covered in green icy flames. Could it be¡­¡±

    Those that hadn¡¯t reached that conclusion for themselves almost yelped with surprise. There were even a few who audibly gasped, drawing a bit of attention their way.

    ¡°That¡¯s right¡± Chad spoke out for the first time, snatching back the attention. ¡°That was him. Envy. And although he is not as big or as strong as what those victims portrayed him to be, he is getting stronger. And apparently¡­¡±

    He took a deep breath. ¡°Apparently, he has begun to conquer entire continents.¡±

    Murmurs abruptly broke out at that. The words ¡°lies!¡±, ¡°nonsense!¡± and anything synonymous could be heard above the rest and it was very clear that they didn¡¯t believe what Chad was claiming, but he didn¡¯t react. He had already foreseen that response.

    He himself had acted similarly when Pharaoh had informed him of what Envy had done.

    ¡°I do not lie.¡± Which was true, but he really hoped that Pharaoh hadn¡¯t been lying either. The amount of humiliation that he would suffer if everything turned out to be a hoax would bury him to death. Quite literally too. The amount of 4th Realm beings he was enlisting for help wasn¡¯t small, and they would kill him if everything turned out to be a lie.

    But he was sure it was the truth. There was evidence to support Pharaoh¡¯s claims, key among them being that not only had many people in his own continent been bespelled by Envy¡¯s evolution, but also people on this continent. Proving that his power or at least his potential, was truly enough to become multi-continental.

    But other than that- and here was why he had made the effort to come all the way to this continent for help- was that:

    ¡°When another ruler on my continent came to me and informed me of the worrying actions of Envy, he had also brought along with him a Duck. It was a Duck that had flown or swam, perhaps both, all the way from another continent, and arrived on my own continent covered in injuries.¡±

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    Nobody cared about a random Duck being injured, especially if it had indeed travelled by sea. The Dwellers of the Sea were no joke and they were becoming an increasingly prevalent problem that prevented those that couldn¡¯t fly from venturing too far from the lands. This meant that the origin of the injuries had less of a chance of being related to the main topic of the conversation and was therefore useless information¡­ But they could see where this was going so they chose to quiet themselves and fasten their attention.

    ¡°Apparently, Envy had arrived on his Continent one day with¡­. Hundreds of thousands of never seen before flying creatures, and that he had begun a battle of conquest for the entire continent that¡­ that¡­¡± Chad trailed off as the absurdity of what he was about to say made even him doubt himself.

    ¡°That didn¡¯t take much longer than 3 months¡­¡± He finished.

    Expectedly, complete silence was met at his statement.

    Gaia had already received all the information from Chad in their first meeting so she wasn¡¯t the slightest bit surprised to hear what he said, but even when she heard it the first time, she wasn¡¯t all that shocked because she knew the potential of a god and knew that if they were uncontested, the could grow very, very quickly. The Deadly Sins seemed to be even greater than average gods, especially when it came to brainwashing and obtaining believers, so she was barely fazed to hear of Envy¡¯s feats, she only worried about how to deal with the Sin when they eventually and inevitably met.

    However, she had the benefit of experience and expansive knowledge that allowed her to remain calm. Something that nobody else in this gathering had.

    Looking at the various incredulous faces in the gathering, some which were becoming twisted with anger, she knew that she had to intervene before things got out of hand.

    ¡°I believe Chad is telling the truth.¡± She spoke out. ¡°The 7 Deadly Sins have the diabolical ability to corrupt the minds of those whose will¡¯s are found lacking. You¡¯ve all seen it yourselves. How many times have one of your followers suddenly changed in attitude, becoming stranger and stranger before a coloured symbol reveals itself on their forehead, changing their eye colours and sometimes even other features, and granting greater power that they couldn¡¯t have displayed before.

    Every single one of these people who succumb are passively generating their root Sin more power, and even though it¡¯s small, with enough of these people a Sin can grow in power incredibly quickly. And although for some reason, the Black and Red Sins are showing growth 100x slower than the Green one, Envy, they are global problems that we will eventually have to deal with.

    But just imagine. Black and Red have been causing a big fuss, no doubt growing in power, but Envy is doing it even better, and has been doing so for many years now. To conquer an entire continent or 2? It isn¡¯t as far-fetched as you think, especially since according to the Duck who reported to Chad, their Continent was much smaller than both of ours.¡±

    As Gaia said all this, she couldn¡¯t help but thank the [Common Language] that came with the System. It was a marvellous feature that allowed her to freely speak with any being with perfect understanding. It made the miracle that was her speaking to these various brand new species the way she was, a possibility.

    But she didn¡¯t have time to think about that right now.

    Now, she now had to discourage the people who were thinking of pledging their allegiance to Envy out of fear or whatever other reason. After talking about him as if he were a god-king this entire time, presenting proof that was even more daunting than anything she had ever displayed, there were definitely people who were scheming troublesome things, and she couldn¡¯t have that at all.

    ¡°Envy is a calamity that the World has never seen before.¡± She began.

 Ch.223 An Ugly Loner

    ¡°He is a vicious carnation of evil that seeks to either destroy or enslave all life, and would stop at nothing to do so. Some of you here may have come into contact with those who have telepathically conversed with him, and perhaps a few of you here have actually spoken to him for yourself. His words are like honey filled with infinite temptation and to accept a deal with him almost always sounds completely worth it¡­ But I assure you, it is all deceit.¡± Gaia said as you looked around the gathering.

    ¡°The main power of Envy is his namesake. He can instil within you envious emotions that will corrupt your mind until you are fully branded with his authority. Yes you would gain impressive powers, and perhaps you would obtain the things that you envied so much, but ultimately, it is at the cost of your entire Soul.

    If Envy ordered you to eat your own children, you would do it with a smile. If Envy ordered you to give him your mates, you would do it with a smile. If Envy ordered you to walk into his mouth and feed him with your entire body, you would do it with a smile.

    That is what it means to be branded by a Sin. And that is why, all of us here must rise against him before he becomes too powerful. Rise against him whilst we still have a chance to resist, or¡­ well, I¡¯m sure you all understand by now. So long as Envy exists, we will NEVER have peace. So come, my brethren from the same Continent, let us band together to destroy Envy once and for all¡­ before it is too late.¡±

    For a moment, silence spread across the gathering. But then all of a sudden:

    ¡°ROOOAAARRRRRRRR!!!¡± The Crystal Dragon King let out an explosive roar, quickly followed by Osmont the Supreme Fire Dragon, Misali the Supreme Water Dragon, and all the other Supreme Dragons.

    And as if challenged, Drako the Divine Dragon King and the Divine Dragons that had accompanied him also began to let out loud roars. And like this, one by one, different groups of Beasts began to express their passion with sound. Only J?rma and her Snakes, Titania and her Elves, Apis, the Moonlit Wasps, the 3 legendary birds, and a few others, chose to remain quiet.

    ¡°Me and Envy cannot exist under the same sky!¡± Drako yelled, the ever-hot headed Dragon (despite his age), once more acting carelessly as if the incident with J?rma had never occurred.

    Other like-minded people gave yells of assent and added their own things, but eventually, things calmed down and people fell quiet. But the mood had completely changed. Everyone¡¯s eyes glowed with energy, and a few uncontrolled auras were billowing excitedly.

    War was coming! A war like never before!

    War was often horrifying and filled with endless bloodshed, but it was also always filled with bountiful opportunities. After all, most of them here were Beasts! The corpses of their fallen enemies was one of their greatest nourishments! On top of that, didn¡¯t this grand mission mean they were becoming global?

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    If the trajectory of the words exchanged so far were to be taken into consideration, it was natural to think that in their plan of taking down Envy, they would be leaving the Continent to find him, instead of waiting for him to come here. Otherwise, why else would Chad come all the way here? Just to save their Continent instead of his own? What a joke!

    So for the first time, they would be leaving their continent for another. It was a concept surrounded in danger and peril, but also plentiful benefits! What an opportunity! They didn¡¯t know how they¡¯d do it, especially with the increasing danger of the Seas, but surely Gaia had a way if she was talking this far. They could barely suppress their aura from leaking out of excitement!

    ¡°You seem very confident, goddess Gaia. Does this mean you have a sure way to defeat Envy?¡±

    Everyone turned their attention to the owner of the voice they were hearing for the first time, and a few faces twisted in disgust. The voice was¡­ deep and steady, a feature that could be considered attractive to most people. But the appearance¡­

    To put things simply, he was a toad. Literally a toad. Granted, a very large toad that was over 70 metres tall, but still a toad. His skin was pitch black in colour, save for the lighter coloured underbelly, but that was as far as ¡®normal¡¯ things went.

    The toad was¡­ covered from head to toe in obnoxious bright yellow coloured bumps, and each bump seemed to be leaking a greenish yellow liquid that was viscous in nature (going by how slowly it moved) and they released similar coloured fumes into the air that looked about as poisonous as 10 Hiculu¡¯s.

    No wonder the closest person to him was 200 metres away. He must have smelled bad too. And those ugly yellow eyes? The creepy way that he sat? The odd undulations of his lower jaw muscles? His eyes that looked at 2 separate things every now and then? The sweaty-looking slickness of his overall body that had nothing do with his other liquids? Wow! What an ugly creature!

    He was so ugly that it was impressive!

    Still, they didn¡¯t react too much. They all knew of him. He was an impressive toad creature that had risen to where he was today on his own, hence why he wasn¡¯t surrounded by followers like most of the other rulers here. It was definitely something worthy of respect. If it weren¡¯t for the inherent toxicness of his powers that prevent people from coming too close, he definitely would have been recruited by one faction or another. His appearance? Naught but a breeze in the grand scheme of things.

    Unfortunately, his personality, coupled with his toxicity that even he couldn¡¯t control very well prevented him from having many friends. He wasn¡¯t even strong enough to grab attention, being in the mere 1st stage of the 4th Realm, so he had been mostly ignored not just in the gathering, but also in real life. Nobody cared what he did in his filthy swamps, and if he were to keel over and die one day it would take a long time for people to notice, and only then because no matter how toxic he was, the corpse of a 4th Realm Beast was still the corpse of a 4th Realm Beast.

    He was a loner through and through.

    But it was this loner that had never done anything attention grabbing in his life before (other than rising to the 4th Realm), that was now daring to question goddess Gaia in front of all of them.

 Ch.224 Be Mindful With Your Words

    Surprise aside, they were quite interested in the answer. The way Envy had been spoken about this entire time- no, even without that- Realising that Envy, the person they were targeting, was the initiator of the entire GREEN Horror, was enough to make everyone worry. The only reason they weren¡¯t too frightened was because Gaia had been speaking quite boldly the entire time, she seemed quite certain of her success.

    But now that the Toad had asked why that was, they suddenly felt the irresistible need to hear the answer. After all, their lives were at risk, they needed to hear ALL the details.

    Gaia remained quiet for a moment, but then she spoke. ¡°I can not reveal the answer just yet.¡±

    Silence descended once more.

    ¡°I knew it.¡± A solemn voice spoke. It was the Toad again. ¡°This is all a trap. I had been suspecting since the beginning that this was a ruse, but now I know for sure that if I obey any of your requests, I will be walking into certain doom, perhaps even death.¡±

    Gaia frowned. ¡°Toad-¡±

    ¡°I believe you when you say that this Envy is incredibly powerful, more so than you, J?rma, or anyone else. We¡¯ve all seen the Green Horror and heard of the giant green bird, so he¡¯s certainly real. But the fact that you want to gather us all to attack something like that? Is that some kind of joke?¡±

    ¡°If you¡¯d let-¡±

    ¡°I suspect that you plan to trap us all in some advantageous location, pretending that that is where Envy is, and absorb our strengths using one of your many ways, or maybe¡­ You are actually an envoy of Envy, and want to deliver us straight to him. I had been hoping otherwise, but the holes in your plan are becoming too noticeable. I mean, seriously? You can¡¯t even tell us how you plan to defeat Envy? Someone else can see what I¡¯m seeing right or is the fumes making me see things?¡±

    His words had visible effects on the crowd but nobody made a sound.

    ¡°Are you done?¡± Gaia asked, her tone far darker than before.

    ¡°Well, I have other-¡±

    ¡°Silence, nameless Toad. You¡¯re done. It¡¯s my turn to speak now. And if you interrupt me one more time your life is forfeit. I¡¯d been allowing it this whole time so that I could understand what actually gave you the confidence to cut off my words, but now I see that it is all just pointless drivel.¡±

    The toad opened his mouth, closed it, then gave a slow nod.

    Gaia didn¡¯t generally like to act this arrogant. It was one thing to rely on might and threats rather than civil convincing words on a regular day but it made you appear like a brute when you did it in purely social situations that didn¡¯t require it. But she was conversing with Beasts, and for that matter, Beasts which barely had the faintest understanding of diplomacy, unlike Beasts on other planets which had much longer histories.

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    The only thing the Beasts on this planet currently respected was might. It would make her appear submissive and weak if she just allowed the Toad to continue to carelessly interrupt her, which was detrimental, so to counter that a domineering display was needed.

    Getting him to lower his head was a fine result so she inwardly sighed and turned to the rest of the crowd to explain herself.

    ¡°The reason I cannot tell you all how I plan to defeat Envy is because¡­ I am 100% certain that a few of us here have been affected by Envy. It¡¯s pointless to try and figure out who, because until the point they fully embrace the Sin of Envy it would rarely show, but the likelihood that at least one person here-¡± She gave an intent-filled side glance at the Toad. ¡°Is an envoy of Envy, is too high.¡±

    ¡°You may not have even succumbed. But if he has ever made the effort to mentally speak to you before, he can use that mental gateway to hear what you hear and see what you see, even now.¡± She wasn¡¯t actually certain of that, but she had heard from Theodore that Envy had spoken to him, and had made clear indicators that he could see what Theo saw. The actual requirement for that feat may be higher than what she said, but it definitely was not a problem to exaggerate it.

    ¡°Which is obviously something that we cannot avoid. So when the war comes, I will have to discuss with only trusted individuals how to give us the best outcome and prevent the most losses, but in the end, only I will know how to truly defeat Envy. I have a lot to gain like all of you here, but I have the most to lose because of this great burden.¡±

    She was sure that in this moment, various groups were subtly ¡®eyeing¡¯ each other using their Spiritual Sense, trying to catch an Envoy of Envy off guard, and she would be lying if she said she didn¡¯t want that, at least for now. It would greatly remove the suspicion from her own back and that was all to her benefit. But eventually, she would have to make efforts to keep tensions low.

    At the very least, they were now aware that even their allies could suddenly betray them because of Envy. And although that was certainly not a good idea if you wanted to convince people to go to war with you, it would not only enlighten them to a possible threat, but it would also increase the desire for Envy¡¯s death in their minds. How could they be happy and content knowing that at any moment their friend could stab them in the back because of the orders of Envy, without prompt or reason, even if they didn¡¯t participate in the war?

    Even if the slower-minded people weren¡¯t thinking those thoughts now, they would eventually, and it would only increase their hate for Envy. So at the very least, even if they were useless to the war and died in some ditch later on, the words she said now would spread to the rest of the continent and the hate it would generate towards Envy would prevent more people from succumbing to him.

    Still, sharper minds like J?rma, Titania, Apis and others were no doubt still suspecting her goals, and that was one of the reasons she had quickly ended her sentence with. ¡®I have a lot to gain like all of you here, but I have the most to lose because of this great burden.¡¯

    What a joke. In reality, she had the most to gain as the controller of everything, and as for ¡®the most to lose¡¯? Hah. There was little chance of her personally losing in the first place, even if all went wrong and everyone else in the war died. But even if she did lose, wouldn¡¯t she - at most - die like everyone else? She had the qualifications to prevent her mind from being enslaved, so what else was there to be afraid of?

    As for the other reason, it was because just before that, she had stated that she was the only one that would ever know how to defeat Envy, which was, no doubt, suspicious. But by saying she had the greatest burden, she was essentially saying that as the one to defeat Envy, she would be the one put in the most danger, which was actually true. Especially since the envoy¡¯s of Envy in this meeting, along with the entire forces of Envy, would later focus on her when the war started. Anywho, saying what she said went a great way to prevent people from asking her about what she knew out of pride.

    She had learnt long ago that It was always how you said things, not what you said, that mattered most.

 Ch.225 The Power of a god

    ¡°How can we trust you?¡± A voice spoke out after another bout of silence.

    ¡®This fat Toad is still so bold?¡¯ Gaia inwardly asked with slight surprise. Now, she was sure that he had an agenda. When she had spoken about possible Envoys of Envy she had looked towards the Toad on purpose to drive suspicion his way. Not for any great particular reason, it was more because it was extremely easy to do and was beneficial.

    This was a creature that had tried to smear her reputation, let him suffer a bit. That was roughly her thought process at the time. Of course, a part of her actually did suspect that he was an Envoy that was trying to sow discord so her passive attack wasn¡¯t completely unjustified, but it hadn¡¯t been that important in her mind when she said it.

    The Toad may have a lot of reason to feel envy but he had never shown any of the behavioural patterns before so her suspicion was low. He never seemed to yearn, never seemed to hate, and was seemingly content alone in his swamp even if he was a bit grumpy.

    But now¡­ now her suspicions were beginning to ring like bells.

    Perhaps he was just an extremely wary person, but he was questioning her at his own risk and that was not the trait of a cautious person. If he really were cautious he would have chosen to hide from the war entirely. He¡¯d have pretended to listen, not arising suspicion, and then as soon as the gathering was over or whenever he felt the need, he would vanish and never appear in public.

    Why should he stay here to ¡®warn¡¯ the others? To help the same people that had treated him like air or even disgust, out of the goodness of his heart? No way! It was in his best interest to vanish!

    But no, instead of doing that, he was publicly stating that she, the goddess of creation, was trying to scheme against everyone?

    ¡­Even a fool would refrain from such a thing unless they were seeking to suffer. And not necessarily because she would do anything, but because her devout followers would be the ones to descend on him first. All the Dragons had been glaring at him for a while now, and in such a state, he could still muster the courage to ask ¡®How could we trust you?¡¯

    If she didn¡¯t realise that something odd was going on by now then all the experience she had accumulated in her past immortal life would have been in vain. But in any case, she had been questioned and now she had to answer.

    ¡°I am a goddess. And not a lowly one either. Whether I¡¯ve fallen or not I am the goddess of creation and my mind is not something that Envy can hope to affect, no matter how capable he becomes. It is impossible for me to be an envoy of Envy, but that¡¯s not enough for you, is it? You¡¯re probably thinking that I may still be an ally, or that even if that weren¡¯t the case, I may still be harbouring some kind of sinister plot of my own.¡±

    Stolen novel; please report.

    ¡°This¡­¡±

    ¡°Whatever heinous thing you think I¡¯m planning, you are wrong. I¡­ am the creator.¡± As soon as her words fell, multiple globes of golden light formed around her, which in itself wasn¡¯t anything impressive, but when those lights started to shiver and turn into flesh and blood animals, nobody could keep their calm any longer.

    Birds formed and flew away, rodents formed and scurried off, spiders formed and crawled away, and much more. All kinds of small animals were brought into existence out of thin air and they fled in random directions in very life-like manners.

    They were real! Raiko and other similar furred animals had their hackles raised as they shiverred, Apis the giant Celestial Elephant actually stumbled backwards, Chad and the other 2 Legendary Birds had their feathers frozen stiff, others yelped out aloud, and even J?rma¡¯s eyes had constricted to the max.

    ¡°Would I create life, only to harm it for pitiful gains? Do I¡­ look mortal like you?¡± Gaia spoke once more, but this time her voice sounded transcendent, and in that moment, she let the full weight of her age show in her eyes, her 2 golden orbs freezing over with million year old ice and desolation, causing those that met her gaze to seize up from a fear that emerged from their very instincts. A primordial fear.

    They all felt it, even J?rma, and it was then that they confirmed that she really was a god. They still didn¡¯t fully know what a god was or what it really meant to be one, other than it meaning that you were exceedingly powerful. But now they knew that it was something¡­ other. Something far above what they were. What was that word she used? Mortal?

    The common language feature of the System allowed them to know what she was talking about to an extent and what they vaguely understood from that word was ¡®being with finite power and lifespan¡¯. She¡­ clearly wasn¡¯t that. Not even close. Not with those eyes.

    Gaia wasn¡¯t even utilising her aura. She just looked at them with those baleful eyes and they felt the control they had over their own bodies strip away from them. They were unable to move, talk less of putting up some type of resistance, and in that moment it became very clear to them that if she wanted them dead, there was no need for some kind of elaborate trap. She already possessed the ability to kill them all! This was the power of a god!

    ¡®This Toad just might get us killed! And I even believed him for a second! FUCK! If I live past this day I¡¯ll crush him even if it¡¯s the last thing I do!¡¯ Many of the thoughts could be summarised as that.

    Evidently, under the effect of Gaia¡¯s past immortal influence, their way of thinking was no longer coherent, and the bone-deep fear that they weren¡¯t used to feeling was driving them towards madness.

    It really wasn¡¯t quite fair, the dominion that an Immortal could have even in their next life. But maybe that was a wrong thought to have. Perhaps it was fully deserved after what was sacrificed to get there.

 Ch.226 A Highly Conspicuous Man

    Gaia looked at the reactions of the various groups and nodded with satisfaction. With this, she had grasped greater authority within the continent. Although many people had acknowledged her power and respected her claims of being a goddess, they didn¡¯t give it too much merit. After all, most of the time she was cultivating in her home which prevented people from caring about her too much. The religion she had established (Divine Syndicate of Genesis, which had been later shortened to Genesis Syndicate) was growing, but not by as much as she¡¯d like. But that was all about to change.

    She¡¯d been waiting for a chance like this for a long time and she finally obtained it. All it took was for her to exhibit her age and use the superior power of her Soul to suppress all the others. Something that was made very easy with them having little to no knowledge of the Soul, talk less of Soul Cultivation.

    As for the life forms she had created? That was a bit of a trick. No 4th Realmer alive could create complete lifeforms with their little power, no matter what Law or combination of Laws they used. That kind of power was, at the very least, the domain of Immortals and full-fledged gods. The 7th Realm and above. Even then, it was still a difficult feat to achieve, and even if success was achieved, the consequences were almost always fatal.

    It was best to leave creating brand new lives to the Worlds and 9th Realmers.

    What she did was create an illusion. The fake animals were running away but were still visible, but eventually, when no Spirit Sense was detected and they were free from sight, they would vanish. Some people here in the gathering might try to look for them but they would find nothing.

    The few who actually put effort into finding them might find it strange that a new-born lifeform with no Mana to speak of could hide from them, but if they ever came to speak to her about it she would only tell them that she had given them a blessing that allowed them to hide in peace. If anyone was worried about some random creatures ¡®possessing some kind of stealth ability¡¯, she would tell them that she had also ¡®cursed¡¯ them to live Manless lives. They would live peaceful, mundane lives, and die of old age.

    She always planned everything out.

    She let the age recede out of her eyes and watched as the various bodies twitched one by one (depending on how quickly their owners regained control). She took note of the faster ones because they were the most talented, but all in all, everyone here was quicker to react than she expected. Really and truly, this World and its inhabitants were something else.

    ¡°Do you understand now?¡± She asked this question to the Toad that had been antagonising her this entire time. He was visibly breathing quite shakily and it looked quite weird on a body like his, but she wasn¡¯t disturbed by that.

    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    ¡°Y-yes¡­ goddess G-gaia.¡±

    ¡°Good.¡±

    Then she turned to the rest of the crowd. Their faces had changed and most were looking at her with wary gazed (which she inwardly respected since it meant that they hadn¡¯t submitted out of fear), but others looked at her with outright fear or obsession. She didn¡¯t care about insignificant beings like them. It was one thing for people to devote themselves to her out of respect for the things she did or represented, but it was another thing altogether for them to do it because they couldn¡¯t withstand looking at her eyes for more than a few seconds, causing their minds to alter. Whether her Soul had been unfairly involved or not.

    Losers.

    ¡°So, before we discuss how to go forward with the war, there¡¯s something important that we need to discuss before that.¡±

    A few faces twisted with frowns, probably thinking that she was going to ask for a yard after taking an inch, but their worries were unfounded.

    ¡°What¡­ she should we call our Continent?¡±

    ¡­

    [Central Continent, Dawn Forest, Elven Kingdom]

    The capital of the Elven Kingdom was growing much faster than other cities created by this World¡¯s inhabitants, perhaps only being rivalled by the Capital City of the Yoloria Empire (City of Glory). It had streets but no roads or pavements, which was understandable since there was no form of transport that needed them, but the streets were framed by rows of buildings that were diverse in nature and even had stalls here and there. People went to and fro the middle of the various streets and the overall mood was joyful.

    Elves and Fae could be seen conversing happily and there didn¡¯t seem to be any disdainful smirks or hidden glares. It was like the dispute between their 2 castes that had erupted into a war 5 years ago (Year 167) had vanished. It was as if there had never been a civil war in the first place! How did that happen?

    In any case, things were looking much better than before. The streets were bustling, the shops were selling and the people were smiling. Everything was good. Or, well, that would have been the case if it weren¡¯t for 2 oddities.

    The first one being that on one of the stalls, the person in charge seemed to be a 13 year old boy. He had brown hair and green eyes, the typical good looks of an Elf, but nothing else. He wasn¡¯t anything remarkable. However, he was alone.

    A child being alone in the Elven Kingdom hadn¡¯t happened in a long time. Ever since the Fae child that had been murdered 18 years ago, protection for kids had been a special priority. So to see one trying to run a stall by himself - unsuccessfully at that - was very odd.

    The other oddity was a tall man cloaked in pristine white robes. He had his hood up but it wasn¡¯t capable of hiding his long white hair. And where the shadow cast by the hood succeeded in hiding most of his facial features, it failed in suppressing the light generated by his irregular golden eyes.

    This highly conspicuous man was walking down the street as he hummed a tune, but barely anyone paid him attention. What was weirder was that for the people that noticed him, they would pause in awe, but only for a moment before their attention was redirected and they carried on with their day. As if they had never seen him.

 Ch.227 Young Gasalam

    Who else could it be other than Eridel¡¯s avatar? As mentioned before, his QOB was too high for a majority of lifeforms to withstand so it resulted in their brains removing him from their memory entirely. An automatic self-protection that most people had.

    But what was Eridel doing here, walking the streets of the Elven Kingdom¡¯s capital city? What was he plotting this time?

    ¡­

    (Elven boy POV)

    Gasalam sat behind his stall, watching the crowds of Elves and Fae as they went about their business. Some would veer off to different shops or stalls as something caught their attention, but nobody paid any attention to him, and on the rare occasions that they did, they would only give a forced smile or a short glance filled with poorly hidden worry.

    It was worse when they walked by his stall, saw the food he was selling, got interested, only to pale in fright when they realised just who was selling. They¡¯d then give sloppy hello¡¯s, trying to be nice according to the Faerie code that had never been dropped, and then scurry off without a backward glance as if they were running from something contagious.

    ¡®Idiots.¡¯ He said inwardly, tuning out the ¡®H-how are you doing, Gasalam? You surprised me¡¯ from some random black haired Fae lady who had actually yelped out loud when she saw him. Now, more people were looking at him, showing their faces twisted with judgement and he hated it.

    Okay, maybe not all of them were showing such faces, but he knew that even if they were hiding it they were still the same. They were all just wimps who were scared of what happened to him but still wanted to pretend like they liked him.

    ¡®Losers. Scaredy cats. Fakers. All of them.¡¯ He thought. Still though, hypocritical as it might be, he let out words that were contrary to his feelings.

    ¡°It¡¯s okay, lady.¡± With a forced smile of his own. ¡°Would you like to buy some bread? It was made with a special technique that makes it taste really nice, you should try some.¡±

    ¡°Ah¡± the lady let out a small sound and her smile twitched.

    ¡®Hehe, got ya.¡¯ He inwardly snickered. Moments like this were the highlights of his days. The Elves and especially the Fae always seemed to be in some kind of competition to prove who could be the kindest, most elegant, exemplar citizen of the Faerie code. So whenever he got the chance to actually talk to them it was rare for them to deny his requests to buy. After all, what was more noble than helping a struggling orphan boy by buying his sales and giving him money?

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    He took advantage of this whenever he could, and he had to admit that it was one of the reasons that these people were so quick to say goodbye after saying hello whenever they were ¡®unfortunate¡¯ enough to make eye contact with him, but it was worth it.

    At one point, he had been shameless enough to ask for free money, thinking that these ¡®noble hearted¡¯ pricks wouldn¡¯t find too much of a problem, but they would always give the same response, saying that it was bad to be lazy and that if they were to actually give him money, they would be feeding his laziness.

    Tch. He rued the day that he decided to set up this dumb stall. If he were jobless, how could they deny his requests for money? ¡®This is why 11 year olds are dumb.¡¯ He thought. Now he was stuck in a perpetual cycle of making food every day, hoping that people would buy, only to end up disappointed more often than not.

    On top of that, even in the rare situations like this, they would buy but they wouldn¡¯t actually eat or drink anything that he sold. He still remembered the first time he actually caught someone throwing the bread that he spent effort to bake, into the trash.

    He remembered the face of horror and guilt on the man as he turned and saw him looking, he remembered the flash of fury that he felt as he rushed forward to attack, and he remembered the helplessness that he felt as the man easily grabbed his wrists and tried to calm him down.

    But he didn¡¯t care. 12 year olds are so wimpy. That¡¯s why he cried that day when he got home. He was a teenager now and didn¡¯t care about what those losers did with his food or drinks. Throw it in the bin or eat it, he would never care. Not one bit. He got money and that''s all that mattered.

    As expected, the Fae lady decided to buy, choosing 2 pieces of bread AND a drink, which he secretly cheered for. He didn¡¯t mind the careless manner in which she picked them, nope. He was earning money and that¡¯s alllll that mattered.

    ¡°Thank you, nice lady.¡± He said with a better smile.

    It was always best to say please and thank you. Be kind to others and others will be kind to you. That was one of the aspects of the Faerie code. It was true enough, he had learned. At least, his business went smoother when he was smiling like a nice boy rather than giving glares like he used to.

    Time passed with nothing more happening and it was quite boring but he didn¡¯t mind, he was used to it. There were even days where he didn¡¯t get a single interaction, talk less of an actual sale. 2 pieces of bread and a drink in 1 sale at that. This was a good day!

    He smiled as he thought about that.

    ¡°You should smile like that more often if you want a normal life back, boy. It¡¯s a good look.¡± A deep voice spoke. The accent sounded like nothing he had ever heard before and for a moment he was stunned. In fact, merely calling it deep seemed to be a gross understatement. What was that word that those fancy pansies like to use, sonoras? Sonorous? Whatever. This man¡¯s voice was that.

    He looked up and¡­ immediately developed a headache.

    ¡°Wha-¡± He couldn¡¯t finish the word before his vision faded and he passed out, but before he did, he caught the sight of 2 golden eyes.

 Ch.228 The First One?

    The first thing that Gasalam felt as he woke was heat. An incredible heat that bore upon his skin like a million layers of blankets on a hot day. He could feel liquid running down his skin, sweat no doubt, and his mind was dizzy.

    Feeling such unfamiliar sensations, he immediately became upset, afraid and frustrated. It was really uncomfortable, not to mention frightening, but the most important thing that was driving him crazy was the confusion of it all. He didn¡¯t know what was going on! This paired with the suffocating heat and the never-felt-before dizziness, he was on the verge of crying.

    He couldn¡¯t even see, not because he was blind, but because he didn¡¯t even realise that his eyes were closed. He was that befuddled. Time stretched and his suffering didn¡¯t diminish, in fact growing worse, but there was nothing he could do. He didn¡¯t know WHAT to do. He groaned with mis-placed effort as his addled mind pushed him to get rid of the discomfort, but whined with despair when he couldn¡¯t find a target to eliminate.

    Now, he was feeling the threat of death, and as such, he began to cry without holding back. But that only lasted for about 10 seconds before he suddenly felt a wave of cool air that swamped his body and vanquished the terrifying heat. Something also touched his head and in the next moment his mind was clear.

    He snapped his eyes open with a loud gasp as if he had just been saved from drowning, and caught the sight of many red and dark colours. He could also hear now and finally noticed an oddly thick-sounding bubbling noise which sounded weird, but when his vision cleared a little and saw what seemed to be a huge dark mountain, dribbling a slow thick red liquid that erupted with bubbles every now and then, he confirmed that to be the origin of the sound.

    ¡®Where am I?!¡¯ He wondered with terror.

    ¡°Welcome to the Burning Nines, boy.¡± A familiar voice spoke.

    He swivelled his head around and caught the sight of a peerlessly handsome man who was shirtless, but with a pair of white shorts and a piece of white cloth draped over his equally white hair. The man had perfect muscles, unblemished skin and glowing golden eyes; it was like he was forged by magic itself, and Gasalam couldn¡¯t help but let his mouth hang open with awe.

    ¡®He looks so cool!¡¯ He inwardly exclaimed, temporarily forgetting his situation. ¡®Is he a Grand Elder? He certainly looks powerful enough!¡¯

    For some reason, he felt like he had seen those eyes before but he couldn¡¯t place a memory.

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    ¡°Thank you for your compliment.¡± The man said, causing his heart to beat.

    ¡®Did I say that outloud?¡¯ He thought with embarrassment.

    ¡°As for my identity, I¡¯ll leave that to your own imagination. I suspect that what I¡¯m about to show you will prevent you from completely forgetting this series of events, since it will be important for your future. But I have no doubt that your mind will twist my image into something else for your own sake. Perhaps I¡¯ll really end up being a Grand Elder, haha!¡±

    ¡°What¡­?¡± Gasalam asked. He felt like he was having a fever dream. ¡°I don¡¯t understand, um¡­¡±

    ¡°You can call me ¡®E¡¯.¡± The man said. ¡°And I advise you just go with the flow, it¡¯ll be better for your mental health.¡±

    ¡°Ah¡­¡± Gasalam lamely responded. It need not be said that he was completely lost

    Everything felt like a dream. Remembering where he was he turned around to get a better look and really and truly, he was surrounded by nothing but dark, bleeding mountains. The liquids were bubbling and smoking, signifying its horrifying heat, but he couldn¡¯t even feel it anymore. His fear of it still lingered, but looking at it like this, seeing but no longer feeling¡­ This just had to be a dream.

    He turned back to the man, wanting to seek answers for his current situation even if this was a dream. ¡°Um-¡±

    ¡°Gasalam. The boy who was born from the Tree of Life, possessing a 1st generation body of the utmost purity, who should have been free from any sort of Sin or even emotion at such a young age, strangely¡­ almost became the 1st bearer of the Sin of Wrath 4 years ago at the tender age of 9. How peculiar.¡±

    Gasalam¡¯s heart skipped a beat and for a long time he was stunned. He had never heard the term ¡®Sin of Wrath¡¯ before but he had a very good idea of what it could be. His mind flicked to a memory filled with boundless rage that dyed the skies red and he shivered. That was the darkest moment of his life and the end of all that was good in his life. His initial prodigious position as a first generation Elf with a great life ahead of him, snatched away in a single moment.

    Thinking about the reactions of his peers, their faces filled with horror and distrust, his heart squeezed once more.

    But he hadn¡¯t come this far by moping around in sorrow, the rebellious heart that he had grown since then snapped back with fury. ¡°It wasn¡¯t my fault! It was some kind of mistake! If you know what happened you should know that whatever that was didn¡¯t even last for 10 seconds before it went away. Even the Queen checked me and said I was free of its influence! It¡¯s NOT my fault!¡±

    E raised an eyebrow. ¡°Oh? Out of all the people it could have happened to it happened to you, and yet it¡¯s not your fault? At all?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right, damn you! What is this anyway?! You said I should go with the flow and you immediately bring something like that up, are you trying to provoke me?!¡±

    The man stared at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing. ¡°HAHAHAHA! You truly turned out well! A great success even! It would have been a waste if you became too angry - causing you to fall to the real emergence of the Sin of Wrath - or if you became too depressed, causing you to be useless. This is good.¡±

 Ch.229 A Gift

    ¡°What¡­? What is wrong with you? Why won¡¯t you ever make sense?¡± Gasalam exclaimed with a scrunched up face. He then turned around, looking every which way, looking for some kind of error in the scenery that would prove that all of this was a dream. Some trees perhaps? Trees in a place like this would be a big joke.

    Alas, he saw nothing but more scorched black rocks, more smoke and more boiling red liquid. Hm? Wait!

    ¡®Haha! I knew it! This place looks just so realistic so I just accepted it, but isn¡¯t all of this fake? Black mountains that are releasing smoke at the top, slow-moving but hot water. Hey, It¡¯s not even transparent! I feel like an idiot!¡¯

    He scrambled to his feet with triumph and looked at the man who called himself ¡®E¡¯ with a gloating look. But then he thought about something and got back down, laid back and closed his eyes.

    It was harder to go to sleep whenever his mind was too active, and normally, he woke up from his lucid dreams whenever he started accidentally thinking about things in reality. But that didn¡¯t seem to be the case here. No matter how much he urged himself to wake up, telling himself that this was a dream, it never worked, much to his chagrin. Doing this, even if not on purpose, had always destroyed his good dreams, but now when he actually wanted to wake up, it was no longer working? As a matter of fact, the more he tried, the more it seemed like he was doing the contrary, because maybe, just maybe¡­ this was reality.

    So, since he refused to accept that, he wanted to try something else. He would lie down and empty his mind, and hopefully, the dream would soon lose sense like every other of his dreams and he¡¯d find himself in a different scenery. A more pleasant scenery. Maybe he¡¯d dream about reclaiming his glory as a respected 1st Generation Elf again? Heh. Not that he neeeeeded respect from those hypocrites. Still, the dream was nice. But again, forget those losers. He would never need them!

    Nevertheless, he kept imagining scenes of Elves and Fae surrounding him, their faces not shaping scorn and despise but instead love and reverence.

    ¡°You know-¡±

    ¡°Ah!¡± Gasalam yelped and shot up as the voice of an unknown man interrupted his thoughts. But when he caught sight of the speaker, he realised that he DID know the man. It was the damn Grand Elder, and they were STILL in this strange dream land!

    ¡°Wow.¡± The man spoke. What was his name again?

    ¡°To think you would forget this quickly. Even the Twin Stars of the North weren¡¯t this bad. But I suppose it can¡¯t be helped. Your age and consequently your brain is inferior. But still, wow. I imagine that if I were to appear before a child, they wouldn¡¯t even see me. Haha, maybe I¡¯ll test it some time.¡±

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    The man casually spoke with his hands behind his back and a smile on his face, talking random rubbish as always.

    ¡®Dammit, if this is not a dream, then an illusion? Did this guy cast an illusion on me? But what would a Grand Elder like him want with me?¡¯ Gasalam thought with mounting worry. The image of his being sealed away in this place for the rest of his life appeared in his mind and his heart nearly stopped.

    ¡®Are they done being afraid of me? Do they now want to banish me to a place like this?! Is it over for me?! No!!!¡¯ The fear within him grew.

    ¡°W-what do you want?!¡± He yelled out, taking a step back.

    The man gave a short sigh. ¡°Honestly, I look so holy and dazzling, on purpose mind you. And yet still, everyone who I speak with always seems to think I¡¯m a horrifying monster? Aii~ the woes of being too strong. What did the pitiful me do to deserve this?¡± He shook his head with a sad look in his eyes as if it was a great shame.

    ¡°You-¡±

    ¡°Okay, okay. I don¡¯t have much time either so all jokes to the left.¡± The man said before he turned around and faced the biggest Volcano in the centre.

    ¡°I brought you here because I want to give you an opportunity. An opportunity to gain a power that no other Elf has. And let me tell you, if you can grasp it, not only will you get your life back, but you will also rise far above what you could have possibly achieved before, obtaining the adoration and ¡®reverence¡¯ of many Elves and Fae alike.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need it! I don¡¯t need anyone! And I definitely don¡¯t need that adoration from people like YOU LOT!¡± Gasalam growled, trying to irk the man with his ferocity that he knew other Elves and Fae disliked.

    Unfortunately, the man simply chuckled as if his words were as insignificant as the wind.

    ¡°Explosiveness so uncharacteristic of an Elf¡­ Hahaha, perfect~¡± The man laughed. He then looked up to the sky as if contemplating about something, then looked back at him with noticeably brighter eyes. ¡°You know, since I did cause you a lot of trouble to get you to this point, I might as well throw in an extra gift.¡±

    ¡°I said I don¡¯t wan-¡± Gasalam started

    ¡°My first gift to you is this lava here. Elves are creatures that have an innate affinity with all nature. Well, not ¡®all¡¯ per say. A single Elf can only have 1 or 2, or maybe even a few more affinities if they¡¯re super lucky, but that¡¯s not the point. So long as the planet grows it, the Elves can, theoretically, control it. They just need to have its specific affinity.

    But unfortunately, growing up in a huge forest and developing a culture that obsesses over only rocks, trees, and water has somewhat crippled their potential. They have ignored the powers of lightning, fire and lava.

    The first 2 are more chemical reactions than things grown by the planet, so it''s understandable that those who don¡¯t focus on it will have a harder time obtaining its insights, and you guys have probably never seen lava before so it¡¯s also understandable that no one has ever obtained its blessing. There¡¯s also the problem with personalities and so forth, and it''s really quite sad. Such potential but no one to use it. Very unfortunate. And that¡¯s why we are going to change that, starting with you.

    It¡¯s for this very reason that I forced you to nearly become Wrath so buckle up boy, it''s time to claim your destiny.¡±

 Ch.230 Make Your Suffering Worth It

    Gasalam felt a headache come over him as he tried his best to comprehend everything the strange Grand Elder was saying, but when he heard the words ¡®I forced you to nearly become Wrath¡¯, his temperature dropped and his mind went blank.

    He stood there helplessly with his mouth hanging and his eyes shaking, the words replaying in his mind over and over again, it got louder each time and before he knew it the voice sounded petrifyingly monstrous. It slammed against his skull with each syllable and made him fall dizzy.

    ¡°W-what did you say?¡± He uttered. Maybe the Grand Elder was joking, or perhaps he misheard. Let him say it again.

    The man, seemingly oblivious to his struggles, gave a bright smile. The brightest smile he had ever seen. But the words that came out his mouth dropped him to his knees.

    ¡°You heard perfectly correctly, boy. I forced you to nearly become the Sin of Wrath.¡±

    His knees crashed into the ground. He grabbed his head, messing up his hair as he tried to alleviate his pounding skull but it didn¡¯t work.

    ¡°YOUUUUUUUUU!!!¡± He screamed, but couldn''t find any other words that could express even half of the emotions that were burning through him.

    ¡°It was a test of sorts. You won¡¯t remember this, but I have big plans for my eventual true incarnation. Not only do I want it to hold the powers of this planet, or at least as much of it as it can, I also want it to harness the powers of the Heaven and Hell that I foolishly created.

    So I thought, if I want the powers of Hell, it would help if I started off as a single Sin bearer before I became the one true ruler of Hell, wielding all Sins. So naturally I thought, what Sins do I like? Which one should I start with? The ones I wanted most were Gluttony, Lust and Pride, but I could only start with 1. So which one?

    I went through a process of elimination, and eventually decided with Lust. Simply because it-¡±

    ¡°ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH!¡± Gasalam screeched with rage, his hands pulling at his hair and his face twisted with malice.

    The man blinked, before continuing as if nothing had happened. ¡°Simply because it provides the fastest way to gain strength. Well, gluttony is actually faster, but that¡¯s only when you have enough power in the first place to obtain things that would be worth eating. Pride isn¡¯t bad, but it¡¯s a near suicidal power to have, I must admit. I only like it because I myself have a bit of affinity with the concept of pride, as you can probably guess. So lust would be best.

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    And how does this all relate to you? You must be dying to know. I would.¡± He said with a hateful smile on his face. It was a gentle smile of understanding, but that compassion was ruined by the fact that this bastard was the very source of his sorrow.

    ¡°Well you see, I had to work out whether it was even possible to make myself become a full Sin in the first place. I had to conduct a test. And naturally, as a man of efficiency, I decided to knock 2 birds with 1 stone. So I decided that I would try my best to push you into a transformation that would safely make you the Sin of Wrath. I always decided that I¡¯d stop it before it fully went through, even if it didn¡¯t fail, but I¡¯m sure you don¡¯t care about that by now.

    Anyhow, the test was a failure. You were going to die. And as such, I ended things then and there. Still, even if I couldn¡¯t hit one bird, there was still the other.

    You see, for the transformation to even have started, I had to alter your mental state to one suitable for the bearer of Wrath. I¡¯m sure you can remember your mental state in those short seconds so I¡¯ll save you the explanation. However, even though the transformation was stopped and your mind returned mostly to normal, there were still¡­ leftover effects, so to speak. This coupled with how people would treat you in the following years would make you a perfect stone to hit a juice bird.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll kill you.¡± Gasalam said quietly. He had somewhat calmed down at this point, but he still had his two hands covering his face, only using a single eye to glare through a gap in his fingers.

    The man continued. ¡°As mentioned before, I¡¯ve always wanted things to change for the Elves. The elements of sand, fire, lightning, lava and others had been overlooked for too long, especially lava. But elements don¡¯t just need physical affinity, they also need mental affinity¡­ See where I¡¯m going with this?¡±

    There was no reply.

    ¡°I needed someone, someone who was young enough that a drastic change in their mental state wouldn¡¯t cause too much of a backlash, someone who was of the first generation, and someone who hadn¡¯t cultivated yet. And I need them to be angry. That¡¯s why I chose the Sin of Wrath of all Sins. A Sin that would give one an easy time comprehending the molten wrath of lava.

    All of this has led you to this day, Gasalam. This lava here is your gift. Claim it and burn me with it if you dare, and make all of your suffering worth it.¡±

    ¡°I will kill you.¡± Gasalam spoke once more. Even calmer than before.

    ¡°My second gift to you¡­ is a mutation. When you finish comprehending lava and gain the ability to control it, I will grant you a mutation that will make you like Zalucard, a progenitor of a brand new caste. Only after this is all done will you be allowed to leave the Burning Nines. Only then will your life truly be your own.¡±

    And with that, he disappeared in an explosion of light¡­ which then reformed the man who looked at him with a goofy smile.

    ¡°I almost forgot. Here¡¯s a warning. Do not, under any circumstances, provoke the Ants if you want to live. You¡¯re in the outermost ring of the burning Nines and they don¡¯t often come here, but it¡¯s still their territory so be careful.¡±

    The man disappeared again but this time didn¡¯t reappear. Instead, the protection that Gasalam had obtained against the heat vanished, and he suddenly found himself looking at various creatures not too far away from him that appeared out of nowhere.

    As if a veil that had been between them had been removed.

 Ch.231 Flying to the Moon

    [Eridius World, Outer Space]

    A golden streak could be seen exiting the Eridius World as it zoomed towards the moon. It was fast, incredibly so. But although its speed was enough to make the origin of its nature a mystery that couldn¡¯t be identified with a mortal eye, compared to the distance from the planet to the moon its speed could be called ¡®leisure¡¯.

    Still, who else could it be other than Eridel? At this point in time, he was the only one capable of freely leaving and entering the planet at will, so it was clear that it was him whether you could make out his details or not. But it was somewhat odd. Eridel could appear anywhere he wanted so long it was within the domain of his territory. The moon was certainly within it, so why did he not just appear there like he does in other places?

    No doubt, he had another agenda.

    ¡­

    As Eridel made his way towards the Moon he thought about many things at once. Mainly, the current events taking place in the world, the things he had just done, and the things he was about to do.

    Before he had spoken with Gasalm, he had been aware of this World¡¯s very first grand conference that had taken place on the Central Continent and had been watching it keenly. How could he not? He was quite happy with how the event had gone and knew that it had set things in a good direction.

    Sooner or later, he would be able to finally create the 7 Empyrean Virtues. It was a dangerous decision to make, especially as burdened with fortune as he already was after creating the 9 Hells and Grand Heaven Realm, but he had already made extensive plans to deal with fate, and either way, with the method he had used to create the Heaven and Hells, he was already in fatal trouble. It didn¡¯t matter if he added cherries on top.

    As for Gasalam, that had also gone pretty well. But he knew that there was still room for failure.

    If Gasalam decided that he wanted to comprehend Fire instead of Lava, he had a much higher chance of achieving that with his raging mentality than he did with lava. Lava was a slow, patient, unstoppable force that destroyed everything in its way. Being vigorous and volatile was more like fire and lightning.

    And it was for that reason that Eridel employed 2 methods to lower the chances of Gasalam comprehending Fire and raise the chances of him comprehending Lava.

    The first one, in order to make the second one work, was to purposely antagonise the boy. To make the boy hate him so much that he would do anything to harm him or at least anger him. Such as ¡®ruining¡¯ his plans.

    Even if the boy didn¡¯t recognise that he could comprehend Fire, with the way Eridel had been telling him to be wrathful and angry for the sake of comprehending lava, for the sake of his own goals¡­ he was bound to do the opposite, just to spite him. And with the boy being a kid, it made that likelihood higher.

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    That¡¯s why Gasalam had stopped screaming towards the end of their ¡®conversation¡¯, forcefully trying to restrain his anger in order to rebel against instructions.

    But little did he know that was exactly what Eridel wanted. As the boy patiently held onto his anger, his wrath burning like nothing else but slow and restrained like a thick liquid, he would inevitably find himself drawn towards the ¡®like-minded¡¯ lava currents.

    On top of that, if he wanted to live and not die a dog¡¯s death filled with endless regrets, then he would have to do something if he wanted to protect himself from the creatures in the 1st Circle. Eventually, as he ran from the nth attacker, he would decide that enough was enough, he would comprehend lava and destroy all of his foes. It didn¡¯t matter if he was complying to the will of that ¡®Grand Elder¡¯ because he would destroy that ¡®Grand Elder¡¯ too.

    It was for that reason that Eridel had said the words: ¡®This lava here is your gift. Claim it and burn me with it if you dare, and make all of your suffering worth it.¡¯

    He had been sowing a seed of thought. The boy, young and ambitious as he was, would really think that he could do it if he worked hard enough or got lucky enough, so when he next met the ¡®Grand Elder¡¯, he would ¡®surprise¡¯ him and make him regret everything he had done to him, thinking it ironic that he would use the ¡®Grand Elder¡¯s¡¯ gift to end him.

    Also, the words ¡®make your suffering worth it¡¯ doubled as a way to prevent the kid from becoming suicidal out of despair. It could still happen, but the chances were lower with just those 5 words.

    Now some might question his methods. Why didn¡¯t he just present himself as an ally? Why didn¡¯t he just encourage the boy to comprehend lava, taking the place of someone who wanted to pass on an ¡®inheritance¡¯. And the answer to that was that it was inefficient.

    The mentality of someone that was carrying a suppressed but boiling anger compared to the mentality of a confused but hopeful boy. It didn¡¯t need to be said which one was better when it came to comprehending lava.

    That was all. Eridel had done it all for efficiency.

    He always had a plan and took everything into consideration whenever he made decisions. He wasn''t just being a dickhead for the sake of it, although he would admit that he enjoyed acting like a movie villain. At the end of the day, everything would all benefit Gasalam. There was just a price to pay, and although it may have been painful, it would all be worth it.

    When Gasalam got older and realised how essential power was for those who didn¡¯t want to suffer in life (especially in this era), he might just end up thanking him for what he had done.

    ¡­

    [Eridius World, Outer Space]

    The Moon had changed quite a bit from what it used to be. No. It was more than just ¡®a bit¡¯. It was a lot. After all, there were trees here now. Trees, growing on the moon. The wood may have been grey and the leaves silver, but they were still trees.

    And that wasn¡¯t all. There was grass too, amongst other forms of plant life. And in terms of structure, it looked like mountains had been created as well. The random craters had been tidied up, and there were even lakes filled with Lunar Water that could be found here and there.

    It was af it the Moon had been trying to emulate the planet it was orbiting.

 Ch.232 Luna the Moon

    The Moon was watching the happenings of the World through her various followers. She had been doing so ever since her Spirit Sense had grown large enough to make contact with its inhabitants, allowing her to make a few of them her Apostle, and she had learnt quite a lot from doing so.

    Gains from the followers themselves aside, just being able to learn about the geography of the planet she was orbiting had been very beneficial. She had used her insights to gradually terraform her own planetary body and set it on a path that would allow for some life.

    Of course, there was still a lot that she had to learn, some of the most confusing among them being the ¡®sky¡¯ that the planet had. It was much thicker than hers for some reason (perhaps size?) and something about it was protecting the World from the hostile rays of the Sun. She knew it was hostile because she could sense how much chaotic energy was within it and knew that it was something that most Creatures would have a problem with withstanding for long periods of time.

    Those in the so-called ¡®Realm 3¡¯ would be immune, but those that made it to that state were in the minority. Trees and similar life-forms were a lot more robust than the more sapient life-forms, especially since they drew energy directly from her, but if she wanted to support more life, she was going to need something like the ¡®sky¡¯ on the planet.

    Another thing she wanted to learn was ¡®Magical Energy¡¯. The Eridius planet released a strange energy that could be used by lifeforms to improve their beings, but she had none of that here and didn¡¯t know how to change that. She could absorb Magical Energy all the way into her planetary core if she wanted to but that only improved her own being instead allowing her to replicate its nature. It was a little annoying.

    In any case, she was quite proud of the progress she had made. She had even chosen to give herself a gender. Well, chosen wasn¡¯t quite the right word. It was more that she had accepted the gender that her followers had assumed she was.

    Because of her apparently ¡®soft¡¯ and ¡®loving¡¯ nature she had been likened to a mother. The pinnacle of mothers at that, and that¡¯s why she had been called things like ¡®Great Mother¡¯ and ¡®Moon Mother¡¯, amongst other things.

    Initially she had ignored it, but when her Anomaly Stage upgraded, having a gender had suddenly become a bit important.

    ¡®Status.¡¯ She inwardly spoke.

    DING!

    [Status]

    [Name: Luna]

    [Titles: Great Mother, Moon Mother, Holy Mother, Moon goddess]

    [Race: Living Moon (Anomaly)]

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    [Cultivation: Realm 3, Stage 1]

    [Moon Grade: Grade 1 (87% Saturation)]

    [Anomaly Stage: Avatar Conjuration (Stage 2)]

    [Combat Strength: Above Realm 4 (Not enough data collected)]

    [Contracted Apostles: Zion, Zimoi, Zikan, Zuko, Ziket (5/6) ]

    [Contracts: 8792 / 10000]

    [Affinities: Moon(100%), Gravity(100%), Earth(100%), Metal(70%), Water(100%), Ice(100%) Wind(30%), Fire(80%), Light(100%), Life(100%), Creation(30%)]

    [Elements: Earth, Metal, Water, Wind, Fire, Light]

    [Laws: Moon(100%), Gravity(20%), Earth(50%), Water(10%), Metal(30%), Light(5%), Ice(5%), Life(5%), Creation(5%)]

    [Intents: Holy(70%)]

    [Innate Skills: Contract, Spirit Sense, Syphon Essence, Appraise, Elemental Manipulation, Geographical Creation]

    Oh right, she had taken the name ¡®Luna¡¯. This one she had decided herself after seeing how most of the things that were affected by her gained the name ¡®lunar¡¯. She just took away the ¡®r¡¯ to avoid confusion. She felt it was a good decision and she quite liked it.

    As for the rest of her status, obviously, she had changed quite a lot from what she used to be when she had first awoken.

    After anointing 3 Apostles (which was the limit back when she was in the Neophyte Stage), establishing 2500 contracts and absorbing the required energy using Syphon Essence, she had ¡®broken through¡¯ to the Conjuring Avatar Stage. A stage which did exactly as it was named, giving her the ability to conjure her own Avatar.

    It was confusing when she had gotten it but was something she had quickly enjoyed. An avatar was akin to a second body that she could create using the materials of her true body to emulate the body or bodies of her Apostles.

    At the time, she only had 3 Apostles: Zion the Lion, Zimoi the Ram and Zikan the Bear. This allowed her to make a hybrid of sorts using all 3 animals. However, that was not what she had done. She could have if she wanted to, and still could now, using even the races of her 2 newer Apostles, but she generally didn¡¯t feel like doing so.

    Mostly, her avatar appeared as a female humanoid Ram, complete with the horns, fur on lower arms, fur on her ankles to thighs and if she felt like it, hooves. She also used the mane of lions for her hair, their eyes as her own and added their tail onto her lower body. She had done that simply because of how aesthetically pleasing it looked, but if there was ever a need for battle, she could completely change the form of her avatar to one suitable for killing.

    The only things she couldn¡¯t change was the cultivation it had, and the gender, for some reason. The avatar could cultivate like a normal sapient life form and right now it was in the 1st Stage of the 3rd Realm. However, that was quite deceptive since it could draw on the power of her main body to an extent, which was probably why her alleged battle prowess was ¡®Above Realm 4¡¯.

    As for her gender, when she had first chosen it, she had actually been given 4 options. Male, Female, Male with both genitals, and Female with both genitals. The latter 2 were odd since she had never seen anything like them, and she had quite frankly ignored them, opting to remain a normal female. But she kept her Spirit Sense lurking every now and then, waiting for the day that she could see a gender like that in reality.

    Anyways, another thing that was different from her origins was the Holy Intent she had gained.

 Ch.233 Holy Intent and New Apostles

    For some reason, when she had anointed her first 3 Apostles on the Lunar Continent and established contracts with their followers, they had begun to perform something they called ¡®worship¡¯. Praising her for the things that she had done, and even things that she had not done with a zealous passion that seemed a little abnormal

    Initially she had ignored it. Whether they gathered together to sing ¡®songs¡¯ in her honour was not her concern. But eventually, she had begun to detect an abnormal energy that had emerged from their sessions that flew all the way into her core.

    It was quite shocking to her the first time. She had been of the belief that no one there was capable enough to send energy all the way to her body considering the distance, and yet that was exactly what had just happened. So maybe there was something she had missed?

    It was then that she remembered her mostly-helpful companion, the System, and decided to ask it what was happening. Thankfully it had answered and she was told that the energy was something called Faith Energy, an energy that whilst in its origin state quite useless, can be converted into other forms of energy that can be useful.

    She then asked the System what she should do with it, and it replied that since she wasn¡¯t a god or a Myth, the best thing she should do was to use the energy to comprehend Holy Intent. So that¡¯s what she did.

    Later on she would find out that she could actually imbue this Holy Intent into her other forms of energy, giving it a satisfactory upgrade in quality. Something which was very beneficial to her followers.

    One example of that was the 2 contract skills that her Apostles had. Originally, there was just 1 contract skill and it was called Lunar Smite. But when she comprehended Holy Intent, that Lunar Smite had transformed into something called Divine Lunar Punishment, and became something that could use her Holy Intent, becoming much. much stronger. On top of that, a 2nd contract skill had appeared and it was called Divine Lunar Enhancement.

    It was a skill that allowed the Apostle to power themself up using a combination of her own Moon Laws and her Holy Intent.

    Her first Apostle, Zion, had learnt the under-workings of that skill and created something similar that all of her followers could use, the Lunar Enhancement. It was a lot weaker but she was proud of his achievement. Perhaps one day he would rise to the point that he could come visit her main body. That would be nice.

    Ah, speaking of Zion. He had been requesting for a long time that she anoint the other 3 leaders of The Divine Moon Syndicate as Apostles, which would make all 6 leaders Apostles. But unfortunately, she had been disappointing him. Well. He never acted disappointed and was always jovial so maybe not, but she would be disappointed if she had been requesting something every 3 or 5 years only to be ignored. Her experiences with the System proved as such.

    Regardless, it¡¯s not that she was purposefully ignoring him, it¡¯s just that she had limited Apostle slots. In the beginning she couldn¡¯t have more than 3 so there was nothing she could do, and when she entered the Conjuring Avatar stage, she had other ideas. She liked the other 3 leaders of the religion that provided her with so much Faith Energy but she had to prioritise gains.

    The Lunar Continent had already been conquered. Pretty much everyone there praised her name and provided her with Faith Energy, so anointing more Apostles there would be wasteful. Rather than that, she could anoint more Apostles in other lands and allow them bring in more followers that provided Faith Energy.

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    So towards that end, she had anointed 2 interesting Apostles. One in the Continent that was surrounded by all the others and another¡­ in the Sea. The first one was an interesting creature called a Wasp that she had named Ziket. She had chosen that creature because of its potential, knowing that if a creature like that had qualitative upgrade it could perform amazing feats, and she was right. Sooner or later that Continent would be providing her with a lot of Faith Energy.

    Hopefully, the goddess that was there wouldn¡¯t do something to harm that but she was ready if she did.

    As for her 5th Apostle, she had initially wanted to do the same thing with Ziket, choosing a creature that had an amazing breeding rate along with battle potential. As a matter of fact, she HAD done that, choosing the unique piranhas as her underwater-followers, so to speak. They had risen in strength quite quickly, but 1 encounter with one the Emperors of the Sea had decimated all of them, including the Apostle.

    The Apostle had tried her best, even using both the Divine Lunar Punishment and Divine Lunar Enhancement, which had caused great damage to the Emperor of the Sea, but ultimately, it wasn¡¯t enough. If she wanted a Sea Apostle that could one day become a Sea Emperor, she needed something BIG. Something POWERFUL.

    So, she chose a mutant Sea Centipede.

    It was a Sea Centipede that had used the [Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique] on a different Sea Beast to acquire powerful jaws filled with sharp fangs along with sturdier, more robust limbs that could from then on be used as weapons. She had named him Zuko.

    Before that, she had tried to make one of the Sea Emperors her Apostles, but as she expected, they were too arrogant and refused her contract whenever they saw the requirement of eternal servitude.

    So she went a little lower and chose an ambitious Sea King. Zuko. And he accepted.

    So as customary, she bestowed him with 2 Laws of her own and reforged his mana with one of them, just like she had done with her other Apostles.

    Zion had been given the Laws of Fire and Ice and had his Mana be reforged by the Laws of Ice. Zikan had been given the Laws of Earth and Gravity and had his Mana reforged by Earth. She had made careful deductions when she chose Laws for her Apostles but when it came to Zuko, she knew immediately what he deserved.

    And that was the Laws of Metal and Water, with his Mana reforged by the Laws of Metal.

    This created a powerful Beast covered in terrifically sharp limbs with a mouth filled with peerless fangs, who not only was extremely durable, but also EXTREMELY fast in the Sea, thanks to the Laws of water and the shape of his body.

    A fast, gigantic Beast who you couldn¡¯t hurt, but could hurt you, even with just an accidental brush. She had to say that he was the most capable Apostle she had when it came to fighting. And on top of that, if he was mentally talented, the Moon Laws were something he would inevitably comprehend on his own just like Zion and Zimoi.

    Though she had to admit, his mental prospects weren¡¯t all that great. He was decently smart and loveable enough, but when it came to mentality, Ziket the Wasp had him beat. She would probably comprehended the Moon Laws in a few years.

    But it didn¡¯t matter! Zuko had become a Sea Emperor in recent years and all those he had conquered had been forced to praise the Moon. They didn¡¯t do it earnestly, which apparently meant that the Faith Energy they could provide was low, but she could deal with that later.

    Right now, he resided in the area between Ziket¡¯s Continent and the Continent filled with birds, and he was getting ready for the war that would decide the next Sea Kaiser! Go Zuko! Mother Moon supports you!

    Ahem. Other than all of that. She herself had increased her comprehension of certain Laws and improved her affinities, and right now, she was planning on anointing her 6th Apostle.

    She had been thinking of either one of those ¡®Monster¡¯ things in the Continent that was filled with them, or one the dead but still somehow alive creatures in the other Continent. But it wasn¡¯t an easy decision, they both provided brand new prospects that she might be able to make use of.

    And it was just as she was thinking of that that she noticed a golden light flying her way.

    ¡®What is that?¡¯

 Ch.234 A New Emotion

    The golden light entered her gravitational field, picking up speed and looking like it was going to crash into her. She was a little worried since the speed at which it was moving was enough to reduce it to pieces if it actually crashed, but she didn¡¯t care too much.

    She was intrigued by it but not enough to save it. There were some scary things on the Planet, things that made even her cautious. She¡¯d rather not have one of those on her own planetary body so on the off chance that this was one of them she¡¯d rather it exploded.

    Alas, contrary to how it acted when it first entered her gravitational field, it began to slow down, and soon enough, it landed on her body with the impact of a feather.

    ¡®Well then.¡¯ She thought. ¡®What is tha-... a Human?¡¯

    The golden light dissipated, leaving behind the figure of a Human with odd golden eyes, irregular long white hair, and most importantly, a profound aura of power that no other being on the planet could hope to match.

    All of a sudden, she felt like the understanding she had grasped of the planet had become rudimentary. Humans were supposed to be among the weakest life forms on the planet. Not because they were innately untalented, but because like most of the other Enlightened races they required techniques, something only the humans in the dead lands possessed.

    But even they, no, even the High Humans, Blood Fiends and Elves, the most prodigious Enlightened races on the planet, were like tiny embers compared to the roaring flame that was this Human.

    But perhaps she was jumping to conclusions too early. High Humans looked like Humans but you could almost always tell they weren¡¯t at a first glance. Everything about them generally just looked better. And here, this man looked EVEN better.

    The quality of all of his features looked pristine like precious metal, and yet he was flesh and blood. Was he something even more evolved than a High Human? Or maybe¡­ the progenitor of all humankind?

    Either way, she really hoped he¡¯d go away. This man was incomprehensible and she didn¡¯t like that. If there was one thing she had grasped from her investigation of the planet, it was that the things that she still didn¡¯t understand, even with all of her current knowledge, were things she was better off staying away from.

    Still, he was here now, and there was nothing wrong with asking the System questions like she always did, so that¡¯s exactly what she was going to do.

    ¡®System, who and what is he?¡¯

    She waited a while but received no answer.

    ¡®Huh? ¡­System?¡¯

    DING!

    <Yes, Host?>

    So it was still there. Why didn¡¯t it answer? Was there something wrong with what she said?

    ¡®What is he?¡¯

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    No answer.

    ¡®...System, what is he?¡¯

    No answer.

    ¡®System, who is he?¡¯

    No answer.

    ¡®System?¡¯

    DING!

    <Yes, Host?>

    This was¡­ surprising to say the least. Never once had she been completely ignored by the System. Even when it refused to answer her questions before, it still replied to her, telling her she was unqualified to know the answer. But this time it was just blatantly ignoring her. Was it because of this man?

    An unfamiliar emotion rose within her.

    ¡®System?¡¯

    DING!

    <Yes, Host?>

    ¡®System, what is the species of that man?¡¯

    No answer.

    The unfamiliar emotion got stronger.

    ¡®System, what emotion am I feeling?¡¯

    DING!

    <Fear, Host. You are feeling fear.>

    ¡®...¡¯

    ¡®Great. Just¡­ Let him do what he wants to do.¡¯ So long as it didn¡¯t harm her, he could leave in peace. Next time he came, if there even was a next time, she would absolutely not allow him to touch down on her body, at the moment it was a bit too late.

    ¡®Fear¡­¡¯ She rolled the word around in her mind. It was something she had seen but never experienced. She never thought she would either. Emotions fascinated her, the way they worked. Sometimes they made sense, but other times, like this. They didn¡¯t.

    All it took was for the System to act in a way it never had before, and she felt fear for the first time. It was odd. If she wasn¡¯t familiar with the System and it had acted like this, she knew she wouldn¡¯t have been affected. After all, she wouldn¡¯t have known that the event was abnormal.

    Emotions had a wondrous way of working¡­ but thinking that didn¡¯t lower her fear one bit.

    At the moment, she was dead set on pretending she wasn¡¯t sapient. Most of the species on the planet below believed that she was all kinds of things. The other side of the sun, another planet, a mere light that prevented complete darkness when the sun wasn¡¯t shining on their side. All sorts of things. But no one (who wasn¡¯t affiliated) believed that she could think like them.

    It had been a little annoying before, but right now, she was quite happy about tha-

    ¡°Hello Moon, or would you prefer to be called Luna? I¡¯ve always wanted to meet you but haven¡¯t had enough time, I¡¯m a little excited.¡± The man spoke. His voice, as expected, was also something that nobody else on the planet could sound like. But that obviously wasn¡¯t her concern.

    ¡®He knows...¡¯

    Fear surged once more. She didn¡¯t like the feeling.

    ¡°I know you have a Soul. I know you can speak to me. In fact, I even know you have an avatar. Can I request a face to face conversation?¡± He asked with a smile.

    The way he spoke didn¡¯t sound particularly authoritative. She had seen the way various Beast Kings/Queens spoke and they tended to speak rather bluntly. Demanding things without care for whether the person they were talking to was willing or even capable.

    This man didn¡¯t sound like that, and yet, she felt like she couldn¡¯t refuse. Like there was only one option and that was to comply. How did he do that? She might have asked if she didn¡¯t feel the abnormal need to be quiet and not provoke the creature before, or rather, on her.

    She sighed.

    She didn¡¯t think things would go well if she continued to pretend to lack awareness, so she obliged the man¡¯s wishes and conjured her Avatar.

 Ch.235 The Planet and the Moon

    Next to the man, the grey soil on the floor started to bulge out as if an animal was about to burst out. But there was no such thing on the Moon, at least not yet. Instead, the soil continued to rise up until it reached a height that was similar to the man¡¯s, and then it began to reshape itself.

    Slim limbs took form, a torso was carved out and a head appeared attached to a neck, all of this creating the basic form of a humanoid. But the changes weren¡¯t over. Breasts sprout out from the chest, a vagina was formed between the legs and the previously flat buttocks and narrow hips filled out to eye-catching proportions. This was obviously the form of a female.

    Next, the surface of the soil changed in texture, becoming smooth, pale in colour and supple in nature. This was skin. Unblemished skin at that, shocking considering the wild material that was used to make it but that was still the reality.

    Like this, more and more features appeared. Fingers, toes, mouth, nose, ears, silver lion eyes, pristinely soft goat fur from wrist to elbow and ankle to lower thigh, a silver lion tail that ended in a tuft of white fur, white ram horns that glistened like jewels, and finally, mane-like-but-still-glossy silver hair that tumbled from her skull to her hips.

    Luna looked at her palms before shaking them a bit. She then rolled around her feet one by one, wiggled her toes, blinked a few times, turned her head left and right, ran her hands down her hair, took a deep breath¡­ and then settled down.

    During all of that her impassive facial expression hadn¡¯t changed much but on the inside she was happy. She enjoyed the feeling of her avatar. Having such a complex and highly mobile body was always such a marvel and she didn¡¯t think she would ever get used to it.

    But there wasn¡¯t much time for that right now. She looked at the man in front of her and waited for him to speak. And speak he did.

    ¡°Wow, I¡¯m impressed. You are one of, if not the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Clearly you put a lot of work into this avatar.¡± He said with a smile.

    ¡°Thank you.¡± She replied uncaringly.

    But something was wrong. This man¡¯s voice¡­ She had obviously already heard it before and it was nice to hear, but it hadn¡¯t had any effect on her when she was listening with her Spirit Sense and main body. However, hearing them through the ears of her avatar seemed to provide some extra effects.

    For one, the areas she had categorised as erogenous zones seemed to warm up a bit, especially her breasts and groin. Her nipples slowly pebbled and her clitoris trembled from a rush of blood.

    ¡®How¡­?¡¯ Luna was shocked.

    She obviously knew that her body was aroused. She had seen the symptoms of arousal appear on many females and had studied it at length, so she knew what she was feeling, but what she was confused about was why she was feeling it. It had appeared too unnaturally. She didn¡¯t even have the associated thoughts that normally created arousal, so how was this happening?

    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    Still, her face didn¡¯t change much. The physical feelings of her Avatar were something she could easily ignore. But she would admit that she was consciously preventing her eyes from narrowing out of annoyance. She didn¡¯t like things that made no sense but around this man they kept appearing and it was causing her previously neutral feelings for the man to sour.

    Strangely, one side of the man¡¯s lips lifted into a grin. The bold, provocative or teasing kind, and it made her uncomfortable. It was like he knew what was going through her mind, or at least knew that he was slowly upsetting her. And it needn¡¯t be said what she thought about that.

    ¡°So you¡¯re capable, that¡¯s good.¡± The man said.

    ¡°What?¡± Her eyebrow twitched.

    ¡°Ah, nothing, nothing~ Ahem. Rather, I think it¡¯s time that we move on to why I¡¯m here in the first place.¡±

    ¡°Yes¡­¡± She really, really wanted him to go away.

    ¡°The planet is in a bit of trouble.¡± He said bluntly, no more smile to be found on his face. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard from Ziket, or rather, the goddess through Ziket, but I¡¯ll say it for you once more. Envy is a real threat to the World, and if he isn¡¯t stopped everyone will be in trouble.¡±

    ¡®Of course he knows about Ziket and our relationship.¡¯ Luna thought grumpily, but she was a bit more intrigued by the topic of the conversation. Even this man was worried about the creature known as Envy? Was the situation that bad?

    ¡°Can you not stop him yourself?¡± She asked.

    ¡°I can¡¯t affect the affairs of the World anymore. It¡¯s better that you don¡¯t ask, for your own sake.¡± The man said solemnly.

    ¡°...So why are you here, what do you want with me?¡± She asked

    ¡°I would like to request your assistance.¡± The man replied. ¡°The inhabitants on Ziket¡¯s continent would need extra help if they want to cross the Sea and reach the Phoenix King¡¯s continent and I¡¯ve found out that you¡¯re the best one to help them.¡±

    ¡°Zuko¡­¡± She immediately knew what he was thinking about.

    ¡°That¡¯s right. By the time those on Central are ready to move, the Kaiser of the Sea between the West and Central should have been chosen. I have a strong suspicion that that will be your Zuko. But still, the future is never certain and anything can happen, and that¡¯s why I too will be of assistance.

    My deal is this. If you can ensure that Zuko can help those on Central after the battle is over, then I can promise you that Zuko will be Kaiser. You, alone, will be the first entity to have a Sea Kaiser on this planet as your subordinate. Sounds good right?¡±

    ¡°...What if I don¡¯t agree?¡±

    ¡°Aiya! That would be terrible! The future is so turbulent these days, I would hate for something bad to happen to Zuko.¡± The man said with an anger-inducing grin.

    She wished she could send this man flying out of her main body. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do. She sighed. ¡°I will help you.¡±

    ¡°Great!¡± The man said as he clasped his hands together.

    ¡°Is that all?¡± She asked. ¡®Please go away.¡¯ She thought.

    ¡°Er, no. There¡¯s just one more thing.¡±

    Luna closed her eyes.

 Ch.236 The 6th Apostle

    ¡°And what is that?¡± Luna responded after a while.

    ¡°Your 6th Apostle. I would like to choose your 6th Apostle for you.¡± The man said.

    ¡®He even knows that I have 1 more Apostle spot left?¡¯ Luna thought as she stared at the man in silence.

    ¡°...Who are you?¡± She eventually chanced asking. Her new heart palpitated when she remembered how the System had ¡®responded¡¯ to that question, but she couldn¡¯t help but ask the man himself. So far he had not shown any hostility so it should be fine, right?

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to know that right now. Perhaps, if we meet again, I can tell you at that time.¡± The man replied with a small smile.

    Luna sighed once more. She had expected as much but it was still a bit unfortunate. At least she hadn¡¯t provoked him. Whatever. She decided to move on.

    ¡°Then why do you want to choose my 6th Apostle?¡±

    ¡°Well there¡¯s 2 reasons. The first one being that having a group of your followers on that specific continent would be of help to the cause. That is, taking down Envy. And the second reason which I think may be of interest to you is that¡­ there¡¯s another Anomaly like you on that Continent.¡± The man responded with a glint in his eyes.

    Luna¡¯s mouth dropped.

    She had always been keeping an eye out to see if there was another being like her. She knew that the word ¡®Anomaly¡¯ that was used to title her kind also denoted that she wasn¡¯t normal, she was an outlier or a mistake of sorts. That¡¯s what the word meant. So she hadn¡¯t been very confident that others like her existed.

    But now, this man was telling her that there was another being like her living on the planet? Who could it be? She had to find out!

    ¡°Which Continent is this?¡± She asked in a rush.

    ¡°Hahaha~ I knew you¡¯d be interested. The Continent is none other than the land of Birds. The West Continent.¡± The man was grinning again but she didn¡¯t care.

    She immediately stretched out her Spirit Sense to the planet¡­ only to remember how far it was. It would take some time for her Spirit Sense to reach the planet and that was not time she could afford to spend with the man right in front of her. She might end up offending him.

    She withdrew her Spirit Sense with great reluctance.

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    But contrary to her expectations: ¡°It¡¯s good you''re excited, don¡¯t hesitate on my account, in fact, let me assist you.¡± The man spoke before walking towards her and pressing 2 of his fingers on her forehead.

    She didn¡¯t even have time to resist before her vision Instantly warped and a different scene appeared in her mind.

    It was a forest filled with large luscious trees filled with vibrant green leaves. The soil was healthy and all kinds of Magical Herbs could be found here and there. Alas, the peaceful scene was abruptly broken by the sound of multiple birds.

    One could immediately infer that there were 2 kinds of birds from the different sounds they made, and they would then be able to tell that of the 2 groups, one of them seemed to be more panicked and in pain, and the other one was relentlessly aggressive. It didn¡¯t take much to guess that a furious fight was taking place.

    And as expected, a large group of birds that were recklessly throwing strikes at each other fell into the scene.

    On one side there was a group of Purgatory Vermillion Birds led by 2 beings in the 4th Realm. The rest of the birds in that group were at the peak of the 3rd Realm and weren¡¯t anything to scoff at either.

    On the other side, there was a group of Owls. They were mostly regular, having brown coloured feathers and cultivations that varied from the 3rd Realm to the peak of the 2nd. And as could be expected, they were dropping like flies. The only advantage they had was their numbers but that didn¡¯t look like it would last long.

    Fortunately, they seemed to have a special leader who was miraculously in the 4th Realm. A rare feat for someone who wasn¡¯t part of the 3 legendary races (Phoenix, Purgatory Vermillion, Gold Roc). The Owl was a male that had grey coloured feathers and he shot out terrific blades of wind with every flap of his wings.

    Unfortunately, he was being greatly suppressed by the 2 Purgatory Vermillion Birds in the 4th Realm. His ability to command wind was exceptional and granted him a kiting advantage that allowed him to preserve his life against the destructive might of his foes, but it was all could do.

    The number of his brethren may be counted using the thousands, which compared to the hundreds of his enemies was much greater, but they were losing, and badly. He fought ferociously and let out the mightiest blades of winds he could conjure but it was all in vain. He screeched with rage but it was useless.

    Luna watched all of this and wondered if the peculiar Owl was the one she was supposed to make an Apostle. He could certainly use the help.

    =That grey Owl, that¡¯s the one I want you to make an Apostle.= A familiar voice spoke in her mind. Obviously, it was the intruder. It was the first time she heard a voice in her mind that wasn¡¯t her own or the System¡¯s but she wasn¡¯t surprised, only a little worried about what that could mean.

    ¡®Where is the other Anomaly?¡¯ She asked in her mind as if she was asking herself. But unfortunately, she was given an answer.

    =Not too far from here. When you make this Owl your Apostle, you can ask him to find it.=

    As expected, the man could read her mind. She suppressed any thoughts from arising at that revelation. They would likely get her in trouble.

    She looked at the enraged grey owl and the pitiful brown ones, watching as they fell from the sky deader than dead. It was quite a sad sight.

    ¡®Okay then.¡¯

    It didn¡¯t take long for her to make a decision. She began preparations for her 6th Apostle contract.

 Ch.237 I CURSE YOU!

    The Grey Lord narrowly dodged a ball of fire by spinning to the left, it was so close that he could feel the overwhelming heat travel by him and it caused him discomfort even without it touching him, but at this point he was used to it.

    He flapped both wings to gain height and then flapped his wings again - this time one by one - to shoot out sharp blades of wind at both of his foes. Unfortunately, not only were they fully capable of dodging attacks as well, but even on the occasions where his attacks had landed thanks to its speed, the damage wasn¡¯t enough to cause immediate effects.

    In order to hit and not be hit, he had been forced to sacrifice power for greater speed. It allowed him to preserve his life against the destructive might of his legendary adversaries but it didn¡¯t allow him to help out his people, and he was furious.

    ¡°Wh-¡± He began, but then noticed a sneaky fireball that forced him to quickly dodge. He couldn¡¯t tank even a single one of these attacks or it would be over for him. Purgatory flames were no joke.

    After righting himself again, he shouted out once more. ¡°WHY MUST YOU PERSIST WITH THIS?!¡± He dodged another fireball and shot back with his own wind blades. ¡°MY SCAVENGE OWL RACE HAS NEVER POSSESSED THE MIGHT TO COMPETE WITH ANY OF THE LEGENDARY RACES, WE DON¡¯T EVE-¡±

    He dodged another fireball, and then dodged once more. They had been trying to predict where he would dodge recently and it hadn¡¯t worked, but things were becoming more dangerous.

    ¡°WE DON¡¯T EVEN HAVE AN AFFINITY WITH AN ELEMENT, THE POWER OF MY WIND IS SOMETHING I OBTAINED FROM A CHANCE OPPORTUNITY! YOU ALL KNOW THIS! SO WHY-¡±

    He was forced to dodge another attack, but his climbing rage had made him sluggish and the fireball managed to scrape his right wing, singing it immediately and causing frightful damage. Not frightful because it opened up his flesh or anything, but frightful because that would definitely affect his flight.

    ¡°DAMN IT, YOU FIENDS! I JUST OBTAINED A BIT OF POWER AND THAT WAS ALL IT TOOK FOR YOU OVERLOOK ALL THE WORK MY RACE HAS DONE FOR YOUR KIND AND SENTENCE US ALL TO DEATH?! IS THIS HOW YOU TREAT THOSE THAT WORK HARD FOR YOU?! YOU LEGENDARY RACES ARE ALL-¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve said enough Grey One. Your race is doomed to perish here not because of your pitiful power, but because you dared to lust after someone you shouldn¡¯t have. She wants the doom of your race and so shall it be-¡±

    The Purgatory Vermillion Bird was silenced when a blade of wind struck his face.

    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    ¡°LIES! DECEIT! RUBBISH! EVERYBODY KNOWS WHO I AM! EVERYBODY KNOWS WHO I LOVE! I HAVE NEVER LUSTED FOR A SINGLE ONE OF YOUR EVIL FEMALES! THIS IS ALL JUST A COVER UP SO THAT YOU CAN PLACATE THE OTHER RACES THAT WORK FOR YOU! I¡¯M SURE YOU LEARNED AFTER WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PHOENIXES IN THE PURE SOCIETY, SO YOU DECIDED TO RESORT TO CHEAP TRICKS LIKE THIS! HEINOUS! ROTTEN! WRETCHED! YOU ALL DESERVE TO DIE- AGH!¡±

    Multiple attacks slammed into his back, and from the extreme burn he was now suffering they were no doubt fire attacks.

    ¡®I BLUNDERED!¡¯ He inwardly screamed as his body suffered from the relentless purgatory flames.

    It didn¡¯t take much to guess what had happened. You see, Spirit Sense was a useful ability that allowed one to see and hear as far as it could extend. You could use it to look in all directions at once, or you could use it to focus on one particular area with a security that eyes couldn¡¯t emulate.

    But the problem with looking in all directions at once was that it messed with your senses. It was fine when you were standing still and focusing on what your Spirit Sense was perceiving but to fight in that state was just too difficult.

    That¡¯s why he would only periodically let out his Spirit Sense to check on his surroundings, and not keep it up the whole time. It was by using the intervals between his scouts, coupled with his anger and his focus on his 2 opponents, that allowed the weaker Purgatory birds who had been focusing on hunting his brethren to sneak attack on him.

    He wasn¡¯t dumb and always knew that that was a possibility, but his rage had temporarily occupied all of his thoughts. He had blundered big time! But it wasn¡¯t over yet! The might of 3rd Realmers, even multiple at the peak, wasn¡¯t enough to defeat him whether he had protected himself or not, he just need to-

    BOOOOOM!

    Something hot slammed into him with the impact of a tree and rendered him temporarily unconscious. His body caught on fire, fire that was multiple times hotter than the last, and he immediately began to plummet as his body lost all strength.

    He woke up shortly later with a minute gasp, but feeling the state of his body, he couldn¡¯t muster the will to save himself, talk less of the energy. He couldn¡¯t even feel his wings. His mind was foggy so he couldn¡¯t decipher whether he still even had them or not, but he knew with certainty that he was done for. It was over.

    His blurry sight caught the devastating scene of his dying brethren below, and the multiple balls of fire above that intended to sentence him to death before the ground could do it, and tears began to seep out of his eyes.

    What did he ever do to deserve this? Was it wrong to seek strength like everyone else? Is it only the legendary races that are allowed to keep climbing? Was everyone else supposed to be slaves forever?

    Why?!

    ¡®I wish you unwell, Purgatories! I wish your flames to go cold and your race to go extinct! I wish you to never have peace! I CURSE You! I CURSE YOU ALL-¡¯

    BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAM!

 Ch.238 Zero

    The Grey Lord¡¯s vision was entirely consumed by a bright silver light that seemed to have struck down from the sky. It was like a tribulation, only, it was so big that it was all anyone could see, and on top of it not disappearing a few seconds later like a regular tribulation, seemingly very content on staying, it also constantly let out a loud and shrill sound that dragged on and on.

    It drowned out all other sound, and soon, the strange phenomenon was all the Grey Lord could see and hear. Endless silver light and a single sound. He felt like he was dead.

    Was this what death was like? He thought it would have been a lot darker. Certainly more silent. Would he have to put up with this for as long as his consciousness still remained? Is this what he had been reduced to? How far he had fallen!

    Hate for the Purgatory Vermillion bird race wiggled its way into his fragile mind, but even that had to make way for the worry he had for his own race. How many were dying by the second? How many were about to¡­ join him? Oh how he hated.

    If only-

    DING!

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <You have been offered a Contract by the Moon.>

    <The Moon would like to make you an Apostle in exchange for eternal servitude, protection, and a copy of your memories. Do you agree?>

    ¡®...What?¡¯

    For a moment the Grey Lord was stunned. What was the meaning of this? Apostle? Eternal servitude? Even a copy of his memories? Moreover, what kind of protection could a dead mean provi-...de. Wait. Was he not¡­ dead?

    ¡®System!¡¯ He called out.

    DING!

    <Yes, Host?>

    ¡®What is an Apostle?¡¯

    DING!

    <The Host has not met the requirement for that information.>

    ¡®Dammit!¡¯ He was really tired of hearing that. But at the same time he was a little excited. All hidden information was special information, if the System wasn¡¯t willing to tell him what an Apostle was, then didn¡¯t that mean it was at least a little impressive?

    With the notion that he might not be dead spurring him on, he almost decided to agree to the so-called contract immediately. But then a sudden thought crossed his mind.

    Even if an Apostle is something great, that didn¡¯t mean it was great for him. It could be an elaborate term for a slave. The Common Language wasn¡¯t helping him too much, he could only vaguely understand that the word ¡®Apostle¡¯ meant some kind of special follower. But that didn¡¯t rule out the possibility of slavery. Hey, just look at the ¡®Eternal Servitude¡¯ that was being demanded from him!

    ¡®System!¡¯ He called out once more.

    DING!

    <Yes, Host?>

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    ¡®Would my wellbeing be in- wait. Am I still even alive?¡¯

    DING!

    <Yes, you are alive, Host. But you are currently in the process of dying. It is recommended that you find a way to survive.>

    ¡®Yes! Wait- as if I don¡¯t know that! This stupid thing, do you think I want to die?¡¯

    DING!

    <No, Host. It was only a recommendation.>

    ¡®How can I survive this? Do you have a way? I still can¡¯t feel my body!¡¯

    DING!

    <It is recommended that you accept the Apostle Contract.>

    ¡®...So it indeed does have the ability to assist me. I was wondering after thinking about the ¡®protection¡¯ requirement. How could I protect anything if I was in this state? Surely it had a way to make me capable. But this brings me back to my initial question¡­

    Will my wellbeing be compromised if I accept the contract?¡¯

    DING!

    <No.>

    ¡®What about my people? Would they come to harm because of this contract?¡¯

    DING!

    <It is very unlikely, Host. As we speak, they too are being offered contracts, and many are accepting.>

    ¡®The same contract?¡¯ He didn¡¯t like how his question was answered. He would prefer a definitive no. But he highly doubted he could get much more information concerning that so he had to move on.

    DING!

    <No.>

    ¡®Then which one?¡¯

    DING!

    <The Host has not met the requirement for->

    ¡®Alright! Alright! Tch, I get it. Fine then. If this thing can preserve my life, and even my own people are accepting contracts, then I can only accept. I need to protect my race for as long as I can.¡¯

    DING!

    <Seeking confirmation. Does the Host wish to accept the Apostle Contract?>

    ¡®...Yes.¡¯

    DING!

    <Congratulations. You have made a Contract with the Moon.>

    <Congratulations. You have become the Apostle of the Moon.>

    <Congratulations. You have gained the Heaven Grade [Moon Apostle Physique].>

    <Congratulations. You have gained the Earth Grade [Sanctified Lunar Bloodline].>

    <Congratulations. You have gained comprehension in the Laws of Ice and the Laws of Wind.>

    <Congratulations. You had gained the title [The Moon¡¯s Sixth Apostle].>

    <Congratulations. You have been named [Zero] by the Moon.>

    <Congratulations. Your Mana has been reforged by the Laws of Wind.>

    <Congratulations. You have entered the 2nd Stage of the Enlightened Beast Realm.>

    <Congratulations. You have entered the 3rd Stage of the Enlightened Beast Realm.>

    Zero¡¯s mind blanked out as the composition of his previously affinityless Mana became reforged by the Laws of Wind, powering him up exponentially. And then his power surged even further as his cultivation seamlessly broke through 2 stages.

    It wasn¡¯t necessarily painful, but it was very uncomfortable and felt very ethereal. He felt like something soft slithering across his brain, pushing his nerves to a hyper state of sensitivity and making him feel all kinds of things. He couldn¡¯t feel his body but at the same time he could feel everything. It was very weird.

    But when he woke up multiple moments later, his eyes opened and a completely different scene was presented before him.

    For one, the previously ordinary members of his race, the ones that were still alive at least, had all become completely different. Gone were the brown, common feathers that they used to have. Now, they all had feathers of the purest white and they glowed with magic. Their beaks were sharper and harder, going by the reflective glint they were showing like precious metals, and the same went for their claws. Their eyes had also changed colour, becoming a startling silver-blue, and the size of their entire bodies had grown too.

    His entire race seemed to have evolved in an instant.

 Ch.239 The Eyes That See My Soul

    ¡®Is this power of the contract?¡¯ He inwardly asked, but then he scolded himself. Of course it was, what else could it be?

    He didn¡¯t even need to look at himself to know that he had changed too, he could feel it. Bigger size, bigger muscles, sturdier bones and claws, overwhelming energy. He felt like he could actually mark a tree or a rock with an attack using this kind of might. As for his previous self, he felt like he could slaughter it with a single claw strike. That¡¯s how much stronger he felt compared to before.

    Of course, he couldn¡¯t actually damage a tree or any other planet-grown structure. It was said that one needed strength beyond the 6th Realm, which was hopelessly beyond his reach. But still, he felt incomparably powerful.

    He stretched out his Spirit Sense so that he could peer at himself.

    And what he saw was a 70 metre tall Owl that was flapping his giant wings to keep himself floating, with the most pristine silver coloured feathers he had ever seen. They were highlighted with glowing white patterns that seemed to move with the light and they exuded a sense of power. His claws and beak resembled precious white metal and in fact, the rest of his face had become white too, somewhat looking like the 2-tone face of a monkey, but it was his eyes that stole all the attention.

    Directly opposite to what had occurred to his brethren, the entirety of his eyes had become impossibly black, a light absorbing darkness of the likes he had never seen before. And they were so scary that they frightened even him, the owner of those eyes.

    But this was the new him. However, although he may have those strange eyes and feathers like the moon, he-

    Wait, the Moon!

    In his confusion he had forgotten just who had offered the contract. The demand for eternal servitude, protection and a copy of his memories had snatched his attention. Maybe a part of him had also pushed aside the word ¡®Moon¡¯ since it seemed to have no correlation with anything else, making it make no sense, but now¡­

    ¡®Status!¡¯ He called out.

    [Status]

    [Name: Zero]

    [Titles: Owl King, Wind Blessed, The Grey One, Grey Lord, The Moon¡¯s Sixth Apostle]

    [Race: Serene Moon Owl]

    [Cultivation: Enlightened Beast, Stage 3]

    [Combat Strength: Realm 4, Stage 4.5]

    [Bloodline: Sanctified Lunar Bloodline(Earth Grade)]

    [Physique: Moon Apostle Physique(Heaven Grade)]

    [Elements: Wind, Ice]

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    [Affinities: Wind(100%), Ice(100%), Moon(50%)]

    [Laws: Wind(1%), Ice(1%)]

    [Innate Skills: Crescent Wind, Icicle Spears, Lunar Wind Fusion]

    [Contract Skills: Divine Lunar Punishment, Divine Lunar Enhancement]

    ¡®This¡­!¡¯ He was flabbergasted. What was all of this?!

    His race, his strength, his new affinity, new skills. All of this was given to him by the contract? No- wait, the Moon?

    His head snapped up to look at the night sky, but more specifically at the Moon that seemed to look 100X more impressive than what it used to look like. It was brighter, more detailed, maybe bigger too? All this coupled with the contrast of the dark sky and the sprinkle of stars presented him with a sight that left him in a trance.

    ¡®Did the¡­ moon¡­ always look this beautiful?¡¯ He couldn¡¯t help asking himself in abject wonder.

    ¡°WHAT?! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?! WHAT HAPPENED?!¡± A disgusting, rotten voice entered his ears and destroyed the temporary peace he had obtained. He slowly twisted his head around and stared unblinkingly at the pair of filthy Purgatory birds that had been harassing him this entire time with his new darker than dark eyes.

    They both flinched, one more so than the other, but the other one, the one he quickly identified as the dirty offender that had interrupted his moon gazing, actually continued to yell at him, although with a noticeable lack of the previous ferocity.

    ¡°What have you done, Grey One?! What was that light?! How did you do this?!¡±

    ¡­

    [Purgatory Vermillion Bird POV]

    The Owl was different. That was easy to tell. The new appearance, but most importantly the new aura, was impossible to ignore. Somehow, someway, the strange Grey One had evolved in an instant.

    Imoka couldn¡¯t help but feel a chill run down his spine when he watched the Owl carelessly gaze towards the moon as if they were insignificant, a massive contrast to the anxious and desperate manner he had been moving around earlier, but he beat down the feeling. No matter how strong the weirdo had become, there were 2 of them now.

    Joasai, his partner and the more experienced one of the two, must have been thinking the same, because he suddenly started yelling at the Grey One, demanding answers.

    It was then that something changed in the air. A sudden chaotic violence that vibrated through the atmosphere and tore apart the previous serenity.

    The Owl slowly turned around, giving them plenty of time to exploit him, but they did nothing. They¡­ did nothing. Nevertheless, Imoka had plenty of time to psyche himself up and that was what he did, preparing for any sudden change in the situation, but not one thing¡­ not one thing could have prepared him for the slow reveal of those endlessly dark eyes that looked like nightmares made flesh.

    He jerked back in fear as his heart started beating erratically and breathing became difficult, even Joasai, his usually inexpressive partner, flinched.

    He decided at that moment it was time to go. Not flee, just a tactical retreat. They had already caused significant damage to the Scavenge Owl race and they could always come back later, preferably after gathering more information on the Grey One¡¯s change.

    But unfortunately, his ¡®mighty and bold¡¯ partner wasn¡¯t thinking what he was thinking because he actually decided to press on.

    ¡°What have you done, Grey One?! What was that light?! How did you do this?!¡± Joasai yelled out, but in an obviously more subdued manner.

    His heart skipped a beat and he held his breath as he wondered how the suddenly nightmarish Grey One would react, but¡­ but he didn¡¯t do anything. For a long moment, he just continued to stare at them with those freakish black eyes. Completely still and unmoving save for the flapping of his wings that were keeping him aloft.

    But then all of a sudden, his chest began to slowly expand as if he were taking a deep breath. A very deep breath.

 Ch.240 Perished

    ¡°Attack!¡± Joasai yelled suddenly before charging up a fireball attack and spitting it towards the Owl, breaking Imoka out of his shock.

    He looked into the deathly unwavering eyes of the Owl whose chest was still expanding, and then looked at the dark red fireball that was sailing through the air with murderous intent, and knew that they had reached a point of no return. He could only fight together with Joasai, complete their mission, and live to see another day¡­ or suffer possibly disastrous consequences along with him.

    Because he could never abandon him.

    Unlike most other races, the Purgatory Vermillion Bird race only had one progenitor. This undeniably meant that they were all blood related, and it gave them a greater kinship than most species. But his relationship with Joasai was more than just shared blood. They had been born in the same generation, only a few years apart, and had been friends with each other from the very beginning.

    Joasai may be overly serious, overly ambitious, and get on his nerves a lot¡­ but they had been through so much together. Just look at what they had accomplished! They were Purgatory birds of the 3rd generation, young compared to their betters, but had spectacularly reached the 4th Realm! They had even surpassed some from the 2nd generation!

    His instincts were hammering his skull and ballooning his heart, begging him to run from this Owl that had become a menace in the blink of an eye. But even if his skull cracked apart and his heart exploded into fragments, he would never abandon his partner. He couldn¡¯t.

    ¡®What rotten luck¡­¡¯ He thought as he charged up his own attack.

    He could only blame himself for becoming friends with an egomaniac that would look at such a calamitous change of events, and still want to fight; actually look at those terrifying eyes, and still want to fight.

    Madness.

    Even if he would admit that it was because of that ¡®madness¡¯ that the 2 of them had even reached this far so quickly, he¡­ haah~

    He didn¡¯t even want to think anymore.

    Relinquishing himself to his fate, he blew out the ball of fire that he had been charging, causing it to tear through the air towards its target with destructive vigour. He didn¡¯t wait to see the results and charged up another attack along with Joasai. Against an opponent like this, he didn¡¯t dare to hold back. Attacking an unknown aberration like this Owl may be provoking death, but he wasn¡¯t going to shove his head into the other side like a fool. He¡¯d go kicking and screaming, leaving lasting damage and obtaining small revenge, if this was really his end.

    Alas¡­

    Mortals can aspire but not all dreams become reality. All he saw was the sudden contraction of the Owl¡¯s chest and then everything was gone. Everything¡­ was gone. Death had claimed him quicker than he could react, not even giving him the chance to see the attack that had ended him. And there was nothing he was able to do about it.

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    A pitiful end.

    ¡­

    [Zero the Grey One POV]

    ¡®So this is the power of the Lunar Wind Fusion¡­¡¯ Zero thought to himself.

    ¡®A joke of the highest grade. I didn¡¯t even use a technique, I merely released the combined Wind and Ice into Lunar Wind and released the built up energy through my mouth. A simple breath attack using raw Mana, and this is the result. Simply unreal¡¯

    Zero looked at the forest below him that had been encased in ice, but more specifically the ripped apart pieces of flesh that belonged to many of the Purgatory Vermillion Bird race, which of course, were all frozen.

    He had released the breath attack solely in their direction, something that was made easier when the ignorant fools abandoned the Owls they were fighting to try an assist their 2 leaders, but still, the might of the attack was much greater than he thought it would be, causing some of his own people to be caught in the attack.

    Without a doubt, they were dead. But he refused to shy away from the sight of their torn bodies. He would burn the image into his brain and let it torment him for eternity. That was what he deserved.

    The thought greatly dampened his excitement and bewilderment, making him look at his newfound power with a feeling that was parts disbelief, parts joy, parts indifference and parts self-mocking.

    He had gained unparalleled and unprecedented power, something that all lifeforms dreamed about but something less than 1% could obtain. But it had been handed to him with such ease that he dared to call it the easiest feat he had EVER performed. All he had to do was say ¡®I accept¡¯, and that too in his own mind, lacking even the pittance of effort that would be needed to say the words aloud.

    And just like that, his desperate situation that would have become death only a few seconds later, had switched around in an instant. He, the once oppressed, had become the oppressor. No, ¡®oppressor¡¯ was too light a word for what he had done.

    Oppressor to destroyer. That was him.

    All because the words ¡®I accept¡¯, that weren¡¯t even spoken aloud¡­

    How could he not look at this whole situation as a joke?

    ¡°¡°¡°My Lord!¡±¡±¡± Multiple voices that he recognised called out to him. He turned his head towards it and saw his remaining brethren flying towards him with various facial expressions. Of course, nothing as expressive as anything an Enlightened being could show, but expressive enough to display either fear or excitement.

    Zero finally began to feel like giving a smile as the fact that not only he, but many others of his race had survived, but he suppressed it. His job was not done.

    There were still a few Purgatory birds left and they were trying to flee. Naturally, that was not something he could let happen. It was because of these heinous creatures that many of his people had died, and he wouldn¡¯t rest until they were all dead.

    Perhaps it was too much to target the entire Purgatory Vermillion Bird race, even with the power he had gained, and he knew that they weren¡¯t all rotten worms, so he wouldn¡¯t be like them, letting one abnormal individual set the precedent of an entire race, even if he hated them.

    But the ones here?

    They must all perish.

 Ch.241 Birth of the Third?!

    Eridel watched all of this from the moon and gave a nod of satisfaction. He relinquished the ¡®grip¡¯ he had on Luna¡¯s senses and felt not only her Spirit Sense focus on him, but also watched the eyes of her avatar come ¡®alive¡¯ with consciousness.

    ¡°Good job, Luna.¡± He spoke with a benign smile. ¡°So what do you think of your new Apostle?¡±

    For a little while she remained silent, perhaps thinking about what had just occurred or readjusting her senses, but then all of a sudden, the most pristine silver coloured wings burst out of her back and spread out to their maximum length, showcasing a wingspan of 8 metres and the splendour of magic itself. They then began to slowly flap, disorderly at first, but smooth as a veteran soon enough and it was a heart-palpitating sight to see.

    Eridel whistled in appreciation. The wings were quite impressive.

    Eventually, the Moon seemingly had enough and folded her new wings against her back before looking at Eridel and replying to his question. ¡°He¡¯s quite good. But those eyes¡­ Why are his eyes like that?¡± She asked with a face twisted in confusion.

    ¡°You¡¯ll find out eventually.¡± Eridel chuckled. ¡°Just know that you picked up quite the prize, one on par with and maybe even greater than your soon-to-be Sea Kaiser.¡±

    Luna¡¯s eyebrows rose, something akin to a gasp on a regular person. ¡°I see.¡±

    Eridel laughed once more outwardly, but as usual, on the inside he was thinking about multiple things at once.

    Some were useless and casual observations like the fact that an Anomaly¡¯s avatar which was essentially made of inorganic matter were actually capable of feeling arousal, and other things like his inability to read an Anomaly¡¯s mind, both of which he had predicted or known before but still interested him when confronted with the reality, but there were deeper thoughts like how he planned to slightly suppress the Moon and her influence in order to prevent her unfairly obtaining dominion over the world.

    It would have been fine if she fought her way to her position because whatever she gained would have been deserved, but as it stands, not only was she doing things revoltingly easily because of the lack of competition, inevitably suppressing everyone else, but she was also provoking Fate.

    Albeit not enough for anything too dangerous to happen since she was doing things completely within her own ability and not with Fortune, but enough that her first Tribulation might go up a grade because of all the lives she had control of.

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    Another thing, or rather, the thing that he had at the forefront of his mind, was the foreboding feeling he was sensing concerning his Soul. Something was about to happen to his Soul and it wasn¡¯t a rise in cultivation. At first, he was worried, because the Soul was the most delicate thing about his existence and if it was harmed he was in trouble, but soon enough (which was to say less than a split second) he realised the feeling was familiar.

    And as soon as he realised that it must have been something he experienced before, it didn¡¯t take much for his powerful mind to comb over his memories with terrifying efficiency. And a nano-second later, he found himself having to not only suppress his true planetary body from physically reacting, but having to keep his avatar from phasing out as well.

    As Eridel acclimated to his new life more and more, the amount of things that could make him react like that were steeply decreasing. The days where something shocking could cause his entire body, aka the planet, to start shaking, were thoroughly over. But he had nearly done just that.

    ¡®This¡­¡¯ The amount of thoughts circulating Eridel¡¯s mind directly multiplied, but 90% of them were focusing on a single topic. After all, if this feeling was to be trusted and meant what he thought it meant¡­

    He¡­ would soon be witnessing the birth of his 3rd Soulmate.

    Eridel¡¯s avatar stood dazed, almost as if he suddenly lacked a Soul. Luna blinked in confusion at the sight but ultimately decided not to say anything. She still didn¡¯t like the strange man and would prefer that he left as soon as possible, asking him questions would only extend the duration of their conversation and that was the last thing she wanted. Thus, an awkward silence was created.

    Eventually Eridel¡¯s avatar also ¡®rebooted¡¯ and he immediately gave a smile. ¡°Ah, I spaced out! My apologies, there are just a lot of things going through my mind right now. Something important caught my attention.¡±

    ¡°...Take your time.¡± Luna simply replied. For whatever reason, the strange man was acting polite, irrespective of his power, and was even apologising to her. But¡­ for some reason, not only did his demeanour not appear weak at all - exuding an almost palpable confidence that dared her to try him - she felt like if she were to take the slightest advantage of his apparent kindness, she would not live to see the planet finish its next rotation.

    She was a little afraid, she could admit that now, but she refused to let him detect it. She had witnessed many lifeforms become more aggressive when they detected fear and it almost always resulted in a pitiful situation. She wouldn¡¯t allow that to occur here.

    ¡°Whilst I¡¯d like to stay longer, there is something I must do. So I¡¯ll just give you a few instructions before taking my leave. I assume you have no problem with this?¡± Eridel asked.

    ¡®At last!¡¯ Luna felt joy course through her along with relief, but still, her face was emotionless as ever.

    ¡°I have no problem.¡± She responded out loud.

    ¡°Good~¡±

 Ch.242 Mistakes of the Past

    Eridel went through a few things with her, leaving important but subtle instructions that would ensure the overall progression of the world, before shooting off to prepare for the birth of his third Soulmate. Of course, not without checking who Luna¡¯s own Soulmate was. There was no way he wouldn¡¯t check something like that, even if the matter of his own Soulmate hadn¡¯t arisen, and he¡¯d be a buffoon of abnormal proportions if he didn¡¯t. Which, all lifeforms with intelligence would SURELY agree, was the furthest from what he was.

    In any case, the result was¡­ cliche.

    It was something that anyone who had read or watched a few fantasy stories could predict. Any one with the most basic understanding of Yin and Yang would be clapping with glee and a certain country back in his birth World would be crying tears of joy as they prostrated themselves with reverence.

    How amusing.

    Although Eridel had been hoping for a more unique result, this was fine too, so he threw the matter at the back of his mind (of course, along with a few potential plans concerning the matter) and focused on his own Soulmates.

    His first one was the Pink Gaseous Planet he had found a while back who would be entering his domain in a few years. He thought of that planet all the time and had made ample preparations for her arrival.

    His second Soulmate was the ex-Abomination of the North who was now living a new life as a human under the care of Gabriel and Seraqiel, and would be the heir of one of this World¡¯s greatest forms of ¡®Magic¡¯ and Martial Arts. Of course, she was still very much an apocalyptic Slime and very much NOT a human¡­ but nobody needed to know that right now, not even her.

    As for his third Soulmate? Apparently, he was about to find out.

    There were numerous possibilities about her identity but there would always be a single constant, regardless of what she turned out to be. And that was that he would NOT allow anything to go wrong.

    In the past, he had let matters spiral out of his control out of carelessness. There was Asura who ended up obtaining 4 Demon King Armaments, there was pitiful Slime that fused with 2 Domicus treasures and became a world-threat Abomination, and there was even an entity that had inherited many of his own abilities as a Planet and became the first Anomaly.

    All of this had been because of carelessness, but it was more than that.

    For one, there was the foundation that allowed all others to exist: His previous fragile mindset caused by the 2000 aching years of loneliness. It had caused him to overly dote on some of his inhabitants and ignore certain flaws (something that allowed the existence of things he should have eliminated as soon as he saw them like Ghost, Gloria and Ciera) and had even caused him to adopt one of them just because she had called him ¡®daddy¡¯, namely Ciera, the First Anomaly.

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    Now he would admit that he didn¡¯t regret the choice that he made, but instead the stupidity that had caused the choice in the first place. Thankfully, with the events that established his Will Fire in his Tribulation, that deplorable mindset had vanished. But there were still other issues that had thoroughly made use of that previous mess.

    For example, the Will/Ego of his Planetary body that had that exploited his fragile mind, caused him to make FOOLISH and SUICIDAL decisions that no healthy person would ever commit. This problem had been alleviated some because of the creation of his Will Fire, but it had already caused a lot of damage. It had caused him to do ret*rded things like overloading his Planetary Core for the sake of creating Magical Energy, creating a World Tree to use as a ¡®gift¡¯ that he gave to the Elves, and later on even creating 2 self-growing and nigh-independent Realms (Heaven and Hell), something he would dearly pay for if his plans regarding his Avatars were to fail.

    Another thing that had exploited his previous mindset was the ¡®Let the World progress on its own, it will be more fun to not interfere¡¯ attitude. This had been the giant nail in the coffin. Allowing him to shrug his shoulders and laugh at the creation of existences like Asura, the Abomination of the North, the High Human Queen, and even the Devil Race. Ignoring them in hopes that he would see a way that the other inhabitants of the World would grow to deal with them.

    Unfortunately, whilst the idea wasn¡¯t a bad one, with all the things he had been dumping into the World in such a short time frame, the so-called balance between Order and Chaos had been greatly tilted in one side''s favour, and it was not Order. The 7 Deadly Sins, the Sea Creatures, the South Continent, the North Continent, the rising Ghost problem and so much more.

    There was even another growing problem that was even bigger than the Devil race, a new group of¡­ creatures that could barely be categorised as a single race, the group that had arisen as a result of his previous Hybrid experiments using Monsters, the Chimeras. And guess what he had thought about it when he noticed it.

    ¡®Whoop, guess the South Continent and the surrounding area will be in trouble for a while!¡¯ Knowing fully well that it would cause damage to many more areas if there was nobody to stop it given enough time¡­

    ¡­Eridel didn¡¯t even have the energy to insult himself, he quite frankly didn¡¯t even want to think about the matter anymore.

    All of this was behind him now. Slowly but surely, he would restore the balance in his World and allow the forces of ¡®Order¡¯ to reach a point where it could contend with ¡®Chaos¡¯. The 7 Empyrean Virtues would be arriving soon, and more to come. Eventually, the purely ¡®good¡¯ forces of the World would be more than just the Twin Stars of Hope in the North and perhaps the various races on the Central Continent that had a greater moral system than the rest.

    With all that being said, whilst he had ALLOWED mistakes to occur in the past, they would not repeat themselves with his Soulmates. How he would treat them when it came to that was up in the air, but regarding their livelihood, there was no room for error.

    If he had to, he would utilise the gigantic computing power of his mind to solely that purpose, something that not even his most prized creation; The Eridius System, had received.

 Ch.243 Eridelâ€™s Third Soulmate!

    *3 minutes later*

    Eridel had already dispelled his avatar and was waiting for his third Soulmate¡¯s birth in his most natural state. His every instinct was taut and he was ready to act at a moment¡¯s notice, which inevitably caused the way he saw the World to slow down to agonising levels of slowness, but in this moment he certainly didn¡¯t mind.

    He looked at everything that he was capable of looking at and made thousands upon thousands of calculations on points of weakness that he made sure would not be a problem (at least in that moment) if they suddenly developed into worst case-scenarios.

    Of course, even if that DID happen -which was too unlikely- he would only care if it happened to take place near his third Soulmate, or any other of his Soulmates for that matter. If not, then it better be something that he could sort out in simulation to the birth of his Soulmate because otherwise it could wait.

    Now, he knew that he was statistically overreacting.

    His third Soumate was about to be born, not undergo a 1/1,000,000 chance of survival evolution like his second naughty Soulmate. Technically, he shouldn¡¯t have to do ANYTHING. The amount of times he had needed to interfere with someone¡¯s birth could be counted with a crippled hand, which is to say, zero.

    But there was a first time for everything and Eridel was a firm believer in being ready so that he didn¡¯t need to get ready.

    Besides, Fate worked in strange ways. Perhaps, his third Soulmate would cause an unfortunate commotion during her birth, requiring his assistance if she wanted to live longer than a month, and if Fate had plans for her, which was all too likely to be true if she was going to come close to him in potential, then maybe Fate was putting paranoid thoughts in his brain, warning him about something that was to come so that she could survive until it was done with her.

    It could be something as simple as her mother dying after giving birth when the father was already gone, something which would spell doom for any new-born lifeform in an era like this. Or it could be something as annoying as her birth causing a commotion on the level of a Sin Coronation. Or maybe she would be born with a special Constitution that required a special resource to sustain that only he could create for her. There were many possibilities, even if they were all unlikely.

    He had already scanned all pregnant bellies and saw nothing special. Well, nothing special in comparison to him. So whilst that was a little worrying, at least it narrowed the possibilities of death upon birth. Only natural life-forms faced countless threats like that.

    As for his Soulmate? It was becoming increasingly likely that it was ANOTHER Anomaly, or something similar. But which one this time? It was impossible to guess. All he could do was wait.

    It was unfortunate since in the state he was in he could almost count in the zeptoseconds, but it was better than the consequence of not doing so. Conclusion: Nothing changes, keep waiting.

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    And so he did.

    It was after a minute had passed -specifically 67.9327498324238 seconds- that he suddenly felt something in his Soul, something familiar. A certain connection had locked into place and with it came an inexplicable feeling of bliss. He absolutely knew this feeling. All of a sudden, his third Soulmate had been born and had already established a connection with him¡­

    He had not seen any special baby enter the World and there was no new Anomaly either, at least not within his vision, but apparently his third Soulmate was currently alive and out there¡­

    He didn¡¯t even bother to recite how impossible it was that he could have missed such an event, all he had to do was look through his new Soulmate link and see who was on the other side. And to be honest, he had strong suspicions of her identity considering what had taken place at the same time of the Soul bond¡­ but if it was really ¡®that thing¡¯, then he really needed to reevaluate himself when it came to his apparent tastes in women.

    The first one was an uninhabitable gaseous planet that was so hazardous that it would reduce most lifeforms that got close to it to dust.

    The second one was an Apocalyptic Abomination that had not only become a Chaos being but also the Sin of Gluttony. The amount of lives it had casually harvested when it was just an Abomination spoke for itself.

    As for his third one? It was¡­.

    Aha. Ahaha.

    Of course.

    It was none other than a Horseman of the Apocalypse. The Horseman of Death, to be exact.

    The Horseman of Death had finally devoured enough Souls to complete her own, something that he had been looking at (like everything else) but ignored, opting to keep focusing on the birth of his ¡®more important third Soulmate¡¯.

    But as it turns out, as soon as Death¡¯s Soul had been completed, it had gained the ¡®blessing¡¯ of he, the Eridius World, something that every other Soul in this World had. Which is to say, the System, the Soulmate link and other smaller things¡­

    Who would have guessed that that Soulmate would tie to him?

    Eridel was rocked. Once again, he had failed to predict the identity of a Soulmate that had been right under his nose. But how was this possible?

    The Horsemen were powerful, but none of them could match the potential of the Slime Abomination, talk less of him. So how could any one of them become his Soulmate? It didn¡¯t make much sense.

    ¡­But that was only if you looked at it without considering future possibilities. Eridel didn¡¯t even need to think too much to guess just how the Horseman of Death, his third Soulmate, was going to match him in future.

    He could already think of a very important position within his own World that would greatly augment her potential if it was to be claimed by her.

    Thing is, he had been planning for that position to be given to someone else, the Wraith King to be specific. He had never considered giving that position to be given to the Horseman of Death despite her affinity, because as a Horseman, her job was to be outside his World, roaming the Universe and marauding for opportunities. Not sitting down to govern ¡®that place¡¯.

    But honestly? It¡¯s not like she cooouldn¡¯t do both, it¡¯s just¡­

    Haaah¡­~

    Eridel would facepalm if he could right now. What a nuisance. His 3rd Soulmate had just been born but was already affecting his plans. He could only hope that the Soulmate system would truly do its job, and make her an upgrade to his life, not an anchor.

    Either way, nothing was set in stone. Right now, he would much rather loosen his thoughts and just watch his new Soulmate for a while, even if she was a multi-wolf-headed death ball. A giant, multi-wolf-headed death ball.

 Ch.244 Deathâ€™s Evolution

    [Lolay Galaxy, Desolate Region, Miyanka World, A Ruined City]

    Lying silently on the road of an abandoned street was a highly conspicuous Egg. However, the only thing ¡®egg¡¯-like about it was its shape, but honestly¡­ Anyone looking at it would rather liken it to a strangely smooth boulder. A very evil one at that.

    After all, not only was it very large, roughly the size of a car, and lacking any semblance of softness, but it was also very paranormal in its colour. It was a haunting pitch black that seemed to absorb all light, and the only saving grace were strange grey patterns marking its body. Beautiful in appearance but eerie in nature.

    The object was obviously bad news, and any mortal with intelligence would have made the smart decision to skedaddle, whether they had knowledge of magic or not. Even the adrenaline junkies who braved perilous situations in order to discover the ¡®secrets of the universe¡¯ would have made the smart decision to run away, and they didn¡¯t even need to look at surrounding ruins of what was once a beautiful city to make that decision.

    The aura of death surrounding that Egg was just that bad.

    *Crack!*

    All of a sudden, a distinct cracking sound was heard above the roar of flames assaulting the city.

    *Crack! C-crack! Cccrack! Tsssssssss!*

    Further cracks could be heard from the Egg and it sounded like it was about to hatch, not that it could be seen - The Egg was too dark to detect any cracks. But soon enough, a hissing sound could be heard as what looked like black smoke seeped out of the cracks and billowed into the air with notable velocity.

    *CSSSSSSSSH!*

    A while later a different sound was heard and the Egg suddenly shattered, releasing what was hidden within back into the World.

    The Horseman of Death.

    Breaking common sense, the black smoke that had congealed together to form the rough shape of an oval ball had reached an imposing height of 10 or so metres, something akin to a 3 storey building. Had it been compressed within the egg the entire time?

    Either way, that observation wasn¡¯t the most shocking thing about its terrific appearance. Taking that position were the dozens of phantom wolf heads littered all over its vapious body. Those things were the stuff of nightmares. They disappeared and reappeared in different locations erratically and the killing intent they expressed within their eyes and horrible growls was blood-curdling. And yet, not a single sound could be heard.

    They looked like they wanted to devour the World and everything within, eyes chaotic with ravenous hunger and lips pulled back in despicable snarls, but they didn¡¯t make the slight sound.

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    The horror could not be fully expressed with words.

    However¡­ As time passed, something seemed to change. The wolf heads seemed to be¡­ calming down? Their movements were less erratic, eventually appearing even casual, and although their eyes still looked like portals to the underworld, they looked less furious and chaotic. More passive, as if they were still made for destruction, but weren¡¯t actively seeking it. Their mouths had mostly settled down too. Some still gave a snarl every now and then but for the most part they were settled.

    Something had obviously changed. But what?

    ¡­

    Death POV

    Death cycled through the thousands of memories it had inherited since It¡¯s birth. Memories of all kinds. They were all incomplete and rarely displayed a long enough story but with the sheer amount of them it was enough to come to a comprehensive understanding of this World, and the exact situation It was in.

    These were the memories of the many It had devoured. The memories of the deceased that had become the nutrients to fuel It¡¯s growth.

    Since the dawn of It¡¯s existence, It had been collecting lives and collecting memories, nothing had changed in this regard and it likely never will. The memories had only ever been used to enhance It¡¯s hunting methods or locate places that many lifeforms gathered at, but having just completed It¡¯s first evolution, the way It looked at those memories had undergone a groundbreaking shift.

    After all, the creation of It¡¯s Soul had finally reached completion.

    Before this moment, the only desires Death had were biological, and the only thoughts It had were how to satiate those biological desires, mainly the desire to eat and the desire to grow. It could identify that many of the lifeforms it ate were different and reacted to life based on a much greater amount of factors outside of simple biological desire, something the ¡®Humans¡¯ called ¡®Emotions¡¯, but they all seemed like fruitless acts.

    Death couldn¡¯t count how many fools It had seen carelessly commit to acts that ultimately ended up with them landing It¡¯s stomach. There were some that purposely consumed poisonous liquids or poisonous supplements that dulled their senses and damaged their ability to think before they walked home in the middle of the night as if they were safe.

    There were some who went out running, alone at that, because of ¡®motivation¡¯?

    And there were even fools that purposefully sought out danger because of the ¡®thrill¡¯ that it gave them.

    Death had categorised the behaviour of people like this as the behaviour of ¡®fools¡¯, a word It had learned from the Humans, but not because It had never looked down on them. That would require pride, an emotion. The word ¡®fool¡¯ was used to describe someone that acted unwisely, and such fools were just easier prey to find and exploit than their peers.

    Why they acted like that, Death had not known. Perhaps it was a defect or the results of a mind altering plague or drug. It had once eaten an ¡®important¡¯ person and found out information that would make the rest of the Human race break out with ¡®rage¡¯, and that was that amongst the antibiotics that they were made to take at birth, a few of them carried heinous designs that had detrimental effects on their biology, permanently changing them and their future generations in order to suit a specific purpose.

    Humans who were in positions of ¡®leadership¡¯ had actually done this to the rest of their race. For what, Death had not known. Why not just focus on eating, drinking, sleeping and procreation, their main biological needs? It was odd. A conundrum that Death had been incapable of comprehending.

    ¡­But that was in the past.

    Death had gained a Soul along with greater intelligence but most importantly emotions of her own. And now¡­ She knew it all.

 Ch.245 15 Years of Death

    Having gained a Soul, the first thing Death had done had been to construct her own unique identity. Not necessarily because she had to or even wanted to, but it was an inevitable process that took place the more she perused her memories. With emotions, there were things that she saw in her memory that she felt she had an actual affinity for, things that she actually enjoyed looking at. An impossibility that had become possible.

    An example of this was when she had looked at the difference between the male and female gender. Having corrupted many Souls and grown a large army, something that could also be called her family, she had likened herself to a Mother. And shockingly enough, she had actually begun to feel fond of them. That, amongst other things like the fact that the first lifeform she had devoured was female (which had caused her to be more feminine until she obtained the thoughts of both genders), was the reason she had ultimately chosen the female gender, something that would become important in the 4th Realm.

    Emotions were really interesting and complex, but it wasn¡¯t all positive feelings, almost the contrary.

    There were many things within her memories that she disliked and despised. The world around her was really jam-packed with inferior life forms, and even though she had known that before, now she FELT it. After all, not a single one of those flimsy things had a spec of Mana and they all died with a single attack.

    Thinking like this, it had become very quick for her to quickly feel what Humans called ¡®arrogance¡¯, but she didn¡¯t care. Arrogance was only shunned because it blindsided you, making you think that you were more invulnerable than you actually were, on top of the fact that most people hated to be looked down on. But that was for THEM.

    She knew that she had not come from this World. She had meagre memories of another that was many times greater than this World, and she knew that she was here on a mission. She didn¡¯t know who had sent her, perhaps it was her parent(s), but she didn¡¯t really care. The end goal of her mission was extremely beneficial to her and she was going to complete it. Arrogance would not be blindsiding her.

    She was very aware of her capabilities and her limits and had no shame in admitting any of them. She was not yet invincible in this World and that would not be changing any time soon. Talk less of the guardians from the so-called Sigothia World (something that she had known about since birth), if these humans started to launch artillery at her, she would die. As someone who had just entered the 2nd Realm, It wouldn¡¯t even take a nuclear weapon.

    She may have openly committed slaughter in a Human city but she had only dared to do so because she had known that wherever she stepped, technology died. She didn¡¯t know why, but in her memories, there are many moments of fleeing humans trying to contact people using C-cubes or whatever other gadgets, only to find out that they had inexplicably ran out of power, refusing to operate. Viscapturers and all other technology were the same.

    Wherever she stepped, technology died.

    She had previously thought that it was some kind of innate power of hers, but now she wasn¡¯t too sure. She knew what her powers could and couldn¡¯t do and they had nothing to do with technology.

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    Either way, it still happened, and that was why she was here. Otherwise she would have never left the Forests.

    Having devoured every lifeform in a few of this city¡¯s districts, she had finally obtained enough life essence to convert into the energy needed to enter the 2nd Realm. A monumental feat that Humans would envy (if they didn¡¯t know how she had achieved it) but she wasn¡¯t all that happy.

    15 years. That was her age and how long she had been on this World, and yet it was only now that she had reached this milestone. How embarrassing¡­

    But it couldn¡¯t be helped. Amongst her various prey, none of them had any Mana for her to syphon. It also didn¡¯t help that the World itself had no Magical Energy, so she couldn¡¯t even absorb anything from the air like she knew she could if she was in another World. The only thing she could do was inefficiently convert the vitality (life essence) of her prey into Mana, and it was very annoying.

    ¡­See? Most of the emotions she actually felt the more she thought about what she had experienced and what others had experienced were negative. It would have worried her if she knew she wasn¡¯t like most other lifeforms. When they get a vast amount of negative thoughts, they start to slow down, or lash out and then slow down. They begin to ask themselves if living was really worth it.

    That would never happen to her. She was fundamentally too great. Also, she was hungry.

    A part of her felt the tiniest bit sorry for what she was about to do, another thing she had never experienced before. It¡¯s just that there were all kinds of innocent Humans and other lifeforms that had interesting aspirations that didn¡¯t deserve to die, and yet they were going to end up dead at her jaws.

    ¡®It is inevitable. The World is mine to claim.¡¯ She thought to herself. However, even she could see that she was nowhere near as violent and as erratic as she was before. The wolf heads all over her body perfectly represented her emotions, and just the change in their demeanour was a telltale change in the change of her own mindset.

    But that did not mean she would stop killing. Not in the slightest. Everyone in this World would die if they didn¡¯t somehow leave it. She just wasn¡¯t as 1 track minded as she used to be. Her Soul had freed her from her instincts to an extent and now she could care about more than just her next meal. It was wonderful. But in regards to this planet¡¯s lifeforms?

    The most she could do was increase the Souls of those she corrupted, instead of specifically choosing only the talented, giving them a new lease on ¡®life¡¯.

    Ah, speaking of those Souls¡­

    ¡°Rise.¡± She commanded, her voice echoing out of the multiple mouths on her body, but carrying a distinct femininity that was previously lacking.

    A second later, every shadow in her vicinity began to morph, wiggling strangely before wolven heads began to form, their dark eyes gleaming as they looked at Death. Naturally they didn¡¯t stop there and soon hopped out of their respective shadows and revealed all kinds of transparent vapious bodies.

    ¡°We rise.¡± They all simultaneously responded, and the streets echoed with those 2 words.

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: C-cubes, short for communication cubes, are this World¡¯s version of a Phone. Viscapturers are cameras.}

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: When Death first spoke, it was mentioned that her voice was feminine. But that was lost after her thoughts became mixed with both feminine and masculine memories, making her voice more androgynous. Now, her voice is once more feminine, and will stay that way.}

 Ch.246 View on Evil

    ¡°¡°¡°We rise.¡±¡±¡± Thousands of deep, eerie voices responded to the call of their maker, making the crumbling and burning streets look even more like a scene out of an apocalypse, and the appearances of those harrowing figures didn¡¯t make anything better.

    Having stepped out of the shadows, their forms had become clear and what a ghastly sight they made. Their forms varied but there was a single constant and that was their very clear relation to wolves. Around 70% of them looked just like regular wolves, but not only were they much bigger and appeared vapious in nature like ghosts, there were also some that had strange add ons. Some had horns, some had wings, some had multiple eyes and some had large ears.

    And as for the remaining 30%? They were even more irregular. They were humanoid wolves. They stood on 2 legs and possessed 2 fully functional arms with 5 fingers that ended in claws. But unlike the Enlightened Beasts back on Eridius, that was where their relationship to Humans, Elves and other Enlightened ended.

    These humanoid Wolves had completely retained their wolven heads, and black vapious fur covered every inch of their bodies like the beasts they were. Even their legs were double jointed and had paws instead of feet like an ordinary wolf. It was bizarre.

    And as if their daunting appearances weren¡¯t enough, they each radiated an aura filled with death and eldritch coldness. There was an alien savageness in their eyes that words alone could not correctly identify and their silence only made things worse. They didn¡¯t growl or snarl like normal aggressive beasts, no, they just stood still and watched.

    What was even scarier was that it could be perfectly imagined how one of these wolves could sit in the corner of someone¡¯s bedroom, perhaps blending in with a shadow. And an innocent Human who was peacefully interacting with his C-Cube, maybe watching a show or reading a book, would be none the wiser that their life was no longer in their hands.

    They wouldn¡¯t even know how they died.

    ¡°Bring me more Souls.¡± Their creator spoke, her form multiple times more terrifying than theirs.

    ¡°A hunt?¡± Spoke a 3 metre tall humanoid wolf, the tallest of all the humanoid wolves. A question could be heard in it¡¯s voice but it still sounded as emotionless as ice.

    ¡°A feast?¡± Said a giant 6 metre tall wolf with ram horns on the sides of it¡¯s head.

    ¡°Growth~¡± Breathed a 5 metre tall wolf with wings on it¡¯s back.

    ¡°As the Sire commands¡­¡± started a perfectly normal shaped wolf with no add ons, yet standing the tallest at 7 metres high.

    ¡°So shall it be.¡± Every wolf said in unison.

    Then they slipped back into the darkness before reappearing somewhere else a few seconds later, using the shadows to travel the city at a horrifying speed that the mortals of this World would find a hard time witnessing. And they did it all without making a single sound.

    No feet could be heard during the few times they ran under the daylight, no sound effect as they wielded the shadows, no growl as they leapt with menace. It was all silent.

    Such a sight was nothing if not blood-curdling, and it was very evident that this city was doomed.

    Such was the fate of a land that hosted a Horseman of Apocalypse.

    ¡­

    [Eridius World]

    Eridel watched this apocalyptic event with interest.

    Those Wolves were the result of the Death using her Corruption abilities to transform a Soul, an ability that all Horsemen had. Of course, the results were different and they didn¡¯t all become wolves. For example, the Horsemen of Conquest could turn Souls into strange entities covered in tentacles, mouths and eyes. However, the result still took influence from the Soul itself.

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    As was shown, any animal the Death had used that ability on had become a wolf, regardless of what kind of animal they were before, and they only retained a few features from their previous forms.

    A bat had become a wolf with large bat ears, a bull had become a wolf with horns or hooves or sometimes both, a bird would become a wolf with wings, and a spider would become a wolf with multiple eyes or multiple legs.

    But for the humans or to be more specific the ¡®Enlightened Races¡¯, they would become a completely humanoid Wolf and only very rarely would they be able to keep things like horns, a halo or wings. For instance, a regular demon would just become a humanoid wolf and would lose his horns, but a demon who had amazing compatibility with the corruption would not only retain the horns but also his racial abilities, which was what made it so hard.

    Watching a Horsman corrupt a lifeform was always interesting for Eridel to watch because unlike if that were to happen on his own planet, he didn¡¯t create the lifeforms of other worlds so he couldn¡¯t perfectly predict the result. So it was like watching someone trying to unlock a rare character in a game. Most of the time they would get the usual common stuff, but every once in a while they will get a nice surprise.

    But as for all the lives that were being taken¡­?

    He didn¡¯t care too much.

    He had seen a scene like this take place multiple times before and in each of the 4 Worlds he had sent a Horseman. And regardless of what his view on those actions were, repetition creates indifference.

    But on that topic, when it came to murder, Eridel¡¯s view on it was unsurprisingly apathetic.

    Having almost reincarnated before his Soul was whisked away, he had reached a sort of limbo where he didn¡¯t see the death of a body as true death. True death was actually the destruction of the Soul and as long as it didn¡¯t perish, you would once more walk the lands of the living, even if you didn¡¯t retain your identity.

    Naturally that meant nothing here since the Souls were being devoured. These people were truly dying. But once you create an excuse for any act and truly accept it, is it that much of a surprise that you accept it once more when it crosses your new ¡®boundary¡¯?

    When faced with this dilemma, some people just created a new boundary. A lot of the time that held, but sometimes an even bigger boundary than that was needed and some actually created it. But then there was people like Eridel who just decided ¡®fuck it¡¯.

    Killing people was sad, but if it was needed for his goals, then so be it.

    The only thing he wouldn¡¯t intentionally do was torture the innocent, and that was a boundary he would not be crossing. In his mind, any action that had the end goal of causing suffering towards the undeserving was evil, especially if it was for the sake of pleasure, and evil was something he refused to be.

    In the event that he needed to slaughter someone, or even a group of people, for gain that he couldn¡¯t do or even merely wouldn¡¯t do without, he would first look for his enemies. If he needed more than just his enemies then he would look for those he considered evil, if he needed more than that then he would target a large faction that he was opposed to, regardless of the values of the individuals within. And if he needed more than that¡­? Then unfortunately it was anyone on sight.

    He would only make pre-emptive measures to ensure that the innocent didn¡¯t suffer in the process whenever he could.

    Of course, it was utterly impossible to avoid harming everyone you wanted to kill, especially if it was through a third party, but Eridel couldn¡¯t bring himself to care about every single scenario like that.

    Almost every goal could accidently harm others. Even the simple innocent pursuit of becoming beautiful could bring woe to those who wished desperately to obtain you but lacked the capability.

    And for everyone who wished to win, it meant that you wanted others to lose. Of course, a group of people could win together, and that was good. Perhaps your innocent goal was for your country to never lack food, thus everyone wins¡­ But what about the animals? And if you wanted to make your country vegetarian, what about the small creatures whose livelihood was those plants that you didn¡¯t want getting violated? And if you were advanced enough to make artificial food, then who were you benefitting from to get the energy to feed a whole country? And if ALL those problems were solved, what about those who watched in envy, hating the fact there was a heaven that was barred to them? Some may say ¡®then those people should come to the country¡¯, but sometimes it wasn¡¯t that easy.

    Somebody always loses, and it was foolish to care about every single one.

    Eridel wouldn¡¯t care about the people who despaired because of his appearance, he wouldn¡¯t care about the people who despaired when he obtained a priceless treasure and they didn¡¯t, he wouldn¡¯t care about the people who cried after losing in a competition in which he was competing, and he wouldn¡¯t care about the few seconds that someone may feel pain as he claimed their life.

    If he could make the effort to stop the suffering then he would, but if not, it is what it is.

    That was Eridel¡¯s belief.

 Ch.247 I will be Kaiser!

    Eridel gave one last glance at his third Soulmate to check for the nth time that there were no great threats before focusing on his next project. No rest for the wicked as they say.

    Thankfully, this one would require little to no effort.

    When he had made a deal with the Moon, he had promised to help Zuko become Kaiser if she helped the others in the campaign against Envy. And since he was such a magnanimous, innocent, honest, pure, righteous and loving Planet, he would honourably uphold his promise!

    It was absolutely NOT because powering up Zuko was one of his agendas. This was all about integrity and virtue! Justice and law!

    ¡®Haah¡­ Sometimes I really wonder what these people did to deserve someone as great and humble as me¡­ Should I start taking taxes?¡¯ Eridel shamelessly wondered to himself.

    In the next moment, he focused on Zuko and began to coalesce the surrounding energy into a single point, beginning the process of creation for the first time in a long while.

    ¡­

    [Eridius World, Sea between Central and West Continents]

    Swimming vigorously through the turbulent heavy waters was a 45m or so long mutated Sea Centipede. He was completely covered in glossy black chitin reminiscent of metal and it had white glowing patterns all over it that illuminated the dark depths of the sea. He had over 100 robust legs that ended in sharp points that glistened fiercely and instead of mandibles for a mouth, he had a set of jaws filled with savage fangs that looked like they could shred flesh with vicious efficiency.

    Obviously, this was Zuko; the Moon¡¯s 5th Apostle. And currently he was scavenging the waters by himself, looking for rare resources that would push him into the 4th Realm so that in the upcoming battle he could claim victory.

    Now, some may call him over ambitious for even thinking about contending with the local Sea Emperors for the position of Sea Kaiser whilst being a mere Sea King with peak 3rd Realm Essence Cultivation, but he had full confidence in himself.

    He knew that he would be facing off against Emperors in the 4th Realm whose strengths would be ranging from the 1st Stage to even the 5th, but by the time that battle happened, he himself would have been in the 4th Realm.

    He wasn¡¯t called the strongest Sea King in this Sea for no reason. His prospects were peerless amongst those in the same stage and even a few above. On top of that, with his 2 contracted skills, namely [Divine Lunar Punishment] and [Divine Lunar Enhancement], he had confidence in slaying an Emperor at the 5th Stage.

    After all, those with that kind of strength wouldn¡¯t be appearing immediately.

    The reason those in the 1st to 3rd stage even dreamed of becoming Kaiser when Emperors at the 4th and 5th existed is because everyone knew that those big figures would be biding their time, and that was for a number of reasons.

    One, if they dared to show up early, the only fate they would experience was being swarmed by thousands of sea creatures including lesser Sea Emperors, Sea Kings and their subordinates. The seas had no rules and anything to obtain victory could and will be done.

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    And two, those big figures were planning to devour the victors of the lesser Emperor skirmish.

    You see, the seas were boundless and the average strength level of sea creatures surpassed that of the land dwellers, but that is only because they endlessly fight and devour each other. However, something like this can only occur amongst the low to mid level beasts. Top level beasts are not only hard to find, but they are also a lot more unwilling to just risk their life for a small chance of a power boost.

    Even if there were benefits in a top tier Emperor (Stage 4-5) devouring a lower tier one (Stage1-3), which Emperor was not smart enough to stay far away? The only thing that a top tier Emperor could easily catch were the ignorant Kings and below, but it didn¡¯t need to be mentioned how ineffective that was.

    Only in a Kaiser battle or something similar would Emperors and their subordinated Kings come to risk their life, and that meant that if a situation like that didn¡¯t arise, they would have to rely on natural resources like the land dwellers. But the dilemma here is that there are far less accessible resources in the sea than there are on the land.

    In fact it was because of that that the Sea Emperors had begun to eye the land, some of them even claiming islands rich in resources as their territory, harvesting the goodies within whenever they could.

    But still, it wasn¡¯t enough and that was why the highest stage of the Sea Emperors in THIS Sea was only the 5th.

    Other Seas also faced this problem and it resulted in a devious scheme that began to take place in every Kaiser battle. Those in the 1st to 3rd Stage would fight and devour each other over a span of a few days, gaining strength that could even push them into the 4th Stage if they were the last one standing. But the top Emperors would never let that happen and would arrive before the climax, when there were mostly only those in the 3rd Stage¡­ and then they would begin to feast.

    Zuko knew all of this just like everyone else. In fact, it wasn¡¯t just Kaiser battles. Even the battles that Sea Kings fought for the position of local Sea Emperor were like this. but he, along with the low tier Sea Emperors he would be fighting against, hoped to flip the script on the top tier Emperors and become Kaiser. But the difference that separated him from them was that he had the backing of the Moon.

    His talent had risen too greatly after he had become an Apostle, obtaining access to the elusive Metal and Water Laws, and on top of that he even had the unfairly powerful contract skills!

    ¡®Status!¡¯ Zuko called out.

    [Status]

    [Name: Zuko]

    [Titles: Sea King, Favoured Son of the Sea, Arc Lord, The Moon¡¯s Fifth Apostle]

    [Race: Lunar Arc Centipede]

    [Cultivation: Seeking Beast, Stage 9]

    [Combat Strength: Realm 4, Stage 1]

    [Bloodline: Sanctified Lunar Bloodline(Earth Grade)]

    [Physique: Moon Apostle Physique(Heaven Grade)]

    [Elements: Metal, Water, Acid]

    [Affinities: Metal(100%), Water(100%), Acid(61%), Moon(52%)]

    [Laws: Metal(2%), Water(3%)]

    [Innate Skills: Metal Enhancement, Water Enhancement, Metal Spikes, Hydro Beam, Acid Spit, Lunar Acid Fusion]

    [Contract Skills: Divine Lunar Punishment, Divine Lunar Enhancement]

    With all of this, his chances were higher than anyone else! He really might be able to pull off what every Low Tier Emperor dreamed about day and night!

    ¡®All that is left is to promote to the Enlightened Realm.¡¯ Zuko thought, his eyes flashing with confidence as he increased his speed.

    ¡®I will be Kaiser!¡¯

 Ch.248 Ecstasy or Misery

    ¡®I will be Kaiser!¡¯

    It was just as he was thinking that, zooming through the sea with invigorated passion, that a bright silver light materialised in front of him along with a heavy feeling of power.

    Not even waiting to confirm its identity, he immediately came to a halt and raised his defences to the max, activating both Metal Enhancement and Water Enhancement with instinctive efficiency that could only be achieved by years of practice.

    The Metal Enhancement made his carapace bulkier and his pointier bits sharper, and the Water Enhancement shrouded his whole body in a blanket of water that could only faintly be seen under the Sea.

    This M.E provided him with greater defence and enhanced physical power, and the W.E made manipulating his body under the water multiple times more easy, along with a few other offensive things. With this, he could tank any sudden attack and flee right afterwards if need be.

    Now, a dweller of the land might think he was overreacting by activating 2 Enhancement skills at once without even confirming a threat, but any Sea dweller worth mentioning would be commending his battle instincts greatly.

    Here in the vicious Sea, it was common knowledge that ANYTHING could be deadly. Something as unassuming as a rock could suddenly sprout tentacles and in the next moment you would find yourself in a fight for your life. It was horrendous!

    The number of times he had almost fallen to such a situation was more than a little eye opening, and it wouldn¡¯t even be a stretch to say that he had PTSD the way his nightmares operated. There were many like him under the Sea, and as such, the number 1 unspoken rule had become: [If it moved, shined, changed colours, made a sound, or anything synonymous... Never, ever let your guard down.]

    Fortunately, it looked like he would not be facing a repeat situation of ¡®sudden death trap¡¯.

    The lights had faded after a few seconds (time he had taken to create a lot of distance) and in their place remained a silver coloured fruit that glowed softly. However, there was something very familiar about it, and it only took him a second to figure out just what.

    ¡®This!¡¯ Zuko inwardly exclaimed with shock.

    It was not that he recognized the fruit. In fact, he had never seen anything like it before in his life (something that wasn¡¯t surprising here in the deep sea). What really got to him was the aura the fruit had begun to exude after everything had calmed down.

    It was a familiar aura that he had only felt a few times before, however it was something he would never be able to forget even if he had only experienced it once. And it was none other than the aura of the Moon Mother!

    ¡®How could this be?!¡¯ Zuko thought with rising excitement as the notion of the Moon Mother contacting him again crossed his mind. But even with that thought process, he didn¡¯t dare let down his guard. There were all kinds of entities that could entice you before they destroyed you, and even illusions weren¡¯t rare down here.

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    But he was really and truly excited. Fruits, or anything else for that matter, did not just randomly appear out of nowhere. There were all kinds of fruits and other edible plant life that grew under the sea, but the key word there was ¡®grew¡¯.

    They emerged from the seabed or formed on cave walls, starting small and growing bigger and bigger until they reached their maximum capacity, something that could take a span of months to years. Naturally, there were always going to be unique situations, but absolutely not like this. Fruits do not just appear out of nowhere, possessing energy so dense that it made his head feel pressured¡­ So, it was either an illusion, in which case he was already in deep trouble¡­ or a gift from the Moon Mother!

    Zuko trembled with anticipation, waiting for the verdict.

    He tightened his defences to the max, coiling his body around until his head was buried within, and then watched with unwavering eyes through a tiny gap even with his Spirit Sense spread far and wide.

    *1 second later¡­*

    *5 seconds later¡­*

    *15 seconds later¡­*

    Zuko was almost sweating with tension.

    *30 seconds later¡­*

    ¡®What¡¯s going on? Why has Moon Mother not said anything? Is this really a trick?¡¯

    Zuko¡¯s throat constricted at the thought, nearly causing him to choke. He really didn¡¯t want this to be a hoax, because he could tell that consuming the fruit would be extremely beneficial to him!

    Sure, there was that one time in the past where he saw a strange open clam that held within its mouth a peerless pearl that promised him many benefits if he could obtain it, which almost caused him to lose his life a few seconds later when it turned out to be a fat lie, but this was different!

    Back then, the enticing promise had made his mind feel hazy, but this time his mind was perfectly clear! It had to be real!

    But the Moon had contacted him a few times in the past, even if only saying a few lines, it was still something she could and had done. So if this was really a gift from her, why was she not giving him the okay? Did she not see his worry? Was she waiting for something?

    ¡®Or could this be a test? I really don¡¯t want this to be an illusion?!¡¯

    *40 more seconds later¡­*

    This entire time, time that had felt like minutes, nothing had changed. The fruit had only continued to drift downwards as it was subjected to gravity, rotating this way and that, and completely obeying the laws of physics.

    ¡®It¡¯s real!¡¯ Zuko thought with uncharacteristic glee before lunging forward. But it was just as he was zooming towards the fruit that his Spirit Sense finally picked up something new. Something in the distance had just entered the range of his Spirit Sense, and he knew exactly what, or rather who, it was.

    The huge, bulbous yet transparent head, the tens of tentacles and that iridescent colour¡­ but most importantly that daunting aura that could only belong to someone in the 4th Realm.

    He knew this person very well, after all, it was the very creature that he had been planning to kill for a very long time but had been avoiding like a curse! It was the one and only Emperor Bilibu!

    The strongest Jellyfish alive and the local Sea Emperor!

 Ch.249 I REFUSE!

    ¡®I waited too long! I messed up!¡¯ Zuko inwardly exclaimed as shock, bewilderment and fear temporarily paralysed him.

    The worst case scenario, something that he had briefly thought could happen but had ignored because of the low probability, had just happened.

    ¡°What rotten luck!¡± Zuko growled with frustration.

    He knew that with the powerful vibes the fruit were admitting, the chances of it attracting those that were close enough to sense it weren¡¯t small, but he was proud of his strength. He was known as the strongest Sea King around and it wasn¡¯t for no reason. So long as he wasn¡¯t facing a mental attack, he had full confidence in fending off any other Sea Creature.

    But, as in, any Sea Creature BELOW the 4th Realm!

    For Emperor Bilibu to be at this location at this time, this was a situation that could leave anybody flabbergasted. It was just too much of a joke.

    Zuko had a strong urge to abandon everything and leave. Even though he had received many gifts from the Moon that gave him the ability to fight against people multiple stages above him, it would not be enough to guarantee success here.

    There was an entire Realm gap to be bridged, and it was the infamous 4th Realm at that. It was already fantastic that with his peak 3rd Realm essence cultivation, his talent allowed him to scrape the bottom of the barrel known as 4th Realm - Stage 1, however¡­

    Emperor Bilibu was known to be on the verge of reaching the 2nd Stage of the 4th Realm, making him Peak Stage 1. And even though Zuko possessed Realm 4 - Stage 1 Strength according to the System, that evaluation did not take into account stamina/energy reserves, or even range of abilities, perception, reflexes, instincts and most importantly combat experience.

    Zuko didn¡¯t dare to compare his experience to Emperor Bilibu, a creature who had been around since the conception of Magic.

    He may be weak compared to others of his kind thanks to his innately weak constitution that limited his options, but for Zuko, this was absolutely not someone he could underestimate. His chances of winning in a fight to the death were less than 20%, and he did no like those odds at all.

    Hence, it was definitely the smart decision to flee whilst he still could.

    But¡­

    He looked towards the fruit once more and unwillingness surged through him. A fruit like this, so perfectly suitable for him and nutritious enough to push him into the 4th Realm, was not a chance that he was likely to see again any time soon. And with the Kaiser battle coming up, he needed it more than ever!

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    Faced with these facts, Zuko was left with a single decision to make.

    Flee to fight another day, or make a leap of faith.

    Zuko knew that he was talented enough to use something lesser in quality and still enter the 4th Realm. Push come to shove, he could find other Sea Kings and devour them until he became an Emperor. For others, a plan like that was a joke, no Sea King wanted to fight to the death without adequate reason. But for him, he could really do it!

    If he made the effort to use the Diving Lunar Enhancement, the increase in his speed was enough to shock a top tier Emperor silly! This, coupled with his 4th Realm strength and Water Enhancement, was enough to chase any Sea King down.

    The only reason he didn¡¯t want to do that was because of the amount of attention he would draw to himself after such a stupendous situation. It was enough to make others gang up on him in the Kaiser fight without hesitation.

    They still would because of his reputation, but if he really did go on a hunting spree, it would be so much worse. Even Stage 3 Emperors were likely to join in and that was terrible. Even if he himself would be an Emperor at that time, that was such a poor situation to be in and it was best to avoid.

    However, he had enough time to find other resources. He wouldn¡¯t need to go King hunting just yet if he chose to flee. That was the last, last option.

    Theoretically, he should just go¡­ This situation was too dangerous and even a bit unnecessary. He had the talent, he had the subordinates, he could just find anoth-

    ¡®I REFUSE!¡¯ Zuko inwardly roared before zooming towards the fruit using his fastest speed. ¡°I REFUSE TO YIELD!¡± He roared out this time, knowing that he was definitely within the range of Emperor Bilibu¡¯s Spirit Sense and could be heard.

    =Know your limits, boy.= A deep voice suddenly slipped into his mind, cold and unfeeling.

    However, Zuko paid it no heed.

    From the start there had been only 1 option. His body may have buckled with fear and his Soul may have shivered with warning, but his Will, the same Will that helped him with his mutation back then, the same Will that made him take the risky deal with the Moon, the same Will that brought him this far, only gave him one choice!

    Fight! Fight!!! FIGHT!!!

    But fight for his destiny, not for the sake of it. He wasn¡¯t dumb enough to fight to the death with Bilibu. But if he played the situation perfectly he might be able to escape with only a brief clash and a few severe injuries. The chances were low, but he had to do it. The mysterious fruit felt like it was harmonising with him and he hadn¡¯t even touched it yet, it was too good to pass up!

    =So be it.= The voice came again.

    As he came closer to the fruit, he noticed that Emperor Bililu had shrouded himself in electricity and his speed had increased exponentially. As a matter of fact his figure had become indistinct and he could barely perceive it. It was more like a collection of lightning bolts were spreading out towards him and it would soon catch up.

    This was why he hated lightning users. Whilst the low level ones were even more dangerous to themselves than they were to others, the high level ones were completely immune to the effects that their lightning abilities had on the water and in fact they could use it to their benefit.

    The water, which was previously one of his greatest benefits, would now become one of his greatest enemies in his fight against Bilibu.

 Ch.250 Clash of Rulers

    Bilibu tore up the distance between himself and the arrogant child with an almost-peerless speed that had made many of his enemies wary. This was a result of one of his most prized innate skills: [Semi Lightning Transmutation], a skill that allowed him to convert around half of his cells into electricity and allow the conductivity of the Sea to take him anywhere he wished.

    Many had called this ability of his amongst others unfair, but it had taken him a disgusting amount of years just to make the skill survivable, talk less of beneficial. His Jellyfish race was a feeble one and found it hard to enter the 3rd Realm, and that was the case for 1st Generation Jellyfish as well. Not necessarily because they were untalented; there was no such thing as an untalented 1st generationer, but because the battles of the Sea were just that vicious.

    There was no place below the land for a lifeform that would harm itself before it harmed others, to prosper. Everybody knew that. The only plausible decision such a race could make if it didn¡¯t want to go extinct was to submit to a much stronger race that could afford to protect others without suffering a loss.

    It¡¯s what most races in that situation did, and many many if not all the other Jellyfish in the other Seas of the planet had done the same. But Biliibu? He had been unwilling.

    He toiled and fought everyday, he made false promises of submission left and right - only to slaughter and consume his betters when they least expected it, he practised his techniques until even the outskirts of his brain had fried, and with a heavy dosage of luck, he had finally reached this stage.

    He, a Jellyfish, had reached the 4th Realm, becoming an awe-inspiring Sea Emperor that had even obtained the lucky chance of Evolution that only a few 4th Realmers could gain. He was now called a 9 Coloured Aurora Jellyfish. Everybody in this Sea knew his name, and he wouldn¡¯t be surprised if the top figures of the other Seas kept tabs on him.

    And yet¡­

    This inconsequential, brainless Centipede was daring to compete with him for a unique resource? A mere 3rd Realmer had identified him, seen the threat that he proposed, and yet instead of running at first glance actually dared to ignore him and reach for the fruit anyways?

    Bilibu chuckled darkly.

    Oh he knew who he was. The talented mutated Centipede that had seemingly arisen out of thin air, taking the Sea by storm and rising in the ranks quicker than others could think. There had been no time for the local Kings to nip the bud before they had lost their lives, and there had been no time for local Emperors (but most importantly him as the ruler of this section of the Sea), to scheme of how to subdue the talent before it had become big enough to protect itself.

    This centipede was pretty great, he had to admit it. But all of that was meaningless before raw strength. The gap between the 3rd and the 4th Realm wasn¡¯t feared for no reason and soon, the Centipede will learn why. It would be the last lesson it ever learnt.

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    The lightning that made up half his body flashed even more vigorously and his speed increased dramatically.

    [Lightning Enhancement!]

    ¡­

    Zuko felt the skin beneath his carapace shiver as the presence behind him became even more imposing, cutting up the distance between them like it was nothing. Still, he didn¡¯t hesitate or even try to move any faster himself. Overexerting himself would only needlessly burn his stamina, and it would even be for naught. After all, even if he reached the fruit, he would still have to face the task of running away. It would be a colossal waste to overexert himself now, in a situation like this, and he couldn¡¯t afford that at all.

    In order to come out of this alive and with the fruit, he would need to produce his most phenomenal performance. He would need to push his efficiency to his limits and perhaps even beyond, and only then would he be given the chance to obtain success. Just a chance.

    To be honest, his heart was beating with more than just adrenaline. There was a noticeable dosage of fear that he hadn¡¯t felt in a long time.

    In the past he had been wary and nigh anxious many times, in fact, he was in this dumb situation because of his over-cautiousness. But rarely had he been truly fearful. How could he be? Any danger could be escaped with his Divine Lunar Enhancement, and he was plenty strong himself.

    He wasn¡¯t being arrogant, it was just reality. With all of his capabilities, what gap could fear find to worm its way in? Really and truly, just where would fear even come from?

    Unfortunately, things were different now. Very different.

    Very soon, he would gain a fruit so special and suitable for him that it resonated with the core of his being at a distance. His previous self had never even imagined that something like this could exist, and yet it was about to end up between his jaws. But very soon, the opportunity for him to change his mind and back out would close forever.

    At that time, even if he wanted to use Divine Lunar Enhancement to escape, he would not be able to. He would be in Emperor Bilibu¡¯s area of effect and the surrounding waters would no longer be his friend, in fact, he could already feel a slight tingling.

    It was only a matter of time if he didn¡¯t escape NOW.

    Alas, he had already made up his mind and he had already known the risks. He would not be changing his mind. He was going for all or nothing.

    *10 seconds later*

    ¡°KAKAKAKA!!¡± Zuko laughed uproariously as his mouth closed around the fruit. He ignored the tiny bolts of lightning that were running across his body and the even bigger bolts that were swiftly approaching.

    ¡®I¡¯ve got it! It¡¯s real!¡¯ There was no mistaking a natural treasure of the planet when it was between your teeth where you could feel its energy directly and taste it on your tongue. This fruit was undoubtedly the single greatest thing he had ever encountered in the Sea.

    Sadly, he didn¡¯t have time to enjoy his winnings.

    He twisted his body around and faced the incoming multi-coloured Jellyfish that was so huge that it dwarfed even him.

 Ch.251 How is this possible?

    Without wasting a single second on useless reactions, he launched a decisive attack, making leverage of the fact that he still wasn¡¯t feeling the full brunt of the incoming lightning to initiate the beginning of his plan immediately.

    Spikes grew out of his back and he immediately curled up and began spinning with a remarkable agility that could only be achieved due to his manipulation over water. Merely 1.5 seconds later, he had become an indistinct blur in the shape of a ring. It was much easier to generate speed when he was using the opposite ends of his body weight to increase it (thanks to the rotation) than it was to move forward in one direction.

    Regardless, he wasn¡¯t spinning around to put on a show. He released the spikes on his back at precise moments and with the momentum he had gained, they got sent flying towards Bilibu with great force.

    Naturally a few of them went wayward since his aim was solely based on the time he decided to release them, not some kind of automatic homing that could assist him. He had practised this technique many times over the years but it was pretty much impossible to reach 100% accuracy. His brain just couldn¡¯t calculate for all of those spikes and especially at that speed.

    Fortunately, Bililu was so huge that only a small few of them completely missed.

    Furthermore, the closer they got to their target, the more lightning it attracted which actually sped it up, not to mention that the metal itself got attracted to the main source of electricity. Conclusion? His metal spikes which were already fast gained even more speed and it was noticeably increasing.

    He had used this technique on many creatures with a lightning affinity and without fail, they had all suffered. None of them had expected his attacks to suddenly speed up and for the few that could dodge, the electricity that they had shrouded themselves in became their greatest enemy.

    Things would be different here of course, the target was just too strong. His metal spikes would land true but the damage wouldn¡¯t be too great. However, he had already known that and was already enacting his next plan. He had never planned to rely on-

    ¡®!!!¡¯

    Zuko recoiled in shock as he watched the metal spikes he had shot out suddenly rebound towards him. The lightning they absorbed increased exponentially out of nowhere and all of a sudden the spikes were zooming towards HIM with twice the speed. Moreover, all of their sharp ends were directly pointing at him despite the fact that they had been knocked out of their original trajectory, something which should have had them spinning every which way. And now, out of nowhere, he was in trouble.

    ¡®How is this possible?!¡¯ He exclaimed inwardly. Still, he reacted quickly and swam downwards to avoid the super charged spikes. It wasn¡¯t super difficult to dodge but he still got hit by a few.

    As expected, they penetrated his carapace despite the Metal Enhancement. Actually it would have been weird if it didn¡¯t. The spikes were made from the very same material and they had the assistance of speed, sharpness and electricity to make penetration possible.

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    However, he didn¡¯t feel pain from that at all, his carapace was designed to take damage and had little to no feeling. The electric currents that were seeping into his flesh were certainly uncomfortable but with the amount of adrenaline that was coursing through his veins,

    But soon enough, he realised that he had made a mistake.

    *BZZZZZZZZ!*

    Having chosen to descend to dodge the spikes rather than swim backwards, he had given Bilibu the time needed to come close enough to thoroughly enshroud him in his electric domain. Now, he could barely feel the water around. It had become filled with electricity and now obeyed the command of only one being.

    What a blunder.

    ¡®I Should have endured the spikes and ran rather than focusing on dodging. I really messed up.¡¯ Zuko thought warily as he felt the foreign water around him. ¡®But how in the Sea did he do that?¡¯

    How crazy is it that his own attacks would be reflected back at him. How was he even supposed to respond to that? How was that in any way fair?

    Unfortunately he didn¡¯t have time to ponder.

    ¡°You should understand your situation.¡± Emperor Bilibu spoke out for the first time, his physical voice even colder than his telepathic one. ¡°You cannot escape. You¡¯re trapped. You¡¯ve lost before anything began.¡±

    Zuko realised the situation for what it was immediately, and as if to confirm his suspicions, Bilibu continued talking.

    ¡°However, I have heard of your feats. You are talented. A life like yours is hard to come by and it would be a waste to extinguish it. Submit to me, give me the fruit, and you can live to see another day. Do not let pride become the advent of your own destruction.¡±

    It was exactly as Zuko thought. Bilibu wanted nothing but the fruit. All this talk was to get him to lower his guard and prevent him from doing anything crazy that would cause both of them to suffer. He himself had employed that tactic in the past and could definitely recognise it being used on him.

    As implied, Zuko had not yet eaten the fruit even if it was in his mouth and tantalising his taste buds. There was no way he would do such a stupid thing. Bilibu knew this too, but there had been many people in the past who would do just that and end up getting killed, causing all the parties involved to lose out.

    The thing is, of all the many fruits all over the Sea, only a select few were easy to digest. As for the rest of them, whilst most wouldn¡¯t be dangerous it would still kick up a storm in the Mana Core and Circuits, something that in a situation like this would be extremely deadly.

    On top of that, Zuko was 90% sure that it would send him into Realm 4 which was-

    ¡®.......Wait!!!!!!¡¯ Zuko¡¯s mind flashed with remembrance. ¡®Realm 4 Tribulations! I just remembered that anyone who tries to intervene will be caught within too, making the Tribulation even stronger! How could I forget?! I thought that entering Realm 4 would be a death sentence since I would lose control and become an easy target, but¡­ Kakaka! Would this Jellyfish dare?!¡¯

    Zuko was feeling excited now, he tuned out the Jellyfish¡¯s propaganda as he delved into his thoughts.

    ¡®This is good! This is good!!! Others would still suffer in my place, but I have a great chance of achieving evolution and receiving the protective cocoon! Kakaka! I smell victory!

 Ch.252 What Bliss!

    Zuko leaped into action immediately.

    ¡°-think I¡¯m bluffing? If you perished today, your story would be spoken about all over the Sea! The death of an arrogant fool who-¡± Bilibu was saying before he was interrupted by a sudden burst of energy.

    ¡°Wha-¡± He froze as he noticed a petrifying silver aura surrounding the Centipedes body, releasing a vibe of the likes he had never seen before. It may have lacked the aura of raw power that would have made him truly fearful, but it had a feeling of authority that compelled him to bow his head and humble his tone.

    Kings and Emperors, even the one Kaiser he had met in a different Sea, all of them were inferior before this authority. This was the aura of an entity that was above any and all lifeforms, and the indescribable feeling of pureness wasn¡¯t helping him to calm down.

    The sudden reality that was thrusted upon him had him stunned silly, and thus, he was barely able to react before a blinding light struck from above, sending him into a world of terrific pain as a few of senses shut down.

    He was blinded and he couldn¡¯t smell. The damage from that attack had severely harmed the necessary organs and left him in quite a pitiful situation, however, other than some burnt flesh, that was all. He would heal soon enough and when he did, he would not be making anymore requests. Regardless of whether he lost the fruit or not the Centipede was dead. He would make certain of it.

    The damage from that attack, although surprising and certainly harmful, had reminded him that it didn¡¯t possess the power to kill him if he protected himself. And next time, if the Centipede was even capable of pulling such a ridiculous thing off again, he would not even let himself be hit.

    He was distracted by the previous aura of unparalleled majesty and peerlessness but that would not be happening again. Authority without power isn¡¯t even a funny joke, not here in the Sea, and the Centipede had no power.

    It was just a pending corpse.

    ¡­

    Zuko had not wasted any time in running away, and with the speed boost he had gotten from the Divine Lunar Enhancement the distance he had put between him and Bilibu was enough to make a person wonder if they were dreaming.

    The attack he had used was of course the [Divine Lunar Punishment] Originally, the plan was to only do this after causing some considerable damage to Bilibu first. He would use his varied innate skills powered by all of his Enhancements to do some semi-lasting damage that would slow the Emperor down. Eventually, he would finally strike with the Divine Lunar Punishment out of nowhere before fleeing with all of his might.

    Of course, he himself would have slowed down by then because an altercation with a creature in the 2nd Stage of the 4th Realm was not something he could escape without injury. Especially when the opponent held mastery over the Lightning Element. However, that was the only chance he had.

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    Or so he had thought.

    Now, he had directly used the Divine Lunar Punishment and fled. Not for the ultimate goal of complete escape since he had attacked too early and would be caught sooner or later whenever the Divine Lunar Enhancement ran out and sent him into a severe tiredness, but instead to make enough distance to consume the fruit and initiate his breakthrough to the 4th Realm.

    He felt adrenaline rush through his veins as the threat of death surrounded him, only leaving a narrow gap for survival and a future of unparalleled greatness. It was a harrowing situation but as he continued to desperately swim, he couldn¡¯t help but begin to feel excited.

    But he didn¡¯t let that affect his concentration, he swam and swam and eventually when he thought that he had reached a good distance, he immediately swallowed the fruit in his mouth. No need for suspense, suspicion or preparation, he was on an extremely strict time limit and failing meant doom.

    He didn¡¯t need to repeat that this was an all or nothing situation. Down the fruit went.

    *Gulp*

    ¡®!!!¡¯

    Zuko¡¯s body shivered as the fruit instantly broke apart and dissolved into pure essence that permeated throughout his body with astonishing speed. It didn¡¯t take long for it to begin to seep into his cells with an unprecedented assimilation rate and he could already feel his power surging. However, there were definitely favourite locations that the essence seemed to focus on.

    His Carapace, his Mana Circuits, his Mana Core, his Heart and his Brain. For whatever reason, it wasn¡¯t his Mana Core that received the most attention but actually his brain. In fact, it was receiving so much attention that it was making his mind foggy, which was a little worrying considering the circumstances, but what could he do?

    Thankfully, the process was remarkably gentle. The energy moved around quickly and with zero hesitation but it wasn¡¯t violent or careless in any regard. This was probably the best assimilation of a natural resource that he had ever consumed. It was wonderful!

    20 seconds later.

    *DZZZZZ!*

    The sound of rampaging lightning faintly made its way into his ears, signifying that Bilibu had begun to act, but instead of worrying he smiled instead.

    ¡®It¡¯s too late.¡¯

    *Buff!*

    Zuko¡¯s body released an irregular wave of energy. It didn¡¯t do anything and it didn¡¯t even seem to move very far, but anyone with experience would have instantly had a change in expression.

    =STOP!!!= Emperor Bilibu¡¯s voice burst into his mind, startling him.

    But then he smirked.

    ¡°It¡¯s too late, old fool. I¡¯ll soon become Enlightened.¡± Zuko spoke out for the ¡®benefit¡¯ of his listener.

    Clearly, Bilibu had sensed what was about to happen and had tried to derail his concentration by yelling in his mind, which could have had some disastrous effects if he succeeded. But unfortunately for him, he wasn¡¯t even the one in control of the breakthrough in the first place.

    The essence from the fruit was doing everything on its own as if it had a mind, and he was just enjoying the process. What bliss!

 Ch.253 HE HAS TO DIE!

    ¡°Kakaka! The look on your face must be a sight to behold!¡± Zuko exclaimed. Even if his mind was feeling extremely strange thanks to what was taking place in his brain, he didn¡¯t forget for one second to spit out toxic words to his enemy.

    ¡°Why are you so silent? Come, attack me! You still have a little time left! Eii, what¡¯s wrong? What¡¯s keeping you so flaccid? Have you swallowed something strange? Oh my Depths! That must be it! With your kind of intelligence, you must have eaten some faeces after confusing it for something precious! What a silly fool you are, old fish! Quickly spit it out and let this majesty examine you!¡±

    Zuko yelled with badly concealed glee, trying to feign a voice of concern.

    *BZZZZZZ!* *BSH!* *BZZSH!*

    Needless to say, he failed. If the hyperactive state of the lightning were anything to go by, Emperor Bilibu was furious. Very furious.

    ¡®What a pity.¡¯ Zuko thought with a dementedly wide grin.

    To be honest, this was the first time he had ever acted like this. He had witnessed the behaviour before and had even been a victim of it himself many times. And as such, as a being of experience, he could tell you that It was truly a dastardly thing to be subject to.

    Even killing the creature that violated you would not be able to wipe away the toxic stain that would stick to your mind. You would only have to forget about it after a few days or go on a horrific killing spree to lose your mind in the slaughter.

    Zuko had never felt the need to inflict this on somebody else because it was so much easier to just kill, but here and now¡­? Oh the joy! He knew that Billbu wouldn¡¯t risk getting any closer after recognising that his body had already made the signal that would draw the Tribulation, so he was free to say anything that he wanted and the other party could only endure it!

    Ecstasy vibrated through his nerves as he watched the Sea Emperor rage at a distance but not dare to come close. This was almost as good as climaxing in the body of a female!

    He continued to sing songs of unadulterated damage and poison, searing the ears of his greatest foe with noticeably increasing expertise. He utilised the culmination of his entire life''s experience to formulate lyrics of such toxicity and fatality that even Bilbibu had fallen completely silent. But it was just as he was about to reach nirvana, just as his eyes were about to give up resistance and fall to the compulsion of rolling up in complete euphoria¡­- That he suddenly noticed a heart-stopping gathering of inexplicable energy far above his head.

    Pleasure fled his body and was slowly replaced by grimness.

    Above his head, he could just about see the light of a mysterious circle that had strange symbols all over its construct, but despite the vast distance between them and the poor vision that was provided, he knew exactly what it was in an instant.

    It was none other than the one and only infamous Tribulation Circle.

    Rumour had it that it emerged in the sky, far above the Sea, and that it had pure white clouds that surrounded it whenever it appeared. He believed the former, but he wasn¡¯t sure about the latter. How could he be?

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    Anyone who was impressive enough to undergo a Tribulation was far below, hoping to one day reach the depths. Only trash and bottom feeders stayed at the surface of the Sea and were free enough to see each and every Tribulation. Nobody doubted that it was a marvel to behold, but what was the point of being able to see it anytime you want if you yourself would never be graced by it?

    Zuko felt the urge to expel his disdain with a snort but decided to hold his composure. This was the time of his life and he wanted to face it with matchless valour and imposing dignity. He had nobody watching but an old multi-limbed fish who couldn¡¯t wait to gnaw on his bones, but he wanted to remember this moment later down the line and be proud of himself and the way he acted when confronted with the one and only Tribulation Lights.

    Zuko¡¯s eyes shone brilliantly as his thoughts ignited his will and ballooned his confidence.

    *Flash*

    The Tribulation flashed with an infamous pulse that signified that charging of the Lights. And it was this flash that finally allowed Zuko to confirm that what he was facing was really and truly a White Tribulation!

    ¡®It¡¯s actually white!¡¯ It was hard to tell down here in the Sea what colour of Tribulation you were facing before it slammed into you and knocked you silly. The distance was too great and the vision was too poor, but the flash of the charging Circle would tell you all you needed to know.

    ¡®I¡¯m actually getting a White Tribulation from the first light!¡¯ Zuko inwardly exclaimed, almost yelling out and breaking his composure even.

    Everybody knew that the top Sea Emperors experienced 2 Golden Tribulations and then a single White one at the end. It had become a sign of the rising overlord and everyone wished to experience it. Sure it came with more danger, a lot more danger actually, but if you survived, you were destined for greatness if you didn¡¯t get killed early!

    Now what would it mean for him, if he got a White Tribulation from the very first Light? He had heard that Kaisers or those very close to that had experienced 2 White Tribulations? But what would that make him if he survived 3?

    ¡­

    ¡®His talent is too great! I have to kill him no matter what!¡¯ Bilibu thought as his tendrils flailed around wildly. Rage so intense that it affected his vision revolved around his body like molten lava, making him feel like he was genuinely heating up. In fact, he wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he were to start steaming.

    Never before had he been so angry.

    First, he had to stand aside and watch as that FILTHY, FIIIILTHY Centipede vomited out afflicted line after line without being able to do anything about it. It had been easy enough to endure it in the beginning. After all, what rotten words had he not heard before? But the words only continued to rise morbidity, seemingly without limit.

    The words that had been launched at him like attacks had eventually reached a state that left him temporarily flabbergasted. And only temporarily because that was the moment that the anger he had been suppressing broke out of his control and promises of slaughter sang throughout his mind.

    ¡®Do you want to know why your mates are cheating on an expired like you with your children and just about any bottom feeder who comes close enough? I watched it happen once, that one jellyfish you like the most, the pink one? Yeah her, the things she was doing to that lucky Realm 1 Seahorse were just too exciting, I must admit you have a fine one on you. But what was absolutely CRAZY was the sounds she was screeching out as she took that little kiddo¡¯s tiny cock into her womb like a free breeder. It was like she had never felt pleasure before! Emperor Bilibu, I MUST admit that I couldn¡¯t help but wonder¡­ if you were¡­ impotent? That must be it right? Because-

    ¡®FUUUCK!¡¯ Bilibu inwardly roared to expel the words from his mind. How could somebody even think of things like that?

    Lines like that and worse had been flung at him like shit, and the stains were still dripping down his mind. It was only the promise that he would get his revenge after the Tribulation that kept him patient.

    But just what in the Depths was he looking at? A White Tribulation from the first light?! Does that mean that the disgusting cretin that was bullying him all this while was that talented?

    ¡®HAAAAAAH! HE HAS TO DIIIIIIIIE!¡¯ HE HAS TO DIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!

 Ch.254 Pain Like No Other

    Zuko noticed the lightning that had faded away suddenly flare up again with an unprecedented madness, and his heart rate sped up as a ghastly thought crossed his mind.

    ¡®Did I go too far? He won¡¯t try to take both of us down will he? Why is that electric seaweed-for-legs suddenly going crazy? Just go away already!¡¯ Zuko panicked as he watched the Sea Emperor suddenly act up at this .

    Before he saw the White Tribulation Circle, He had a slight, very slight bit of confidence that if Bilibu suddenly lost regard for everything and pushed both of them towards the pit of death, he might actually survive the ordeal. After all, it was defence that was his strongest feature and it was this very same feature that was the Jellyfish Emperor¡¯s weakest point. In a contest of endurance, even with their gap in cultivation, he would at the very least be on par.

    Coupled with the fact that he could survive with most of his body destroyed, he had felt quite bold. Not nearly enough that he welcomed the situation, he was very, very likely to still die. But of the million doors of possibilities, he really believed that 1 or 2 existed where he survived. There was still hope.

    ¡®Was¡¯ being the key word.

    Now, if Bilibu really threw all caution to the waters and wanted him dead at any cost, there would only be 1 door of possibility and it was titled ¡®Death¡¯. A White Tribulation Light, 3 of them at that, was not something he could withstand if it was boosted by Bilibu. He would perish on the very first one.

    ¡®This accursed mouth of mine.¡¯ Zuko chuckled wryly as he remembered some of the things he said. ¡®What even happened? I¡¯ve never said things like that before and certainly not so.. Smoothly. Wow, even just now I had to prevent myself from saying ¡®eloquently, what¡¯s going on?¡¯

    Although Zuko would never call himself dumb, it was true enough that he wasn¡¯t the brightest pearl around. Words like the kind he had inflicted on Bibliu was not like him at all. Perhaps the toxicness of it all was like him, he knew himself the best and he knew how vengeful he was, but the brutal efficiency at which they had been used was not him at all.

    He was a fighter, a very good fighter, but he wasn¡¯t a talker.

    Now, at this critical moment, he had unlocked a hidden skill that he was able to use on his enemy, and what marvellous results it had! Come, come, all dwellers of the Sea! Look and marvel at the Great Lord Zuko¡¯s words! The lines are so toxic and the moral boundary inexistent! Just look at the effects! A Sea Emperor is so angry that he might seek death! He really might do it! Come, come! Don¡¯t miss out!

    ¡®Kaka! What ¡®great luck¡¯ I have.¡¯ Zuko thought with mixed emotions ¡®I actually provoked such a situation at such a critical moment.¡¯

    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    *Flash* The Second Tribulation Pulse.

    Zuko felt like laughing at himself. It had felt good at the time to talk down on a stronger enemy who had caused him so much stress and fright, but now look at the situation. The haziness going on in his brain must have messed with his decision making or something.

    At the same time, although he could blame his stupidity for taking such a risk, he could not blame himself for underestimating the risk. In which Sea would you see a Sea Emperor give up his life because of mere words, even if the words possessed a peculiar viciousness? It just couldn¡¯t happen.

    Perhaps a weaker creature would do it if they were forced and had no way out, or maybe they would just do it because with their inferior cultivation, they lacked the intelligence that came with it along with the control they gained over their primal instincts. But a Sea Emperor? No way!

    And as if to agree with him, Bilibu suddenly calmed down just as quickly as he had flared up. In fact, despite all thoughts that had managed to pass through Zuko¡¯s mind in the same time frame, Bilibu had only exploded for about 4 seconds before calming down once more.

    ¡®That¡¯s what I thought.¡¯ Zuko let out a small sigh as his heart rate began to calm. ¡®Keke, in the end he couldn¡¯t do it¡­That was quite scary though. Things could have been- ¡­euh?¡¯

    Bilibu abruptly swam away. He actually just up and left, only leaving a few trails before they too disappeared. Just like that.

    ¡®What¡¯s going on-¡¯

    *Flash*

    ¡®It¡¯s here!¡¯ Zuko inwardly exclaimed before forcing all of his attention on the bright Tribulation Circle and throwing the Sea Emperor out of his mind.

    He reactivated his Metal Enhancement but left the Water Enhancement. The defence W.E offered him was rather insignificant and was better used for the last shot or any change in the situation. However, he still had the Divine Lunar Enhancement activated so he was feeling pretty confident about surviving at least the first 2 Tribulation Lights.

    Unfortunately, even he couldn¡¯t convince himself into thinking that it would remain for the last Light, and what was worse was that it would leave him extremely tired and with little energy to resist afterwards. What a terrible situation to be in.

    ¡®This is going to be-¡¯

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    ¡°KYIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIH!!!!!!!¡± Zuko keened in pain as the Tribulation Light struck his body from above undefendable might. His body which had been coiled tightly loosened and recoiled backwards. He was even twitching.

    ¡®W-what.. from the¡­ Depths¡­ was t-that..?¡¯  Zuko wondered with fright as the state of his dizzy mind worsened. This was pain of the kind he had never felt before. It had straight up bypassed his carapace and flesh like as if they were illusions and struck something within him that he didn¡¯t know existed but could now feel like acid on exposed nerves.

    That question had taken him a whole 20 seconds to ask himself, and the only answer was a bright flash.

    *Flash*

 Ch.255 Fortune Backlash

    What Zuko didn¡¯t know was that he had taken damage to his body as well, it¡¯s just that the damage to his Soul was too overbearing and consumed all of his thoughts. In comparison to feeling Soul pain for the first time, the damage to his physical body wasn¡¯t even registered.

    Giant air bubbles escaped Zuko¡¯s mouth as he lost control of his breathing. His eyes twittered every which way as he desperately sought something that could save him, and the only thought that governed his mind was the fear of death and the feral desire for survival. All of his dignity had vanished.

    *Flash*

    Zuko froze like a pitiful Magic Beast(Realm 1) that had caught the attention of an Enlightened Beast(Realm 4). He couldn¡¯t resist, he couldn¡¯t flee, and whether he lived or died was no longer in his control.

    ¡°MOON MOTHER, SAVE MEEEE-¡±

    *Flash*

    ¡°-EEH-HU-KAHK!¡± Zuko choked violently as he saw the 2nd Tribulation complete its power up. He was frozen for a single second longer before primordial fear hijacked his instincts, and he turned around to flee.

    ¡°KIIIIII!!!¡± He wailed as he forced his body to swim as fast as he could, his body releasing pitiful sounds that exposed his racial identity all the while.

    Unfortunately, there was no existence that could escape if they were targeted by a Tribulation. Eridel had designed it very carefully, making sure that no loophole could be found. And in the end, even he himself had unexpectedly become a victim of it.

    A Tribulation could be delayed, it could even be destroyed. But it would always come back, and it would be stronger than before. You could keep on destroying it (in a rare situation where you possessed an item or something similar that could give you that kind of might), but it would always come back, stronger than ever, and at that point your fate was sealed.

    Nobody could escape.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    The 2nd Tribulation Light crashed onto Zuko, spreading deep cracks all over his body and destroying many of his legs.

    Zuko didn¡¯t even make a sound this time. It couldn¡¯t be seen given the nature of his eyes, but they had essentially rolled back. He¡­ had fallen unconscious.

    All Enchantments slipped off his body, including the Divine Lunar one, and considering its effects, it could be considered certain that he would not be waking up for a long time. Death was nothing if not assured.

    Others in the past (apart from a minute few individuals with unparalleled accolades) had taken 2 White Tribulations at most, and that had been enough for them to stomp in any direction they wanted. If that was all Zuko had to withstand, even if he fell unconscious now, he would have already won. He would have endured gold as the first strike then 2 whites, and his tribulation would be over.

    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Alas, from the beginning, his Tribulation had been white. Which meant, at the very least, he would have to take another white one for the 3rd. Which he obviously was not in the position to do.

    Normally, most people could endure their Tribulations, after all, it was tailored for them. It wasn¡¯t necessarily meant to destroy them, in fact its primary purpose could be considered to cleanse them. Cleanse their impurities and cleanse their accumulated Fortune backlash. Augments and other upgrades came after.

    But unfortunately, sometimes there would be a situation where their accumulated Fortune was too heavy for them to withstand.

    Zuko, by complete luck of being at the right place at the right time became an Apostle of the Moon, which allowed him to turn from nothing into the strongest Sea King. That kind of Fortune was not light at all, and its backlash would be corresponding.

    Now, he was paying the consequences.

    He would die.

    Or so he should have.

    His recent bout of Fortune, also known as the fruit that caused him all this suffering, hadn¡¯t finished its job. And its creator had given it very clear directives that made its performance look like it was the workings of conscious thought, rather than just energy that was moving around here and there.

    Within Zuko¡¯s body, the silver coloured essence that had been peacefully merging with Zuko¡¯s cells and Mana abruptly lashed out like a vicious tsunami. It pounced upon the reckless Tribulation essence which, in all honesty, was doing exactly what the silver essence had been doing (even better in fact), but only in a far more uncontrolled manner that held no regard for safety.

    Moreover, the benefits of Tribulation essence could only be fully reaped when all 3 Tribulation Lights had done their job. Only then would the Tribulation essence stop slacking and initiate an unparalleled show of power, sometimes even resulting in the most sought out occurrence: Evolution.

    And it was this illustrious Tribulation essence that the silver essence was audaciously moving against. This alone was enough to make knowing eyes quake, but what happened next could not be easily comprehended.

    The Tribulation essence disappeared. The Tribulation essence had vanished in almost an instant, and taking their place was a denser, richer silver essence that didn¡¯t hesitate at all to absorb more of the surround Tribulation essence around Zuko¡¯s body.

    And this¡­ What had just occurred was the mortal equivalent of gas absorbing water to make more of itself, or water absorbing a solid to do the same thing. Utterly ludicrous.

    Now in the Magic World, a lower tier energy absorbing a higher tier one wasn¡¯t rare. In fact it was the most common thing ever, after all, basic cultivation was the act of converting the higher tier raw Magical Energy into the lower tier Mana. But something like that could only happen with complete cooperation. Everyone who absorbed Magical Energy had an unknown cooperation with the World, or a knowing cooperation with a Realm 7 god that allowed them to assimilate the energy into Mana.

    But there should have been no cooperation here whatsoever.

    This was a rule-breaking, no-sense-making phenomena that only one entity on this Planet could explain, and it was the Planet itself.

    Not long later, all the Tribulation essence had been absorbed, and the Tribulation Circle up above had only flashed once. Ridiculous.

    The silver essence didn¡¯t stop there either. One would think that with the much higher density and quality of the energy, it would be far more difficult for it to assimilate with Zuko. But defying physics once again, the assimilation rate actually increased.

    Just what kind of fruit was this?

 Ch.256 Domicus Records

    Obviously, the silver essence was not just for show. As Zuko¡¯s body digested more and more, visible effects began to show and they were blooming rapidly.

    First, the cracks across his carapace began to heal, slowly at first and picking up speed later. Then, in tandem with the healing, the colour began to change, losing its darkness rapidly and becoming paler and paler. The white markings that were already there glowed even brighter, and it even looked like they were changing in design. It was as if they were upgrading.

    Of course they were.

    By now, the 3rd Tribulation Light had charged 2 times and was about to charge for the final time. But Zuko was still changing.

    He started growing in size and the shape of his carapace began to morph, growing protrusions mainly around his back that looked like the beginnings of spikes. Something was changing around his face too, his eyes specifically. Zuko had 2 normal all black compact eyes that most insects had, but the shape of his face around those eyes was beginning to change, almost like it was making room for more.

    Other slightly more minor changes were taking place, like the overall shape of his body which seemed to be becoming more thick the closer it was to his head, with his head becoming the thickest, but before anything more substantial could happen, the 3rd Tribulation Light had finally finished charging.

    *Flash*

    Zuko was still unconscious, but the Tribulation held regard for nobody, not even its creator. After all, its driving force was still the Laws of Fate. And before the Laws of Fate, nothing could escape. Speed and tangibility meant nothing. If you were destined to be struck, you would be struck.

    One might even say that the Light was for show. In the abnormal scenario that you accomplished the impossible and somehow dodged the Light at the last second, just as quickly as you could process triumph, pain like never before would sunder you once more. Which is to say, regardless of whether or not you actually got hit by the Light, you would STILL feel the full effects of its Tribulation as if you hadn¡¯t dodged in the first place. It was like a glitchy game.

    As for Zuko, who laid there, effectively defenceless, with no enchantments to defend himself?

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    The Tribulation Light struck, as it was designed to do, and when the oppressive white light had finally faded, the only thing remaining of Zuko was his Head and a few extra metres, but they themselves were badly damaged. What made things critical was that his Heart hadn¡¯t been included in those extra metres. In fact, the only major organ that he currently still had was his Brain.

    Everything else had been obliterated with not even a scrap in tact.

    Perhaps if you looked veeeeery hard, you could find a cell or 2. But such things, especially as damaged as they were, didn¡¯t often last long.

    In a situation like this, 99.9% of lifeforms would have had their last breath. What was there to even breathe with? Even creatures like the hammerhead worm that could grow into 2 entire new worms if it were cut in half, would have a very hard time surviving after being reduced to this, talk less of a Centipede that had far inferior regenerative capabilities.

    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    But as one could expect, a gift from Eridel himself was nothing to scoff at.

    On top of that, all 3 Tribulation Lights had been overcome. Barely, but still definitively.

    Just like the fact that there was nothing that could stop the assault of a Tribulation Light, there was nothing that could stop its rewards if you lived long enough to harness them.

    Zuko was unconscious and couldn¡¯t absorb the new Tribulation Essence on his own, but if him being unconscious was useless information before, it would be useless once more.

    The Tribulation essence moved throughout the remains of Zuko¡¯s body and once more met in contact with the silver essence. This time the Tribulation essence wasn¡¯t absorbed like before, but expert eyes would be able to notice that they seemed to be interacting in some way. And the more they interacted, the more they seemed to act differently.

    It was almost imperceptible, but it was still happening. But what the result would be was unknown because in the next moment, Zuko¡¯s body- what was left of it, was abruptly wrapped in a silver cocoon that completely shrouded what was going in from any prying eyes.

    Still, this at least confirmed one thing, and that was that Zuko was evolving. When he next appeared he would be a different creature.

    A much more powerful one.

    ¡­

    ¡®As expected, to be honest.¡¯ Eridel thought, once more using an avatar to rest on a fluffy cloud. His eyes may have been gazing up at the sky as if he were sunbathing on a sunlounger, but his true sight was on something else entirely.

    It was almost grotesque how calm and unruffled he looked if you could comprehend the complexity that was going on in his mind. To put things in perspective, if his thoughts were converted into material water, it would be enough to drown an entire continent and submerge it below the sea, and this was when he was calm.

    The thoughts that were circulating his mind when he was concerned about his 3rd Soulmate was enough to kill every lifeform on this planet with its sheer gravity if it was converted into anything material.

    But that should never be confused for some kind of expert surveillance. Unless he was consciously looking at everything at the same time, something that took a small but noticeable percentage of his computing power, he could actually overlook things. Especially when his planetary instincts (what he liked to call the Will of a World), was making him so narrow minded.

    In any case, it took nothing at all to look at the events of what was going on around Zuko and even predict the future to an extent with the assistance of the Domicus Records.

    The Domicus Records is a feature of the Eridius System that works very much like the fabled Akashic Records, but not as powerful. It¡¯s like an AI that uses ALL information that¡¯s been recorded to predict either the past or the future.

    It could also be called the ¡®mind¡¯ of the Eridius System. The words that people hear when they communicate with the System were completely automated by the Domicus Records, and the decisions that it made, such as making Anomalies and the like, are also done by the ¡®will¡¯ of the Domicus Records.

    Moreover, its computing power was increasing in conjunction with its gathered knowledge, very similar to the Matrix Soul Cultivation path.

    The Domicus Records isn¡¯t too useful to Eridel right now since he could do all that it could do with multiple times the effect, but he liked to use it from time to time, almost like he was training a pet.

    It wasn¡¯t too useful to him now because it was so young and didn''t have enough data, but it was growing.

    Sooner or later, it might even surpass his own computing power.

 Ch.256 Emperorâ€™s Dignity (+Important Announcement)

    What happened to Zuko was just 1 of the many possibilities that he foresaw. He hadn¡¯t bothered to peer into the history of the sea creatures'' life just to reach a perfect prediction, but even without doing so he was able to make pretty accurate predictions.

    Zuko being so cautious that he ended up being found by the local Sea Emperor was amongst the most likely of his predictions. But even a mortal could have predicted that. It''s not hard to understand that most sea dwellers are fearful of the unknown, which could make them wait for a long time before they became settled, and once you look at the innocently approaching Sea Emperor, anyone could imagine the incoming comical scene.

    Even before Eridel had created the fruit, he had known this could happen. So had made many plans to make his plans a success. He had even briefly considered making the fruit self-destruct if everything went wrong and the wrong target ate it, but then he had decided that if such a creature was even able to slip out of his web of plans and reach that point, then eating the fruit was fully deserved.

    As for the fight that had occurred, he¡¯d pretty much predicted everything that happened there as well. Zuko throwing metal spikes and having them rebound towards him might have been shocking to most people, but those with knowledge would be able to deduce that the potent electricity that the metal had been conducting was enough for Bilibu to obtain control of it.

    On the same level, a Metal user could usually beat a Lightning user, but if the Lightning user had the advantage of cultivation and control over energy, then any Metal user would be played like a puppet. On the other hand, if the Metal user had greater cultivation, a Lightning user would not be able to cause a single lick of damage.

    It was pretty much on the level of fire vs water. Literally.

    Zuko deciding to run to initiate the evolution was the only thing he could do if he wanted to survive, and Eridel had factored that into his plans, which is why the Lunar fruit had looked like it was created for the purpose of making Tribulations easier. It was.

    Thankfully, this didn¡¯t count as Eridel helping since all he did was create a fruit. Zuko decided to eat it and as all magical resources did, he obtained benefits. On top of that and most importantly, all of this took place before the Tribulation even began.

    It would simply be crazy if anyone who handed out a resource to help someone reach the 4th Realm would be forced into the Tribulation as well. Still, just the thought of what would occur if he was categorised as a helper was enough to make him be careful. The result would have been catastrophic, to say the least.

    Now that may have been avoided, but Zuko¡¯s troubles were not over yet.

    The most important directive of the Lunar fruit had been to greatly increase the quality of Zuko¡¯s brain and mental, followed by the directive to increase his affinity with the Moon and grace him the comprehension of its laws, followed by influencing his next evolution, increasing the strength of his body, increasing the quality of his Mana, and so forth.

    But funnily enough, the feeling of his brain improving had occurred just as he had begun to sling curses at the Sea Emperor, causing him to pursue the feeling with the only way his limited knowledge knew how. Which was to throw more curses.

    And as if to encourage him, his improving brain and mental capabilities had granted him with newer, more insidious ways to insult his opponent. Something like this was like enlightenment and was peerlessly joyful.

    So he continued to spit out toxic words as if he were a demonic priest in prayer, becoming louder and more feverish with passion as his joy rushed out of control.

    Even Eridel himself had burst out with laughter at the abnormal event.

    But unfortunately for Zuko, not everybody was laughing. There was no Sea Emperor alive that could hear those words and not make him the KOS target number 1. It may have looked like Zuko had escaped the situation when Bilibu left, but in actuality, things had become much more critical. Fatal even.

    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

    Zuko was in big, big trouble.

    ¡­

    It wasn¡¯t rare for the usually silent depths of the Sea to randomly become disturbed by the turbulence of violence or just about any chaos, and most people minded their own business if they couldn¡¯t gain a benefit from the situation. But what was taking place here was definitely drawing eyes.

    Moving their way through the sea was an apocalyptic-looking army of varying giant Sea Beasts and Sea Monsters that possessed all kinds of cultivation strengths that would make most people avoid them at all costs, and at their front was a gigantic multi-colored jellyfish that was shrouded in ominously slow-moving lightning.

    It was the local Sea Emperor, Bilibu, and his army.

    The menace and killing intent they exuded as they swam with goal-minded focus was like a dark, haunting cloud. Nobody dared to get close, but at the same time, they wanted to know what was going on.

    It was way too rare for a Sea Emperor''s army to move out like this. Because not only did it leave their territory open to assault, but it also became something that would alarm the neighbouring Sea Emperors. In any ordinary situation, there was no way they could ignore something like this, and these times were even more tense.

    At a time like this where the Kaiser battle could kick off at any moment, what Bilibu was doing would be heard by more than just the neighbouring Sea Emperors. Every Sea Emperor at this section of the Sea, from top to bottom, would be paying attention to him, hoping or dreading that he would be the one to kick off the Kaiser battle.

    So as Bilibu made his way through the Sea, there were some who fled at the sight, but there were more who decided to follow along from a distance, creating an awe-inspiring scene filled with countless Beasts and Monsters of all colours.

    This was the dignity of an Emperor, and its target was Zuko.

    ===================================

    IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

    I¡¯ve recently resumed working on the game for this book (It¡¯s on ROBLOX), and I¡¯ll be doing a public test on the 9th of February 2024. There isn¡¯t much as of now, but it¡¯ll be nice if you can take the time to join in.

    Atm, you can start with 1 of 5 randomised Elements with equal rarity: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth or Lightning. You can also cultivate either Essence Cultivation or Anatomy Cultivation or both if you have the will. Soul Cultivation will come much later if I decide to add it.

    You can also start with one of 4 races: Human, Elf, Beastkin and Blood Fiend. And they all have their own benefits.

    Humans: Well, their speciality hasn¡¯t been written in the book yet so it won¡¯t be in the game for the test either, and it would be a spoiler if I told you so can¡¯t do that. But I can promise you that when I do implement the Human race benefit, they won¡¯t be inferior to other races at all.

    Elves: They have 4 subraces: 1.Pure (Normal), 2.Fae, 3.[SPOILER], 4.Royal. They of course have different benefits and rarities.

    Beastkin: They have 5 subraces: 1.WolfKin, 2.DeerKin, 3.RhinoKin, 4.DragonKin (rare), 5.PhoenixKin (rare). First 3 are of equal rarity but the last 2 are quite rare. These all come with animal features like wolf ears, dragon horns or phoenix wings.

    Blood Fiends: They can drink the blood of fallen foes to syphon their cultivation. Yes, the victim will actually lose cultivation progress (but not a lot).

    Can¡¯t promise that all of the racial specs will be in the game at the time of the test, but I¡¯m working on it. It isn¡¯t easy working on both the game and the book, on top of being in university 4 days a week, all without any help, but I¡¯m Monarch still and I¡¯ll do my thing.

    Discord Link: https://discord.gg/T6KXHyKyyF

    </a>P.S: There will be a small few people running with their own customs, including me. 1 of them is a pink fucker that can go in and out of the **Spoiler**. Don¡¯t provoke him because even if I can beat him, I can¡¯t save you if he¡¯s adamant on killing you. After all, the bastard can just hop into the **Spoiler**, and leave whenever he wants. What¡¯s crazier is that it¡¯s a parallel **Spoiler**, so he can be right next to you and you will never know.

    Someone else won a competition for a custom element and obtained Darkness Element, and my point for me telling you this is that there will be more competitions to come, don¡¯t miss out.

    Yours truly,

    SolitaryMonarch.

 Ch.257 Another Sea Emperor

    Countless Sea Dwellers of all kinds were gathered together without fighting, a profoundly uncommon occasion.

    It was normally too difficult for the weaker beings of the sea to look at these apex predators without being worried that they would suddenly twitch and it would be the end of their life, but many were doing so today.

    The waters were filled with excitement but at the same time, the scene was so tense and suffocating that despite the vast amount of numbers, there was barely any noise. And there were 3 main reasons for that.

    The first was the air of malevolence and utter hatred that surrounded the Sea Emperor. NOBODY wanted to draw his attention. And the second was that, at the end of the day, they knew themselves and they knew their neighbours.

    As soon as a few drops of blood were exposed, it would send those with weaker control over their instincts into a frenzy. And when a blood bath inevitably kicked up, even those in the 3rd and 4th Realm would start licking their lips. Everybody here wanted to avoid that, so they kept silent, hoping that they didn¡¯t attract a fool¡¯s attention.

    And the third reason was that, well¡­ They didn¡¯t want to miss out on seeing what happened next to the object that held everyone¡¯s attention. The object that caused the Sea Emperor to bring his entire army here, and the object that brought everyone else here.

    It was none other than the silver cocoon that was being surrounded like a top tier resource that was about to bloom.

    Most people here knew that it was the tell-tale sign of somebody¡¯s evolution, meaning that somebody was promoting to the 4th Realm in Bilibu¡¯s territory.

    Although there was a chance that it was someone evolving as a Magic Beast (1st Realm), that chance was so low that it wasn¡¯t even worth mentioning. It had long become apparent that 1st Realm evolution was a feat that only their 1st generation ancestors/progenitors could achieve, and that too if they were lucky. Moreover, going by the size of the cocoon that was STILL growing, there was no way it could belong to someone who was just entering the 1st Realm.

    So that meant that somebody was advancing to the 4th Realm (with an evolution even), in Emperor Bilibu¡¯s territory.

    Important things needed repeating.

    It need not be said how volatile things could become if somebody dared to become an Enlightened Beast in a territory that was already owned by a Sea Emperor. Such situations always ended in colossal situations. Either 2 Enlightened Beasts would go head to head, a situation which in itself could create many results. Or, the stronger one of the 2 would force the other into submission, adding him to his army and growing his/her collective strength.

    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    Many here were convinced that this was the reason why they were here. They assumed that word must have gotten to Bilibu somehow and he had immediately moved out to subdue the threat.

    They didn¡¯t know why this new Enlightened Beast couldn¡¯t wait to leave Bilibu¡¯s territory before initiating his advance, but they weren¡¯t too interested in finding out. All they wanted to see was a good show.

    From a safe distance of course.

    Maybe it would be an epic clash of titanic figures? Maybe the one who was evolving would become a female so charming that she would charm Bilibu into pardoning her life? Haha!

    Although a few people thought of some strange but interesting scenarios, everybody knew that the most likely outcome would be something like an Enlightened Beast breaking out of his/her cocoon with pride and joy, only to be immediately torn apart by an army of Beasts and Monsters.

    ¡®Perhaps I¡¯ll get lucky enough to find a piece of meat, or at least a bit of blood¡¯. Some thought with greed. This was another reason why a few creatures chose to stay. Opportunity. But the majority were thinking of backing up even further as soon as the fight started, or even leaving altogether. They really didn¡¯t want to be caught up in the upcoming bloodbath.

    *Ooooosh~*

    Suddenly, the sound of a large amount of water moving could be faintly heard in the distance, but it was becoming louder, and rapidly. Something was coming, and if the sound was anything to go by, that something was very large.

    Everyone turned to the cause of the commotion, and many immediately froze as they identified it, or to be more specific, ¡®him¡¯, as he swam gracefully into their gathering without any care.

    The creature was approximately 70 metres tall if you didn¡¯t take the extra limbs into account, but with the limbs, that was an extra 120 with a grand total of 190. A prodigious size even for those in the 4th Realm, rivalling that of whales and other large sea creatures. Something that was even more unique when you noticed what species this figure belonged to, which wasn¡¯t hard considering the giant squishy head and 10 large tentacles.

    He was undoubtedly an octopus, and most importantly another Sea Emperor.

    He had dark blue skin, which made him almost invisible this far below the surface of the Sea, but the 2 giant golden eyes that glowed like suns could be seen from miles away.

    The tentacles seemed to be perfect for swimming, because the way he moved through the waters as if there was no resistance ¨C and the speed at which he did so despite his size, was just too scary.

    He ended up next to Bilibu in no time, but he was blocked by the army that used their bodies to block his way. Still, everyone could notice their fear. However, nobody dared to look down on them. After all, what they were facing was an Enlightened Beast in the 4th Stage, a High Tier Emperor that was 2 stages above their own, and it was an extremely notorious one at that.

    Bilibu¡¯s mood that was already at rock bottom somehow managed to plummet even further. He felt sick.

 Ch.258 Kazolix

    Bilibu¡¯s mood that was already at rock bottom somehow managed to plummet even further. He felt sick.

    What was this ¡®ally¡¯ of his doing here?

    He knew who this was, everybody did. But he himself knew things about the Octopus that only 1 other living being knew thanks to their shared ¡®relationship¡¯. And it was because of this that he knew that the fear that the general population had for this figure was not nearly enough. If they knew the things that he knew, this place would have emptied out in a single moment.

    As for the upcoming Kaiser battle? What a pathetic farce. He already felt sorry for whoever ¡®won¡¯. If it was up to him he would never compete, but unfortunately he didn¡¯t have a choice.

    ¡°Bilibu, my great friend!¡± The octopus spoke out with a deep, smooth and noble tone, unbefitting his appearance and the common savagery/coldness that all other sea creatures had.

    ¡°Why so glum? Are you not happy to see me? I came a long way just to see if you were okay, but this is what I¡¯m met with? How cold!¡± The octopus complained in a slightly jovial manner. Hearing him, one would think that after swimming from east to west and north to south, they had finally found a sea creature who wasn¡¯t cruel like the others.

    Alas, this couldn¡¯t be any further from the truth. Everybody knew this much and the members of Bilibu¡¯s army who had chosen to block the way started trembling even more.

    Everybody knew about the ¡®gentle¡¯ Sea Emperor who would apologise to you, just before he chucked you into his mouth. What was worse was that the greedy creature didn¡¯t spare anyone or anything. He always spoke about being forced by the cruel nature of the sea, claiming that he was peaceful at heart. Yet he himself was one of the most proficient when it came to slaughter.

    Most Sea Emperors wouldn¡¯t bother with Spirit Beasts (Realm 2) and below, because they were effectively useless to them. But this Sea Emperor would even chase after those without any cultivation.

    There was a reason why he came here alone, and that was because everyone who resided in his territory had already fled or had long become nutrients. Nobody dared to go there anymore.

    ¡°Kazolix¡­¡± Bilibu spoke out slowly. For a moment there was a tense, loaded silence that had everybody fearing for the worst, but then Bilibu spoke once more. ¡°I am of course glad to have you here¡­ All of you, don¡¯t you know who this is? Get out of the way!¡±

    Nobody needed to be told twice, they immediately withdrew with haste.

    ¡°Aaah¡­ No need to frighten them¡± Emperor Kazolix sighed. ¡°How many times have I told you, you¡¯re too heavy with your words.¡±

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    Bilibu didn¡¯t respond.

    ¡°So, who is this fellow?¡± Kazolix asked, referring to the silver cocoon and asking the question that everybody else had had on their mind. A few even shifted a little closer as if they were afraid to miss the answer.

    ¡°This¡­¡± Bilibu¡¯s aura flagged with violence, shocking those close to him.

    Kazolix¡¯s giant gold eyes narrowed slightly.

    ¡°This¡­ is¡­ Zuko.¡± Bilibu spoke out slowly with terribly hidden malice.

    Kazolix blinked. Everyone else in the vicinity practically recoiled.

    The strongest Sea King was finally advancing to the 4th Realm? Here of all places? Was this stupidity or stupidity? Many scorned Zuko¡¯s intelligence for what he was doing but at the same time, they were all excited to see what kind of evolution a talented figure like that would receive. An opportunity like this, where they got to witness such a delicate but marvellous affair without having to worry about their life too much, was practically unprecedented.

    ¡°Zuko¡­¡± Kazolix muttered with his mind elsewhere. However a few seconds later his eyes flashed with an emotion that could only be called ¡®mad greed¡¯. He composed himself quickly, but it was impossible for something like that to go completely unnoticed. Bilibu was one of the few who had seen it, and his heart squeezed with dread as a sudden thought crossed his mind.

    ¡®No¡­¡¯ He whined as the revelation of what was now likely to happen caused his stomach drop. He felt like his revenge was slipping out of his hands. No! He would not allow this!

    ¡°Emperor Kazolix,¡± Bilibu started respectfully. He had to do whatever it took to dispel Kazolix¡¯s interest. ¡°The thing is, this-¡±

    =Save it, Bilibu. You of all people should know that all of the things you could do to me, deception has to be the one with the least effect. I do not know why you are angry at this creature, and honestly, I don''t particularly care. I want him alive. Listen to my command, or die.= Kazolix spoke in his mind, ruining his plan before it could even begin.

    =.....Yes, Master.= Bilibu responded back subserviently. However, the effort that he was using to restrain his anger was causing him to visibly shiver.

    =Good, now finish your sentence. You know what to do.=

    Bilibu slowly undulated his body, which was the equivalent of most other creatures taking a deep breath

    Everyone could tell that Bilibu was angry like never before. Clearly, Zuko¡¯s audacious act had enraged him exponentially. Not that they cared. In fact, they were excited to hear the promises of carnage that Bilibu would swear to inflict. Free entertainment!

    ¡°This¡­¡± Bilibu spoke out, trying to act as if he were lost for words and creating an excuse for the previous lapse in speech. ¡°This Zuko here¡­ he is just so talented. It would be great if I could nurture him as my subordinate.¡±

    Silence befell the gathering, the little chittering here and there along with the small *swooshes* of water coming to a complete stop.

    Kazolix blinked.

    =You¡­ You fool! Has your anger affected your brain? Who would believe a word you say when the killing intent radiating off your pores is enough to make a person choke. Useless! Just listen to what I say and follow my orders. I can just barely salvage this.= Kazolix growled telepathically, losing a bit of his noble demeanour.

 Ch.259 CRACK!

    ¡°Huhuhu~¡± Kazolix chuckled. ¡°You think we¡¯re all fools here? You look like you can¡¯t wait to pry off his flesh with your teeth, and you don¡¯t even have any.¡± Then he laughed again good-naturedly as if this were all entertainment.

    However on the inside, he was sending another telepathic message.

    =Say that you are indeed angry, but¡­¡­= Kazolix gave out a list of instructions to follow, before ending with =Like this, although some may still think that something is off about you, at least they won¡¯t suspect our relationship.=

    Bilibu inwardly sighed. He rued the day that he met this creature. That was the day his life had changed forever. If only¡­ If only he had never let greed lead him into that cave¡­

    Alas, there was nothing he could do now. Actually, on the brighter side, it was likely that things were inevitable from the beginning. Kazolix¡¯s goals were too lofty, and he even scorned the position of Kaiser. Others would laugh or spit if they heard such a thing, but Bilibu knew better.

    Kazolix¡¯s abilities were just not fair. Truly and Utterly. And their alleged requirements were seemingly nothing before Kazolix¡¯s intelligence and manipulation. He was just not a being that could be competed with.

    Bilibu knew that Kazolix had a great chance of actually achieving his goal, so maybe it was a good thing that he had become his¡­ follower¡­ now when he was useful, rather than later when he would be of no use. At least he was alive.

    Bilibu sighed once more before psyching himself up for his task. Thankfully, the threat of death had suppressed his rage and urge for violence, making what he was about to say seem even more believable.

    ¡°You¡¯re right, Kazolix. The fact that somebody dared to promote to the 4th Realm without my permission made me incomparably angry, especially since I had been dealing with some difficult issues when I heard the news. However, I am an Emperor now. I cannot continue to base my actions on my emotions. If I can make Zuko submit to me, it would be a greater boon to me than the strength I could gain from eating him.¡±

    ¡°Is that so¡­¡± Kazolix responded thoughtfully.

    ¡°Yes. In fact, you should stop killing everyone who stumbles into your territory and get some subordinates yourself. I wouldn¡¯t give this kind of free information to anyone else, but you are a valued ally of mine. Subordinates will be very useful to you, especially in the upcoming Kaiser battle.¡± Bilibu insisted as if he genuinely cared.

    Kazolix paused as if he took the message seriously. Then out of nowhere he said.

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    ¡°Your words hold value. How about this, you give me Zuko and I¡¯ll let you into my territory to pick a few treasures of equal value.¡±

    Gasps, squeals, screeches and other animalistic sounds of shock rang out as they heard these words.

    It was common knowledge that since Kazolix lived in an Emperor sized territory of the sea all by himself, the amount of resources he must have accumulated could not be anything less than astronomical. Naturally, this incited the greed of many, causing all kinds of attacks over the years with the most famous ones even being led by Sea Emperors.

    Bilibu himself had been one of them.

    However, every single one of them had either been beaten back, killed, or somehow made into an ally. Bilibu being a shining example of the latter, along with 2 others.

    Not much knowledge of the events made it out, and nobody knew how it was even remotely possible that a Sea Emperor could defend against an entire army composed of Sea Kings and even another Emperor, but there were stories that somehow, Kazolix had the ability to see anything in his territory at any time.

    No matter how sneaky you were, once you went in, only a Sea Emperor had the hopes of coming out. Bilibu¡¯s current army was his second one. The first one had all met their death at Kazolix¡¯s hand. And yet they were now allies

    Most people didn¡¯t think too much about that since in the Sea, only benefits moved people. Compassion and sympathy didn¡¯t even classify as a myth. Any sea creature from the lowest kind to a top tier Kaiser could suddenly decide on a random day that they wanted to snack on their own subordinates, and no one would bat an eye.

    It¡¯s not that they didn¡¯t have the survival instinct to avoid such a thing, far from it. it¡¯s just that there was nowhere else in the sea they could go where that wouldn¡¯t happen. On top of that, they themselves would do the same if they had the power to do so, or were already in a position of power and had performed the act already.

    This was just the intrinsic ruthlessness of the Sea, so for Bilibu to not care for his previous army and seek benefits in allying himself with Kazolix, most people didn¡¯t care. At most, they would talk down on him behind his back, blaming him for losing his entire army in one go and calling him a failure.

    Still, that didn¡¯t mean that people were completely oblivious.

    There was not a small amount of people that were casting their eyes on the ¡®survivors of Kazolix.¡¯ Insignificant compared to the population of the Sea, but enough that if their suspicions were proven correct, a huge problem would arise.

    In any case, all of this proved the great desire people had for Kazolix¡¯s treasure, and how fiercely Kazolix was willing to go to defend it. But now, all of a sudden, he was willing to relinquish a ¡®few¡¯ of his treasures that were equal in value to someone in the 4th Realm? All for just the 1 Zuko?

    Were they hearing correctly?

    ¡°This¡­¡± Bilibu barely worded out as if he were shocked silly. ¡°Kazolix, are you sure? I know your situation is quite unique and you are in¡­ great need. But-¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s fine.¡± Kazolix waved a large tentacle magnanimously. ¡°Besides, you are my ally. This is treatment that only my allies can receive. So if I-¡±

    *ccCRAAACK!*

 Ch.260 Horrible Day

    ¡°Hm?¡± Kazolix¡¯s eyes swivelled to the source of the sound, finding a long crack across the silver cocoon encasing Zuko. ¡°It¡­ would seem that we have run out of time.¡± He drawled uncaringly. Then he looked back at Bilibu.

    ¡°Are you going to trade him or not?¡±

    Bilibu, whose attention had been caught by the slowly awakening Zuko, blinked as if he had just woken up. But an instant later he turned back towards Kazolix with just as much indifference that the other had.

    ¡°Of course I will, he¡¯s all yours.¡± Bilibu said flippantly. ¡°How would you like to take him? Maimed? Half dead? Fully dead even? I know we planned on making him a subordinate, but perhaps you¡¯re feeling hungry?¡±

    Bilibu joked with Kazolix as if he were talking about a mere item, nothing to worry about.

    But it was all a facade.

    Bilibu could not keep the same calm as Kazolix. The whole reason he had left Zuko back then to bring his army to surround him was because he knew how talented the abnormal centipede was. An opinion that had only risen when he was struck by that silver light, an attack that had managed to harm him even though a Realm and a couple stages separated their strengths.

    With such a gap, anyone else in Zuko¡¯s position would have been squashed. And yet, the result was that he had been rebuffed and forced to watch as the centipede waltzed into the 4th Realm using the treasure that he had coveted, after having drenched him in acidic words that left holes in his memory. A result of his refusal to recall accursed sentences and his blind fury during most of it.

    Faced with such a situation, knowing that Zuko would only become many times worse if he not only entered the 4th Realm but also evolved, especially with 2, possibly 3 White Tribulations (he was utterly unwilling to believe Zuko survived 3 White Tribulations, something must have happened to make the 2nd or the 3rd one a gold), it did not take long for him to come to the conclusion that he did not want to deal with the menace alone.

    He did not believe he would lose a 1v1, but with everything he had seen, there was a pretty good chance of him ending up severely damaged after the fight. A terrible, terrible fate for anyone in the Sea.

    ¡°You joke too much, Bilibu. Don¡¯t worry, I will deal with th-¡± Kazolix had started to say as he made to move forward, when he suddenly froze.

    Waves of indescribable aura had begun to slam against the gathering in waves. Visibly, it was silver in colour, just like the cocoon, but the feeling it gave off was not something that could be given accurate labels.

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    It was not fiery, it was not

    The only 3 things that could be comprehended was first, the unknown, practically eldritch feeling of pureness. Something like the concept of pureness did NOT exist in the sea, so it felt profoundly alien to all the people here. Still, they were able to make accurate inferences based off of the feeling alone.

    The second thing that they could comprehend which was much easier to understand but just as peculiar was the ridiculous heaviness of it all. It made them feel like they had suddenly descended lower in the sea, without actually doing so. Some people came to the quick conclusion that it was an illusion, however, even before they could open their mouths to make remarks, they were silenced by the sound of bodies exploding.

    The weaker individuals in the 1st Realm, unable to take the drastic increase in weight, had begun to pop like over inflated puffer fish.

    Lastly, the third yet easiest thing of all to understand about the aura¡­ was the power behind it. The peerless, matchless quality of the essence was impossible to mistake.

    Silence descended on the gathering once more, but it didn¡¯t last very long.

    Swoosh!

    Somebody jetted off, quickly followed by others as the bystanders began to flee the scene. Nobody shouted out ¡®run!¡¯ or ¡®it¡¯s too dangerous!¡¯ or ¡®we have to escape!¡¯ Because in the first place, there was little concept of ¡®we¡¯ to sea creatures who felt endangered. They didn¡¯t care about anything but their own lives as they made a mad dash to escape.

    However, only those in the mid to upper limits of the 2nd Realm and beyond had that chance. For every one below? They simply couldn¡¯t move.

    If the heaviness of the aura could make people explode, then it could definitely subdue the people who were only scraping the requirement to survive it. They were simply out of luck. Strong enough to survive but not enough to move. Unfortunate indeed.

    Even the ¡®mad dash¡¯ that the others were doing was only called that because of how vigorously they were moving in their attempts to escape. But they weren¡¯t moving very quickly. Only the Sea Kings in the 3rd Realm could freely escape. Sadly, most of them were part of Bilibu¡¯s army and weren¡¯t allowed to leave, with the few who had tried already burnt to cinders, courtesy of Bilibu¡¯s lightning.

    ¡°Hmm¡­ on second thoughts, I think I¡¯ll let you take this one for me.¡± Kazolix spoke, his voice still uncaring but his words depicting the opposite.

    However, that voice actually helped Bilibu calm down. No matter how powerful Zuko was, it was not enough to compare to the absurdity that was Emperor Kazolix. Even with this terrific display of might performed by Zuko whilst he was still in his cocoon, that belief had not shaken. Not even in the slightest.

    Others might think that Kazolix was a coward that was putting on a brave face, but Bilibu would never be that dumb again.

    He was 95% sure that Kazolix was simply using him to gauge out Zuko¡¯s not abilities, and that meant that he was in for a very rough time. What he didn¡¯t know was if Kazolix was planning to save him in the end if that was needed, or to sacrifice him to please the new shiny toy that was Zuko.

    Bilibu sighed in lament. ¡®What a horrible day.¡¯

 Ch.261 Debris

    All at once, the cocoon abruptly shattered to pieces, revealing a startling silver-white body that glowed and glimmered in the dark.

    The body was mainly a pale silver, but it had white patterns all over its body that seemed to contain some kind of power. The body shape itself was elongated and flexible, but where in the past it was similar in size from top to bottom, now, it was smaller at the tail and progressively got bigger the closer it was to the head, moreover, there were small but thick spikes that ran over its top that looked like they would be agonising to bypass, which proved its increased defences But one of the biggest changes had to be the head.

    Previously, the centipede¡¯s head hadn¡¯t been too different from others if you didn¡¯t take into consideration its jaw, but now, the whole head had morphed completely and no longer resembled a centipede at all. In fact, it didn¡¯t look like any known insect. If you had to use another animal as a reference, it would be more accurate to say that it looked like a monstrous hammerhead shark.

    It was a pretty thick head too, unlike the shark¡¯s, and the jaw from before had not been tucked underneath, but instead was part of the ¡®hammer¡¯, creating a slight T shape if you shrunk the height.

    Besides that, the over 100 terrifically sharp limbs were still there, naturally sharper than before but also longer and thicker at the base. Just 1 of them looked like they could skewer a Sea King to death, and there were over 100.

    Many were awed even as they were terrified as they watched the body slowly uncoil itself with a grace that stood out even more than its appearance in this savage sea, not to mention the unparalleled authority it was expressing without even doing anything.

    And as they watched the shining figure surrounded by darkness move around gently and softly as if it had just woken up from a blissful sleep, uncaring of the countless hostile forces that had come here to kill it, they couldn¡¯t help but think that he looking like a transcendental being that existed on a different wavelength or reality.

    They didn¡¯t even know what that meant, but looking at the sharp contrast between them and what was undoubtedly Zuko, that was the only thought that came to their mind. They felt like he was untouchable. He looked like an illusion. Could he even see them? Was any of this real?

    Some were actually beginning to doubt the authenticity of the whole situation. It was just too preposterous. However, that thought process was shattered when the creature began to speak.

    ¡°So¡­¡± He started, making many who knew him notice that his voice had changed, becoming deeper and more regal, and also less savage which made him resemble Kazolix a little. However, his following words¡­

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    ¡°What brings you broken, worthless pieces of debris, to see me?¡±

    ¡®?!!!¡¯

    *BSSSSSH!*

    Bilibu¡¯s lightning flared up wildly, and many could see Kazolix¡¯s eyes narrow as his mood undoubtedly plummeted. And seeing all this, they couldn¡¯t help but regret with all their being their decision to come here. They had swam all this way so happily ¨C thinking they were going to make at least a small gain in knowledge if nothing else ¨C not knowing they were swimming to their deaths.

    Zuko on the other hand was perfectly calm. He just looked around at them with that hatefully graceful head of his, not even pausing when he was obviously caught sight of Bilibu and Kazolix, as if there was no difference between them and the smaller fish to the left or right.

    What kind of posing was this? He was just a new Enlightened Beast! What was giving him this much confidence?! Although they felt his power which was nothing like they had ever seen before, it still didn¡¯t make sense!

    ¡°Aah.. I see it now.¡± Zuko spoke again as his head moved backwards a little. ¡°So the pointlessness of your existence has finally caught up to you all. You must have decided that there was no more point in living, and decided to offer yourselves to my stomach, hoping to grasp a bit of usefulness before you all perished.¡±

    Many eyes widened at that.

    ¡°Honestly, I must commend you all. This is a genius idea. So much so that it took even me a while to figure it out. But then again, I never comprehended the laws of futility and waste like you all obviously have. It must have given you unique thoughts. In any case, come, fulfil your destiny and enter my stomach. Perhaps with this first and final act of usefulness, you will find peace.¡±

    Then Zuko opened his mouth ¨C revealing perfect sparkling teeth and inner flesh that was a silver only a couple shades darker than his carapace, with his grey tongue being the darkest thing about him ¨C and just waited there, as if he really expected people to throw themselves in.

    What¡¯s worse is that a few people actually tried before they seemingly caught themselves. Zuko¡¯s royal demeanour along with his ethereal aura and Realm 4 cultivation, was just that compelling.

    It was only effective against those in the 2nd Realm since it was much harder for people in the 3rd Realm aka Sea Kings, to believe any of those words. But the words still had mass effect. Some would shrug it off within days, but there were likely to also be some that would kill themselves even if they survived today¡¯s inevitable battle. His words made them feel that depressed.

    How could they not be when they were faced with such a thing? Even if it was generally frowned upon to be so bright since it destroyed all attempts at camouflage, Zuko¡¯s new appearance was amongst the most marvellous things they had ever beholden. And when they compared themselves to that¡­

    ¡­They truly felt worthless.

    What was it that Zuko called them? Broken pieces of debris? Ha. Haha. They couldn¡¯t refute it at all...

 Ch.262 Evolution: Lunar Diamond Kaiju

    ¡°Zuko.¡± Bilibu growled out. ¡°Do not forsake the life that you finally managed to push to this point for mere pride. Submit yourself or die.¡± His voice was simply dripping with suppressed rage and it made his words sound guttural.

    He was shaking too and everyone could see it. It was to nobody¡¯s doubt that he was completely angry but what completely baffled them was why he was being so hesitant to act even now. He was still trying to reason with Zuko after all the things the creature had just been saying? Why?

    Could this be for Kazolix? Since when was Bilibu so patient and obedient?! Apparently Zuko had been thinking the same thing.

    ¡°If it isn¡¯t lord Bilibu, lord of all shrimps. You almost had me fooled with how docile you¡¯ve been acting. I would have thought that after everything I said to you, you would have exploded at the first sight of me but lo and behold, you¡¯re diligently staring at me from a distance like I¡¯m your father. You¡¯re even shivering! Honestly, you should-¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve had enough.¡± Bilibu spoke with a deadly calm, and for a moment everything froze. But in the next moment there was a terrific explosion as Bilibu lit himself up with lightning, which ended up causing some injuries to his own subordinates that were in range, however his giant body soon disappeared.

    Not even a second later, there was another explosion of lightning which revealed his body above Zuko, surrounded by arcs of lightning that flashed around him crazily. They were growing brighter and increasing in vigour which made people think that something big was coming, but just when the unwilling viewers reverted their attention to its obvious target, Zuko, they realised that he hadn¡¯t moved an inch.

    He was just floating there, boredly.

    ¡°Attack him!¡± Bilibu yelled at his subordinates. He wasn¡¯t taking any chances, especially after witnessing how confident Zuko had been this entire time, which was an almost direct turnaround from the time he had been running from him before his Evolution. Something was giving him confidence, and Bilibu was not going to ignore it.

    *Whoosh!* *Puuush!** BOOOSH!!*

    His various subordinates immediately launched all kinds of attacks at Zuko, not taking any chances to antagonise their ruler with hesitation. Individually, it was nothing compared to what he was preparing, but with all of those attacks together even he would perish if they all landed.

    Of course, he couldn¡¯t use himself as a basis since his defence relied on dodging because of how weak his body was, but still, even with Zuko¡¯s tough body, taking all of those attacks would surely leave him at the very least severely injured.

    So what in the depths was he still doing just floating there?!

    ¡°You¡¯re too arrogant Zuko!¡± Bilibu roared out as he hastened his own attack with a bad feeling creeping up on his heart.

    ¡°Is that so?¡± Zuko asked, right before he was submerged in an avalanche of attacks.

    *BOOOOOOM!*

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    A kaleidoscope of colours was reflected in everyone''s eyes as they witnessed the scene of devastation, and more than a few people ended up dying just like that. At this point, there were no more people in the middle to low stages of the 2nd Realm because they had all died. Everyone that had been suppressed by the aura were now deceased.

    The only ones left were Bilibu¡¯s army and Kazolix. Everyone else who was strong enough to withstand what just happened had long escaped.

    ¡®What¡¯s the result?¡¯ Bilibu asked himself with slight fear.

    He could just about see Zuko¡¯s form with his Spirit Sense, but the feedback he was receiving was heavily distorted. He was picking up too much information from the remnants of the attacks and he wasn¡¯t versed enough in his control over his Spirit Sense to filter them out.

    His fear was because he couldn¡¯t even confirm if Zuko was in 1 piece or not. He really didn¡¯t want to see what would happen to him if he accidentally killed Zuko. Kazolix would absolutely not let him off.

    However, as a veteran as old as he was, he didn¡¯t dare to be lax. He still kept hold of the attack he had been preparing. It was now ready for use, but he wasn¡¯t going to be using it or dispelling it until he confirmed the situation. In any case, it didn¡¯t cost him much to maintain and he was definitely willing to wait. So he waited with bated breath and an increasing heart rate.

    ¡­

    ¡®So this is the power I wield now.¡¯ Zuko thought as he evaluated the state of his body. Completely unharmed. This fact was so terrifying and ridiculous that it frightened even him.

    He had known how durable he had become after checking out his Status when he first broke out of his cocoon, and that was why he had even conducted this test in the first place. He was not a fool.

    But he had still expected to take a little damage, and that damage was what he wanted because it would lead to his next test. Namely, the testing of his increased regeneration capabilities that had become strong enough to display itself as a skill on his Status.

    But to take no damage after all of that¡­ He just had to see his Status again!

    ¡®Status!¡¯ He called.

    [Status]

    [Name: Zuko]

    [Titles: Sea Emperor, Favoured Son of the Sea, Arc Lord, The Moon¡¯s Fifth Apostle]

    [Race: Lunar Diamond Kaiju]

    [Cultivation: Enlightened Beast, Stage 1]

    [Combat Strength: Realm 4, Stage 4]

    [Bloodline: Sanctified Lunar Bloodline(Earth Grade)]

    [Physique: Moon Apostle Physique(Heaven Grade)]

    [Elements: Metal, Water, Acid]

    [Affinities: Metal(100%), Water(100%), Acid(100%), Moon(92%)]

    [Laws: Metal(7%), Water(5%), Moon(3%-NEW)]

    [Intents: Diamond(10%-NEW)]

    [Innate Skills: Metal Enhancement, Water Enhancement, Metal Spikes, Hydro Beam, Acid Spit, Lunar Acid Fusion, Metal Conjuration(NEW) Lunar Enhancement(NEW), Lunar Breath(NEW), Lunar Missiles(NEW), Lunar Barrier(NEW), Cruel Moon(NEW)]

    [Biological Augments: Diamond Infused(NEW), Regeneration(NEW)]

    [Contract Skills: Divine Lunar Punishment, Divine Lunar Enhancement]

    ¡®This just isn¡¯t fair.¡¯ Zuko shook his head as he read everything once more. He really didn¡¯t know what to make of things, he was just too lucky. All of this had been obtained by his easy decision to contract with the Moon, and a fruit that had popped out of nowhere, probably from the same Moon¡­

    Even he could admit that all of this was undeserved, despite all his efforts.

 Ch.263 Cruel Moon

    Inside of the cocoon, he had comprehended many, many things, and the experience was like no other. It was like his mind had been limitless, surfing through the secret laws of the universe and picking up whatever he wanted. And at the beginning of this, he had naturally been comprehending the Metal and Water laws, the 2 laws he was compatible with, with a greater focus on his more unique Metal Laws.

    This even helped him to comprehend the Diamond Intent which would forever alter the way he used Metal in future, and it went without saying that he was exceedingly ecstatic. He hadn¡¯t even known that Intents had existed before then.

    However, out of nowhere, it was like a bright light had shone from above, revealing to him the most sacred Law of all Laws. The one and only Moon Laws. And in front of such majesty, all other Laws and Intents had become garbage, with him becoming lesser than dust.

    For a long, wasted moment that he both cursed and praised himself for, he had just looked and marvelled. Not daring to believe. The experience was like being confronted by the presence of the most high, which was something he thought he would never experience in his life, so it had felt much like an illusion. The greatest one in all existence, but an illusion nonetheless.

    But that was not the case at all, it was reality!

    So when he got himself together, bracing himself even for death, he began to audaciously comprehend the Moon Laws to the best of his ability, focusing solely on just that until the end of the event. And what a great decision that turned out to be!

    Six! That was the amount of Moon related innate skills that he had managed to obtain. A crazy, crazy feat. He felt like he was in a dream. However once again, this was all real. After all, it was 1 of those skills that resulted in him being unharmed after enduring all of those attacks, namely the [Lunar Barrier].

    Before the attacks had landed, he had wrapped himself in the Lunar Barrier without even using any Enhancement skill. And yet still, he was able to block a majority of the attacks before the shield broke and his defence was left to his carapace, which was also extremely durable. All for the mere cost of Mana.

    Even he hadn¡¯t expected that because he thought that his usage of Mana would restrict him, but he should have. How could the greatest Law in existence have a subpar display, even if it was wielded by a spec of dust? Ludicrous!

    However, this left him with a slight problem. His opponents were¡­ too weak. At this point he was practically immune to damage below the 4th Realm. He wouldn¡¯t be able to use them to test his regeneration, and if that was the case¡­

    ¡®No point in wasting time. I¡¯ll finish them all in one blow.¡¯ If all of them together could not break his defence, then they were useless shrimps that didn¡¯t need to exist.

    [Cruel Moon!]

    ¡­

    ¡°What a fool! He actually just floated there and took all of our attacks like he¡¯s some kind of Kaiser. An idiot if I¡¯ve never seen one before!¡± A Sea Monster spoke.

    ¡°Is the 4th Realm so easy to enter that even brain dead insects like him can reach it? I must admit, this is giving me confidence for the future.¡± A Sea Beast spoke.

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    ¡°Shut your mouth. Don¡¯t let this display fool you into forgetting who this creature is, Piobi. He was the strongest Sea King in our sea, and now he¡¯s evolved. I¡¯m almost certain he¡¯s still alive, he probably used some kind of defensive technique, or maybe even an escape one. Who knows, he may be looking at you right now.¡± A different Sea Beast responded.

    The Sea Beast called Piobi thought about that, and the ramifications of what he just said sent a shiver down his skin. He didn¡¯t speak anymore after that.

    However, not everyone was convinced, and some even laughed as they scorned Zuko¡¯s intelligence.

    ¡°Broken pieces of debris he called us! Now look at him! Dead! I say we tear what remains of him to pieces, show him what real broken pieces of debris look like.¡± Someone said wildly, and others growled in agreement.

    ¡°Turn him into debris!¡± A clownfish with a squeaky voice yelled.

    ¡°Kiikikik!¡± ¡°HURHURHUR!¡± ¡°PRRRRRR!¡± ¡°KAKAKAKA!¡± ¡°MUMUMUMUMU!¡± Various sounds of laughter rang out, raising the sombre mood. Something that had been direley needed after the despair they had felt ever since they witnessed Zuko break out of his cocoon.

    However, Bilibu, their ruler, was having other thoughts.

    ¡®He¡­ can¡¯t be dead. That¡¯s just too much of a fallacy.¡¯ He thought. Nobody wanted to die, and it could only be imagined how much someone like Zuko ¨C a being who had been showered with all kinds of talent and gifts ¨C would love life. He definitely would not be taking those kinds of attacks without a plan, so what was he still doing? Waiting for an opening?

    Apparently so.

    *OOOOOOOSH!*

    The sound of a large amount of water being disturbed rang out, and at the same time, the colour effects and residue of his army¡¯s attacks was instantly dispersed as what looked like a ball of silver light took its place. A very, very big ball, mind you.

    ¡®This¡­¡¯ Bilibu¡¯s mind blanked out.

    ¡®It¡¯s indeed the Moon Laws. How did he comprehend it in a baby world like this? Did something from up there somehow fall down, causing him to obtain its benefits? Is he that lucky? Well, whatever the case, I better move.¡¯ Kazolix thought before he seemingly melded with the water, disappearing completely.

    ¡°I heard your first army got wiped out, Bilibu.¡± Zuko suddenly spoke out. ¡°It¡¯s sad but don¡¯t blame me for being cruel, you¡¯re the one that pushed me to this state after all.¡±

    ¡®He doesn¡¯t look like he¡¯s suffered any kind of damage¡¯. That¡¯s the thought Bilibu had been distracted by when he suddenly realised what Zuko just said. Hearing that, on top of the sight of the silver ball growing to devastating proportions, Bilibu felt a terrible shock.

    But he soon broke out of that as profound wrath consumed his mind entirely.

    ¡°DIE ZUKO! JUST DIE AND BE FORGOTTEN!¡±

    And then he released his own attack that he had been holding the entire time.

    [Lightning Desolation!]

    ¡ª-------------------------

    IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

    THE GAME HAS BEEN RELEASED FOR PUBLIC TESTING! CHECK IT OUT HERE: https://www.roblox.com/games/8275216338/Eridius-World

    </a>There will be some bugs since I¡¯ve been working on the game by myself with some occasional help from my brother, so I¡¯d like to hear some feedback on the game.

    It would be really helpful if some people could record some videos so that I can see how it is from your perspective, and if you choose to do so, please have [Eridius World - Open Test] somewhere in the title so it would be easier for me to find.

    I myself will also upload a video soon, so get ready to hear from your King :)

 Ch.264 Another One?

    Bilibu exploded with lightning and a beam of pure electric devastation shot out of him and towards Zuko, much like a Tribulation Light but only far slower. However, this speed was still in the domain of things that most lifeforms couldn¡¯t react to, and it thundered right towards Zuko with the sole cause of causing utter destruction.

    ¡®Aaah, I wanted to charge it a little longer¡­¡¯ Zuko thought grumpily. ¡®Let¡¯s hope that just this is enough to kill them all.¡¯

    Without suspense, he launched the Cruel Moon, watching as it suddenly became more like a real moon (albeit translucent) and less like a ball of silver light. It sailed forward domineeringly but ultimately didn¡¯t make much distance before it inevitably collided with Bilibu¡¯s speedy attack, which meant that detonation of the 2 attacks took place closer to him than everyone else.

    *BIUUUUUUUUUUU!!!*

    As expected, the sound of 2 energy based attacks of that magnitude colliding with each other was enough to rupture the ears of weaker lifeforms, but the actual result of that impact put that impressive fact to shame. After all, other than the fact that the scene had been submerged in silver light that effectively blinded everyone¡­

    The amount of lifeforms that were still in 1 piece had been reduced to a mere 2, and Bilibu was not one of them.

    ¡°BLUUUURRRRRGGHHHH!¡± Bilibu vomited out bits and pieces of his inner organs as his precious blood leaked out of the various lacerations all over his body. He was also missing a majority of his tendrils since they had evaporated in the attack, and that meant that he had lost a good amount of his body.

    In an instant, Bilibu, the Stage 2 Enlightened Beast and infamous Sea Emperor, had been left severely damaged.

    ¡®You can¡¯t be¡­ serious¡­¡¯ With his entire sight occupied by silver light and his mind woozy with pain, he felt very far from reality. He felt like he was dreaming.

    Before the 2 attacks had collided, he had retreated as quickly as possible, he knew he did. How could he not have known that 2 attacks as powerful as those ones blowing up against each other would cause a catastrophe? Of course he knew! So that¡¯s why he ran. Of course, the distance he crossed in that minute time frame wouldn¡¯t amount to too much, but he was still a very fast being and should have reached a safer zone.

    And yet look at him. He was in pieces. Doesn¡¯t this mean that if he were to take the attack head on, there would be nothing left of his body?

    ¡®How¡­?¡¯ He barely thought, before what was left of his body fell flaccid and he passed out, his mind shutting down to preserve itself. He had been rendered unconscious in 1 blow.

    ¡­

    On the other side, Zuko was doing better than Bilibu, but not by much. He still has all of his body parts attached but his carapace was dangerously torn and his eyes were effectively destroyed. Not missing, but damaged to the point of unusable.

    However, the scary, very scary thing was that he was visibly healing. You could practically see his carapace knitting together and it was gradually losing its scorched look, becoming pristine once more.

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    ¡®Ow¡­¡¯ Zuko thought simply. He was in a lot of pain, and the healing process was uncomfortable, but in the end it was nothing compared to a White Tribulation. That thing was something like no other, a pain that completely broke common sense. How did it even work? They way it had bypassed the barrier of his carapace to strike the core of his being had been way too uncanny.

    ¡®Ugh¡­¡¯ Zuko shook his head to clear his mind before weakly sending out his Spirit Sense, using it to observe the state of his body.

    ¡®This regeneration¡­ is indeed¡­ impressive. These gifts from the Moon Mother¡­ I must pay them back in full¡­¡­ But how?¡¯ As Zuko waited to heal, he began to think of ways he could please the Moon using his newly upgraded intelligence.

    ¡­

    ¡®Remarkable¡­¡¯ Kazolix thought as he gazed at the results of the explosion from his safe location, completely unharmed. ¡®He¡¯s just emerged from Evolution, and technically he should still be digesting his gains, furthermore his control should be very poor after such a jump in power. But yet he is already able to achieve this result. Simply remarkable.¡¯

    No matter how many times he saw it, Kazolix could not get over how ridiculous this World was. It was just too great, too useful, too perfect. It was like the World had been designed for the sole purpose of cultivating and evolving, and it didn¡¯t make sense.

    How did he know? Well, that was because he was a reincarnator. He had reincarnated into this World many years ago with full memories of his past life, and although he had never reached the status of Immortal in the past, Immortals and especially gods had dreaded his existence.

    After all, he wasn¡¯t previously an Enlightened or a Beast. No, he wasn¡¯t something flimsy like that. Those were the things he preyed upon. Rather, he was the very thing that barged into their Worlds and Realms to do as he wished, leaving no life left behind when he eventually left for his next location and spreading terror wherever he went.

    He¡­ was a Nightmare from the Abyss. And this entire World was his next target.

    Or so he had thought before the reality of this World had slapped him silly. Compared to the contents of this World, he was no longer as unique as he used to be. He may have been a Nightmare in his last life but he wasn¡¯t anymore, and the only thing he retained was knowledge and techniques. But in the beginning, he thought that that would have been enough to do whatever he wished to this fledgling World. But oh how wrong he had been.

    On another note, he just didn¡¯t have it in him to cause destruction in every direction like he used to anymore. Having reincarnated with a reseted Soul, not even his mind was that of a Nightmare anymore. Spreading destruction was no longer an interesting thing to do.

    But evolving to the peak and dominating every other being? These were the 2 new desires that were cardinal to his new Beastly being, and he had every intention of satiating them.

    ¡ª-----------------

    GAME ANNOUNCEMENT!

    First I¡¯d like to thank all who decided to play the game, and it means a lot that many of you have developed an actual interest for the game. Some of you need to chill out though. Get off the game and get some sleep for real, I¡¯m worried over here. And you''re slapping my face too much! How have some of you managed to surpass me in strength in just 4 days?

    I remember writing that I¡¯d protect you from a certain menace in my game who had unique abilities, but a lot of you can actually give me a run for my money, talk less of him!

    AH!

    Anyways. There¡¯s a new competition.

    Basically, the first 10 people to reach the current max cultivation of the game (Core Refinement Stage 9 AND Anatomy Stage 30) will enter a tournament, and the top 3 placers will all be able to establish a BLOODLINE CLAN.

    This is getting too long so for more information, join the discord here: https://discord.gg/D9z4NxKJzz</a>

 Ch.265 Nightmares from the Abyss

    Having lived a long life, he had accomplished many things but most importantly obtained many things. And amongst these things, the techniques that he had unwittingly stolen were now his most prized treasures.

    Back then he didn¡¯t purposefully look for those things, after all, most Nightmares all powered up the same way and didn¡¯t need cultivation techniques or ever battle techniques because of the incompatibility in constitution. They instead powered up by devouring Souls or by bringing destruction to a Planet, World or Realm and assimilating it into the Abyss.

    The assimilated land would then form a mysterious connection with them which would allow them to do many things with it, and 1 of those things was to directly draw power from it.

    Now of course, it was simply impossible for each and every Nightmare to obtain an entire World worth of Abyssal territory by themselves, there were too many of them and most of them didn¡¯t have that kind of power in the first place. It was too unrealistic.

    What would actually happen was 1 of 2 things.

    First of all, it was not impossible to assimilate just a Continent. In fact, even a Forest or a measly pond can be assimilated as territory for them and the Abyss. Whenever multiple Nightmares were invading, they would split the territory between themselves depending on their strengths.

    However, make no mistake. There was no loyalty or brotherhood between most Nightmare races. They were more than likely to just steal from their ¡®brethren¡¯ and even kill in the process without batting an eye. Most of them only shared because there was no other option. They couldn¡¯t invade alone lest they get targeted by the entire World or Realm¡¯s forces, so they needed other Nightmares that would divert the attention. And of course, such invited Nightmares would never do such a thing for free. As soon as they joined the invasion they would start assimilating territory from a different location of the World and there was nothing the first Nightmare could do about it.

    The other thing that could happen was that a powerful Nightmare could split his own territory and gift it to others. Naturally, such a thing was rare, but there were still many colony-type Nightmares like the Insecta Abyssi and the Emerald Carutata that did it.

    As for devouring Souls, it was just that. Many other races could do the same thing and it wasn¡¯t unique to Nightmares. However, nobody would look down on the benefit of obtaining memories in the process. After all, 1 Soul might possess the coordinates of multiple Planets or even Worlds, and such information was priceless to Nightmares.

    It was just a side-bonus that they could obtain techniques and the like that way, but it was usually useless. However for Kazolix, that information that he had regarded as garbage before was now incomparably precious.

    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    In his previous life, he had only reached the 6th Realm, only a few steps away from the Immortal Realms. However, Nightmare life was extremely brutal and overly dangerous. He didn¡¯t think that at the time but now he had been provided a new perspective to life. Although Nightmares were powerful and even better - hard to kill, they were too dependent on their instincts and the Will of the Abyss, and it made them act with no regard for safety in the pursuit of more territories. If you saw the way they acted most of the time, you would believe that they had no intelligence. It was that bad.

    Kazolix had died in a Law World invasion, killed by a god of Light that he had never seen coming. Like all others that had gone before him he had thought it was all over, so it came as a very big surprise when he began to see again. Such a thing was undoubtedly a miracle even if the amount of eyes could use has SERIOUSLY dropped. Just a pitiful 2! So initially he thought that he was just greatly damaged, somehow alive but in very bad condition. It also didn¡¯t help that he felt extremely feeble and weak so he had been sure that it was just a terrible injury. It wasn¡¯t a farfetched thought considering what had got him there.

    But it didn¡¯t take him long to realise what had happened. It was impossible for him to not know.

    He had reincarnated and was reborn as Beast.

    Initially he didn¡¯t like it at all. To him, the Beasts were an inferior race and were greatly lacking when compared to Nightmares. He had suffered a big loss. The only things that he had to be grateful about was the fact that he was still alive, still had room to grow and was still a Sea Creature.

    In his previous life he was a part of the Darkisfex Lagoon race, a race that had humanoid torso and 6 arms, a serpentine lower half and funnily enough an octopus head. They had countless red eyes all over their bodies and each one of them could cause damage to Souls or at least disorientate the senses.

    Naturally, as Sea creatures, the territory they spent time assimilating into the Abyss were large sections of Seas so he hadn¡¯t been bothered by becoming an Octopus at all, he just found the Beast race as a whole a terrible joke. Some of them were strong, there will always be outliers, but they were a minority. And he hadn¡¯t been amongst them.

    Or so he had thought.

    As one could expect, his opinions inevitably changed. The Eridius World was just too strange. The Beasts here were much more intelligent, their talent was greater and they could even achieve the disgustingly bizarre phenomenon that was the Enlightened Form. How such a thing was even remotely possible was not within his understanding.

    The Universe was vast and it wasn¡¯t as if he had never seen a Beast become an Enlightened or vice versa, but such things were first of all VERY rare, but also in 9 out of 10 cases it was some kind of curse that carried serious detriments. On top of that, he had only ever heard of 4 cases where the transformation could be controlled at will. And only 1 of them had no detriments at all.

    But here in Eridius, apparently all a Beast needed to do was reach the 4th Realm and they would get the benefits of both a Beast AND an Enlightened.

    Ludicrous. It shouldn¡¯t exist. And that was coming from an Abyssal Nightmare.

    Thankfully he was one of them now.

 Ch.266 Be Proud. Youâ€™re Strong.

    In any case, Kazolix hadn¡¯t remained here just so that he could watch the show and reminisce about the past. For a long time now he had been collecting powerful slaves to aid his cause in becoming the ruler of the entire Sea world, and Bilibu was only 1 of those people.

    His plan for them was simple but when others heard about it they always seemed to think he was either joking or insane. Well, not exactly ¡®insane¡¯, people here didn¡¯t quite know what that was yet, but they definitely thought there was something wrong with his intelligence.

    He didn¡¯t blame them, after all, those young things had little knowledge of what true power looked like. When he told them he was planning to raise Kaiser¡¯s as slaves, he was never surprised each time they reacted the same way. Laughing in his face as if he was some kind of joke.

    Well, whatever. They were either dead now or part of the project. Nobody was laughing anymore.

    He had come over here because he was interested in what could make his subordinate so rowdy, it wasn¡¯t every day that you heard that a Sea Emperor was moving out with his entire army. He had had his own guesses on the matter but on a whim he had decided to see what was going on in person instead of asking telepathically using their bond. His smooth cultivation had put him in a good mood.

    It was certainly interesting to hear that all of this had been to merely kill 1 person who was only just reaching the 4th Realm, but it was a very, very pleasant surprise to see that the target was the famed Zuko and that he was undergoing evolution. When Zuko had merely been known as the strongest Sea King in this area of the Sea, it had caught his attention but it hadn¡¯t been enough to move him.

    After all, until he was the undisputed strongest lifeform in the Sea, it was better to do things undercover, and for that purpose he had been avoiding entering the public eye unless it was too interesting to miss out on or very necessary. Going out to hunt Zuko would certainly catch attention, and unlike if a big event was to happen in his own territory, doing something here would be seen by many people.

    Moreover, he had never seen the Centipede for himself before so he hadn¡¯t put a lot of weight on what these weaklings called the ¡®strongest¡¯, but now he couldn¡¯t help but think that he had been too arrogant.

    The Laws of the Moon. Who could have seen it!

    ¡®This Zuko¡­ I must have him!¡¯ Kazolix¡¯s eyes shone brightly as he began to employ one of his favourite techniques. The very technique that had turned Bilibu and others like him into his eternal slaves.

    It had a few requirements, with 1 of them being that they shouldn¡¯t be in a state where they could resist much, but he would be having zero problem with that. Zuko was already badly damaged, others might be blinded by the ambient energy but he had had centuries to hone his Spirit Sense.

    He could see just how ravaged Zuko was, even if he was quickly healing, but that would not be meaning anything in front of him. But just for insurance, he also launched a powerful Soul attack on the side.

    ¡­

    Just as Zuko had been thinking of making every lifeform in the Sea sing praises to the Moon, he noticed a flash in the distance that caught his attention. However before he could even react something slammed into his head that instantly gave him a horrifying headache.

    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡®What?!¡¯ Zuko was shocked, and blind. His Spirit Sense immediately retreated as he lost control of it, and he was too dizzy to take in what he was seeing with his eyes.

    ¡®This¡­ pain! Just.. like the¡­ Tribulation?! How!¡¯ Zuko¡¯s confidence cracked when confronted by the familiar pain that had almost ruined him. Although the difference in potency was almost as distinct as day and night, it was more than enough to spook him.

    All of a sudden a sense of doom gripped him and his instincts went haywire, warning him of imminent fatal danger.

    He wanted to flee but once again he was assaulted by that terrible pain, rendering him helpless.

    =Truly impressive. You managed to take 2 of my attacks? There were none like you in the past, and you can be proud of that when you join my side. But your resistance ends here, goodnight~= A dark voice spoke into Zuko¡¯s mind.

    ¡®No!¡¯ He could tell that something was disastrously wrong and he tried his best to resist, to do anything!

    But once again he felt the same attack and he couldn¡¯t take it anymore, he passed out.

    ¡­

    ¡®Even his Soul is talented...¡¯ Kazolix thought. The attack he had used had instantly knocked out every of his targets beforehand but now he had actually had to use it 3 times for success. Truthfully he should be excited, but now he couldn¡¯t help but think that something was wrong.

    Zuko was too talented, and for no apparent reason.

    Everybody knew that he had seemingly appeared out of nowhere so that either meant that he wasn¡¯t impressive enough to draw attention in his younger days or that he had been hiding.

    In another World he would assume that it might have been because he had found a precious treasure and had been digesting it in hiding for the majority of his early life, but that couldn¡¯t be the case because a treasure that could make someone THIS talented is not something that could be eaten safely, you needed assistance from someone stronger.

    But obviously that couldn¡¯t have happened to Zuko because no one here was that generous, unless that person wasn¡¯t from here¡­

    ¡®Could Zuko be a test subject? Or a powerful figure¡¯s pet?¡¯ Kazolix wondered. This was what was raising his alarm bells. Although the notion was extremely far-fetched, it was not impossible.

    If Zuko had some kind of backer of any kind then he might be in trouble, because anyone who could help someone comprehend the Laws of the Moon was not someone he wanted anything to do with.

    ¡®But could someone like that even exist here? Tch, my knowledge about the surface is too low.¡¯ Although he had many ears all over the Sea, the surface was a domain he wasn¡¯t too familiar with. He didn¡¯t know much of what was going on there.

    For a moment¡­ for a moment he thought about just being safe, leaving Zuko behind and being certain in the fact that he had everything under control. But then he thought again and laughed.

    ¡®I¡¯m being too paranoid. There¡¯s no way I¡¯m letting this go.¡¯ Greed surged within him and he began using his Soul enslavement technique on Zuko. ¡®With him, I won¡¯t need a mere Bilibu. I can-¡¯

    Suddenly, the ever present sound of the rushing ocean vanished. The motion stopped. Zuko, Bilibu and the countless corpses that were sinking froze. All colour faded.

    ¡®This!¡¯ Kazolix knew what was going on immediately. He had been a victim of it once before and would never forget that day even if a million years went by.

    ¡°Haah¡­¡±

    A sigh that could be heard across the entire World sounded, and just like that, Kazolix¡¯s mind was a brink away from collapse.

 Ch.267 Be Ashamed. Youâ€™re Weak.

    His memories of what happened after that were shattered and disorderly, but he was pretty sure that the entire World had disappeared, leaving him in empty space.

    Stars littered the vast darkness like glitter on a dark all-encompassing veil, and it was an imposing sight to witness when all alone, surrounded by essentially nothing. However that would soon turn out to be false. Because he was not alone.

    When he turned around, or at least that¡¯s what he thought he did, he didn¡¯t really remember how it occurred, but regardless, he had no longer been alone. Instead, he was suddenly in the presence of what his broken memories told him was a planet-sized golden eye.

    The eye had just¡­ looked at him, but he felt like he had been stripped bare. His identity, his knowledge, his everything. Nothing was hidden before that entity. He knew he was finished.

    After an indiscernible amount of time passed ¨C perhaps eons or mere seconds ¨C the entity decided to speak. But for all intents and purposes it might as well have been an ancient curse, because his mind had promptly shut down.

    His next memory was the Eye again, and his mind was much clearer this time. But not a single thought passed through his mind, he didn¡¯t quite have that capacity. Some would say what he had felt was fear or even primordial fear, but he would disagree. Those words could not properly describe the potent¡­ ¡®something¡¯ that he had felt.

    In any case, all he did was stare at the Eye, not daring to move a physical or mental muscle. It wasn¡¯t even his decision to behave that way. He just simply could not summon the will to do¡­ anything.

    The Eye spoke again, and this time he could understand without passing out. It must have decided to weaken its power for his sake.

    ¡°I¡­ am Eridius.¡± The Entity spoke with a¡­ it couldn¡¯t be called a voice. Not with that kind of sound. However, the sound rumbled throughout the universe and caused many stars to blink out of existence.

    It certainly wasn¡¯t a language he had heard before, but he somehow understood. Apparently, this being was addressing itself as this World¡¯s own name. At least, according to the Eridius System. At another time he would have tried to connect the dots, but he didn¡¯t. He didn¡¯t back then, he didn¡¯t now, and he wouldn¡¯t in future.

    He didn¡¯t dare.

    ¡°You¡­ are Greed.¡± The Entity spoke again. More stars shattered.

    At the time he didn¡¯t know what that meant. He was slightly positive that he had never been called Greed before, but the Entity said it so it must be true. Even if it wasn¡¯t, it was now. The Entity said it, and so shall it be. He was Greed. Always had been, always will be.

    ¡°I am the lone god, creator of all. You are mortal, one amongst many.¡±

    Right.

    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    ¡°Do not disrupt my plans.¡±

    That didn¡¯t seem quite possible, but right.

    ¡°The next time you draw my attention, you will have never existed. Do you understand?¡±

    No. But right.

    ¡°Go. Sleep for a few years to restore your mind. When you wake you will be a new being.¡±

    At that point, no more stars existed. There was only him and the lone god, surrounded by endless darkness. The only source of light was the light of the lone god¡¯s eye, and what a sight it made.

    But then in the next instant he was back in the Sea, not quite where he had been last, but instead deep inside a cave he had never seen before.

    Now, as he pondered on what had just occurred, he couldn¡¯t help but think that something serious, very serious had happened to him. But he still couldn¡¯t muster the will to do anything. He could now think about what had just happened, and make thoughts, but he¡­ he just wanted to sleep.

    His eyes drooped as he stared emotionlessly at the stone wall before him, not moving a single muscle apart from his eyelids. Soon, he slept.

    When he woke, he would be a new being. He would be Greed.

    ¡­

    ¡®Well¡­ That was something.¡¯ Eridel thought. He was currently in his more raw state. No avatar, no condensed Spirit Sense, just him in his planetary form. And he was taking some rare time to reflect on his actions.

    He had to admit that he had come a long way from his previous self. Who would have thought that he would reach a state where he could so convincingly act like a god. And not just a divine being with divine cultivation, but the kind that most mortals would call a one true god. The creator of all existence.

    It felt odd.

    He had come from humble beginnings. Yes he was rich, and yes he was a great inventor with a lot of influence, but he had been a mere mortal without the slightest idea of Cultivation and the bigger universe. But look at him now.

    From the lowest form of mortal an Enlightened could be, to a bonafide World that could extinguish the Will of a 4th Realm ex-Nightmare with a single word infused with the power of his Soul.

    All this because he was lucky enough to be the target of the golden orb on that fateful day¡­

    This kind of thing was probably enough to summon a Rainbow Tribulation, and yet all he had had to deal with was a Red one. It was too abnormal. The only thing that made the most sense was that somehow the golden orb also had the power to hide from fate. But he was incapable of confirming.

    He had gained strength now, but it wasn¡¯t nearly enough. It wasn¡¯t enough to reach the pinnacle of power. It wasn¡¯t enough to truly be what he had displayed to Kazolix.

    What he had done to Kazolix and what Kazolix had seen were 2 completely different things.

    Obviously.

    It would be a horrible joke if he actually blew up his own body just to replace himself with an Eye. And there was no way he could destroy a star with just his voice, talk less of all of them. It had all been an illusion.

    In reality, he had dragged out Kazolix¡¯s Soul into his own mindscape where he would be completely exposed. From there, it was just a few visual tricks and infusing his words and presence with his powerful eternally upgrading Soul Cultivation.

    The intent had been to greatly rattle Kazolix¡¯s Soul and scare him. Him becoming an eye was just the inner boy in him putting up theatrics. He expected the fear and submission, even the damaged Soul.

    But what he didn¡¯t expect was for Kazolix¡¯s Will Flame to blow out like a candle.

 Ch.268 Will Flames

    Even with all of the knowledge granted to him by the golden orb, the information he had regarding Will Flame¡¯s was low. However, even a fool with a rotting brain would be able to recognize that it would be very bad if a Will Flame died out. But ¡®bad¡¯ was putting it mildly; In reality, it was a step or 2 away from fatal.

    Thankfully, the information regarding Will Flame¡¯s wasn¡¯t completely lacking and he knew a few things. First of all, a Will Flame was exactly what it sounded like. It was the embodiment of someone¡¯s Will and could be considered the engine of their Soul. For those who were adept in the Soul, they would be able to see it at the centre of their mindscape.

    Drive, diligence, motivation and things like that were heavily tied to the quality of a Will Flame. The higher the quality and the more vigorous it burned, the more passion you felt to do things on a daily basis. And by contrast, the dimmer the flame, the lazier and more susceptible to things like depression you were.

    However, as was mentioned before, all things had grades. Perhaps they weren¡¯t all distinctive enough to be named, but there were always worser and better versions.

    When it came to Will Flame¡¯s, they were divided into grades called ¡®Tiers¡¯ and Eridel knew about 3 of them. His own Will Flame was at Tier 2 and it was gold in colour.

    It happened after he had pushed himself to the limit to survive his Red Tribulation. He didn¡¯t know how it worked since he didn¡¯t possess the knowledge to cultivate it in the first place, but he could only guess that his strong will to overcome everything in that moment caused some changes to his Will Flame that pushed it to the next Tier.

    In Tier 1, a Will Flame was very susceptible to changes and could be affected by the things that happened to its owner, becoming brighter or dimmer depending on what state of mine the owner was in.

    But when a Will Flame reached the 2nd Tier, it would etch within itself the most predominant personality traits of the owner and would stick to them. From then on, it would be exceedingly difficult for the owner to have a drastic change in personality. This was a good thing for most and a bad thing for some.

    As for Eridel, he knew his Will Flame traits were the following: Wrathful, Lustful, Prideful, Ruthless, Domineering, Noble, Fearless, Defiant, Ambitious, Creative and Peerless.

    A good amount of them hadn¡¯t shown themselves in a while, especially the 1st two. After all, there wasn¡¯t much that could make him angry apart from when his Worldly Instincts were pushing him to do something stupid. But what would he do about that, punch himself?

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    He wasn¡¯t interested in having sex with the women in his World either. A small part of it was they were his creations and he could read their every thought which put a damper on things, but the biggest reason was their severe lack of knowledge. They were effectively all cave women with no concept of hygiene and basic necessities. He may be lustful but not that lustful.

    The last trait had slightly surprised him. What did it even mean to have a peerless personality trait? But it didn¡¯t take him more than a few nanoseconds to come to the conclusion.

    Pretty much from the time he was born till now, he had effectively had no peers. He had never experienced the feeling of having a rival, he had never experienced the feeling of having to rely on someone, and he had never looked up to a single living lifeform. Nobody was on his level. The World looked at him and found themselves wanting, but it had never been the other way round.

    He had respected people and he had been kind to many, but that had mainly been because of the way he had been raised. Apparently, that ended up culminating in his ¡®Noble¡¯ trait.

    But he had never really looked at someone and felt they were someone like him. Never felt the ¡®Man to Man¡¯ confrontation. And now that he was a World that could think like both a Human and a supercomputer, this had only become more prominent.

    As far as he knew, the only entity that resembled him now was his first Soulmate, the pink gas planet. But that had been because of his own doing. It might have been a surprise, but it was still a result of his actions.

    He was¡­ peerless.

    Perhaps that was why he had barely stepped down onto his lands to walk amongst his people. In fact, the amount of people that had seen his avatar could be counted with a hand and a few fingers, despite the great amounts of opportunity. And even then, he never stayed long.

    He seemed to spend more time lying around on clouds, eating various foods that he created, than actually showing his face anywhere. How amusing.

    How very amusing.

    Thankfully he didn¡¯t see something like aloof on his Trait list or he would have mocked himself for being a frigid loner. As it stood, he could only wait until his World was more interesting before deciding to actually step down and smell the roses. Maybe when toilets and bathrooms were invented? Haha!

    In any case, Will Flames were pretty unique. Tier 1 was what pretty much everyone else had and didn¡¯t need to be mentioned, Tier 2 encoded your most predominant personality traits and allowed you to keep your mentality no matter how much time passed or what you experienced (but it¡¯s not like you couldn¡¯t feel anything else, those were just the core personality traits). And Tier 3¡­

    That¡¯s where things really got juicy. Alas, it was pointless to think about considering how far out of his reach it was.

    Instead, he was much more interested in what would happen to Kazolix. Kazolix had a Tier 1 Will Flame that was grey in colour, nothing special about that. But it had been blown out like a candle flame. According to his knowledge, there were a few things that could stimulate back into existence, and he had done those things, but there was no way to confirm success or failure since a long time of rest was still needed.

    He would just have to see if the guy would ever wake up.

 Ch.269 Reincarnation Infestation

    Funnily enough, this turn of events had set back his plans, but it wasn¡¯t too big of a deal.

    For a few years now he had been aware of Kazolix¡¯s existence. Ever since his Will Flame had progressed to Tier 2 and given him the ability to slightly ignore his planetary instincts, he had decided that there had to be a limit to letting things progress by themselves, and he needed to be more alert.

    1 of the things he had done in regards to that was to give a few buzz words to the Eridius System that would alert him whenever someone spoke or even thought about them.

    ¡®Abyss¡¯ was one of those words.

    He didn¡¯t think that another reincarnator would appear, but it wasn¡¯t like Gaia was expected either. He would be a fool to not be on the lookout.

    Lo and behold not even a day later, he had found out about Kazolix¡¯s true identity.

    ¡®Abyss¡¯ wasn¡¯t even the word that alerted him, it was the more obvious ¡®Past life¡¯ that did it. And it wasn¡¯t just Kazolix either. There were a few other reincarnators too and finding that out was like lifting up a brick and finding all kinds of bugs hiding underneath. As a World, foreign invaders were disgusting.

    One could look at a single insect and marvel, but looking at a collection of them was abhorrent. He himself didn¡¯t actually have anything against the reincarnators but the repulsed feeling was still there. No doubt a result of his planetary instincts.

    He had already directly killed 1 of them, and of course, not without taking all of her memories. She had possessed devious plans for world dominance and actually had the capability to achieve it too, thus, she died. There was no conversation, no heavenly light, no altercation. Just 1 day she was living her life as a Realm 3 Unicorn and the next moment she died with no injury.

    The only reason he left a body behind was because it was useful for whichever Beast found and ate it. That just so happened to be Lily the white Snake, the one with the Malevolent Enchantress bloodline that was created alongside J?rma and Drako.

    For someone like Lily who specialised in Charm and Illusions to find that specific corpse of all corpses. If he had been using an Avatar at the time, his jaw would have dropped.

    This kind of luck was not normal so of course he decided to check her out a bit. And since one of the best ways to find out if someone was destined for greatness was to check out the prospects of their Soulmate, that was exactly what he did.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    He must admit, the result had stunned him for a good few whole seconds. Okay, more like 2.65752394108, but that was still a lot when it came to him.

    He certainly did not expect her to be the Soulmate of the Blood Tree Anomaly on the South Continent. They didn¡¯t seem anything alike. However, who knew what would happen in the future? Sometimes gigantic changes could occur in an instant.

    Just look at Kazolix. 1 encounter with him and the ex-nightmare had become the greatest candidate for the Sin of Greed. Another of his experiments, naturally. Unfortunately, the same event had nearly crippled the the Octopus, which was what had setback his plans.

    Although Eridel didn¡¯t have control over the Souls of reincarnators the same way he had control of the Souls he himself had created, there were still a lot of things he could do. Affecting emotions was by far one of the easiest things.

    From the time he had learnt about Kazolix and the others, they had all been implemented into various plans, and Kazolix becoming the Host of Greed was 1 of them. He wasn¡¯t just going to let these cockroach-like reincarnators just appear in his World without a great price. They were all going to work for their stay or end up like the Unicorn.

    What had happened to Kazolix was a pity, but it is what it is. The original plan was to do things much more safely and over a larger course of time but there was no way he could ignore what Kazolix had been about to do to Zuko. Such a thing would only cause big issues and no benefits.

    Of course, it wasn¡¯t his first thought to just drag out Kazolix¡¯s Soul. Before all of that, he had been giving suggestions and insights to Kazolix¡¯s mind which was what had made him suspicious of a possibly big backer - almost making him give up on Zuko. But in the end, it wasn¡¯t enough. There had been a 29% chance of success and he hadn¡¯t been lucky.

    At the very least, since he had taken Kazolix¡¯s Soul, he did not miss out on the chance to take all of his memories. And in the end he had even obtained relevant information that he found vital to his future needs.

    But speaking of Zuko, that fool had really and truly almost fallen into doom after all of that fanfare.

    Up till now, with all the close deaths and ridiculous luck, Zuko¡¯s entire life had resembled that of some sort of protagonist more than anyone else on this Planet. You¡¯d think that with the way he had been acting after narrowly surviving again, only to enter the 4th Realm and evolve, he would have swept away all of his enemies just like every other cartoon or movie main character that received an upgrade after dying.

    Sadly for Zuko, this was the real world. Fate always struck out at the most despicable moment and the Centipede had almost tasted it. Fortunately for Zuko, he had been saved once again and this time by Eridel himself. Unfortunately for Zuko, the keyword there was ¡®Fortune¡¯. The Centipede was undoubtedly going to be paying a big price once again.

    There are no protagonists here in Eridius, only mortals. And all must pay a price.

    In any case, although there were some bumps, things were still progressing smoothly. There was just a strange case of certain things happening sooner than planned and other things being delayed.

    He could now take some attention off of the Sea and focus on other matters, namely, the subjugation of the Sin of Envy. And after that he would be releasing a massive update to the Eridius System that would kickstart a lot of things.

    He couldn¡¯t wait.

 Ch.270 The Most Hated

    6 Years Later

    [Year 178]

    6 Years had passed since the first grand meeting held on the Central Continent, a game changing event that had led to many changes, with 1 of them being the new official name of their Continent.

    This had been a great topic of discussion, but ultimately they had all agreed to go with the name that Gaia, their resident goddess, had chosen. And that had been Fortissimum.

    Apparently the word meant ¡®The Strongest¡¯, which appealed to many of those that had the right to make decisions in the meeting, and they could vaguely understand that too even without Gaia¡¯s explanation. But they were confused by the fact that the word hadn¡¯t been directly translated. Why could they still hear ¡®Fortissimum¡¯ instead of ¡®The Strongest¡¯?

    It wasn¡¯t until a few individuals who had already possessed language even before the introduction of the System, like the Elf Queen and their Elven language, pointed out that they had noticed that if you use a word as a title, it would not get directly translated and would retain its pronunciation, that they started to get the gist of what was going on.

    They asked the System and it confirmed their suspicions. If a word from a foreign language was used as a title, it would keep its original pronunciation and only the meaning would go across to those that heard it.

    Someone asked why it had taken so long to figure that out, and they eventually came to the realisation that it was because they had all assumed that every word they heard was a part of the common language, and it had never in their mind to doubt it. They heard a word, they got the meaning, so what could be wrong? Moreover, it was rare for people to still use their previous rudimentary languages if they even had one, and had never been a big deal.

    In any case, they had discovered another feature of the Eridius System and they had been pleased. They promptly agreed to Gaia¡¯s decision and as such, the Central Continent was now known as the Fortissimum Continent, aka The Strongest Continent.

    Everyone had felt a sense of excitement at that, feeling it in their blood that they were bound for great things. And with their great mission to put an end to Envy it was inevitable that they felt a unique feeling of glory that they could not dampen. And why should they? They were the strongest!

    Of course, that didn¡¯t mean that they were fools. And the 3 outsiders that had come to warn them of Envy in the first place did not hesitate to tell them to calm down and be extremely cautious of Envy.

    They had first hand experience of the menace that was the Despicable Brother and he had been a problem even before he had become Envy. Now, he wasn¡¯t just a super strong being but he was also a multi-continental lord and a first class calamity. He was absolutely not to be underestimated.

    The denizens of the Fortissimum Continent took the advice¡­ mostly. With their own goddess on their side and the knowledge that they were about to ally with their greatest rivals whom they had been sharing the Continent with since they had been born, they were feeling pretty great about their odds.

    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    Sure, Envy had conquered an entire Continent with his own forces, but their Continent was not like any other and they believed that with all their heart. Moreover, they were going to be allying with other Continents so it wasn¡¯t like they were going to be low on numbers, and with the confidence Gaia had shown, it was safe to say that her trump card had a good chance of working.

    Still, they made many preparations to nullify the influence of Envy if he ever tried to extend his reach to Fortissimum, because that was still a threat. Alas¡­

    Nothing could have prepared them for the utter atrocities that began to take place in the following years. It was utter madness.

    Children attacking their parents to take usurp their position, people kidnapping and r*ping the target of their desires, people constantly stealing from others as if they would die if they stopped, Beasts killing and eating others Beasts in the hopes of stealing their talent.

    Every possible act that could be caused by the emotion called ¡®envy¡¯, was caused.

    This was a gigantic shock to many. They had thought that they had already culled most of the people that had been afflicted by Envy. But seemingly out of nowhere they had started springing up like plants in a Sacred Land, and it wasn¡¯t just in the Fortissimum Continent either.

    A few individuals had been given the task of travelling to close-by giant bodies of land to gather allies, but many of them had encountered lands filled with Envy¡¯s creatures, and a few of them never came back. It was too scary.

    But that wasn¡¯t even the worst of it. Not only was there an outbreak of Envy plagues like the one that Zalucard had caused in the Elven Kingdom (Titania had volunteered to provide information on the experience), but there were also a few 4th Realmers who had suddenly struck out at the worst moment, causing disastrous losses and revealing themselves as slaves of Envy. A few alliances had even turned into enmity because of that.

    It was probably safe to say that Envy was very aware of their intentions to take him down. And that was never a good thing.

    Nevertheless, they powered through the dangers and made many important alliances, with their most important ones being the followers of Moon. It had been a surprise to learn more and more about the Moon¡¯s existence and it had been a great joy to learn that they were gaining a newly appointed Kaiser along with his entire forces as allies.

    It had already made travelling easier, especially between the Fortissimum Continent and Chad¡¯s Continent, and would probably be crucial during the war ¨C The war they had every intention of initiating at this moment.

    They were tired of living with the tension that Envy¡¯s influence had caused.

    A lot of friendships had frayed because of the way the last 6 years had gone. There had been many, many cases of betrayal, and it was no longer wise to trust people as much as before. Especially if you were in a position that people envied.

    It created a very dark mood, and so long as Envy lived, things would only become worse and never better. As such, if before the desire to take out Envy had been precaution and fear for the future, now it had become personal for everyone, and they all wanted him dead.

    In all of Eridius, Envy was by far the most hated living being alive. And many had problems with that last word.

    ¡ª---------------------

    GREAT NEWS!

    As of now, there is now a wiki page dedicated to this book! It contains a variety of information that you might have forgotten, especially if it''s something like a character''s appearance, and it should be worth taking a look at it.

    Wiki Link: https://reincarnated-as-a-world.fandom.com/f</a>

 Ch.271 Ruled by the Weak

    Soaring through the sky above a beach on the Fortissimum Continent was what appeared to be a Horse. Except this ¡®Horse¡¯ had a pair of wings on its back, a single spiralling horn on the forehead, and a long thin lion-like tail that ended in a similarly designed spiralling spike.

    It had pure white fur, but the horn, tail-spike, eyes and mane were all a cerulean blue. This was a creature with clear affinity with water but more importantly, this creature was clearly a Unicorn.

    A highly unique but small-in-number species that came into power a few decades ago when their Progenitor had been alive. Not much was known about her, but there were all sorts of rumours that surrounded her existence. Unfortunately, before people could decide what to do about her, they had been met with the abnormal news that she had been found dead.

    It wasn¡¯t abnormal that she died, no, that was common news. What was abnormal was that nobody knew how.

    The Unicorn progenitor had been a 4th Realm lifeform, and beings with this strength didn¡¯t just die quietly. It would take a fight with another 4th Realmer or a lot of 3rd Realmers, and such a commotion would always drag attention. Every single time.

    One might argue that the event of whatever led to her death had taken place in a very obscure location, but what everyone found baffling was that she had died in her own territory, in her own home.

    Nobody knew how. There were guesses of things like extremely harmful foods and even suicide, but nobody could confirm, and only Lily, the sister of J?rma and the one who had found the corpse, had knowledge of what state the corpse was in. Nobody dared to press her for answers.

    In any case, although the rise of the Unicorn race had been put to an early end, they were still a respected race that were valued by many.

    Bellatrix was the eldest daughter of the Unicorn progenitor and she had very recently reached the 4th Realm. She had long ago migrated her race to the Origin Forest and was now ¡®aligned¡¯ with the True Dragons (It was more of a master and subordinate relationship). Actually, her initial plan had been to take the Unicorns to the Dawn Forest to seek the protection of the Glacial Saint Deer Clan and make use of her lucky friendship with the Queen of Elves, but Gaia, the legendary goddess, had appeared before her with an offer she couldn¡¯t refuse.

    So here she was, working for Gaia and by extension the True Dragon race, and she had just arrived back on the Fortissimum Continent after completing her most recent mission. However she would not be returning with good news¡­

    Her mission had been to visit the recently discovered Major Continent to scout them out and seek an alliance if possible. A Major Continent was what everybody had decided to address the Continent¡¯s that could match the Fortissimum, and only 2 others had been found so far. These were of course, the one that Chad was from, and the one that Envy currently resided in.

    The former was very impressive and she had been there 2 times before, but the latter? She didn¡¯t dare to go there at all. Most of the scouters like her that had gone to that Continent had never returned. Only 2 had made it back and 1 of them had died not long after.

    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    This new 4th Major Continent was found a few months ago and as one could expect, the discovery had raised many waves. However, as excited or wary as everyone was, they couldn¡¯t afford to make mistakes. So a plan had been formed and the mission had landed in her lap.

    This wasn¡¯t because of her speed, although she had a lot of that, and not even because of her affinity with water that made the dangers of falling into the sea a mute point. Instead, it was because of her Charm Intent, an Intent that all Unicorns were born with.

    Naturally, this was all inherited from their progenitor, but none of them could utilise Charm the way their progenitor could. Most of them couldn¡¯t even do anything with it and could only be more charming than the average person, and only Bellatrix herself had managed to create a Charm technique that a few talents of her race had managed to learn later on. But they couldn¡¯t complain.

    Everybody knew how hard it was to grasp an Intent so the Unicorn race could be considered lucky to be born with one for free. Asking to be given Innate Charm Skills on top of that would be asking for too much.

    Nevertheless, it was because of this that Bellatrix had been chosen. The technique that she made could barely classify as one but it still allowed her to imitate an enhancement Innate Skill. She called it Charm Flare and it heightened her charm by many degrees. As one could guess, this was very useful when trying to create alliances.

    Unfortunately, she had failed.

    2 months ago she had left Fortissimum for the newly discovered Major Continent and what she had discovered had left her astonished.

    Firstly, the territories of the Continent had been divided into 2, with their overall rulers being 2 different races. This was already mind-boggling. Not even Gaia and the True Dragons or J?rma and her Snake race had accomplished such an expansive domination.

    But what was even more shocking was the identity of the races that owned these great territories. These 2 races were the kind she would have previously considered the lowest of the low. Pitiful races that had zero power to speak of. And often enough times, members of those races would literally have 0 power. Not even 1st Realm strength.

    And yet, on 1 side of the Continent, everything was ruled by a colony of Ants. And on the other, everything was ruled by the famed and popular servant race, the Humans.

    ¡­

    ANNOUNCEMENT! Last one for a while I think.

    All good things must come to an end. The game¡¯s open test has reached its end, and the tournament that I spoke about has also concluded.

    Playlist link for the tournament: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk4o4b1U5fo0WGmGAbkLg69lwhdiEjGME&si=Yxb5EtdgEN2eyHnT</a>

    Try not to faint after hearing this King¡¯s voice, also don¡¯t forget to like and subscribe :)

    Anyways, as you¡¯ll probably see, the game is in need of a lot of content and some bug fixes, so I¡¯ll be working on that for some time. Eventually, another open test will arrive and at that time the barrier stopping everyone from reaching the 4th Realm will be removed.

    Some people might be asking if there will be Tribulations, and the answer to that is yes. For most of you that won¡¯t be much of a problem, but for some of you? Well, I can only say that you brought it upon yourself. Don¡¯t blame Fate for being vicious.

    I can only promise you that if you survive, your benefits will be greater, but if you don¡¯t¡­ Haha!

 Ch.272 Young Elven Boy

    Let it be repeated again. On one side of a MAJOR Continent, everything was ruled by ANTS. And the other side was ruled by HUMANS.

    Humans¡­ and Ants¡­ Humans and Ants¡­

    Utterly nonsensical!

    When she had arrived on the Continent, she had arrived on the territory controlled by Ants. She hadn¡¯t known it then because it wasn¡¯t like the Ants were crawling over every stretch of land, but she had eventually stumbled upon a nest and she had been highly impressed. That colony of Ants had possessed a Queen in the 3rd Realm and it had greatly surprised her. No other Ant had risen to that kind of height; in fact, in the entire insect World, only a few races could go that far with the most impressive being the Moonlit Wasps.

    She even remembered thinking that the colony of Ants had the potential to someday rival the Moonlit Wasps even if they didn¡¯t have a great backer like the Moon. However, she didn¡¯t have any business mingling with insects from a foreign Continent. The quicker she finished her job and got out, the better for everyone else but most importantly herself. Intruding into foreign lands would always be dangerous.

    Obviously, she didn¡¯t know that she was only looking at the tip of the iceberg.

    Having set out on a mission to find the real decision makers of the Continent, it was inevitable that she would eventually stumble upon the Burning Nines which wasn¡¯t too far away.

    It was there that she found out that the nest she had found before was merely a branch nest of a super colony that was much bigger than anything she could have possibly imagined. And if the average strength of the Ants were anything to go by, that nest was probably the weakest of its kind.

    The Burning Nines itself was a terrific sight to behold. 9 rings of Sky-piercing dark mountains that were covered in lakes of fire and lava, with the biggest one of them all placed in the middle with an ominous presence that could not be put into words. Billowing smoke that completely replaced the sky, an omnipresent smell of sulfur and flesh, a suffocating mantle of heat that could not be escaped and finally, the countless deadly auras that unveiled the existence of innumerable lethal creatures.

    For someone with Water Affinity like her, this was the worst kind of location to be in. In fact, it was precisely the most anathema scene to her existence that she had ever witnessed. It was horrible.

    Alas, the moment she arrived, she knew that the place was her destination. Nowhere else could compare.

    So for a few days she had decided to investigate the place and its inhabitants. And as expected, there were all sorts of creatures with fire, earth and even lava affinity. The 9th Ring, which was essentially the first ring that one would encounter when coming to the Burning Nines, was the weakest. But that was relative, because even Realm 3 creatures could be found there.

    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    As one went from 1 ring to the next, getting closer and closer to the centre, the average strength of the creatures within rose and the resources were correspondingly better.

    SHE FOUND ANTS AND EVERYONE WAS SCARED

    Shockingly enough, she had actually found an Elf in this ring. A weird one but an Elf nonetheless. It was a shock because although Humans could be found in other Continents, Elves could only be found in Fortissimum. Everyone had chalked it down to the fact that the Elves were all descent from the Tree of Life, and there were no other such Trees for other groups of Elves to come from, so to find another Elf here was definitely a great discovery that Titania would like to hear about.

    The Elf was a male child that seemed to be about 18 years old or so. His cultivation hadn¡¯t been impressive, only being in the 2nd Realm, but his musculature had been impeccable. Prime, sleek muscles that were designed to burst out with power without a sacrifice in flexibility, and a vigour filled with grace that displayed a great amount of experience.

    The weird thing had been the unnatural darkness of his skin. It was barely dark enough to be called brown and was more like a bronze metal, but she had never seen an Elf like that before. They usually had pale skin. Perhaps it had been a result of the heat? Fire usually darkened anything that was exposed to it and maybe the boy had experienced that¡­

    Regardless, an Elf was here, and he even seemed to have an affinity with fire (another unprecedented feature for an Elf), or maybe it was lava. It was hard to tell sometimes, especially in a place like this. Either way, it was still a feat that no other Elf had accomplished. At least that she knew of.

    Anyways, the boy¡¯s situation hadn¡¯t been good. In fact he had been running for his life from a small pack of Beasts that she couldn¡¯t recognize. They were four legged creatures with robust forelegs, big elongated mouths filled with sharp fangs, and no eyes.

    The Elven boy¡¯s perfectly trained body allowed him to run quite quickly, but the pack of strange creatures were four legged, and those forelegs of theirs weren¡¯t for show. Eventually, they would catch up.

    What was interesting was that there had been no fear on the Elven boy¡¯s face. He had looked very frustrated and more than a little angry, but there had been none of the expected fear. Naturally, that had made Bellatrix wonder if he had some sort of trick up his sleeve that would save his life.

    Still, she didn¡¯t decide to wait and see and opted to save his life without hesitating. She had a lot of good will towards the Elves and wouldn¡¯t risk one of their lives for the sake of curiosity, and so with a few stomps she had put an end to the pitiful scene. Being in the 4th Realm, her size alone made things quite effortless.

    She would later make conversation with the boy, but it had been a very odd one.

    She had first asked him what he was doing in a dangerous place like this and she had been forced to repeat the question a few times because the boy had been in an understandable state of shock, but when he finally registered the question, for whatever reason he just scoffed before walking away, actually turning his back on her.

    Obviously she didn¡¯t want that to happen, but she wasn¡¯t particularly affronted either, so she decided to make 1 more attempt at conversation. If he ignored her again she would just leave.

    ¡°I¡¯ve seen other Elves like you before, in a far away place filled with colourful trees and beautiful buildings. Ah, not many people know what a building is. I can only tell you that it is a wonderful home that no cave or underground can compare to. I don¡¯t know if you have family somewhere else here, but if not then I can take you to them if you would like. Just after I¡¯m done with my business.¡±

    That was what she had said, and his response had been¡­ odd.

 Ch.273 Ant King

    He stood shocked for a good minute with his eyes shaking wildly, which was already a bit of an overreaction, but then opened his mouth as if to say something but no sound came out. He closed his mouth, reopened it and even held a hand to his chest as if he was in pain, but still he didn¡¯t say anything.

    For a good while he would repeat the action of opening and closing his mouth, looking like he was choking on something that was clogging his breathing. Honestly it was quite concerning.

    But then all of a sudden he snapped his teeth together with a ferocious *tak!*, spun around and stomped away. ¡°Leave me alone, Beast!¡± He had viciously roared.

    Bellatrix could only watch with a bewildered expression.

    To say that she had been surprised would be putting it too lightly. She hadn¡¯t expected such a crazy reaction, and she consoled herself with the very possible thought that the boy might have a few issues that the Elven kingdom didn¡¯t need, when she eventually left to head deeper into the Blazing Nines.

    She continued to investigate the different rings, striking up conversations whenever she felt necessary by utilising her charm, spying on unique creatures/resources and altogether learning about the whole situation. It was during this time that she learnt just how much she had underestimated the Ants. Not that it was hard to find out; They certainly weren¡¯t hiding, and just the sight of even 4th Realm life forms like her avoiding a group of 3rd Realm Ants was heart-stopping to say the least.

    She would even later witness a 3rd Realm Ant arrogantly summoning a 4th Realm Salamander as if the little thing couldn¡¯t be crushed by a single bite, and yet the Salamander humbly obeyed without fuss! Horrifying!

    It was after seeing that that she thought she might have been too careless with her decision to come so close, the 3rd Ring to be specific. She wanted to retreat, especially since she knew that she was drawing attention with her unique appearance, powerful cultivation and most importantly her water affinity. But she didn¡¯t want to quit so easily.

    Nevertheless, she chose to go on in a far more discreet manner. She was already discreet before but now she was practically living in the clouds, only coming down occasionally to make inquiries and leaving the Blazing Nines entirely whenever she needed to rest.

    Alas, it didn¡¯t last long before she herself received an unexpected summoning.

    She had been floating in the clouds, deep in thought, when all of a sudden she noticed a powerful presence steadily approaching her location. The aura belonged to an entity in the 4th Realm and that was not someone who could be ignored. However, she initially kept calm, after all, although it was strange that she had been found, there wasn¡¯t much that she was really afraid of.

    At most, it would be another conversation, and at worst, she would have to fly away. Her charm was very good at defusing hostility most of the time. Although it could sometimes have the opposite effect if she wasn¡¯t careful, she wasn¡¯t an inexperienced child anymore.

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    But only a short moment later, her indifference to the approaching entity melted.

    The being that had been approaching was none other than a Blazing Ant, and it had wings. That would mean it was either a male drone¡­ or a Queen. But it couldn¡¯t be a Drone if it had cultivation that advanced. She had obtained a lot of information concerning the Ants and knew about the various castes, especially the more important ones.

    Apparently, there were only 3 castes of Ants that had wings.

    The first was a Queen Ant. They were born with wings but shed them off whenever they got mated and started their own colonies. However, if they entered the 4th Realm and gained the rights to be called a Supreme Queen, they would evolve and regain their wings. But the wings would be incomparable to the former; Not much was known to the general public but it was said that the wings could absorb Mana, could assist in amplifying magical attacks, and could even be used as effective shields. They were called Supreme Wings.

    The Empress of the Blazing Ant Colony had been the first to evolve upon entering the 4th Realm, gaining her Supreme Wings and setting a path for all those who shared her blood. However, hers were allegedly different from the Supreme Wings that her descendants had, and everyone else called them Empress Wings. Whether that was out of respect or a real thing could not be known. Nobody dared to fight her and test out her abilities.

    The second caste of ant that had wings was of course the male drone. Their sole purpose was to mate with a virgin Queen during the mating season nuptial flight and start a new colony, shortly afterwards they died. Apparently they could cultivate like anyone else and the higher their cultivation the longer they could survive after mating, but their cultivation talent was just too low to take into consideration.

    On the bright side, they were taken care of because the better their cultivation, the better the resulting hatchlings as well. It would be too cost effective to nurture all of them to a high cultivation but a few of them did receive that treatment and they would go on to start powerful named colonies. (A named colony is a branch colony that was strong enough or useful enough to be named by the Empress).

    Finally, the 3rd Caste of Ant that had wings¡­ was the Ant Kings. The rarest caste of the Blazing Ant Supercolony. They had the strongest fighting and cultivation talent below the Empress, they didn¡¯t shed their wings and instead got a 2nd pair of wings (the Supreme Wings) at the 4th Realm, they were rumoured to have ¡®terrifying intelligence¡¯, and most importantly, they not only had the ability to impregnate females from other races (unlike the Ant Queens who could only get impregnated by an Ant Drone or Ant King), but the resulting child will always be born as an Ant Queen with characteristics inherited from the mother.

    The only downsides to the Ant Kings was that they were just too rare, with only about 30+ of them in existence compared to the thousands of Queens, and that whether they were impregnating a female from another race or a fellow Ant Queen, they would only give birth to 1 female Ant Queen.

    An Ant Queen would not be able to store the semen of an Ant King like she could with a Drone, so there would only be 1 birth. Naturally, it was inefficient for the Kings to mate with Queens since all it did was produce another Queen, so it wasn¡¯t done a lot and not much was known as a result.

    But there was all sorts of information and rumours about special branch colonies that had been started by the daughter of a King and a female from a unique and different race.

    And as the 4th Realm flying Ant got closer to her, she soon noticed the presence of 2 sets of wings. The hallmark of a Supreme Ant King. And as far as she was aware, the only one currently in existence.

 Ch.274 Iyoâ€™Karag

    She supposed that that was the moment that her luck began to run dry.

    As anyone would expect from the oldest and most powerful Ant King who had the ability to sire special Colonies with special women, she was propositioned to give birth to an Ant Queen.

    The Ant King had started off nice enough, introducing himself as Iyo¡¯Karag in a polite manner, explaining his reason for coming and offering her a reward for her service if she desired. He had complimented her on her appearance, praised her strength, and highlighted her talent with wonder, all which had appealed to her ego. And she must be honest, she had been very tempted.

    Although she had never been attracted to bugs, she was sure that the entire process would be conducted in their Enlightened Forms, and no matter the race of Beast or Monster, they were all attracted to the Enlightened. And as such, there would no longer be a biological barrier after they both transformed. Furthermore, considering Iyo¡¯Karag¡¯s talent, cultivation and special race, he was bound to be enthralling when he revealed his other form.

    There was also the fact that it appealed to her nature to give birth to a talented child. It irked that the result would be an Ant and not a Unicorn but the child would still be hers, born from her womb. The fact that she would have to give up her child to be raised in the Colony was sad, but she understood that an Ant needed to be with the Colony to thrive and it wasn¡¯t like she would be denied access to her. She had been told that she would be able to visit anytime she wanted, given rights to the Colony that only the ¡®Queen Mothers¡¯ had.

    And most importantly, if she was to go through with it, there was a good chance that she would be able to forge an alliance with the Ants using her child, and bring them into the fight against Envy.

    For that reason, although she would be putting an end to her virginity to become a mother for who knows how many months, she had been onboard with the idea, with the sole requirement being that she achieve an alliance with them in a fight against Envy.

    That was why she began to speak about Envy, explaining everything about him and their plan to put an end to him. Iyo¡¯Karag had listened calmly, only showing visible reactions when she had told him about some of Envy¡¯s feats, but he had never interrupted her.

    Eventually she came to a stop¡­ and then the questions began.

    With each question, Iyo¡¯Karag seemed to find flaw after flaw in their plan, with the most grating flaw being her lack of knowledge on how they were actually going to destroy Envy. She had of course expected that, after all, other people the Fortissimum had sought an alliance with had asked about the same thing. But with all the other flaws being pointed out, she had been left flustered.

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    Really and truly, the intelligence of the Ant Kings was not a joke.

    Of course she still tried, even using her charm technique to enhance her charm and pleading that the great evil that was Envy needed to be destroyed, but then the nail in the coffin had been when the Ant King had stated that 1, the Ants were terrible over water and they would not be crossing it even if they were given rides on flying Beasts, and 2, they didn¡¯t care much about Envy in the first place.

    It turned out that from the beginning, the Ants had never been affected by Sin of Envy.

    In the entirety of the Blazing Ant Colony, not a single individual was envious. Not even the male drones. When she expressed her disbelief on the matter, Iyo¡¯Karag had scoffed, revealing a crack in his demeanour even if just for a moment, but he soon calmed down again and simply explained that the entire Colony was created to serve. They were born to work. The different castes had different jobs and they all did their jobs dutifully. How could they be envious if they all had jobs? What other desire was there than servitude to the cause?

    All for the Empress and the Sacred Volcano, Iyo¡¯Karag had said.

    It had left Bellatrix mind blown, never had she ever seen such profound loyalty and devotion in a race. Well, perhaps the Moonlit Wasps were similar but she had never communed with one of them and her knowledge about them was insufficient, so seeing something like this had definitely been a first.

    But when she came down from the surprise, she had to face the fact that it appeared there was no hope for an alliance with the Blazing Ant Supercolony, which had been incredibly disappointing.

    The disappointment made her decision to deny the mating request if there was no possibility of alliance all the more easier. She didn¡¯t care to ask about what the mentioned ¡®Sacred Volcano¡¯ was, she assumed that it was the giant volcano in the middle that was the primary nest of the colony, and even if it wasn¡¯t, there was no more need to care about the Blazing Ants anymore. She needed to leave and complete her mission.

    So that¡¯s why she thanked Iyo¡¯Karag for his offer but denied him, mentioning her need to move on and seek more allies.

    Alas, it was at that moment that things took a turn.

    She had turned around to seek out her next destination, when all of a sudden she detected a wild change in the aura behind her, but more pointedly the drastic increase in heat. Iyo¡¯Karag had launched an attack at her.

    She was barely able to react but still dodged, but even then, the fire was so hot that even without contact it hand singed her fur. Appalling. It went without saying that she had been quite furious and she had swiftly demanded an explanation.

    She would never forget the response. ¡®It is always a pity to harm beautiful creatures such as yourself but it is for the Colony, and for the Colony there is nothing I am unwilling to do. Please return with me before I¡¯m forced to subdue you¡¯.

    The words were spoken cynically and without emotion, and it had left an impact.

 Ch.275 Horror Above, Death Below

    What took place next was the most horrifying chase she had ever been subjected to. Iyo¡¯Karag was fast, very fast, and although she was slightly faster than him at max speed, Iyo¡¯Karag¡¯s acceleration, deceleration and overall agility were just too unfair. It had taken her much more time to reach max speed than he did and in that time she had suffered a few injuries that had managed to breach her defences. Iyo¡¯Karag was powerful.

    He was in the 1st Stage like her but his magical might surpassed hers greatly. Long ranged attacks were typically weaker than close range ones if you didn¡¯t charge them, and yet Iyo¡¯Karag¡¯s fire projectiles had managed to cause her notable damage.

    But although that had been painful, that wasn¡¯t what had been so terrifying. No, the real scare had been when all of a sudden, Queen Ants had begun to fly in her direction with other castes of Ants marching below. They had to be Virgin Queens since the mated Queens mostly spent their time giving birth, but it still didn¡¯t make sense.

    The Queens had not been weak, with a few of them being in the 4th Realm, but how could there be a 4th Realm or even 3rd Realm Queen that wasn¡¯t mated? Moreover, she found it inconceivable that they would fly out to attack her without any regard for their lives when they were usually so protected. In fact she had never even seen a Queen Ant before that moment because mated or not, none of the royal castes were something that could be easily sighted. Every Ant took their safety very seriously and they were kept away in very secure locations.

    So how could they suddenly become so free to see that a bunch of them would fly out to attack her like lackeys? Also, weren¡¯t they supposed to have much bigger abdomens? Their primary duty was to lay many eggs a day and it was said that they looked like it. And yet, the abdomens of these Ants hadn¡¯t been too different from Iyo¡¯Karag¡¯s, although the ones in the 4th Realm had seemed more bulkier than him, something that also conflicted with her knowledge about the Queens.

    Were they even Queens?

    They seemed to fit the description of the royal guards more than Queens. She didn¡¯t know the specific name of their castes but there were a few rare castes that were dedicated to working for the Kings and Queens, the Empress too obviously.

    Naturally as a result of that there was not much that was known about them, but she had been told that none of them had wings. Only the drones, Queens, Kings and Empress did. Had that been a lie?

    Perhaps, but lie or not, whatever those ants were, they were flying and they had all launched attacks at her as soon as they were close enough. They had all been fire attacks because the earth and magma attacks were too slow to be used in such a high speed chase, and for that she had been lucky.

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    But still, the next few hours had been the 2nd most terrifying moment of her life. Having had to repeatedly dodge attacks, she had been forced to drop her speed again and again, never gaining the chance to reach maximum speed. Inevitably, this kept her in sight of her pursuers with no chance to ditch them.

    They didn¡¯t even stop when she left the Burning Nines, and it was during this chase that she truly discovered how vast the territory of the Blazing Ant Supercolony was. After all, whenever she passed a branch nest with sufficient strength, they would somehow detect what was going on and join the chase as if they had been lying in ambush the entire time.

    Thankfully, whatever caste of Ant was chasing her wasn¡¯t high in number, otherwise things would have been over for her. She could just imagine the scene of being surrounded by thousands of ants that covered the sky and it was a terrific thought.

    Speaking of scary thoughts, she hated to think about what would have happened to her if she was a land-bound creature that couldn¡¯t fly.

    One had to use their imagination to conjure the sight of thousands of ants covering the sky, but that had been the actual reality on the ground below. Hundreds of thousands of ants crawling across the land, following her trail and waiting for the moment she became tired and fell to the ground. Petrifying.

    What¡¯s more is that for some reason they had begun to emit smoke as if they were burning, and the more ants there were the more smoke there was, creating a horrific scene that she would not soon forget.

    Flying above had been scary and difficult, but it had been a haven compared to what had been going on below.

    Fortunately she didn¡¯t have to experience it. But not everyone had been that lucky. There had been innocent bystanders that she had flown past in her quest to escape and she was pretty sure that every land creature that had been caught up in the path of the ant army were dead. There was no hope for survival. And all this because she had refused Iyo¡¯Karag.

    It didn¡¯t make sense to her. Why had they pursued her so crazily? She could understand the appeal of a new unique Ant Queen but did they have to go that far? They had kicked up a fuss across half of a Major Continent just because of that? How had they even communicated with each other to start such a thing?! Nothing made sense!

    In fact, the only reason she had escaped is because she would eventually cross into the territory of¡­ the Humans. If not for that, she would have eventually fallen into the waiting mandibles of the Ant army. She probably wouldn¡¯t have been killed considering their goal, but with the way they had been acting you would have never believed it.

    Perhaps she had hurt their pride by running away for so long, and some way along the line their goal had switched form capture to extermination. You never know.

    Anyways, the land of the Humans. Haha. It was actually in this place that she would experience the greatest fright of her life.

 Ch.276 Elemental Weapons

    Come to think of it, she should have known it when the Ants stopped chasing her that whatever territory she had stumbled in was bound to be equally or even more dangerous. However, anxiety and relief at escaping what had been her worst nightmare had left content at just being safe.

    So she delved deeper into the territory with her mission at the back of her mind and thoughts of exiting the continent at the forefront. As such, in her dishevelled state of mind, she continued to travel through the sceneries without taking any consideration for things she should have been searching for like powerful auras or just about anything that would signify a gathering of powerful individuals.

    As a matter of fact, she had been subconsciously avoiding those various auras as if she was a thief trying to evade attention. It was mainly inferior races like the rats that scurried around like that, fearful of pretty much every other lifeform because of their inherent weakness, but with thoughts of the Blazing Ant Supercolony occupying her brain she had found herself acting the same way.

    How funny it was that it was the threat of creatures that were supposed to be even weaker than rats that put her in the same position of terror.

    Regardless, it was because of this absent-minded behaviour that she had found herself dumbfounded and without a plan when she was abruptly surrounded by a group of Humans.

    Naturally she hadn¡¯t feared them¡­ initially. She had been more preoccupied with the notion that whoever owned those Humans was probably sending them to request her presence.

    She hadn¡¯t found any Humans in the other half of the continent (the one belonging to the ants) so she couldn¡¯t say for sure that this Continent practised the same act of Human slavery as her own, but it was a reasonable assumption. Humans were very versatile and most intelligent races would make use of them if they could.

    However, it didn¡¯t take long for her to detect the oppressive vibe of a powerful aura, and it belonged to¡­ those 12 Humans. 4 of them were in the middles stages of the 3rd Realm; insignificant strength but unprecedented nonetheless for a human, 6 of them were in the UPPER stages of the 3rd Realm (respectable), but the remaining 2¡­

    The female had been in the 1st Stage of the 4th Realm, the same as her, however, the male had been in the 2nd Stage.

    As anyone would guess, she had been shocked silly. So much so that she had practically frozen, unable to make a single remark. And she had still been reeling with said shock when the male who was the strongest of them all abruptly asked:

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    ¡®Who is your master?¡¯

    Master. In her addled mental state, she remembered thinking that the Human had somehow been referring to her relationship with Gaia. She wouldn¡¯t exactly call Gaia her master considering that she had free will to do anything she wished with her only obligation being to take up missions every now and then, but although she wasn¡¯t a slave, Gaia was not somebody she could disobey either. So a few people, especially those who had a problem with her, would call Gaia her master to slight her.

    So it felt a little surreal to hear the human ask ¡®who is your master¡¯. It certainly hadn¡¯t helped her come back to her senses.

    As a result, she had carelessly responded that she did not have a master, and then tried to lift off into the air to fly away. Needless to say, she did not want to confront a set of bizarre humans that had somehow reached the 4th Realm, especially when they seemed so confident. Even a fool would be able to tell that something was off, let alone her who had just been fleeing from Ants who also shouldn¡¯t have been this strong.

    She did not know how they were that strong, or how she had been unable to detect them until they had surrounded her, but she hadn¡¯t been interested in finding out. She wanted to leave.

    Alas, trying to flee had been the wrong move and things took a turn for the worse.

    One of them shouted ¡°I knew it! This is a never-seen-before Beast and she¡¯s trying to escape! She doesn¡¯t have a master! Catch her!¡± It was the female 4th Realmer.

    They all began to do something with their mana and in the next moment, they were all holding onto various weapons made of the elements. She was quite familiar with the Elves so she knew what weapons were, and she was even privy to the somewhat secret knowledge that the Elves could imbue their various wooden or rock constructs with their own mana to make it more powerful. This mostly resulted in the construct shining with a coloured glow that corresponded with the Elf¡¯s element and it was mightily impressive.

    But this¡­ this was much different.

    They were not objects that were boosted by mana. No, they were literally the elements themselves but shaped like weapons. The 4th Realm man held a large sword made of flames and the woman had something that looked like a pitch black vapious spear but instead of a blade at the tip, it instead had 2 thick and slightly curved blades on the sides (at the end of the pole).

    Bellatrix would later learn that the design of the weapon was called a double sided long axe, and that the odd darkness of the weapon was literally the darkness element, something that was even rarer than the opposing light element.

    But at the time of this grand display, she hadn¡¯t been in the right state of mind to admire the grand phenomenon that was the creation of these weapons, and instead the sight had only caused her to be more worried as she flapped her wings harder.

    Unfortunately, she would very soon find out that even if her mind WAS as sharp as it usually was, when it came to facing these humans in this kind of setting¡­

    There was nothing she could do.

 Ch.277 Hail the Glorious Light

    Thinking that she was safe from the deadly but short ranged weapons, she had let her guard down, and of course, that had been a mistake.

    Before she knew it, all sorts of half moon shaped projectiles amongst other shapes slammed into her body. Most of them did no damage but a few of them, especially the 2 that no doubt belonged to the 4th Realmers, caused excruciating pain.

    The pain, coupled with the suddenness of it, shocked her so badly that she lost control of her body and fell back to the ground. She didn¡¯t even know that she was falling until it was too late to save herself because of how addled her mind had been.

    Slamming into the ground had certainly woken her up, but with multiple bones broken all over her body, she was in a more pitiful state than ever before. Her heavy weight, coupled with the unyieldingness of the land, had joined together to work against her. That¡¯s why it was oftentimes dangerous to fly for larger species to fly if they weren¡¯t sufficiently proficient in it.

    The Humans certainly didn¡¯t waste any time in capitalising on her plight and they converged towards her body like flies to a corpse. Then once again out of nowhere they each started forming strange constructs out of their respective elements. However this time, the strange shapes were long and flexible, lacking the deadly sharpness or weighty bluntness of a real weapon. Later she would find out that they called it the subduing rope.

    Each of them wrapped their own subduing rope around her and that completely sealed her fate. When she regained her bearings and tried to break out, the oppressive feeling of restriction didn¡¯t budge in the slightest. What was weirder was that even the 3rd Realm subduing ropes didn¡¯t relent. She could only guess that somehow, the subduing ropes were borrowing strength from the others, becoming more powerful themselves and displaying an insane show of genius that she couldn¡¯t begin to comprehend. She was completely and utterly trapped.

    The most humiliating thing had been when they had started ignoring her to talk amongst themselves, referring to her as a Beast in a way that made her seem like she was something ¡®lower¡¯ or ¡®weaker¡¯. Which was obviously sheer foolishness. The word ¡®dumb Beast¡¯ had been mentioned a few times and that had only increased her spite. But amongst her increasing spite was her increasing fear.

    These humans were too strange. They could form weird constructs and render her into a position where she was unable to resist in just a few moves. Who knows what else they could do and what they had planned for her?

    Eventually they returned their attention to her and she remembered tensing up, thinking about all the bad things that could happen to her. Clearly they had an agenda in subduing her like that and she was very sure she would not like the reason.

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    However, no attack came, and they didn¡¯t start dragging her off either like she expected. Instead they all placed their hands on their respective subduing ropes, did something she could not comprehend, then all of a sudden everything went black.

    She had passed out.

    The next time she awoke, she was in a different location entirely. Obviously, she had been relocated. She was in what seemed to be a city. An actual city like the capital of the Elven Kingdom. It had the rows of buildings that were obviously homes and perhaps other things like the so-called ¡®shops¡¯, but there were differences too. One could say that the city was in part more advanced than the Elven one and another part less advanced.

    There were things that she could see that didn¡¯t make any sense to her, and there were things missing here that were present in the Elven Capital.

    But before she could be given a chance to ponder on what she was looking at, a sudden shout caught her attention.

    ¡°ALL HAIL THE EMPRESS OF GLORIOUS LIGHT!¡±

    ¡°¡°¡°WE GREET THE EMPRESS OF GLORIOUS LIGHT! HAIL THE EMPRESS OF GLORIOUS LIGHT!¡±¡±¡±

    Hailing? She had seen that before. But it was something that had started in True Dragon territory and spread outwards. Hail the goddess, hail the king, stuff like that. It worked similarly to praise thee and praise that, but a bit different. She had been slightly surprised to see the niche culture in a foreign continent.

    Nevertheless, that information didn¡¯t mean much and she spread out her Spirit Sense to detect just who they were calling Empress, followed by lifting up her head so that she could see with her eyes too.

    Ha.

    She would never, ever forget the day that she met Her.

    Beauty Personified. The woman had pale unblemished skin, hair and eyes forged from light as if she were a Law Beast, perfect feminine curves that beckoned the eyes, a regal and invincible demeanour that looked down on all life, but most importantly, a devastating aura of might that she could not in the slightest bit read.

    When the differences in strength were too great it became impossible for the weaker side to accurately guess the cultivation level of the stronger side. Between the 2 of them, Bellatrix was definitely the weaker side.

    ¡®Humans like this exist?¡¯ Bellatrix remembered thinking that thought very vividly, word for word at that. After all, it was at that moment that her views on humans completely warped. The woman before her was a Human and yet she possessed profound power of the likes she had never seen before. Sure she had seen auras that rivalled this, but nothing that had a nature like this. To some extent, she even seemed to rival Gaia! What kind of concept was that? A human rivalling a god¨C even if it was a fallen one? Madness!

    Confronted with such irregular majesty, how could she not despair?

    She tried to speak, to make use of her charm so that she could do anything that would increase her chances of safety, but she couldn¡¯t. It wasn¡¯t the subduing ropes or anything like that. No. That wasn¡¯t needed. The fear that was thoroughly clenching both her throat and her heart was more than enough.

 Ch.278 Absolutely Not Normal

    The woman had eventually reached her front, but she didn¡¯t say anything for a while. In fact, she actually tilted her head to the side as if she were examining something interesting. It was a surprisingly¡­ adorable action. However, one look into those twin orbs of light was enough to snuff out the spontaneous thought.

    Those eyes were not normal.

    She had seen all kinds of impressive eyes that had been affected by magic of some kind. It was uncommon, rare even, but nothing much more than that. In general, the only thing they guaranteed was a high affinity with a particular element, nothing else. Ah, actually no. There was an exception, which was of course J?rma¡¯s 3rd eye, but something like that could not be placed in the same category as the others. She had once been told by Titania that the eye wasn¡¯t something that had been gained from evolution or mutation and was instead a magical treasure that J?rma found called the Eye of Petrification.

    But that was all besides the point. This woman¡¯s eyes weren¡¯t frightening because of their magical nature. Rather, it was something else that she couldn¡¯t put into words. All she knew was that she felt in front of that woman, there was nothing that could be hidden. All her secrets were free for the taken if the woman simply wished it.

    It was a harrowing thought.

    It sounded silly now that she thought back on it now but it hadn¡¯t been back then. Not one bit. Actually, the thought of those eyes could still give her jitters.

    In any case, after that the woman had softly raised her palm and all the cries hailing her name came to a stop.

    ¡°Who and what are you?¡± The woman said. Her voice had been gentle. Elegant like many of the great people she knew, but there hadn¡¯t appeared to be any of the same steel in her voice. However, the loyalty and utter submission in the people around her spoke for itself. The woman had the greatest power here and didn¡¯t need to sound like it.

    But make no mistake, when Bellatrix said the voice sounded gentle, she did not mean that it sounded caring or motherly. No. She meant gentle in the way that she released the words. Softspoken so to speak. The kind of voice someone might have used if they were muttering to themself whilst in deep thought.

    Bellatrix didn¡¯t try to hide anything. She stated her name and race and where she came from. She even took the liberty to explain about the situation of Envy. Well, it hadn¡¯t been her plan to reveal so much when she opened her mouth, but the words just kept coming out.

    It was the first time she had felt that talking could be so difficult. She could never regain control of her breathing and the longer she stared into the woman¡¯s eyes, the more she panicked.

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    It had felt like they were expanding into 2 burning suns, and try as she might, she could not look away. As a result, her explanation had been extremely haggard and by the end of it, she had been visibly shaking.

    The greatest humiliation of her life.

    The woman, and everyone else for that matter, had been completely silent during her explanation, not even asking questions. Only when she had nothing more to say did the woman finally speak.

    ¡°Bellatrix. You bring valuable information to our home and should not have been treated like this. You people, free her.¡±

    The same people who subdued her walked to her and placed their hands on their respective magic ropes. Soon she was free, but nobody stood close enough to make sure she didn¡¯t try to flee. The group that released her walked back into the crowd without a second look. Those in the crowd didn¡¯t tense up at the new threat. Nobody cared. It was as if they thought there was not a single possibility of her escaping or even fighting.

    Humiliation.

    And yet, at that time the only thing she could think of was that she had been pardoned. That she would not be killed. Escaping hadn¡¯t even been a thought.

    Greater humiliation.

    ¡°Everyone disperse. I would like to speak to our guest alone.¡± The woman spoke.

    ¡°¡°¡°Yes, Empress.¡±¡±¡± Everyone replied in unison, and they all left swiftly. Soon enough Bellatrix was alone with the Empress.

    ¡°My name is Gloria.¡± The woman, Gloria, spoke. ¡°It would appear we have a lot to talk about.¡±

    And they did.

    They had a very long conversation over a period of a few days, and she had been taken care of. She had even been granted knowledge on their culture and way of life. When she was not with Gloria, she was with the annoying woman with the darkness element, touring the streets of the city. Like this, she learned all sorts of things that were not present anywhere else. They enslaved beasts instead of the other way around, wielded powerful elemental weapons, organised magic plants in ways that made them proliferate faster and die less, and more.

    They were much different to the Elves and Humans that she knew of. The difference between them and Humans were obvious, but even when compared to the Elves, they still came out on top. They had half of a continent to themselves!

    And all of this was because of Gloria. The darkness girl liked to say that a lot. She couldn¡¯t count how many times she would hear the phrase ¡®Praise the Empress of Glorious Light!¡¯ in just a single conversation, talk less of total.

    But still, it was impossible to not acknowledge the sheer potency that was the Empress. That woman was not normal at all. She was so intelligent that it was frightening. More than enough times she had been suspicious about whether she could read minds because it had always seemed like it in their conversations. Nothing seemed to phase her and everything that came out of Bellatrix¡¯s mouth seemed to fall into the all encompassing boundary of Gloria¡¯s expectations.

    Even Titania could not compare to her if you did not take into consideration things like clothing and the like. Eventually, with such thoughts running through her mind, she could no longer resist talking about the Humans that she knew of along with the Elves and Fae.

 Ch.279 Gloriaâ€™s Past

    She had resisted mentioning it before because she did not like the thought of Gloria finding out that her fellow Humans in other continents were being enslaved. But eventually she could not help but change her mind because of the sheer difference between the Humans here and the Humans everywhere else. How did Gloria accomplish so much?

    That had been the first time she saw surprise appear on Gloria¡¯s face. It wasn¡¯t much. Just a rising of her eyebrows, however, she hadn¡¯t even done that when Bellatrix had mentioned Envy.

    ¡°So there are still regular humans alive? That¡¯s good. That¡¯s good¡­¡±

    The words had been spoken with slight emotion. Her gaze no longer focused on her surroundings and instead replaying thoughts of the past. Clearly, something astonishing had happened if it were affecting a woman like this even now.

    But that sentence had been very weird to Bellatrix when she first heard it. What did Gloria mean by ¡® so there are still regular humans alive¡¯?. Wasn¡¯t Gloria a human? Granted, she could not be called regular, and neither could the others for that matter if they were lording over beasts, but what would they be if not human?

    The silence persisted for a while before Gloria began to speak of her past. And what a past it was.

    It turned out that Gloria and the others were NOT in fact, regular humans. They were something called ¡®High Humans¡¯. Apparently they evolved when Magical Energy first appeared in the world. This was a feat that Bellatrix had only heard of and never seen, after all, she had not been born back then.

    However, her mother, the progenitor of all Unicorns, was one of the very rare few Beasts that evolved with the genesis of magic. This was an honourable achievement that promised a peerless future for anyone who accomplished it, but never had she thought that it could happen to Humans too because it was said that they could not evolve.

    Nowadays everybody knew about the differences between Beasts, Monsters and Enlightened races. Monsters and Beasts can evolve and mutate, but the Enlightened could only mutate. The strange Celestial Elephant-kin under Apis were a good example of the Enlightened being able to mutate but not evolve into a different form.

    Because of this, everyone had speculated that only the Beasts and Monsters were gifted with the opportunity to synchronise with the genesis of magic and evolve. Naturally, such a thing only made them look down on the Enlightened even more. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that they had the mind-bogglingly ability to just freely syphon magical energy from the air to turn into their own mana (Something Beasts could only begin to do at the Enlightened Beast Realm) then forget being looked down upon, they just might have gone extinct.

    But now, Bellatrix had been confronted with the rule-breaking reality that a group of the weakest Enlightened race, the Humans, had actually evolved with the genesis of magic. Everyone had been wrong.

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    But then again, it made sense. How else could the disparity between the humans here and the humans everywhere else be explained? From the beginning, they could barely be called the same species. They even looked different. The High Humans were taller and had perfect physiques, not to mention their much greater beauty too. It settled something in Bellatrix that she didn¡¯t know was aching within her. So she hadn¡¯t lost to normal humans. That was good news.

    Gloria then went on to explain that in her younger days she used to be greatly arrogant. She had been born with intelligence so great that nothing in existence could compare. In fact. till this day, she had found no other lifeform that could compare to her level intelligence that only continued to grow with her cultivation.

    Because of this, she had looked down on everyone else. Her pride was so great that she even challenged the sun and called it a coward for retreating into the night. There was laughter in her tone and a self-deprecating tint to her smile as she mentioned this.

    Because of the past-Gloria¡¯s arrogance and corresponding intelligence, she delved into a path of conquest that not even Beasts could resist, and eventually, she even discovered a different group of Humans that she had never seen before. They were not part of her group that had evolved with her.

    They were¡­ lessers.

    It wasn¡¯t hard to guess what happened next. Those humans had been swiftly subjugated. Gaia would then go on to find 2 other groups like this, respectively in the North and East sides of the Continent. (The other group was found in Centre, whereas Gloria originated from the South).

    After subjugating them, Gloria had essentially allocated a territory to them before abandoning them. Regular humans were so useless when it came to cultivation and their level of intelligence that it wasn¡¯t even funny. So she left them to their own devices so long as they regularly provided half of the resources they found. In exchange, they obtained protection.

    However, one day, she decided to conduct an experiment. She had already discovered that regular Humans had a different anatomy to that of the High Humans. It was by and large inferior in every which way, or so Gloria said. She didn¡¯t actually mention the results of her research, which Bellatrix understood.

    In any case, although regular humans were inferior, they apparently had something that Gloria was interested in (Once again, this thing was not mentioned). This led to Gloria dreaming of improving the High Human race by fusing that ¡®something¡¯ into the next generation of her race. How so? Well, she tried to breed the 2 races together.

    The result was a failure.

    The newborns were mostly deformed with only a few that were whole and actually better than regular humans, but they were still inferior to High Humans. Gloria did not achieve her aim. It was a resounding failure.

    She tried again using different methods, even experimenting with special consumables that might alter the process, but she never achieved success. It was the first irrefutable failure that Gloria had encountered, and the shame had almost caused her to wipe out every regular human. But she held back. She decided to content herself with eradicating the deformed newborns and secluding the regular humans in a territory they were not allowed to leave. Lastly, they were forever banned from intermingling with High Humans.

    Alas, years went by and a tragedy occurred.

 Ch.280 Humans

    It went without saying that the High Humans were likewise forbidden from mingling with the regular Humans, but this was a slightly loose rule because the guardians who were responsible for protecting the territory of the regular humans were actually exempt from that rule, and it wasn¡¯t just them. The people who would collect a percentage of the resources gathered by the regular Humans, or the people who were given permission to conduct experiments could also interact with the regular humans.

    However, the one thing that was absolutely forbidden was for the 2 races to mate with each other. Gloria did not want to see a second coming of malformed children. She had killed the last and wanted it to stay ¡®the last¡¯.

    But unfortunately, that rule was miraculously broken. A High Human had committed the deed with a regular Human and a child was born.

    The child was¡­ not the miraculous part. That child was apparently the most deformed of all, so much so that it was directly born as an Abomination. (A highly rare existence that devours life force in an attempt to stave off its inevitable implosion.) The birth of the Abomination killed the mother immediately, and it might have even caused more damage to others if its High Human father didn¡¯t kill it.

    That was certainly no miraculous matter.

    The miraculous part was because everybody knew how hard it was for a living being to ignore the commands of their progenitor. It was an almost irresistible compulsion. No matter how tyrannical or dislikable a Progenitor may be, even if you hated him or her to the very bones, you would still find it VERY difficult to disobey a command that didn¡¯t directly harm yourself. (Basically, you can¡¯t be commanded to commit suicide or something like that if you really didn¡¯t want to.)

    The only exception was if you were disobeying a command to do something that would actually help your progenitor. For example, if you were ordered by your progenitor to flee from a fight but you wanted to stay to defend your progenitor, the compulsion from the command can be bypassed by the desire to save you progenitor if you had enough conviction.

    It was very, very unfair. But thankfully, most progenitors had the best interest of their race at heart. Even the tyrannical ones weren¡¯t too excessive if you didn¡¯t provoke them. Bellatrix¡¯s experience with her own progenitor was actually a really nice one and she despaired at the fact that she died.

    Anyhow, the point was that it was very hard to go against a command from your progenitor, and yet, somebody did it - and to Gloria of all progenitors.

    It went without saying that Gloria was furious, but true to her conduct, she did not immediately act out of emotion. She first had to get all the facts (or so she claimed). The High Human that had sired the Abomination was already profusely regretful and didn¡¯t hold back any information at all.

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    Apparently, he had once been extremely injured in a fight with a Beast near the territory of the regular humans, and so he decided to return to their territory to receive aid from the other High Humans stationed there. He made it to the territory but he did not make it to the actual settlement before he succumbed to his injuries and passed out.

    When he came to, he realised that he was being carried on the back of a feeble human girl who was trying her best to drag him along despite his weight. She was a beautiful girl, one that could just about match the aesthetics of the High Humans, she could be considered the most beautiful regular human of all. She was his downfall. From there began a foolish tale of love.

    This resulted in the previously mentioned sequence of calamities.

    The High Human killed himself after confessing his wrongs before Gloria could do it, but it still wasn¡¯t enough to quell Gloria¡¯s fury, and she ended up turning her eyes on the regular humans.

    As one would expect, they ended up extinct.

    This happened many, many years ago and Gloria had grown much more intelligent, much more mature, and much more humble. She claimed to deeply regret her decision to wipe out the regular humans, but Bellatrix couldn¡¯t tell if she was telling the truth or not.

    Regular humans were pretty much useless and it wasn¡¯t much of a loss if they went extinct, and that was how Beasts would feel. Regular humans should hold even less importance to High Humans who could do all the dexterous things they could do but even better.

    She supposed it was sentiment that Gloria was feeling considering the woman was once a regular human herself. Even she as an unrelated Beast would feel it was a pity if the innocent humans went extinct, so it wasn¡¯t much of a reach to think that Gloria would be even more affected despite her divergent mind.

    In any case, Gloria once more stated that she was glad that there were still regular humans around and that she would one day like to see them again. Which¡­ honestly caused Bellatrix to panic a little.

    Truth be told, she had held something back in her conversation with Gloria, something she had no intentions of revealing at all if it wasn¡¯t absolutely needed. Because after hearing how Gloria felt about the regular humans, she knew that she could never reveal that whilst the humans back on her continent were thriving more than ever before, the number of pure humans remaining was dwindling, and it was dwindling fast.

    To put it simply, most of them were shedding their pure human natures to become Beastkin.

    Beastkin were the result of someone from an Enlightened race fusing their genes with a Beast. It caused a profound mutation that changed them greatly. This was different to ¡®Bloodlines¡¯ which didn¡¯t cause much outward changes to their possessors. Beastkin were pretty much a different race, similar to the difference between High Human and Human (If you didn¡¯t take into consideration quality).

    Nobody knew why the Humans and even a few Elves were capable of such things, but it happened all the time nowadays.

    It all started after the first grand continental meeting 6 years ago. That was the first time everyone had been exposed to Apis¡¯s Celestial Elephant Beastkin.

 Ch.281 Beastkin

    Many people had heard of the odd followers of Apis but it wasn¡¯t widespread knowledge. It was only when they had arrived at the grand meeting with impressive cultivation levels that left humans in the dust that they finally caught greater attention. It also didn¡¯t help that they looked a little like Beasts in Enlightened form, but gave off the distinct aura of an Enlightened race.

    Naturally, this was a strange phenomenon that attracted attention, but not a lot of it. After all, most people just chalked them up to be Beasts in Enlightened Form even though they had doubts. How else could it be explained?

    Still, they weren¡¯t planning on remaining oblivious. They merely decided to ask later and focus on the more pressing matters. This was the first grand continental meeting and there were many powerful and famous figures amongst them. They couldn¡¯t afford to lose focus and they especially couldn''t afford to look dumb. Asking Apis about his little followers could come later.

    Later eventually came and Apis, the big peaceful oaf that he was, didn¡¯t hide anything back and revealed the identities of his followers with slight pride. They were ex-humans that were transformed by the power of his blood, gifted with unique talents that allowed them to climb the ranks of cultivation and fight. Moreover, they were very loyal.

    Obviously, everyone was surprised to find out that those people used to be normal Humans.

    Some had thought that they would have been Beast-Human hybrids because at least that was in the domain of something they thought possible. It was very uncommon, but sometimes Beasts and Humans would mate and actually create children. However, to date, Bellatrix had never heard of a successful birth.

    The only Beasts that could mate with the Enlightened races were 4th Realm Beasts, also known as Enlightened Beasts. However, the child born from such a Beast is absolutely not something that a weak human could withstand. As such, the human mothers would all die before the child could develop enough, and the child would die alongside her.

    Technically, it was possible for a male Beast to essentially donate the vitality required for their child''s birth, but this was even more uncommon than natural births because it would leave the male weakened for a while. This was only something someone would do when they wanted a child to be born at any cost but knew that the mother wouldn¡¯t be able to take it.

    It was a risk that nobody wanted to take for a Human.

    As for the other way round, a male human impregnating a female Enlightened Beast? There was not a single successful attempt. Bellatrix once asked Gaia about that and was told that the sperm of the weak humans couldn¡¯t impregnate a 4th Realmer. Perhaps it could work if the female Beast controlled the defensive mechanisms of her womb, but there wasn¡¯t anyone with that kind of control over their bodies. That was the first time Bellatrix had heard that a womb had defensive mechanisms but it made sense.

    So the problem was a difference in strength, not race. So technically, the Elves should be capable right? They had a lot of 4th Realmers and should definitely be able to mate with a 4th Realm Beast.

    Bellatrix reckoned it was possible, but as far as she knew, no one had even tried. The relationship between Elves and everyone else outside of the Dawn Forest was usually always tense if not bad, and to be honest, Bellatrix understood.

    The way Elves acted, the things they valued, the hopes they dreamed about, all of it was far too different from the way the Beasts acted. To put it simply, there were no opportunities for an Elf and a Beast to meet each other and decide to do the deed.

    Well, actually¡­ Now that she thought about it. Dodo¡¯s Clan also had a unique way of thinking and they were quite close with the Elves. Perhaps something special had happened in the Dawn Forest that no one knew about¡­?!

    That was certainly food for thought, but Bellatrix didn¡¯t have a way of finding out any time soon. Matter of fact, now that she knew what happened in the past with Gloria, there was probably a good chance that the hybrid child would be born deformed. Probably¡­

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    Anyways, the point about all this was that at the very least, this was what everyone in the Meeting back then had been speculating. Although Apis was a Celestial Beast meaning that he didn¡¯t have an Enlightened Form, they still thought that it might have some other Elephant that fathered the children.

    To find out that Humans could mutate with Beast blood and gain new forms was just too startling. Furthermore, the more they heard from Apis, the more excited they got from the prospects. If they reenacted what Apis did, wouldn¡¯t the humans they owned become more useful?

    These mutated humans were like weakened Beasts but they were fully Enlightened. They still had the ability to absorb Magical Energy from the air and even at a greater rate, and they gained the ability to form Mana from eating flesh/blood and herbs like full on Beasts (but to a lesser extent).

    To be honest, from the beginning the Enlightened could already do that. But their Nutrient to Mana ratio was so appalling that they might as well not even have it. And not only that, they also had a stupendous limit to how much they could eat. These 2 factors coupled together resulted in the weakness of the human race that hadn¡¯t changed for almost 200 years. The strongest Human of all history had only made it to the 2nd Realm after many decades. Utterly atrocious.

    No one knew what technique the Elves had that allowed them to gain Magical Energy a lot more efficiently than the Humans, but they had never shared and the Humans had been bottom feeders for so long.

    But now, after the Continental Meeting 6 years ago, the Humans had been resolutely taking the decision to transform into Beastkin. Ah, Beastkin was the name they had been given by Apis and everyone just went along with it, giving respect to the pioneer of the new path.

    6 years later, there were all sorts of Beastkin. Wolfkin, Eaglekin, Monkeykin, Dragonkin, etc. As one could expect, there were differences in talent and ability based on race, but chances of failure and resulting death also rose with the quality of the race. Creation and Destruction Dragon blood was the most difficult to fuse with and nobody had succeeded with it. After that was the Celestial Beasts, and then probably the Phoenix or Purgatory Vermillions.

    Nobody could say for sure since their bird allies from the other continent had never chosen to accept humans into their fold even if they became Beastkin. So they didn¡¯t offer their blood in the first place.

    Anyways, if it wasn¡¯t for the risk of death that came with choosing to become a Beastkin, there would probably be no more humans left because they would have all chosen to become Beastkin. Who wanted to stay weak? As it stood, the few remaining humans were being shunned even more than before, in part because of their cowardice to make that step, and another part because they weren¡¯t needed anymore.

    Things were looking very perilous for their future. They might have even been killed out already if there weren¡¯t people who still needed them like Gaia and the Destruction Dragons. But not even that was a guarantee, because these days, there were a few desperate Beasts who weren¡¯t willing to give the Humans a choice, and opted to coerce them into taking their blood.

    It was frowned upon and even surprisingly banned by Gaia and J?rma, but there were still a few Beasts who did it in secret.

    It had never bothered Bellatrix much before, especially since she had her own Unicorn Beastkin (Unicornkin for short) that she cared about, and if she were being honest, she too had thought that it was a little foolish to not become a Beastkin. They were so much better than humans in every way and even their capacity to eat food wasn¡¯t much of a problem. They didn¡¯t gain bigger stomachs but they digested food just as fast as a full fledged Beast, which meant that the little food that entered the stomach quickly dissolved in a matter of minutes and at most an hour if the food was too potent.

    Moreover they even looked better. Each Beastkin gained physical traits from the Beast blood they assimilated, making them look like Beasts in Enlightened form, but most of the time it was easy to tell the difference. For example, a Wolf in Enlightened form would have Wolf Ears on the top of their head, but a Wolf Beastkin (Wolfkin for short) would keep their human ears but they would be sharper and covered with fur on the back with just a little on the inside.

    This alone already made them look more appealing than the ordinary Humans, at least to a Beast like her. So all across the board, Beastkin were just better! Humans should all just go through the process already! Or so she had thought¡­

    When she later encountered the beautiful High Humans but more importantly found out about their Empress¡¯s desire to one day meet the Humans on her continent, she panicked a little. Maybe a big little.

    Now, she wished that the Humans would stop the process completely before they went extinct for good.

 Ch.282 A Dark Omen

    Bellatrix and Gloria continued to converse and eventually, they reached the most important topic which was of course the war against Envy. This was where Bellatrix was ultimately met with disappointment.

    Gloria stated that whilst she would like to help in dealing with the important threat that was Envy, she was already facing off against a dangerous threat of her own. Obviously, it was the Blazing Ants that Bellatrix had previously ran from.

    There was no point in leaving the continent to save the world if Gloria returned back to her continent to find it completely occupied by Ants - or so she said. Bellatrix had been a little dumbfounded and more than a bit doubtful of the idea of the Ants occupying the whole Continent in the timeframe that it would take to deal with Envy, but the look in Gloria¡¯s eyes dispelled her suspicions.

    It was the same look that she had given her when they first met. Her gaze shone bright with an intelligence so sheer that it was petrifying. Just looking at those eyes had a mental suppression that wasn¡¯t inferior to the effects of aura, so when it worked in conjunction with aura the feeling wasn¡¯t inferior to being in front of the goddess. Bellatrix found herself unwittingly submitting.

    She hadn¡¯t known what Gloria was thinking, but she knew that it was probably something she didn¡¯t want to investigate.

    Nevertheless, Gloria continued on to say that even if she was promised an alliance that would help her eradicate the Ants after defeating Envy, she would not take it. Bellatrix hadn¡¯t even thought of that possible trade but Gloria had already found reasons to deny it. She went on to list all the things that could go wrong and it made Bellatrix¡¯s head spin.

    She further went on to explain the history of the Blazing Ants and how they had exploded in number, inevitably catching the attention of her people. Knowing how critical the threat was, the High Humans began to viciously suppress the growing menace before it could get out of hand, but the situation was tense and very delicate. Something like leaving the continent with her most powerful forces would shatter the balance instantly.

    All the things she had built and all the people that she would leave behind would be razed to the ground and replaced with ant nests by the time she was back.

    Obviously, Gloria did not have the slightest intent of allowing that to happen, and Bellatrix couldn¡¯t help but agree with everything that Gloria said. Her logic was irrefutable. So she could only put her attempt to make an alliance at rest and make half-hearted promises of returning to visit after defeating Envy, before saying her goodbyes and finally leaving the Continent.

    The whole reason she had stayed for so long was because she had been healing from the injuries that she had gained in the forest. Gloria had been gracious enough to let her rest and recuperate, even providing her with a tour of her territory, but all things have an end time.

    In the end, her mission to seek an alliance with the newly discovered major continent had ended in failure, but at least she had established a good relationship with someone as powerful as Gloria and she believed that it would be very beneficial in the future.

    As she flew on her way to report to Gaia, she couldn¡¯t help but think about the core message that she had learned on this journey. And that was to never underestimate any race, no matter how weak they may seem.

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    Anything can happen.

    ¡­

    *2 Months Later*

    [Shore of the West Continent]

    Usually, the weather on Eridius was perfect. Blue skies, white clouds, bright sun and warm temperature. This was how the weather on Eridius was 90% of the time and the denizens of the World had taken it for granted. Even on the days that it rained, the sky was still blue and the temperature was rarely ever terrible, so how could they not?

    It was for that reason that today''s weather was so impactful.

    Today¡¯s sky was very, very moody. Almost the moodiest they had seen. Wherever you looked, the sky was grey and filled with dense clouds. And they weren¡¯t just for show either. Rain poured heavily and relentlessly, filling the land with its bitter smell and sad taste. In addition, accompanying the rain was the uncomfortable and cold assault of hail stones (something that they hadn¡¯t seen in many years). Lastly, there was the distinct smell of ozone, the precursor to a thunderous storm.

    Judging by how thick the smell was, today''s storm would not only be the 4th one in all history, but it would also be the 2nd biggest, and that scared many.

    The nature of Planet Eridius was not something that cultivation below the peak could withstand. That was why they couldn¡¯t break rocks or trees if they were still attached to the planet. It was also why anyone that was unfortunate enough to get struck by a lightning bolt would also perish without leaving behind a body. Only scorch marks decorating their final resting point will remain.

    Nobody wanted to be unlucky.

    But that wasn¡¯t all. Today¡¯s weather wasn¡¯t just impactful to the queer, superstitious or easily-frightened, but to everyone. Bad weather was a bad omen. At this point, it was undeniable. Dark things happened on dark days like this and this was the darkest day of all.

    The first time they had witnessed a storm, Year 27 (which was also the biggest), the following century was given 3 names because of how bad it was.

    The most mundane and most common one was the [Century of Never-ending War] which originated from the Fortissimum Continent, obviously called as such because of many wars that never seemed to end.

    The second name was the [100 Years of Bloodshed] which originated from the West Continent. It described clearly just how damaging and bloody those times were, and it went without saying that most herbivores didn¡¯t like this title and opted to stick with the first one.

    The last one was simply called the [Lifeless Century]. It caught fame during the meetings between the hegemons and decision makers of the various alliances. They had been discussing their past and found out just how bad Year 27 to 127 was for everyone. At that time, after reminiscing on how terrible those times had been there had been a moment of silence. But then someone suddenly let out a bleak laugh. He then said the following infamous words that no one would ever forget.

    ¡®The days after that storm were so¡­ Lifeless.¡¯ These words were spoken by Raiko, a Beast Emperor from the Fortissimum Continent.

    It was a terrible thing to think about, considering just how important and weighted this day was. Everyone had known that what they were about to do would be so big that it would change the World, and they had also known that it would be extremely dangerous. But they had held hopes in their leaders, hoping that those powerful figures would block away most of the danger.

    Alas, when the first drops of rain had splattered against their heads, it had been like a profound statement that everybody could hear but nobody could deny. As such, on this eventful day, nobody was excited. Nobody was happy. Everyone was afraid.

    Suffering and sorrow was looming beyond the horizon and nobody could escape. They could only do their best to survive.

 Ch.283 A Strange Connection

    A man looked up to the sky, letting the rain fall upon his face where it would begin to sizzle and evaporate as if it had landed on a hot surface. His hair however must have been less hot because although it was releasing vapour into the air like the top of a volcano, it was still undeniably soaked. However, this only ended up enhancing the golden undertones in the man¡¯s white hair, making them sparkle like precious material.

    And the rest of the man wasn¡¯t any less impressive. He had an imposing height of 2.2 metres, tanned skin, a pair of giant wings on his back with the same colour tone as his hair, and 3 peculiar eyes. 2 of them were completely golden with no other colour, but the 3rd vertical one on his forehead had white sclera and a bright blue iris. All 3 eyes burned like flames.

    Evidently, he was a bird-type Beast in Enlightened Form, and had an incredibly rare Evil Eye to boot.

    This was no other than Pharaoh, the Progenitor of the Golden Roc race and the 2nd Apostle of the Heavenly Sun Flame. Moreover, he wasn¡¯t alone.

    Surrounding him and gathered on the Eastern shore of the West Continent were the deadliest creatures the Continent had to offer. Nobody here had cultivation that was inferior to the upper levels of the 3rd Realm, but there were still many of them there. Most of them were imposing giant birds from the 3 legendary races (Phoenix, Purgatory Vermillion, and Golden Roc) but there was a noticeable group of Humans that didn¡¯t have any of the animalistic features of a Beast in Enlightened Form.

    They all had tanned skin, blonde-to-gold hair, and brilliant gold eyes that shone with powerful mana. They looked a lot more imposing than the general human race but that was exactly what they were. Humans.

    In actuality, they were the first followers of the Heavenly Sun Flame. Granted an Earth Grade Bloodline by the Contract with the Heavenly Sun Flame, they had been transformed into higher quality lifeforms that could not be put on the same level of the rest of the human race, and they called themselves Heavenly Sun Humans.

    But that was not to say that they had actually evolved or even mutated. They were just Humans with Bloodlines and better techniques that lived much better lives under the nurturing of the Heavenly Sun Flame and the Sacred Land they lived in.

    Leading those Heavenly Sun Humans was the beautiful Liyanda, the first Apostle of the Heavenly Sun Flame. She could be considered very old if you were to go off by the standard lifespan of the human race, but thanks to her 4th Realm cultivation, age had not left a single mark on her body and she looked like a young woman in her twenties.

    Long golden hair tumbled down to her knees, caressing each of her proud curves and tanned skin, but her most remarkable feature was her completely gold and fiery eyes that matched Pharaoh¡¯s. This was a trait of the Physique that they both shared, which was of course the Heaven Grade [Sun Apostle Physique].

    But different to Pharoah, where he was uncharacteristically cold and possessed an aura that pushed others away, Liyanda had a heroic demeanour that was just as fiery as her affinity. It was very domineering but it had an exotic charm that drew others close. However, whether that resulted in a desire to follow her leadership or the desire to dominate her, was up to beholder.

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    At this moment, she was standing by Pharaoh''s side, eyeing the drops of rain that evaporated against his skin or dripped down his hair.

    Pharoah snorted inwardly.

    Even without spreading his Spirit Sense, he could always tell when that girl was looking at him and it seemed to work the other way around too. At this point, neither of them could deny that they seemed to possess a strange and mysterious connection with each other, but they had never explored it and rarely ever spoke about it.

    Despite both being Apostles of the same entity and even living on the same Sacred Land, both of them were just too busy with their own races to let that strange connection draw them into doing something potentially stupid.

    So they fought against it, acting antagonistic towards each other whenever they met and staying far away from each other whenever they didn¡¯t have to, no matter how much their thoughts strayed. No, it was BECAUSE of how much their thoughts strayed that they had to do that.

    Fat help their attitude against each other had done. The more arrogant and rude Liyanda acted towards him, the more it stirred something within him. He wanted to tame that wild woman.

    Every other woman he had bred had been either submissive by default, or dominated into submissiveness too quickly. And it didn¡¯t help that they didn¡¯t have any other use outside of expanding his race either, so he couldn¡¯t care less about their individual desires and aspirations.

    But Liyanda would never break and she could never be useless. Outside of the almighty Heavenly Sun Flame, she was probably the only other lifeform that he admired and didn¡¯t simultaneously hate. So just the thought of wrapping his hand against her throat as he¡­

    ¡®Tch.¡¯

    Ridiculous thoughts like that was exactly why they stayed far away from each other. A Beast and a Human breeding? It had happened a few times before considering just how close their 2 races were, and although it had resulted in a few miracles of life who were way too young to be here, it had also resulted in more than a few startling tragedies. These tragedies heavily outweighed the benefits of the miracles so Beast-Human sexual relations had pretty much become banned.

    Both he and Liyanda had worked together to ensure this ban and in the process they had severed 3 real relationships that had been more than just mating. He himself didn¡¯t care much about that because nobody dared to violate his rules, irrespective of their emotions, but Liyanda cared. And it wasn¡¯t like he couldn¡¯t see the foolishness in banning something because it was bad and yet indulging in the same thing yourself, so it had just become another reason to stay away from Liyanda.

    It made moments like these where she was so close to him, looking up at him the way she was¡­ unbearable.

    ¡°Everyone get ready!¡± A voice suddenly yelled.

    Pharaoh finally lowered his head to look at the man whose golden wings he had been chasing for many years. The rival he had been dominating the continent with. The one man he wanted to defeat at any cost. Chad the Phoenix King.

    ¡°I think our allies have arrived.¡± Chad said in a quieter voice now that he had everyone''s attention.

    Everyone looked forward, but only those with keener eyes began to notice something in the distance beyond the rising waves.

 Ch.284 Land of Death

    It was imperceptible at first, making one doubt if what they were seeing was really the expected arrival of allies or just another wave, but then soon enough they began to notice various colours. Then a few seconds later they began to notice how irregular the movement of the ¡®wave¡¯ was. And finally, after half a minute had passed, they saw a second ¡®wave¡¯ gradually appear in the sky, growing bigger as it approached them.

    Without a doubt, their allies had finally appeared. The ¡®wave¡¯ above were flying Beasts and the one below must be the Sea Beasts that were carrying their other allies that couldn¡¯t fly or swim.

    Pharaoh had the best vision amongst them thanks to his Eye of Cremation, so he could see a lot more than the others could. He could see the various creatures of all kinds and saw many that were in their Enlightened Form, no doubt so that they could easily fit on the respective creatures that carried them.

    However, the thing that caught all of his attention was the 3 gigantic scarlet eyes hidden beneath the surface of water that were looking directly back at him.

    He felt his Eye of Cremation throb in a way that it hadn¡¯t done before, and an odd agitation rose within him. He felt restless. He felt like he had been locked on by a superior predator that intended to do him harm. But at the same time, he also felt a familiar hunger, the kind he felt whenever he discovered a delectable prey.

    What was the meaning of this?

    He had never felt something like this before and he didn¡¯t know what to do. But just as the conflicting feelings within him began to truly become uncomfortable, he felt a finger suddenly poke his left cheek.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡± A feminine voice spoke.

    Liyanda. Who else but Liyanda?

    Only she had the gall to continuously disrespect his boundaries and think nothing of the damage he could inflict on her if he truly got angry and decided to go all out. But nevertheless, he felt his agitation melt a way like the hailstones that attempted to settle on his head.

    He grabbed her offensive hand and dragged it away from him, doing his best to ignore her soft skin and deceptive delicateness all the while.

    He knew just how much damage a single punch from her could cause if he took it head on. Liyanda may not have possessed any ranged attacks which was a common problem with the humans, but her explosive speed was enough to relegate that disadvantage greatly. Furthermore, her strength could even cripple an Enlightened Beast in a single blow if they didn¡¯t take precaution, so although it was common to hear the Phoenixes or Purgatory Vermillion¡¯s laugh at her because of her race behind her back, nobody dared to do it in front of her.

    By the time they had flapped their wings to fly away, she would have already appeared in front of them to punch a crater into their chests.

    He himself had been a victim of that might once. A long time ago, in a moment of weakness they had come too close and eventually they could no longer restrain themselves. He had been caressing her luxurious body, admiring the contrast between the tightness of her abs and the softness of her breasts, and she too could not keep her hands off of his body.

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    Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, they had been interrupted by the arrival of a few Golden Rocs.

    In his embarrassment at his lack of control in front of his people, he had sullied her dignity. He verbally condemned her for falling into a heat and wanting to be bred without even caring who did it, acting like he hadn¡¯t been in heat himself.

    What a big mistake that had been¡­

    Before he knew it, a knee had buried itself into his abdomen, breaking his ribs and rupturing his organs as if they were made of rotting fruits. Then whilst he was doubled over with agony, a terrifying force struck his jaw and nearly shattered it to pieces, sending him flying in the process.

    But worse than the pain of his injuries was the look he had found on her face. He would never, ever forget that look of betrayal, nor the disgust he had felt for himself.

    Knowing how cowardly he had acted, he had gone the next day to apologise to her. But when he arrived there, feeling as low as he could possibly feel, he was abruptly knocked into shock when he heard a set of familiar sounds¡­ It was the sound of a man and woman in pleasure. He couldn¡¯t identify the man, but he had most definitely known the woman.

    He couldn¡¯t say for sure how long he had stood there, trying to wrap his head around what he was hearing, even though he knew. But he would eventually be risen out of his reverie by the sound of her voice in his head.

    =Didn¡¯t you say that I couldn¡¯t control my heat and would go for any man? Why are you standing there so surprised, Pharaoh? You look foolish.=

    He felt like he had been bleeding in that moment, but he still tried to control himself. He knew that she had every right to do as she wished and that she was not even his mate. After what he had said the day before he had lost all rights to even a semblance claim. Besides, it¡¯s not like he hadn¡¯t bred multiple females beforehand so he did not have the rights to anger.

    But then he heard the sounds of the male¡¯s climax, his joy as he unloaded, and Liyanda¡¯s sigh.

    The rage that had burned through his veins in that moment had been so great that he had gone blind, he only saw flashes of colours and lights as his emotions exploded out of control. He vaguely remembered taking his true form and flying into the air covered in flames, and obviously, his goal had been slaughter. But for some reason he never did it. The thought of killing Liyanda didn¡¯t quite calm his wrath but it somehow beckoned him to a different direction. Alas, his primary target was very disgustingly intertwined with Liyanda and any attack on him would also land on her, so he never attacked. Instead, he actually flew away.

    But he absolutely did not fly away in defeat or weakness. No, his emotions continued to worsen and instead of mere slaughter, his goal had switched to something greater. He wanted to unleash a calamity like no other. He wanted to burn everything until only dust remained. Not even the Heavenly Sun Flame had occupied his thoughts in that moment, only destruction.

    He didn¡¯t know how long he flew, but by the time he had come to he had found himself in an unknown location surrounded by ashes as far as the eye could see. But perhaps more importantly, he had discovered that he had somehow gained a third, pale blue eye on his forehead that had been profusely leaking with blood, sending him constant pangs of pain.

    By that time, his anger had greatly reduced and fear at the horror surrounding him had wormed its way in. He had been quite literally standing in a land of death, with ashes falling around him like snow, joining the huge pile on the ground that he could not see the end of. The only thing he could smell was charcoal, and the only thing he could hear was his increasing heartbeat. To top it all, he could not for the life of him figure out how that had happened or how he had gotten there.

 Ch.285 Evil Eye

    That had been the scariest moment of his life.

    Thankfully, he would eventually go on to find that the ash did in fact have an end, and that he had not been trapped in some inescapable land of death. It took a while but he ended up finding some notable landmarks that he used to return to the Heavenly Sun Flame.

    During the journey, he had asked the System about what had happened and it had congratulated him for obtaining the Eye of Cremation, which was supposedly 1 of 10 Evil Eyes, Ranked 7th.

    It was completely unexpected but it was also a thing of joy. All forms of power were welcomed and he absolutely would not be rejecting it because it was called ¡®Evil¡¯. Still, it was better to figure out how it had happened so he tried to ask more. It was here that he was met with the common silence from the system.

    The only question that gained an answer was ¡®Why me?¡¯ and the response had been: ¡®Your desire for ashes.¡¯

    He didn¡¯t know what that meant. He didn¡¯t understand how his rage had led to him obtaining the Eye of Cremation, but he absolutely did not forget what led to his rage. Just remembering it provoked his anger again and it refused to let up, so by the time he had returned to the Sacred Land it was sky high.

    People came to greet him, some with confusion on their faces, some with surprise and some with happiness, but he had ignored them all. He immediately flew to the territory belonging to the humans to find the man, not caring about the possible consequences.

    In the end, he DID find the man, and in fact he had been talking to Liyanda at the time with a goofy smile on his face. The reverence and adoration on his had been clear to see, and the lack of care and boredom on Liyanda¡¯s face had also been visible to all. But it did nothing to reduce his steeply climbing killing intent.

    Somewhere in that moment, his new eye had begun to soak up his Mana, and in the next moment, the man was covered in blue flames, screaming his heart out in delicious agony that finally satiated something in Pharaoh that had been starving like a ravenous rat.

    When he soon landed on the ground, it was in his Enlightened Form, and very purposefully on the remains of the man whose name he still did not know.

    Liyanda¡¯s eyes then had finally changed, no longer bored and instead showing interest in his new eye, as if the man she had mated with had not just died before her. It could be called heartless, but to be honest, he didn¡¯t know what he would do if she showed grief. All he knew was that it would push him over a certain edge of no return.

    They stared at each other in silence before he eventually returned to his true form and flew back to his own territory without a word.

    It was after that that they had formed the proverbial ¡®unspoken agreement¡¯ to avoid each other at all costs if they didn¡¯t have to attend a meeting with the Heavenly Sun Flame.

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    Ha.

    Many years had passed since back then and it could be said that their relationship had mended. But they had never really apologised to each other. Their relationship was¡­ bittersweet. It brought him unexpected joy at times that he secretly cherished, but it also broke him at times.

    Technically he should have long tossed someone like that out of his mind, however, no matter how many times he tried, he could never stop her from plaguing his thoughts, never stop thinking about the perfection that she so effortlessly displayed.

    Suddenly, the hand he was restraining broke out of his hold and poked him in his cheek again.

    His eyebrows dropped and his eyes rose up in exasperation.

    ¡°What are you thinking about?¡± Liyanda asked.

    Pharaoh swatted her hand away in annoyance, but on the inside he couldn¡¯t help but marvel at how quickly his mood had shifted because of her. Well, it wasn¡¯t like something like that was anything unprecedented, but it was an eye opener each and every time nonetheless.

    ¡°I think I saw the Devourer.¡± He replied after a short pause. ¡°My Evil Eye was reacting strangely.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    Liyanda turned back to the sea but she couldn¡¯t see the rumoured giant snake.

    Everybody had heard about J?rma the Devourer, the supposedly strongest creature from the Fortissimum Continent if you didn¡¯t count the alleged goddess. She was a Beast Empress who ruled over the Snake species and a few other subsidiary races, and held dominion over the centre of her continent.

    This alone was enough to catch everyone''s eyes, but what those with secret knowledge valued above everything else was the tales of the power of her 3rd Eye. If Pharaoh and Liyanda were right about its identity then that meant that J?rma also had an Evil Eye.

    Could this be the reason for Pharaoh¡¯s reaction? Did the Evil Eyes share a deeper connection than just their composition and name? What would something like that mean?

    Liyanda turned back to look at Pharaoh but more specifically at his Eye of Cremation. It didn¡¯t look any different to her but she had felt Pharaoh¡¯s abnormal discomfort earlier. Something was wrong.

    The possibility of Pharaoh in serious danger crossed her mind and it immediately affected her heart rate. She didn¡¯t like that thought, but she also didn¡¯t like how much the thought affected her. It was normal to worry for a friend or even a mere fellow fighter, but her emotions for Pharaoh always transcended normal boundaries and that was hardly a good thing.

    Pharaoh was¡­ perfect. She could not deny that. He fit the ideal that she had for a man to the tee. She even secretly liked that he was a Beast and not a fellow Human. There was a carefully controlled ferality in him that did something for her. She wanted to see what would happen if Pharaoh, the always cold and restrained man, lost control of his desires and unleashed his passion with full force on her body.

    At this point it was foolish to pretend that she didn¡¯t desperately want him, but she would never act on those silly desires because she knew they could never come to fruition. There was too much risk involved.

    So despite the strange ethereal connection between them, she had tried to cleave the image of Pharaoh from her mind at almost any cost all these years. Because of that, she had even done things that she never wanted to do, but in the end it had all been in vain.

    She cared for him. Too much. And now she feared that it would affect her on the battlefield, causing unpredictable issues that she did not have confidence in dealing with.

 Ch.286 Arrival of the Grey One

    Deep below the surface of the sea, a monstrous dark and large body surged through the waters in a spiralling motion, projecting a lethal charm that was scary yet beautiful. It was hard to witness with normal eyes since the body had a black colouring that was greatly camouflaged in the deep sea, but the perfectly measured and hypnotic movements could still be faintly seen.

    But what held the greatest attention was not the graceful movement of the body but instead the 3 glowing scarlet eyes that were glaring at a single being. Seeing them move in a circular motion due to the spiralling movement of the body was honestly eerie. Not much could be inferred from them, but it would be to nobody¡¯s doubt that those were not the eyes of a herbivore. This being was a complete predator that was experienced in taking lives.

    Obviously, this was J?rma the Devourer, sole Queen of all Snakes and Beast Empress to even more races, and she was currently travelling to the West Continent along with the others. They had already gathered their allies from distant lands and this was their last stop before they launched their war on Envy with full force.

    Naturally, despite her huge size, nobody dared to ride on her back and it wasn¡¯t because of the winding motion she was swimming in. She was the publicly recognized strongest being on the continent despite their being a goddess there, and nobody wanted to disrespect her. They would rather swim themselves from continent to continent than climb on J?rma¡¯s head and possibly lose their life.

    As for J?rma herself¡­ She was currently feeling a great hunger along with a slight agitation.

    Something delicious was on that little birdy continent and thanks to her stupefying ocular abilities, she could actually see just what that ¡®something¡¯ was. It, or rather he, was a winged man with a 3rd Eye on his forehead, which was most definitely an Evil Eye.

    This was her first time coming to this continent but it wasn¡¯t as if she hadn¡¯t heard about its most prominent figures. After a few meetings, everyone was mostly aware of each other and there wasn¡¯t much of importance that J?rma didn¡¯t know.

    She had been looking forward to meeting the so-called Pharaoh, the progenitor of the Golden Roc race. Because it was said that he had suddenly gained a 3rd blue Eye some years ago (meaning he wasn¡¯t born with it), which had granted him control of a terrifying blue flame that turned whoever it touched into ashes. Furthermore and most terrifying of all, it didn¡¯t even need to be launched.

    Whoever he looked at would just start burning. This was a very scary ability that was reminiscent of her Eye of Petrification which turned whoever she looked at into stone.

    So obviously, she had wanted to meet this being who she suspected had an Evil Eye of his own. Technically, it was possible that his 3rd Eye was just a very lucky evolution or mutation, but thankfully she had not been disappointed. As soon as she caught sight of him her Eye of Petrification had started to throb, sending waves of abnormal hunger into her mind.

    She wasn¡¯t a stranger to being hungry for various things, some of which were completely inedible to other people, but normally the hunger pangs came from her stomach and not her eye. This was a completely new experience that she was both wary and excited about.

    She continued to look at Pharaoh who was also looking back at her now, and her eyes narrowed.

    ¡­

    Zero, also known as Silver Owl King by most, or the Grey One/Grey Lord by fewer, finally arrived at the gathering of the alliance and ignored the distrustful or downright hateful eyes that were glaring at him. By his side were two 4th Realmers from the Serene Moon Owl race, and a small bunch at the peak 3rd Ream.

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    As soon as they touched down, he and the other two 4th Realmers initiated the switch to their Enlightened Forms.

    He had come a long way since his fateful moment with the Moon and he had accomplished much since then. Nobody had been ready for the complete resurgence of his race and many had paid dearly for it. They had been unable to stop him by the time he and his people had been ready to fight, and he had slain many foes before he claimed a territory for himself up north.

    The northern region of the continent wasn¡¯t popular for a number of reasons. First, it was very cold and there weren¡¯t many who could take that. Second, even for the people like the Ice Phoenixes who would love to be there, there was no one who wanted to remember their past as descendants of the ¡®Honourable Brother¡¯, so they mostly stayed away and only visited when they needed resources.

    Third, worse than the worry people had for Honourable Brother, was the terror they had for his new form, Envy. From the scummiest thief, he had gone all the way to become the world¡¯s biggest menace who many and around the world had gathered to slay.

    It was utterly frightening, but not to Zero.

    The only being he had regard for was the Moon. And thus, he had no problem in slaughtering his way into the Northern region with his brethren and making sure there were no witnesses. He and the rest of his race had affinity with both wind and ice so they weren¡¯t affected by the cold. In fact, the cold territory was even ideal.

    But it hadn¡¯t been safe. The land owner who was technically Chad even if he never visited, would not just stand by as the Ice Phoenixes who had been there died. Ever since taking an Ice Phoenix as a true mate his prejudice against the Ice Phoenixes had vanished, and he had even turned around to smite justice on whichever Fire Phoenix that was racist.

    Previously the Fire Phoenixes had been called Pure Phoenixes but as one could expect, after Chad¡¯s new change that title had been changed. All Phoenixes in the Pure Society were now Pure and the Fire ones were just that. Fire Phoenixes.

    So as expected, Chad¡¯s ever-surprising well of rage had been turned on Zero. Although Zero was no longer afraid of him he had been so back then. Chad was the craziest man on the continent and no one wanted to go against him. However, Zero had been fighting for the prosperity of his race and he also wanted some revenge for what had been done to him, so he fought long and hard.

    In the midst of all the deadly fights that took place, even though Chad never intervened personally Zero had almost died many, many times. Phoenixes were just too tenacious, and the lucky Fire ones who followed in their ancestors footsteps to evolve at the 4th Realm and become Phoenixes of Life were almost undying. Their golden flames contained the Laws of Life along with the Laws of Flame, and it was the best healing substance for their elemental flame bodies.

    However, it hadn¡¯t been all bad. Towards the end of that war, Zero had been able to comprehend a new Law. A Law so powerful that he was almost certain that no one else had seen it. It was that special.

    The only reason he couldn¡¯t say for sure that no one else had it was because making use of the Law was so deadly that it had almost killed him the first time he used it, so he himself tended not to use it.

    He had been forced to utilise the Divine Lunar Enhancement to save himself, which others did not have, so if there were others like him that had this Law then they would likely be in the same predicament of being unable to use it, if not worse.

    However, recently, he had grasped a bit of control over that Law and ever since then he had never been afraid of any other being. Perhaps Pharoah could cause some trouble, but he had never met the man and he had trouble believing that his blue flame could really work with just eyesight alone. It had to be some sort of trick or exaggeration.

    Regardless, Zero was very confident in his abilities. The only thing he found unfortunate was that now that the war had long ended due to their need to unite against Envy, he had been unable to find a suitable target to use his new control over the Law on, without drawing the ire of the whole continent and possibly more. But that would soon be changing.

    ¡°So you decided to come, Grey One.¡±

 Ch.287 Dark Thoughts

    Zero had already shifted into his Enlightened Form by now, revealing an impressive height of 2 metres, pale alabaster skin, long silver hair with strands of white that shimmered in the rain, large flared wings of the same colouring, and lastly, all black eyes that made everyone wary.

    He was a handsome man that had a unique colouring and impressive physique, however, those dark eyes of his almost completely ruined it.

    No one had ever seen eyes like that and what¡¯s worse was that they all knew that Zero only had an affinity with wind and (quite recently) ice. None of those 2 elements were black in colour, so why did Zero have such terrifying black eyes?

    The eyes weren¡¯t even just cosmetic either. The feeling they gave off was very cold, very dark and very oppressive. Clearly, whatever made those eyes the way they were was dangerous. And to add insult to injury, as an Owl Zero already had large unblinking eyes that were prone to staring. To have such eyes focused on you could make anyones skin crawl.

    What kind of evolution did Zero receive? Was it even an evolution? Could he have obtained those eyes the same way Pharaoh obtained his 3rd one?

    These were the thoughts people had as they eyed Zero and his entourage. Well, that and his vicious war feats over the past few years. Everybody had heard about them but they hadn¡¯t worried much in the past because they knew that after provoking the Phoenix King to such an extent, his future was very bleak, and that was being optimistic.

    But in a sudden turn of events, it had become necessary for everyone to put away their hatred and form a huge alliance, all for the purpose of putting an end to the grand threat that was Envy. Now, everybody knew that if Zero survived without losing too much of his peak forces, he would be here to stay, just like Pharaoh.

    ¡°So you decided to come, Grey One.¡±

    Zero folded his wings behind his back before taking note of his two 4th Realm companions to make sure they weren¡¯t too affected by the unwelcoming stares they were receiving. Both of them had pure white wings and hair, bluish-grey eyes, and of course, the talons and such that all Bird Beasts had.

    One was male and the other was female, but they equally wore stoic expressions that he had made them practise for events like this. Good.

    Zero turned his attention back to the Phoenix who had addressed him. It was a male who had the most impressive physique amongst all the Phoenixes here. He was the tallest at 3 metres tall which was unprecedented for an Enlightened form, and his muscles were so robust that his arms were bigger than an average torso. He had golden coloured flames for hair and same coloured eyes that were staring at him mockingly. Both which were telltale signs of a rare Phoenix of Life.

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    Zero of course knew this man, after all, this man had nearly killed him twice. And every other time he had met the guy he had been forced to run unless he wanted to increase the number to thrice. His name was Isgard.

    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I come?¡± Zero responded coldly.

    Their last encounter had been a long time ago and he had grown exponentially since then. He no longer held a spec of fear for Isgard or any other Phoenix for that matter.

    ¡°Hahaha. You seem to have forgotten all the times that you fled each time you caught sight of me. You even abandoned your comrades on occasion and yet you somehow forgot? Haha! What a great King you are, Grey One.¡±

    Zero briefly tightened the muscles in his wings, forcing himself not to react to the taunts.

    That was his sore spot. Zero rarely conducted large-scale battles because he was certain to lose every time. The background of his Serene Moon Owl race could not compare to the extensive history of the Phoenixes. The Phoenixes had a lot more members and a lot more experience, so if they were to go into an all out war that day would be the end of the Serene Owls.

    So in order to prevent that, he did more covert assassinations that his opponents could only react to, and that meant he only had about 5 people with him at any given time. However, sometimes they would fall into traps and suddenly end up in a confrontation with someone like Isgard. Needless to say, such events ended in tragedy.

    It wasn¡¯t a super big loss since he never brought that many people with him, but each time he had to abandon his brethren he would feel an icy cold seep into his veins that little by little began to warp his mind, making him cruel and vicious.

    Honestly, for a while now he had been suppressing his growing dark thoughts, preventing himself from doing something that would be¡­ too far. But if Isgard was going to keep looking at him like that¡­

    ¡°Isgard.¡± A voice suddenly barked.

    Zero eyed the Phoenix King who had just spoken up. It wasn¡¯t the first time he had seen Chad since he had attended a few meetings in the past, but he couldn¡¯t help but think that the man was a little unfathomable. He couldn¡¯t gauge his strength.

    He then turned to the woman by his side. She was very, very beautiful, with pale white skin and icy hair that depicted a great affinity with ice. However, more unique than her beauty was the rumours that surrounded her being. It was said that she had somehow obtained an Enlightened Form before even entering the Enlightened Beast Realm, and that she had phenomenal powers that others of similar cultivation couldn¡¯t match.

    She was Aliana, Chad¡¯s true mate.

    For a moment, Zero¡¯s eyes flickered between the 2 of them, and once more, he had dark thoughts revolve around his mind. Thoughts that would probably make Envy¡¯s past deeds look tame.

 Ch.288 And So It Begins

    ¡°Enough, Isgard. They¡¯re here.¡± Chad said in a softer tone.

    Isgard smoothly took a step back and wiped away his mocking grin. ¡°Yes, your majesty.¡± He responded obediently, looking completely different from the wild man of before. But it wasn¡¯t anything out of the ordinary. No matter how crazy one might be, the sway a Progenitor had over his race is not something that can be easily ignored.

    Actually, Chad¡¯s status as a progenitor was sometimes put into question. After all, it was said that whenever a progenitor evolved into their unique race, it caused their followers to evolve into that race too. However, according to the rumours, that did not happen with Chad. Why else would Envy go to such wicked lengths to also become a Phoenix?

    Moreover, the cruel racial expansion competition that both Phoenixes had at the beginning of their war was known to all. When it came to childbirth, there were multiple ways that a pregnancy could go. 1 of those ways was to sacrifice the mothers life in order to make a child that had 70-90% of the fathers bloodline. Of course, things like compatibility of race and even elemental affinity had to be taken into account, but that was besides the point.

    Sacrificing the lives of various mothers was a genius method when it came to starting a race from 0, but it was obviously not something females were willing to partake in.

    Although there was an option for any of the 2 Phoenixes to offer their vitality to preserve the female''s life, it was obvious enough that none were willing to do that, especially since it cost even more vitality than if you weren¡¯t trying to sacrifice the female''s life to make a purebreed. Also, wasn¡¯t it because Chad had used the vitality lending method that Envy had even gained the chance to strike?

    Obviously, Chad would not be repeating the biggest mistake of his life. The females were bound to suffer if they couldn¡¯t defend themselves. But who back then could resist the 2 legendary Phoenixes?

    Envy was already unscrupulous enough, and Chad had been blinded by his notorious rage, so what came about was a terrifying time for female Bird beasts who were forced to use their wombs and life to nurture the next generation of Phoenixes.

    It was said that some died from the stress early, and some even killed themselves since they knew they were already destined to die to the parasites leaching their very lifeforce. On top of that, it wasn¡¯t like the males from those respective species were just going to allow all of that to happen without fighting back. But in the end, the Phoenix race still rose to prominence and achieved great numbers later on.

    It was because of all this that Chad had his identity as a Progenitor put into question, since he was more of a regular Ancestor who manually bred a new race rather than magically create one. However, nobody could deny the pull the Phoenix King had over the Phoenix race.

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    In fact, the only reason he wasn¡¯t called Phoenix Emperor was because no one else dared to take the title of Phoenix King, so there was no need for the greater title of Emperor.

    But then again, maybe it was because they all feared him. Of all the people to be on the short stick of Chad¡¯s wrath, it was funnily enough the Phoenix race that had experienced it the most. Perhaps their loyalty was more from fear than love.

    Well, it didn¡¯t matter much to Zero. Whether or not Chad was a true progenitor did not affect Zero¡¯s relationship with the Phoenix race. Even if he was able to confirm that Chad was not a true progenitor, it would not be able to change how the Phoenixes treated Chad after all this time. Perhaps it could open a door to rebellion, but trying to open that door from the outside was not something Zero was willing to risk. At least for now.

    It would be pretty disastrous for the Serene Moon Owls if Zero was found trying to create a rebellion in the Phoenix Race, because Chad would not take that lightly and unlike before, he would not be content to send warriors and wait for the news in his territory. He would be stepping out himself.

    That was not something Zero was willing to bring upon his race.

    *SPLOOSH* *SPLASH* *GROWL* *ROAR*

    The sound of something breaking the surface of the water - along with the triumphant cries from different creatures, entered Zero¡¯s ears, and he sent a final glance to Chad before looking back at the sea, where he saw the various races of their foreign allies finally reaching the shore.

    As Chad had said earlier, their allies had arrived. And if he were to be honest, the sight was¡­ intimidating.

    The collective aura of the savage sea creatures were wild and oppressive, making them seem like they would lash out at any moment. And it wasn¡¯t just their aura either. Their large and ugly faces were filled with suppressed ravenous ferocity. Some of them even tossed from side to side as if they were a hiccup away from losing control and biting someone, and that was not something he wanted to see in his so-called allies.

    There were also the various land creatures standing on their backs, and many of them were in their Enlightened Forms and made no effort to hide their 4th Realm aura.

    And let¡¯s not forget the flying creatures above. He could already see the illustrious Dragon race from here, blanketing the sky with the distinctive aura that was unique to their race, and there was also a strange vast and silver cloud behind them that looked like a collection of¡­ insects?

    Why were there insects here?

    Nevertheless, this was the biggest gathering of powerful figures he had ever seen, and it was slightly overwhelming. There had to be tens of thousands of creatures and he couldn¡¯t see the end of them. Their aura meshed together to create a chaotic symphony that made his heart beat faster, and he couldn¡¯t help but think that something huge was about to happen, which put him on edge.

    *RUMBLLLLE*

    Zero¡¯s feathers and hair stood on end as he heard the sound of thunder tear through the sky.

    ¡®And so it begins¡­¡¯ He thought helplessly.

 Ch.289 My Brother in the Moon!

    For a moment there was silence as everyone gazed up at the sky. Even the restless sea creatures had paused, and the only thing you could hear was the crashing sound of waves and the relentless beat of the rain.

    The storm had officially started. Not everybody knew what that meant, but that did not stop them from feeling the change in the atmosphere. That did not stop them from feeling as if they were in deep, inescapable trouble.

    However, a moment later there was an explosion of water as a huge creature broke through the surface of the sea.

    The body was serpentine in nature and mostly silver in colour, with the main exception being the strange white patterns decorating the surface of the body. However, this being was definitely not a snake.

    First of all, the shape of the body was very thick towards the head and slimmed down towards the tail. Second of all, the head itself was very uniquely shaped and had a very wide jaw filled with sharp teeth. Lastly, running up the sides of the creature¡¯s body were many legs that were reminiscent of a centipede, only they were much thicker and much sharper.

    The creature was a Beast, a Sea Beast, going by its aura, and it was very powerful. Some people could detect that it was only in the 4th Stage of the 4th Realm, but none of them doubted that its true power was above that. The power of the Laws that revolved around it was just that noticeable.

    However, to a few people here, they could see more than that.

    Zero¡¯s eyes widened when he identified the Moon Laws. He had slightly sensed it before, but he had denied the possibility. The ethereal Laws of the Moon was not something that the lowly simpletons that walked this land could comprehend. And by ¡®this land¡¯ he meant everybody. Land dweller, sea dweller, sky dweller, everybody that was not blessed by the Moon was unworthy of its Laws.

    So to see this unknown sea creature emitting Moon Laws that were even purer than his own was like a strike to the face. He had not been this shocked in a long time and for a moment he just stood there dumbfounded.

    But then the huge creature began to shrink as it shifted into its Enlightened Form.

    Zero watched with widened eyes as the previously metallic-looking creature became a 2.5 metre tall humanoid male made of flesh and blood. It was a very tall height as far as humanoids went, not quite comparable to Isgard¡¯s 3 metres, but still taller than most. His other features consisted of pale skin, wild and long white hair that fell to his back, and silver eyes that held a tinge of blue.

    If it weren¡¯t for the 4 insect legs sticking out of his back, or the carapace that covered his lower arms and lower legs, then it would have been very easy to mistake him for a member of the Serene Moon Owl race.

    However, even with the clear signs that showed that the man was definitely a foreigner, Zero couldn¡¯t help but find him familiar. It was as if they were really kin, but that was obviously impossible. It was probably the Laws of the Moon that they both shared that was giving that feeling.

    Upon landing on his 2 feet, the man looked around with a reserved but proud smile. He didn¡¯t hesitate to hold eye contact with the rulers like Chad and Pharaoh and wasn¡¯t fazed by them at all, but when he finally looked at Zero, his eyes eyebrows rose up and his smile broke into a grin.

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    ¡°My brother in the Moon¡± He spoke out joyously. He then walked forward and spread his arms as if he were going to hug him, but Zero stepped backwards.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± Zero asked. Although he didn¡¯t detect any harmful intent, and he even felt some affinity with the strange creature, there was no way he was going to let such a dangerous stranger - or even a weak stranger, get so close to him.

    Those terrifically sharp appendages growing from the man¡¯s back only made him more wary, so he ignored his body¡¯s lack of response to the threat and kept a distance.

    ¡°Haah¡­¡± The man sighed and dropped his arms. Then he looked up to the sky with the most forlorn expression Zero had ever seen.

    ¡°Oh what a great tragedy~¡± He spoke as¡­ tears began to fall out of his eyes. No, it was raining, surely it was just rain and not actual tears. ¡°I have finally found a fellow brother in the Moon, a fellow Apostle, and yet¡­ and yet, he does not recognise me!¡±

    And he said it such a miserable way, you would have thought that he had just discovered his dead family.

    ¡°Apostle¡­?¡± Zero heard Pharaoh mutter, which echoed his own thoughts. Was this strange creature also an Apostle of the Moon Mother? If so then then it made sense, no, that was probably the only possibility. How else would someone else have greater comprehension in the Moon Laws than him, an Apostle of the Moon itself?

    Somebody suddenly coughed loudly.

    ¡°Zuko, it¡¯s good to see you.¡± Chad spoke with an awkward smile on his face. ¡°But please, tone down your¡­ emotions¡­ not everyone here is used to your¡­ behaviour.¡±

    In an instant, the strange sea creature who was apparently called Zuko, wiped away his sorrowful expression and let out a hearty laugh as if he was the happiest creature in the world. What was wrong with this Beast?

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much my dear fiery friend! We¡¯re up on the land, where it¡¯s¡­ admittedly not as bright as it usually is, but still, learn to have some fun! Besides, you successfully kept your big pile of flesh in line, so you have nothing to fret about.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Chad asked, flabbergasted.

    ¡°You know, that big fellow over there. If he had continued to belittle my brother in the Moon, I would have had to put a few holes in him.¡± Zuko replied with a cheery smile as he pointed at Isgard.

    Zero¡¯s eyebrows rose at that.

    Chad on the other hand frowned, and many other Phoenixes look the same way or angrier. Isgard however, looked sick. Was he scared?

    ¡°You may be a Kaiser, a Kaiser of the Sea even, but we¡¯re all allies here, Zuko. We all share the same foe and he¡¯s not here. So don¡¯t do anything you¡¯ll regret. Don¡¯t cross any lines.¡±

    ¡®He¡¯s the Kaiser?¡¯ Zero inwardly asked with surprise and greater interest. He was already aware that they would be travelling with a Sea Kaiser, but he hadn¡¯t known who the Kaiser was until now.

    ¡°Haaah?? What do you meannnn?¡± Zuko asked exaggeratedly. ¡°I know the golden ones of your kind can fix any holes that might find their way on to your bodies, very easily at that, so what lines would I be crossing? Besides, we may be allies, but my fellow brothers and sisters in the Moon will always come first, and you will do well to remember that.¡±

    Chad turned to look at Zero.

    ¡°I see.¡± An unidentifiable emotion appeared in his eyes but then he turned to Zuko, and then turned once again to look back at the giant silver cloud in the distance that was still approaching.

    ¡°However, you¡¯ve been very vague about this ¡®brother and sister in the moon¡¯ thing that you like to talk about. You said that Ziket over there is one of such people, and I understand that you all seem to have comprehended¡­¡± He paused and glanced back at Zero with narrowed eyes. ¡°The Moon Laws¡­¡± Clearly, he hadn¡¯t been aware that Zero had been one of them until now.

    ¡°But it seems to be more than that. You mentioned something about ¡®Apostle¡¯ earlier, can you explain that?¡±

    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think I will.¡± Zuko responded flatly. ¡°But on that topic¡± He spun around to face Zero. ¡°My dear brother, you¡¯ll soon meet our sister! Isn¡¯t that great?!¡±

 Ch.290 Aura

    ¡®This creature¡­¡¯ Zero felt the urge to roll his eyes for the first time in many years, not that it would be detectable considering their new all black design, but still. Zuko¡¯s constantly changing actions were exasperating.

    Nevertheless, he could not deny that he was interested in who this ¡®sister¡¯ was. Was she an Apostle as well? He knew that there were at least 6 Apostles since one of his titles was ¡®The 6th Apostle of the Moon¡¯, but he didn¡¯t know more than that. He didn¡¯t know who they were or even where they were.

    ¡°Who are you¡­¡± He was going to ask who Zuko was referring to, but then he began to feel a familiar sensation.

    It was the Laws of the Moon, coming from the direction of the silver cloud that was very close to arriving. In fact, it could no longer be called a silver cloud anymore because it was close enough that its identity as a swarm of silver-coloured wasps was fully exposed.

    However, before Zero could try to lock on just which one of them was the one with the Moon Laws, a heart stopping roar erupted from the sky.

    ¡°ROAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!¡±

    Zero¡¯s head snapped to its direction and saw the brilliant sight of a huge purple 4-legged Dragon roaring majestically as if to announce its arrival, however, he only admired the sight of the metallic-looking Beast for a little while before an even greater attraction not too far away caught his attention.

    It was a golden Dragon that was even bigger than the purple one. It swooped down with perfect and immaculate flying grace that he knew he could not match, and although it didn¡¯t make a menacing face, Zero could not help but feel that he was terribly outclassed.

    Just the unprecedented aura and demeanour were enough to show everyone the difference between that entity and everybody else. And they were found wanting.

    Normally, the thing referred to as ¡®aura¡¯ was usually a radiation of Mana released from the body. Most of the time it wasn¡¯t visible, but with a small bit of effort it could be.

    When it was visible it would usually look like a vapious coloured shroud that enveloped the body, with the colour being based on the primary Elemental Affinity of the user. The more power being used to show the aura, the bigger the size of the aura and the more potent the oppression it had on others. Another thing that affected aura was how intune you were with your Element. If your comprehension and affinity was high, the aura would directly resemble the element instead of being just a vapious shroud. A good example of this was the golden flames that would cover Chad whenever he released his aura.

    However, no matter how much power was put into the aura or how special the elemental affinity imprinted into it was, the aura would always give off the impression of ¡®Mana¡¯, which was Magical Energy from the atmosphere that had been refined many times within the body. Although potent things like Laws or even smaller things like emotions could muddy things a little, it would never not feel like Mana.

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    But the aura that the golden dragon was radiating¡­ did not feel like Mana.

    This just had to be the so-called goddess who wielded divine powers. Was the aura he was sensing powered by diving energy then? Was this the power of a god?

    Someone nudged him in the shoulder. ¡°She¡¯s pretty amazing right? That¡¯s Gaia from the Fortissimum Continent. She¡¯s said to be the goddess of creation who had been betrayed and almost killed. Now, she¡¯s making her way back up and slowly reclaiming her divinity with the help of her followers who call themselves the Divine Syndicate of Genesis, or just Genesis Syndicate.¡±

    Zero turned to glare at Zuko before taking a step back. When had the guy even gotten that close?

    ¡°But it¡¯s kind of weird don¡¯t you think? Someone with so much power fell to this extent but wasn¡¯t finished off. Moreover, she¡¯s climbing back up with mostly no competition. Shouldn¡¯t the person who betrayed her be making moves to prevent her from making a comeback? I know I would. Anyways, impressive as she is, goddess or not, she can¡¯t compare to the Moon Mother.¡±

    Zero took in the words, but he didn¡¯t have enough information to make a judgement, nor was he in the mood to think about something so potentially deep in this moment when there was so much going on. So he kept quiet. But he definitely agreed with the last statement. goddess or not, that dragon could not compare to the Moon. Nothing could.

    Just then, another roar erupted from the sky but this one sounded a little different.

    Zero looked up to see the other kind of Dragon.

    He had long known that the Dragon race had 2 kinds. The first kind had wings, a tail, and sharp slightly curved horns, and the second kind of Dragon was described to have a longer but thinner snake-like body but with 4 legs and the same kind of dragon head. However, this kind of dragon didn¡¯t have normal horns, instead they had something that looked like a mix between horns and antlers. The ¡®branches¡¯ didn¡¯t spread out as much as a normal pair of antlers, but they were much sharper.

    Looking now, he could indeed see that the descriptions were true. Even the fact that the second kind of dragon could fly without wings using the Wind Element was true. They were definitely flying and their speed wasn¡¯t bad at all. Even the way their snake-like bodies wiggled through the air was pretty aesthetic.

    But¡­

    Why was the fiery-looking one (the strongest he reckoned going by its aura and positioning) looking at the purple dragon from the first kind with such an aggressive look? Weren¡¯t they from the same race? Could the mutation of the second kind have caused a rift between them?

    ¡°ROAAAAARRRRRR!¡±

    The Purple Dragon seemed to be affronted and roared once more. Which¡­ ended up making the other group of Dragons roar back in fury, which¡­ ended up making the first group of Dragons roar too, which ended up in¡­

    ¡­What just happened?

    Were they seriously about to-

    ¡°Enough.¡± A calm but melodious voice boomed throughout the gathering, and Zero knew it had come from the golden dragon.

    But then in the next moment, a loud SPLOOSH sound broke out once more as a dark, large, 3-eyed Snake began to emerge from the water.

    Zero¡¯s eyes widened with shock as he watched the colossal sized head keep rising up and up and up as it rose up from the water. What kind of cultivation could push someone to that size?! Could this gigantic snake be in the 5th Realm?!

    And was it him or were all 3 of the Beast¡¯s eyes looking directly at Pharaoh?

 Ch.291 Living Warrior or Dead Sacrifice

    J?rma rose up above the sea with her eyes focused on the winged-man with a blazing 3rd eye. This close, she could tell that it was most definitely an Evil Eye. Her own Evil Eye was throbbing incessantly and sending hunger pangs throughout her mind that urged her to devour the man, or to be more specific his 3rd Eye. However, it wasn¡¯t nearly to the point that she could not control herself.

    It would be an interesting height of foolishness if she were to actually attack such an important ally, especially on such a perilous day like this where a storm was announcing the start of dark days. So she only stared at him for a little while before looking up at Gaia.

    ¡­

    Liyanda¡¯s heart beat rapidly within her chest as her muscles tensed up with the urge to flee or strike. It had been a while since she had felt such danger but facing the predatorial glare of such a terrifying beast, she couldn¡¯t help but freeze.

    She wasn¡¯t even the target of the 3-eyed scarlet glare, she was sure that the snake was looking at Pharaoh who was next to her. The strange reaction he had been having to the giant beast had only gotten worse the closer it got. And now, she could practically feel him vibrating through the weird link they themselves shared.

    In any case, there was no doubt now. This was definitely J?rma the Devourer, the Beast Empress from Fortissimum and ruler of the unique Snake species. It was called unique because the Snake race could only be found in the Fortissimum Continent. Most other species like the wolves or the eagles could be found in every land, but not the Snake or Dragon race (amongst a few others).

    J?rma was huge. Just the part of her body that was revealed above the water was already bigger than everyone else by multiple times. Apparently there were 2 other beings in Fortissimum that were of similar size but they were something called Celestial Beasts, which was something even greater than the Law Beasts. They had ridiculous colossal sizes and unparalleled might, along with runes on their body that not only enhanced their power and defence but also allowed them to absorb Magical Energy, but in exchange they could not shift into Enlightened Forms. They were in the 4th Realm but they were not Enlightened Beasts.

    But J?rma was not one of them. She was as big as the alleged Celestial Beasts but she had an Enlightened Form like an Enlightened Beast. Wasn¡¯t that unfair?

    Other than that, she had perfectly unblemished dark scales that looked very durable, an imposing hood that blocked out a good portion of the sky, and of course, the famous 3 crimson eyes.

    Even after J?rma looked away Liyanda was still reeling, and she could feel that Pharaoh wasn¡¯t doing any better.

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    ¡­

    Pharaoh struggled to focus through the uncanny feeling of danger that was hammering into his body. He hated the feeling. It was utterly humiliating. He has sworn to himself that he would never be prey to anyone else ever again but now, there was nothing that he could say to convince himself that he wasn¡¯t a tasty meal for the Devourer.

    From a distance his Eye had felt some excitement amongst the panic, giving him the illusion that he could possibly turn things around or utilise some sort of trick to snatch a victory, but smothered in the Devourers aura, there was nothing to be felt but imminent danger.

    It was all he could do to not revert back to his true form and brace himself for some sort of attack. Only his pride and his trust in the Heavenly Sun Flame was what allowed him to act like he was unfazed. Well¡­ He must admit that having Liyanda standing next to him wasn¡¯t bad either, but that was irrelevant.

    Whether it was the giant devourer or the golden goddess, neither of them could compare to the Heavenly Sun Flame. And as someone who had the essence of such a being flowing in his body, he had the courage to face anything, even if death was certain.

    ¡­

    Gaia continued to stare at the Dragons as they gradually calmed themselves down. It was only when things were mostly quiet, only when the few sounds that could be heard were the rush of waves, splatter of rain and rumble of thunder, that she turned her attention to the rest of the gathering.

    Today was a very important day and the path to success was very narrow. She could not allow any mistakes.

    She did not know why this World was so strange, but just as it was filled with many great opportunities that could not be found elsewhere, there were also many unprecedented horrors that one had to constantly watch out for.

    Moreover, the history of this World was so young and nobody had been taught about restraint. There were very few of the so-called unspoken rules here, and most people just did whatever they wanted. In a World like this, such a mentality could easily lead to calamity.

    Envy was the biggest example of this problem but he was far from being the only one.

    Usually, a society would learn their lesson by surviving tragedies and learning from history, but once again, there was little to no history here. Instead, there were many looming tragedies for the world to learn lessons from.

    For Gaia, reincarnating into an era like this in a World like this was both fortunate and unfortunate. She could obtain much in a time like this, like the godhood she had lucked upon, but it was also very, very dangerous. Even for an ex-immortal like her. This World was not to be underestimated. She had learnt that lesson many times and was unwilling to take another.

    For that reason, as she opened her mouth to speak, she made sure to use a few techniques that would either aid in charm or aid in mental suggestion. Moreover, she increased the power of her aura, letting the creatures below feel the might of her divinity.

    She wasn¡¯t willing to suffer a tragedy with these people just so that they could learn an important lesson. She wanted victory and needed these people here to achieve it. Technically, if everything went to plan they would all win, but whether they won as a living warrior or as a dead sacrifice was up to their own ability.

 Ch.292 Secrets of the Mind

    Eridel tossed a grape into his mouth as he watched Gaia¡¯s compelling speech below.

    As was becoming usual, he was lazily lying on a small floating cloud using his avatar. Only this time, the cloud was a moody grey colour and was even pouring down rain and hailstone. It would be highly suspicious if it were the usual pure white kind that he usually rode, when the surrounding weather was so dreadful.

    But the obvious tradeoff was that it wasn¡¯t as comfortable. He didn¡¯t feel the cold or the wetness since he didn¡¯t want to, but the sight and the smell left much to be desired.

    Believe it or not, but the current weather was not the doing of Eridel. Well, to be more accurate, it was not his intention. His body (which was of course the planet itself) was doing it without his conscious input. To put it simply, his body was sweating with nervousness. Most World¡¯s that had consciousness would display a unique phenomena when they were being threatened, and Eridel was currently being threatened with severe population loss.

    He knew very well how violent and ruthless things were going to become, and many lives will be forfeit. This was very bad for a World that had hopes of evolving. Evolution was their sole driving force and the only thing they cared about, so when that was threatened they could become very ¡®distressed¡¯.

    Eridel was very much sapient, unlike other Worlds that had consciousness, and could have stopped the physical displays of his instinctual ¡®distress¡¯ (the storm) with some effort, but he could not completely remove the distress itself despite the event that caused it (the approaching war) being in line with his plans.

    He could tell himself that ultimately this event would lead to greater evolution, but it was like someone who was unaccustomed to pain trying to convince themselves that technically, they could strengthen their bones by putting it through a cycle of destruction and restoration.

    It was a very uncomfortable feeling.

    Nevertheless, Eridel didn¡¯t let that instinctual discomfort affect his decision making. Thankfully, his Tier 2 Will Flame allowed him to hold firm in his decision and not waver. If it was back when it was Tier 1, who knew what kind of mess he would make.

    However, that was not to say that Eridel was completely immune to his planetary instincts. His thoughts were always dominated by dreams of evolution. Everything he did was for evolution. He now had a greater capacity to reject the ideas that were too dangerous (for example the time he flooded his Core with Primordial Essence and caused it to break), but he could not stop the onslaught of ideas that plagued him everyday.

    Do this to grow, do that to grow. Everyday.

    Only matters regarding his Soulmates could compare in intensity. Everything else was secondary, and although it might seem like the perfect mindset for a sapient World or even just a regular being that wanted to be as powerful as possible, and he certainly had no qualms about evolving, Eridel was more than just his planetary body. He was more.

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    He was Eridel Domicus. Prideful, Ruthless, Fearless, Defiant, Ambitious, Peerless. Those were just a few of the personality traits encoded onto his Will Flame. So you could imagine how he would feel to have his thoughts be helplessly dominated with desire, even if it was a good desire.

    Even a regular person would be upset about a few of their instinctual desires (whether they liked acting on them or not), let alone Eridel, because it was a very helpless and even a little humiliating situation. An example would be someone who loved sex but didn¡¯t like being horny all the time.

    When it came to the mind, Eridel had long come to the conclusion that the mind was either driven by the brain or the soul. A mind usually could not function with just 1, but it used only 1 most of the time regardless.

    If the Soul was stronger, it would be what was used to think. But if the body was stronger, it was the brain (which was riddled with instincts and desires) that would be used to think. Most people were in that latter category.

    In fact, on Eridius, everyone was in that latter category, including him to an extent. His ¡®brain¡¯ in this matter was his Core.

    Of course, he had some leeway over the situation because of his experience and most importantly affinity with the Soul, along with a high Soul Cultivation, all of which allowed him to be in the minute few that thought with both their brain and their soul. But this was still not an ideal situation. His Core came with outstanding computing power, but it also came with the aforementioned powerful instincts and desires.

    However, this was not to say that thinking with the brain was necessarily a bad thing.

    The ideal goal of all lifeforms regarding the mind would be to be born with a body more powerful than the soul and use the resulting instincts as crutches to navigate life, and also obtain a personality that had desires.

    It was after that they should seek becoming a being that could think with their soul, becoming free from the crude surging of desires that could affect decision making.

    On the other side, someone born with a soul more powerful than their body would not only be in the unfortunate situation of having to figure out everything by themselves, but they would also find it quite hard to desire anything. Even if things later changed and their body became more powerful, they would not experience much change personality-wise. As such, people like that were all aloof and uncaring.

    Eridel himself was in quite the troublesome situation. The bigger the body, the bigger the soul. It was an understandable and at the same time strange correspondence. A bigger soul came with both greater soul power and soul/mental essence, but it naturally made it quite hard to climb the stages of Soul Cultivation.

    On top of that, Eridel¡¯s Soul was of the Primordial kind, which made improving even slower.

    It was because of both of these factors that even after over 2000 years of endless Primordial Essence growth, he was still only in the 31st stage of Soul Cultivation.

    Not to matter though. Eridel had plans for everything including this, in fact it was already in motion. It was a highly dangerous and likely unprecedented plan, but only time would tell if he would succeed or fail.

    He would probably succeed. He was Eridel after all. There was no other entity like him.

    ¡°Ah, they¡¯re finally leaving. Let the show begin.¡± The grapes in Eridel¡¯s left hand warped into a box of popcorn and he chucked one of them into his mouth. The cloud he was riding began moving, slowly but surely following the terrifying army from above.

 Ch.293 Soulchild

    ¡°Hahahaha¡­¡± Deep laughter echoed throughout a cave illuminated in green light. The laughter was slow and heavy but undeniably filled with the ambience of elation. Like victory after a long and tiring battle.

    ¡°Success at last~¡± The being breathed, before laughing again. ¡°Now, I''d like to see just how those dreamers will deal with me.¡±

    The sound of wings flapping filled the cave before it gradually faded away along with the green light.

    ¡­

    Chad couldn¡¯t help but eye the silver feathered dark-eyed Owl to his left once again. There was something odd about Zero that he didn¡¯t like, something about the creature that made him feel repulsed.

    It was similar to the time he had first interacted with Ice Phoenixes, or any other type of ice beast for that matter, but much worse. He had long become used to interacting with ice affinity creatures, so the other owls with Zero didn¡¯t bother him much, but Zero himself?

    Disgusting.

    Something about Zero was very anathema to him, and it had something to do with those eyes.

    Back when Isgard was mocking Zero, rage had appeared on the Owl¡¯s face and something in his impossibly dark eyes had shifted, something inexplicable that caused a chill to spread down his spine.

    It was for that reason that he had called back Isgard, worried that one of his closest sons might somehow die. He wasn¡¯t a coward, but the last time he underestimated someone with strange eyes, he had been shocked silly by the sight of numerous Phoenixes spontaneously combusting in flames, blue flames at that and not the Icy flames of the Ice Phoenixes. Very quickly, they were reduced to ashes with some not even having time to cry out.

    It was a difficult feat to reduce an entire body to ashes with just the power of fire if you weren¡¯t given enough time, so to see the victims crumble into ashes in a matter of seconds had been too shocking. That, coupled with the fact that he could not for the life of him figure out how they had been hit without an actual attack, made him unable- no, refuse to react as the perpetrator flew away.

    Obviously, the perpetrator was Pharaoh, another strange entity that had risen to power out of nowhere.

    But at the very least, he had no instinctive hatred for the 3 eyed bird and they had even been able to come to an agreement later on. However with Zero, it felt like he was facing a threat. Not a big one since his own cultivation level and other accomplishments were not something the young Zero could compare to, but a threat nonetheless.

    He didn¡¯t like that feeling at all and he was most certainly not going to remain idle about it. In this world it was kill or be killed, and he was always the killer. He had a feeling that Zero would be a huge threat if he didn¡¯t put an early stop to him so that was exactly what he would do. For the safety of him, for the safety of his race, and for the safety for his pregnant Soulmate.

    Soulmate¡­

    Recently, he had received the news that his wife was pregnant. A pregnancy between a Fire Phoenix and Ice Phoenix was rare on its own, made even rarer by how few people engaged in cross-elemental mating, but it had rarely resulted in something special.

    There were 3 outcomes of the scenario. 1, the chick was born weaker than usual and had a single element. 2, the chick was born stronger than usual but still had a single element. And 3, the child was born with the ability to use both Hot and Cold flames.

    Obviously, the last one was very rare. Only 3 Phoenixes like that had been born and they were currently receiving the best nurturing and protection the Pure Society had to offer. They were special.

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    But the day Aliana had been impregnated, the feeling it had given him had been like nothing else. Every Beast father felt a connection with their child the moment they came into existence, and it was that bond that allowed them to send down life force if they wanted to. The bonds were never the same but they weren¡¯t much different, and they were all fleeting. Within the day the bond would disappear.

    Chad obviously had a lot of experience with this phenomenon but none of it had been comparable to what he had felt when he successfully impregnated Aliana.

    He had mated with Aliana many times, but not once did it result in pregnancy until now which had been frightening considering all the context. But it was when they were finally successful that he knew that he knew just why.

    His child was special, very special. From the very first moment he felt the ethereal bond, he knew intrinsically that his child would be even greater than those who were born with fire and ice. His child will be an icon of wonder and power with talent no one could compare to.

    Naturally, he was happy, but the event also raised questions. Just how did this happen? Why did it take so long? Just what was so unique about him and Aliana that it would cause this?

    Out of frustration at his annoying lack of knowledge, he chanced asking the System his questions. Unexpectedly it actually gave him an answer.

    Aliana was his Soulmate, and their child was their Soulchild.

    The System told him that creating a Soulchild had granted him and Aliana a higher permission level, which allowed him to access the information about both Soulmates and Soulchildren.

    Naturally, Chad wasn¡¯t going to waste away the new permission level and the System shortly explained what both the new terms were.

    Hearing the concise information made something that had been unsettled within him click. To be honest, for many years he had been paranoid. His relationship with Aliana - and Aliana herself, were too perfect. As such, there were many times that he thought he would suffer a tragic rude awakening like the time he was betrayed by his once ¡®honourable brother¡¯. The fact that she was that person¡¯s daughter obviously didn¡¯t help things.

    But the System finally confirmed that what he and Aliana had was truly magical. They were Soulmates, the most perfect coupling that could exist. They were meant for each other in every way and they would never betray one another. The euphoria he felt at that revelation was only trumped by the following news of his Soulchild.

    Essentially, a Soulchild was a perfect fusion of both parents, inheriting both of their powers and even fusing it into something new. The only downside about Soulchildren was that the chances of them being concepted was very low. Moreover, a Soulmate pairing could not create regular children. A mating between them could only result in a Soulchild or nothing.

    Well, not nothing. There was the harmonisation of their respective Elements that happened during their mating which increased their comprehensions of the Laws and that definitely not ¡®nothing¡¯, and of course, their was the profound pleasure of the act which also could never be described as ¡®nothing¡¯

    In any case, having heard about how truly important Aliana was to him, it went without saying that his mindset about things had changed. Aliana¡¯s wellbeing had always been amongst his greatest priorities, but after the conception of their Soulchild and the reveal that they were Soulmates, Aliana had become his greatest priority and obsession, heads and shoulders above everything else.

    All the anxiety that she might betray him vanished, all the worry that her connection to Envy might cause a tragedy to spring up vanished, all the thoughts about their difficulty to conceive a child meaning that they might not be compatible vanished. Aliana was well and truly his, and that knowledge gave him power.

    To protect his precious Soulmate, all threats must perish and Zero was just 1 of them. It wasn¡¯t like he didn¡¯t have sufficient reason either. Everybody knew about the hatred Zero had for the legendary races, especially the Vermillions, so from the beginning he was already someone you had to watch out for. Moreover, it was an irrefutable fact that Zero had killed many Phoenixes and even a few important ones not too long ago.

    Zero was undoubtedly an enemy that must be killed. But for now¡­ for now¡­ he was an ally. Only for now¡­

    =My Flame, we have arrived.= A beautiful voice entered his mind, melting his distress like fire on ice and bringing along warmth. He smiled in spite of the daunting news.

    =Indeed.= Chad replied as he eyed the shore of a new Continent, but most importantly the uncountable amount of green coloured creatures that he could feel the Killing Intent of from all the way over here.

    =Aliana, my Flame. I will protect you and our child. I promise it.=

    =Yes, yes~= The same beautiful voice replied but with a more amused tone to it. =And I will protect you also.=

    Chad chuckled out loud.

 Ch.294 What?!

    Titania was standing upon a huge 4th Realm Darkwhale. The Darkwhales were allegedly one of the largest sea creatures alive, and yet not only did they have black skin which provided them great camouflage in the depths of the Sea where they were usually found, but they also had an affinity with the Dark element which made their stealth even greater. What was even more unfair was that their elemental attacks were also hard to see in the Sea.

    A race like this had too many advantages in the depths of the sea and yet it was not their illustrious ruler Dakarn who became Kaiser¡­ It was Zuko.

    Titania shook her head at the thought of the impossibly talented creature and focused on the trouble ahead.

    Standing amongst the most powerful members of her race along with a few 4th Realm Beasts that were in their Enlightened Forms, she should have felt invincible. But as she continued to gaze at the countless creatures of envy waiting for her on the shore, her heart couldn¡¯t help but beat faster.

    Usually she was unfazed in front of the various troubles in Eridius, after all from the moment she was born she already knew that regardless of whatever she faced, she would always have an edge over others placed in the same situation.

    She was the progenitor of a powerful race, she had a connection with a unique World Tree, she was an Apostle of an even more unique Spring of Life, and she even had profound knowledge that only fell short in front of the Lady Spring and Creation goddess, not to mention her own talent and power. There were very few that could match her accomplishments and these were things that she had been born with or had acquired shortly after birth.

    It went without saying that her confidence only grew since then.

    And yet, even with all of that, even with a powerful army on her side, even with the stocks of Life Water granted by the Lady Spring that could bring someone back from the brink of death¡­ She was not eased at all.

    The aura of malice and destruction that was positively oozing off of the continent was just that threatening. Without a doubt, the upcoming battle was going to be the most dangerous fight of her life.

    Thankfully, it was not like they had come unprepared. The allied continents had planned vigorously for this war and thanks to Envy¡¯s shenanigans that caused trouble all over the place for the past 6 years, their initial arrogance and complacency had thoroughly disappeared. In fact, they had made a pointed effort to overestimate him just in case of any more surprises.

    For starters, instead of their initial idea to split their forces and attack all of the subsidiary territories conquered by Envy at the same time before going for the main target, they had decided to instead do an all out assault on Envy¡¯s main territory; the Corrupted Continent.

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    The Continent had been named simply but it was a fitting name nevertheless. Envy¡¯s ¡®influence¡¯ was a corruption to all things, and no one doubted that after all the years Envy had spent influencing this Continent that it was heavily corrupted.

    No one knew the true extent of the ¡®corruption¡¯, after all that would require searching deep within and that was just not something that scouts could do alone, but even a fool could tell that regardless of what state the continent was in before, even if it was filled with the most passionate of pacifists that would not harm a fly, that would not last long after Envy arrived.

    In any case, their plan to split up had changed after the allied leaders finally came to terms with how powerful Envy was. Actually, Titania, Gaia and a few others had always wanted to do one huge attack, but there were many who were greedy and didn¡¯t want to have to share the spoils of their battles. J?rma herself had even wanted to attack a large island dominated by the forces of Envy by herself which had naturally attracted either stupefied or disdainful looks.

    Thankfully, things had changed and instead of wasting time in the subsidiary territories, they were going to crush Envy before going on a large hunt to eradicate his remaining influence. It was a good plan, and it had the potential to be a monumental one if Envy didn¡¯t know that they were all coming in one go. But no one had ever had hopes of that happening.

    As expected, looking at the innumerable numbers ahead, it looked like Envy had also gathered most if not all of his forces to-

    ¡°ROOOOOOOAAARRRRRR!!!¡±

    Titania¡¯s heart lurched at the sound of a Beast roar. It was an age-old tradition amongst beasts and monsters in battle that if you needed to raise attention to something but didn¡¯t have time to get out the words for whatever reason, it was better to just roar and alert everyone.

    Titania didn¡¯t waste time in expanding her Spirit Sense into the Sea and soon caught sight of¡­ what were those?

    Surging towards them were the most ridiculous looking creatures that she had ever seen. They all had mismatching features such as a mix of scaled and furred limbs, or one reptilian eye and the other an amphibian one, and some even had random body extra body parts that didn¡¯t match their bodies, or even possessed 2 completely different heads. What was even stranger was that not one creature was identical to another.

    They shared the same disorderly nature of their makeup and a unified erratic aura which made them seem like they were of the same race, but how could that be?

    ¡°WE¡¯RE BEING ATTACKED! FIGHT!¡± Titania heard from someone on the far right. Going by the accent, it was someone from the Celestial Elephant Beastkin race.

    She could only stretch her Spirit Sense so far and she was currently focusing it in the front where the beast that had raised the call was. But just as she was moving it towards the right, she heard another shout.

    ¡°WE¡¯RE BEING ATTACKED FROM HERE TOO!¡± She heard from the far left. And then another shout.

    ¡°SOMETHING¡¯S COMING FROM BEHIND! WE¡¯RE SURROUNDED!¡±

    Titania¡¯s eyes widened and she instinctively started circulating her mana throughout her body, causing her all-white eyes to glow like stars as the strength in her muscles rose.

    They were surrounded! So quickly?! How?!

 Ch.295 Bloom

    It wasn¡¯t a surprise to see that Envy had prepared for their arrival. From the beginning they had been working with the information that Envy could communicate with his followers no matter how far apart they were, which was one of the reasons he had been able to cause so much trouble over the past 6 years despite never showing his face.

    So since they couldn¡¯t completely weed out the followers of Envy if they didn¡¯t reveal themselves, it was within their expectations that some of their plans would be exposed. That was why their most important plans were only known to the most trusted upper echelons and everyone else was only here to fight when they were told to fight, and retreat when they were told to retreat.

    They had already been expecting someone in their forces to reveal the moment of their arrival to Envy, and they had expected Envy to make appropriate plans. But this?

    How was it possible that they would be surrounded so quickly? Moreover even the back-route had been cut off despite them just coming from there. They had not seen a single sign of Envy¡¯s followers on the path here, so where had they sprouted from so suddenly? And what on Eridius were those malformed creatures?!

    Titania felt her skin crawl at the abnormality of it all, but it was not fear that she was feeling. As she said before, they had made sure to overestimate Envy¡¯s capabilities so that they could be ready for everything that might suddenly pop up. Even the possibility of Envy somehow obtaining one of those special Eyes that J?rma and Pharaoh had, had been accounted for.

    Being surrounded before they could even reach land was not ideal, but it was absolutely not something they could not deal with.

    They-

    Titania¡¯s eyes widened as she detected a dense amount of energy rushing to her head from her left.

    However, surprised as she was at the unexpected danger, she still managed to efficiently escape the blow by swiftly leaning backwards. It was not everyday that she encountered someone who was both capable and willing to fight her, but after nearly 200 years of experience her fighting instincts were very keen.

    A pale hand holding a wooden knife and covered in green aura swished past her face, and the meaning of what that meant shocked her so much that she missed the window to reorganise herself to face the next attack. Thanks to her unbalanced position and the short distance between her chest and the knife, it was now impossible to dodge and she had to block.

    She ignored the yelps of surprise from the people around her and swung her arms up to grab the wrist, halting its lethal action in an instant. Which again surprised her.

    Even with her mana already circulating through her body from her prior reaction to hearing they were surrounded, it shouldn¡¯t have been so easy to block an all out attack from such a compromised position. She wasn¡¯t expecting to suffer damage or anything like that but she was at least expecting the force to slam her own arms back onto her chest.

    However, that did not happen at all.

    Why was someone who was trying to kill her so weak? Frustration, confusion and anger rose to new heights within her heart but just as she was about to make her next act, the wrist she was gripping was suddenly yanked out of her hands as the traitor was dragged away.

    She righted herself quickly and turned to face her attacker, but it was her Spirit Sense that saw it first. The sight of Alan tossing a female brown haired Elf to her knees before pulling back both of her hands and stepping on her back. She was suppressed in an instant.

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    Titania¡¯s Spirit Sense had been stretched to its limits before and although that gave her a broader vision, it came at the cost of clarity. It was because of that that she hadn¡¯t immediately identified the traitor quickly enough in the brief less than 2 second altercation. But she could see everything now and the result had her mouth parting with shock.

    The fool was none other than Evelyn. One of the 3rd Realm Elves that had followed her to kill Envy.

    She was a child of the 3rd generation and although her talent was average when compared to her peers, maybe even slightly lower, she was very hard working and diligent. Furthermore she was an experienced warrior who used to work as a hunter in her earlier years and eventually reached the ranks of royal guard.

    The only thing she had that was lacking was talent and perhaps innate beauty, but not only was she at the peak of the 3rd Realm in Essence Refinement but she also had notable accomplishments in Anatomy Refinement, and as an Elf, she had always been beautiful even before the augments of Anatomy Refinement so that could not possibly be a problem.

    Climbing the stages of Anatomy Refinement required great will power and everyone knew that she had it in spades. She was a shining example of the Faerie Code that all Elven kind aspired to live by, and had never succumbed to any of the various pleasures that many of her generation had been distracted by.

    So how was it that her previously beautiful blue eyes were now an insidious, luminous green? How was it that her forehead now carried the disgusting Mark of Envy? How was it now that the previously honourable Elf that could be once seen practising fighting techniques early in the morning in order to raise her strength and protect the Elven race was now staring at her with¡­ twisted arrogance and vivid malice.

    ¡°How?¡± She whispered out loud.

    Evelyn stared at her for a pause¡­ before a grin slowly grew on her face. A shiver ran down Titania¡¯s spine at the sight. Seeing such a cruel expression of glee on a face that had always been stoic and calm made her feel repulsed. This was not the Evelyn that she knew at all.

    ¡°Oh Queen Titan- ack!¡±

    Evelyn had begun to speak when a pair of hands gripped her firmly by her head and violently twisted, rotating it by 180 degrees with a mighty crack. It was a move that could kill most species instantly, but not an Elf.

    She was still condemned to death, but the high quality vitality that ran through every Elf allowed them to delay death by a few seconds even if they were split in two so long as their brain was intact. From there, the only thing that could save them was water from the Spring of Life or something similar.

    Obviously, Evelyn would not be receiving such precious treatment, but instead of Evelyn being subdued with her life at its end, instead of her begging for forgiveness¡­ She began to laugh.

    A wet, ugly, broken¡­ laugh.

    ¡°My Queen¡­¡± Alan spoke out after a while, confusion and even horror apparent in his voice. It was him that had given Evelyn the killing blow, but if you were to compare both of their faces, it became difficult to tell just who was feeling victorious.

    With a quick check using her Spirit Sense, she could see that everyone else was also in disarray. But she could not have that. They had an important war to fight and they could not afford to be distracted or demotivated, so she reigned in her own turbulent emotions and began to speak. She even utilised the Laws of Sound for extra effect, but before she could get a single syllable out she was interrupted.

    ¡°KEON! YOU?! YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS! HOW?!¡± A familiar voice bellowed. It was her neighbour from the Dawn Forest, Raiko the Beast Emperor. She knew the name Keon too. Keon was the name of the Wolf King who was subordinated to him.

    But Raiko was not the only one who began yelling. Yells of rage, shock, and despair began to ring out all over the place, and amongst them were horrid screeches and roars that she could scarcely identify. The chaotic symphony, coupled with the glaring fact that they had yet to even reach land, made fear finally bloom in her heart.

    All the while, Evelyn continued to laugh and she didn¡¯t stop until death finally claimed her.

 Ch.296 Betrayal

    ¡°KEON! YOU?! YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS! HOW?!¡± Raiko bellowed, in fact he practically howled that last word.

    He could not believe what he was looking at. Keon, one of his closest friends and a trusted advisor, a Beast of honour, intelligence, strength and sheer will, someone who had fought with him on innumerable occasions and laughed with him as well¡­ was now looking at him with glowing green eyes and the mark of Envy upon his head, laughing boisterously with elation as if he was having the time of his life.

    His previously grey-coloured wind elemental aura was now flaring to new heights with a new green shade. But more astonishing was that parts of his fur were also turning the same colour.

    Keon the Unrelenting Whirlwind¡­ was becoming a Creature in Green. A Creature in Green, also known as an Avatar of Envy, was the state that a being reached when their affinity with Envy Essence reached a certain threshold. At that threshold, the filthy Envy Essence would no longer just augment mana and soul, it would also begin to affect the flesh and blood.

    Raiko hated to admit it but he would be a fool to not acknowledge that the very Envy Essence that he hated so much came with very alluring powers.

    It was undoubtedly that reason that Keon was laughing so much now, gleeful about the fact that the strength he had apparently been suppressing could now be unleashed.

    But this was why this was all so baffling to Raiko. Keon had not shown the slightest sign of deviation in his actions that would make any of this seem plausible. Ever since the wolf had submitted to him all those years ago, he had remained honest and loyal all this time. In fact, the nature of Envy was almost opposite to Keon¡¯s character.

    The loyal wolf was nothing like the envious phoenix who had viciously violated his own brother for the sake of power. And yet, contrary to common sense, it was this same wolf who was growing bigger as his nails and patches of fur turned green.

    *HOOOOOOOOOOWLL*

    In an unmistakable act of provocation and arrogance, Keon lifted his head to howl to the sky, loudly at that, and yet, Raiko still stood there stunned. Even when others around him began to move to attack the familiar yet unrecognisable wolf, he, for a moment, did not know what to do.

    As scenes of the past flicked through his mind, all contradicting the reality before him, he felt¡­ lost.

    ¡°How is this even remotely possible?¡± He murmured.

    ¡°BROTHER RAIKO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DO NOT FALTER!! FIGHT!!!¡± A voice roared from the sky.

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    Raiko¡¯s head snapped up and he caught the sight of a ginormous red Divine Dragon. It was Drako. He couldn¡¯t help but freeze as he stared at his best friend, fearing for the worst even if the likelihood of the worst was practically zero. Keon becoming an Avatar of Envy should have also been a nigh zero possibility, but the wild growls that signified a ferocious fight proved otherwise.

    Looking at the Dragon, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Raiko who was always butting heads with this best friend of his, felt that the red scales that Drako was so proud of, were indeed, perhaps, one of the most beautiful things in this world as he always liked to brag.

    No green, just red and orange.

    ¡°Haha¡­¡± He chuckled lightly for a moment as he placed a hand over his eyes, feeling slightly dizzy as all sorts of emotions ran through him. However, key among them was a climbing embarrassment. This was the most disgraceful moment of his life- oh wait, nevermind. This was the second, no third most disgraceful moment of his life. The time he and Drako met Dodo the Guardian would always-

    ¡°BAH!¡± Raiko spat as he swiped his hands through the air.

    ¡®What am I doing!¡¯ He chided himself, however he still did not jump into action. He looked up at Drako with a grateful look in his eyes, planning to thank him, but something happened and the words that came out were.

    ¡°WHO DID YOU SAY WAS FALTERING? WERE YOU REFERRING TO ME, THE INVINCIBLE, UNMATCHED, AND BEAUTIFUL EMPEROR RAIKO¡­?! HOLD ON THERE!¡±

    He swivelled around and leapt at Keon with his 2 hands positioned to slash and maim, all his previous reservations and confusion gone.

    The only things he felt now were a burning need to exact vengeance, a yearning need to wipe away the embarrassment of his folly, a great deal of gratitude to Drako, and perhaps¡­ a little bit of sorrow for what he was about to do.

    ¡­

    The war broke out in full force on a scale that was already rivalling the worst ones in history. The 2 sides had yet to completely reach each other and yet it was already in this state.

    All sorts of people were revealing themselves to be unexpectedly related to Envy, and some of them had even been victorious in their assassinations. But the most vicious fights were taking place in the sea where the allied forces were clashing with the malformed creatures that had randomly built bodies.

    ¡°Chimeras¡­¡± Eridel whispered under his breath as he caressed his chin.

    Back when he had been experimenting with the creation of an uncontrolled Hybrid system, he had decided to tweak a few of the species amongst the Monster Race, giving them a unique factor that allowed them to breed with other species and create hybrid offspring. He simply named them ¡®Breeders¡¯.

    There was some success. They did as he wished and created hybrid offspring, although at a low quality where the offspring was mostly of one race with only a few features of the other (unlike the perfect Soulchildren), however, when those offspring grew up and started creating offspring of their own, problems began to emerge that only became more and more prominent each generation.

    These malformed creatures that were fighting against the allied forces were the result.

 Ch.297 Chimeras

    It was a mistake on his part of course. Although he wasn¡¯t expecting the experimental hybrids to actually obtain a complete gene fusion (making them something more like half bloods of 2 species rather than a complete new species), it was somewhat beyond his expectations that this very weakness would lead to a series of mutations that would turn them into chimera.

    As descendants of Breeders, they were naturally Breeders as well. This allowed them to mate with other races and make ¡®hybrids¡¯ of their own. This was not something that Eridel had overlooked.

    Back then, his Will Flame was only Tier 1, which meant that he was subject to any sort of whim that was synonymous with evolution thanks to his planetary instincts, and it was so bad that he would even overlook things in a completely natural manner that he himself came up with reasons for. It was a little scary to think about actually. It made him wonder about what else he was ¡®naturally¡¯ making reasons for, as he unknowingly did the bidding of a force that wasn¡¯t truly his own Will.

    However, even with things as bad as they were back then, that did not mean that he was a buffoon. He had been driven to seek evolution in any way that he could and succeed at it, not fail. That would be counterproductive. So he had been aware of hybrids retaining their Breeder status and knew that it was a variable that was not fully accounted for. But that was why he called them an experiment rather than an actual attempt, it was obvious that there were things that he would not know and he was supposed to learn from any errors. And learn from it he did.

    But the magnitude of the price of ¡®failure¡¯ was very clearly what his planetary instincts had made him ignore. Back then he had thought to himself that any failure will likely result in either the birth of an Abomination, the birth of a crippled or even dead baby, or no birth at all.

    All three of those possibilities were things that he had accepted, and were still things that he could accept.

    He didn¡¯t like the concept of problematic births or Abominations, but it was a cost that he was willing to make for a greatest future, far more acceptable than condemning 4 entire Worlds to death in order to create 4 ¡®super soldiers¡¯, and that was not a decision that he had hesitated much to enact either, thanks to aforementioned reasons.

    In any case, with his inhibitions being next to nothing, he hadn¡¯t spent much time thinking about the errors. In his mind (back then) even the greatest error could be erased with time. Moreover, there was even the Eridius System. One of the features of the Eridius System was to prevent problems in their Hosts from occurring. And although he had known that it currently wasn¡¯t at the level where it could completely stop the emergence of Abominations and the like, he had been of the mind that situations like that were what would give the System experience and ultimately make it grow.

    And that had not been wrong. The System had learnt from the errors and had grown in capability, but damage had still been done.

    To keep things simple, whenever they bred with a different species, the resulting children would essentially just ¡®pick up another bloodline¡¯ and still not fuse it. They were in a miraculous yet detrimental state that allowed them to exist in a form where their various bloodlines didn¡¯t need to fuse, and this allowed them to obtain more bloodlines by breeding with other species.

    Alas, below the fabled Limitless Realm, all things had limits.

    When the hybrids (well, they were much more than hybrid or even tribrid at that point) began to hold too many bloodlines, the metaphorical thread that held everything together began to suffer. It caused them to mutate and produce deformities, making them become chimeras.

    This was already bad, but when this was coupled with their other issues which were their degraded mental states caused by conflicting instincts, and their stacked fertility capabilities that allowed them to breed like ants, began to cause a huge problem.

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    And as if it wasn¡¯t bad enough, when Envy found out about them he made the very obvious decision to make them a part of his forces, making them Creatures of Envy.

    ¡°Haah¡­¡± Eridel wiped a hand across his face and sighed.

    Being awakened, so to speak, he could look back on his past actions and recognise the many bouts of foolishness, but this one stood out quite a bit. Even just the simple act of conducting the experiment in a contained and controlled area before releasing it into the real world if it was successful and safe would have been enough to prevent any slight problem from becoming a big problem, but no, of course he didn¡¯t do that. Just the chance that they encountered something in the real world that caused them to unlock something great or unveil unique knowledge, was enough for him to become stupid again.

    Alas, there was no pill for regret.

    But he didn¡¯t need it. His past actions had been greatly influenced, and although there was still some influence even now he was in much a better situation. He would not be performing such exercises in stupidity ever again.

    He already had a plan to deal with the chimeras and it was safe to say that by the time this war was over, regardless of who won, the chimeras were guaranteed to never exist again.

    But on the topic of the war¡­

    Eridel had to admit that he felt a bit of pride when he looked at Envy¡¯s capabilities.

    The stunt he pulled with the traitors was pretty impressive. He made his more noticeable ¡®spies¡¯ go wild in their respective continents for the past 6 years, giving everyone the impression that the only people who could become Creatures of Envy were the people that weren¡¯t too important or lacked a strong will, only to give them a vicious surprise when some of the most trusted subordinates turned out to be Creatures of Envy.

    The truth behind that matter was quite an unfortunate one.

    The reason why a majority of these traitors were people that had previously shown honour, loyalty and selflessness, was precisely because of those 3 traits. Thinking to take a sharp risk for the greater good of their factions, they had secretly established connections with Envy in order to pretend to be a spy and learn his secrets.

    They did this secretly because thanks to previous attempts, they knew that Envy didn¡¯t respond to anyone who was clearly baiting him. Anyone who had made a deal with their ruler or coalition to try and make a connection with Envy had never obtained a response. Evidently, Envy had been aware.

    People like Keon looked at the chaos by Envy and could no longer sit back and watch Envy continue his dark deeds any longer without doing anything. So, in their restlessness and selflessness, they made the connection with Envy. The plan was to resist the compulsion and only pretend to be swayed, not actually become a Creature in Green.

    They had thought that since there were people who had resisted Envy in the past (especially when he first became the Sin of Envy) that they too could also resist, especially since most of them weren¡¯t actually envious beings. They didn¡¯t have an affinity with Envy Essence, unlike those of before. This gave them confidence.

    Unfortunately, they didn¡¯t know that they were like flies who had willingly flown into a spider web.

    Envy was much, much more capable than he used to be. At the point he had reached, affinity with Envy Essence no longer mattered. If he could form a connection with someone, he could use it to slowly corrupt that person over time. The only issue he faced was forming the connection in the first place.

    You can imagine how laughable it had been for prime specimens to reach out to him themselves. They tried to scam Envy but in the end they were the ones that got scammed.

    Not that any of them would think that.

    Eridel had no doubt that by now that they all thought that the moment they reached out to Envy was the greatest moment of their lives.

    ¡°Quite remarkable, if I do say so myself.¡± Eridel chuckled. ¡°I kind of feel like a proud father. This ¡®son¡¯ of mine may be of the detestable kind but he¡¯s quite good at what he does. He has amazing talent.¡±

    He conjured a bunch of grapes and tossed one into his mouth.

    ¡°Mmh.. Speaking of¡­ I¡¯ll think I¡¯ll go with that for the Divinity. It¡¯s not bad.¡±

 Ch.298 Ugly and Chaotic

    ¡°Hmph, that cat is way too arrogant for his own good. How dare he call himself invincible and unmatched when I, Divine Drako, exist?¡± Drako grumbled. But on the inside he was relieved to see his friend come back to himself. He had been a little shocked to see Raiko stand in a daze when danger was so close to him.

    Beasts had very keen fighting instincts and they would sometimes react to hostility before the thought of what to do even crossed their mind. So for Raiko to be in such a lost state was very worrying.

    However, although he didn¡¯t approve of it, it wasn¡¯t like he couldn¡¯t understand. He knew of Keon and they could even be considered friends, to an extent. Seeing such an honourable warrior become a Creature of Envy, an Avatar at that, was definitely surprising. It didn¡¯t even make sense unless the wolf had been hiding his true personality for over 100 years, which in itself was just as implausible.

    He could only imagine how horrible Raiko must have felt to see one of his closest subordinates betray him like that.

    He shook his head and focused his attention on the fight between Raiko and Keon. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the Avatars would always be useful, even if it was a lower grade Avatar like Keon (going by the amount of green features he had), so he didn¡¯t want to miss it.

    But as expected, the fight didn¡¯t last very long. From the beginning, Keon was not much different from his fellow Kings in terms of cultivation. Even if he became an Avatar of Envy and got his strength upgraded, he was still going against multiple people with similar or even higher cultivation.

    When the furious and embarrassed Raiko finally jumped in, planning to kill as fast as possible to regain his dignity as fast as possible, there was nothing Keon could do to resist anymore.

    Raiko was a Beast Emperor and although his Essence cultivation was very low compared to others of his rank, being only at Stage 1 of the 4th Realm, there was nobody that dared to look down on him because it was his Anatomy Refinement that was the true backbone of his strength.

    Last time Drako had heard, Raiko was in the 32 Stage of Anatomy Refinement. That was a number that could make even some of the toughest people flinch. Anatomy Refinement was a path of suffering and it only got worse the further you went. He could only guess how painful it was to progress in Anatomy Refinement after the 30th Stage because that was a pain that only Raiko knew about.

    As for him, he hadn¡¯t even reached the 10th Stage and was only at the 9th Stage. Anatomy Refinement was more painful for reptiles who had scales, and it was especially painful for the Dragon race because of their unique reverse scale.

    Because of this, he was much inferior to Raiko physically. On top of Raiko¡¯s Anatomy Refinement (and of course Essence Cultivation), he also had a special power that he was keeping secret that made every of his attacks very, very sharp, even if he was only hitting you with a blunt object like his tail. It went against common sense completely, but Raiko refused to open up about it and Drako refused to pry.

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    All he knew was that every attack from Raiko was a lethal threat and his scales would never save him if an attack landed.

    The only reason why he had confidence in beating Raiko in a fight was firstly because he could fly and use ranged attacks from a distance, and second because he not only had Mana that was powered by the Laws of Fire rather than Magical Energy (aka Law Mana) but he also had a powerful bloodline that enhanced his flame power.

    His fire power was something that everyone feared.

    And yet, not only had Raiko been able to close that gap with his Anatomy Refinement, the cat was actually so strange that he would sometimes request Drako to shower him in fire in order to progress his Anatomy Refinement.

    Raiko worked harder than anyone else, so much so that it was scary at times. And yet the Tiger was still so sociable and good with other people like those little ones of the younger generations. It was remarkable and Drako respected him a lot.

    However as he reached this point in thought he became a little confused. Although the extent of Raiko¡¯s Anatomy Refinement was hidden, his impressive might was still common knowledge to all. It wasn¡¯t something that Keon of all people could somehow not know, so why had the insolent wolf been so arrogant? Nothing about the entire situation made sense.

    What on Eridius was going on?

    ¡°T-they¡¯re coming!¡± somebody suddenly squawked.

    Draco knew that voice. It belonged to a famous blue-coloured Duck who looked as delicious as he was annoying, and he was very annoying. Alas, Drako could not eat his allies, especially not the very Duck who had gone to great lengths to reach the birdy continent and inform them all about Envy. That would be quite bad for his reputation, and his life.

    Looking down, he saw various deformed creatures lift into the air above the Corrupted Continent, flying towards them with obvious malicious intent.

    They were the same abnormal creatures that were harassing his allies below. Only, these versions had wings that were functional for flight, even if there wasn¡¯t a single pair that matched.

    Their flight was so ugly and chaotic you would think that they were flying for the first time. The only thing going for them was their erratic speed. Honestly, Drako didn¡¯t know how these weird creatures weren¡¯t Abominations. Their auras were so messy that it looked like they would slip into mana deviation in the next second, but they never did.

    Life was so weird sometimes.

    Nevertheless, creeped out as he was, it did nothing to quell his rising excitement. A grin spread across his reptilian lips that revealed his pointy fangs, and the growing flame beneath that was waiting to be unleashed.

    He may not be allowed to feast on the creatures corrupted by Envy if he wanted to avoid being corrupted himself, but he was perfectly content with indulging in his other favourite activity which was burning lives.

 Ch.299 Greater than Dragon

    But before Drako could show off his power, the strange creatures were suddenly bombarded by hundreds of silver beams that emerged from somewhere on his right. The attack was very quick and very insidious, targeting wings and causing many of the creatures to fall to the sea where they were very likely to die, and all of this happened in just a few seconds.

    ¡®So bizarre¡­¡¯ Drako pondered inwardly. He didn¡¯t need to use his Spirit Sense to figure out who the attackers were, it was undoubtedly the infamous Moonlit Wasps, a colony of insects that had appeared out of nowhere to take a spot at the top of the food chain.

    As usual, they were very quick to react when their Queen was in danger. They attacked before he could and took the spotlight.

    Drako would have snorted if there wasn¡¯t a very real chance that doing so would cause his attack to literally backfire. That would be bad. And embarrassing.

    In any case, since he couldn¡¯t claim the glory of being the first attacker anymore, he was going to go for the next best thing. The best attacker.

    He immediately sent more mana to his mouth, causing the flames gathered there to not only move more vigorously but also shine brighter. If he released the attack now, with how much mana he had put into it he would definitely cause a lot of damage, and he was just about to release it when he caught a hint of purple in his peripheral vision.

    He kept his head steady but looked to the left with his eyes, catching the sight of the Crystal Dragon King breathing out a torrent of purple-coloured flames on a group of the deformed creatures who had gotten close enough.

    And in typical fashion of the illustrious Dragon Breaths, it didn¡¯t just engulf that group, it had also covered a good portion of the sky.

    The attack was very impressive and caused quite a few charcoaled corpses to drop in droves, one of them even had the fading aura of an Enlightened Beast, even if only at the first stage.

    The Crystal Dragon King huffed out a cloud of smoke after the deed, looking unfazed and unbothered as if what he did was no biggy.

    It was cool. Impressive. Flashy even.

    Drako hated it.

    Nobody was allowed to be more flashy than him, especially not that purple stone lizard.

    He hesitated for a second before deciding to show one of his hidden cards. He ignored the attacks that both sides began to launch at each other and entered a state of absolute focus. In the short time, even if an attack was to reach him it was unlikely to be powerful enough, so he could afford this.

    Following that, not only did he send even more mana into his attack, he also decided to utilise his Bloodline power.

    This turned the [Fire Breath] he was initially going to use into something else.

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    You see, way before he had ever entered the 4th Realm and evolved again, he had been trying to figure out ways to use the Breath skills that the ¡®True Dragons¡¯ were famous for. Which is to say, when he had hijacked their genes with the [Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique], although it brought him a lot of goodies, the Breath ability was not included.

    Technically, most Beasts could breathe out their chosen element so long as their element wasn¡¯t something too strict and rigid, but none of those attacks were comparable to the Breath attacks of the True Dragons.

    Their Breath attacks not only had a much, much greater area of effect, but they were also much, much more destructive. They were so unique that they had entered a category of themselves, famously known as Dragon Breath. And this was the greatest reason for his decision to use the Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique on that Wind Supreme Dragon that day, abandoning his Snake roots.

    In the Snakes vs Dragons war back then, the Dragon Breaths had caused profound carnage, which, along with their prodigious defence, allowed them to be even in the war with the Snakes despite the ratio of Dragons to Snakes being something like 1:10.

    Obviously, he had dreamed about obtaining this powerful ability for himself when he successfully evolved into a snake-dragon hybrid at the 3rd Ream (even if the Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique had reset his cultivation), and yet, like a thunderous tail whip to the face, he eventually came to the realisation that he did not get the Dragon Breath.

    It was a tragedy. Moreover, he didn¡¯t even get the other target for his decision which was the wings. Which meant that he couldn¡¯t even fly for a while until he developed an alternative method using the Wind Element.

    He could only thank his ever-shifting luck that he chose the Wind Supreme instead of a different one.

    But moving on, as an ex-snake, he had been born with the ability to spray venom and he did not lose that when he became a Divine Dragon, despite the fact that his entire head had changed. But that was not what he wanted. He wanted the Dragon Breath.

    So he worked on his venom spray almost every day in the hopes of someday achieving his dreams, and eventually, he learned how to infuse flame mana into his venom, creating a fiery venom spray technique of sorts. But that was still far from what he wanted.

    Eventually he reached his limit when it came to venom spray techniques, and although he created something special, it was still not enough.

    So he went back to the basics. He started working on the good old gathering-mana-into-your mouth-and-releasing-it-into-a-breath technique, something that - once again - most Beasts could do. He kept working on it, going through various experiments that often ended up injuring him, sometimes severely.

    But his efforts were not for naught. At one point, he learnt how to combine his fiery venom spray with the fire breath. It did not increase the raw power, but it did increase the damage that it could cause. It gave the breath the ability to apply a burning venom to whatever it touched, making his attack extremely deadly even if you survived it.

    The amount of times he had heard of someone dying to this venom days after the attack had hit them was not small. There were even a couple times that his foes begged for the cure. Not that he had it.

    This technique was obviously special and would not have been possible without his previous proficiency in the more normal ¡®fiery venom spray¡¯. In a normal situation, he would have encountered the issue of his venom being evaporated by the fire itself. But he overcame that issue easily and created a truly powerful technique.

    But this was STILL not what he wanted. He wanted, much, much, much more. Something even greater than the Dragon Breath that he had been coveting.

    And eventually¡­ he got it.

    The technique that gave him the courage to call his race the Divine Dragons, greater than real Dragons.

 Ch.300 Divine Dragon

    Drako was naturally prideful and ambitious so it went without saying that he was willing to go to many lengths to obtain power, but by the time he had achieved his venomous flame breath, there were much more emotions involved than mere pride.

    For one, the Dragons had quickly found out that his hybrid race could not only not fly, but had also failed to obtain their Breath techniques. And as one would expect, he and his children had become a laughing stock that the Dragons would constantly harass.

    Resentment grew in his heart uncontrollably and at times he could not sleep because of it. He would sometimes think of the sounds of their rumbling laughter and beating wings and the frustration would cause him to roar out loudly with anger. In such moments, it was impossible to calm back down so he would get up to work on his obsession; his breath technique.

    Even when he eventually came up with his venomous flame and gave more than a few Dragons a rude awakening, they would still find the gall to laugh at him because of the still very visible difference in the scale and destruction of his breath technique when compared to theirs.

    Those lizards would even say that his smaller fire breath was a sign that he couldn¡¯t even compare to their females, saying that his ¡®hybrid race¡¯ was a mistake that had no ¡®masculine power¡¯. And although it still infuriated him, the first few times he heard them say that he had been confused by why they would specifically call him weaker than females as if it was something specifically embarrassing.

    It was common knowledge that males tended to have slightly bigger muscles and females had slightly better flexibility, but it was also common knowledge that in the presence of Mana, muscles and flexibility meant nothing. Someone in Stage 7 would not be able to best someone in stage 8 because of something as insignificant as those 2 things.

    The only time the physical body mattered in a fight was when Anatomy Refinement was involved, or when different species did battle. A fluffy rat and a scaled rhino would never be able to have a fair fight if they had the same exact cultivation level (unless you included bloodlines or laws). But a male scaled rhino and a female scaled rhino both had the same defensive measures, so the fight would come down to who had a better cultivation.

    As such, females were not inherently weaker than males. But the way the Dragons spoke you would think it was so. Of course, this was all before their goddess of creation had emerged and silenced all that talk, but still. Why had they ever even spoken like that in the first place?

    The first few times he had heard their comments, he would laugh to himself or amongst his friends and call them foolish because of their eccentric ideologies, but when even their females began to ridicule him, telling him to ¡®be a man!¡¯ as if he somehow wasn¡¯t one already, he began to suspect that he was missing out on something big and perhaps very humiliating.

    He didn¡¯t notice any signs that female Dragons were weaker than male Dragons - even if it was strange that they often had docile or coquettish personalities - but the more they abused his male identity and highlighted his inferiority to their females, the more he began to believe that female Dragons really were somehow weaker, and that it really was an embarrassment that his Fire Breath couldn¡¯t even compare to theirs.

    This only grew the more the Dragon race mocked him, so you could imagine how much he wanted to tear off their reverse scales and make them watch as he ate them with relish. But more than that, he wanted to prove them wrong. He wanted to show them that not only was he not inferior, but he was in fact superior to them! He wanted a Breath technique that would make THEIR breath technique look inferior!

    So he continued to work hard, even as countless people praised his venomous fire breath and his various children hounded him to teach them.

    It was around that time that Raiko came to him for his usual masochistic tendencies, also known as Anatomy Refinement practice. Raiko had heard about the news of his venomous fire breath and had bounded over to him excitedly, asking him for him to shower him in the Breath as if it wasn¡¯t something extremely lethal and was instead just a nourishment.

    With how tense and frustrated Drako had been, seeing that goofy face that had unwittingly mocked his power and dignity was enough to make him snap. It ended up in a serious fight that had led to both of them being severely injured.

    Of course, with how close they really were it went without saying that they made up at the end and even had a laugh, but the event had still caused his obsession to burn brighter than before. Perhaps too bright.

    Because all these events were what finally led to an unprecedented maniacal drive that broke his mind.

    A few days after that fight he left his territory without letting anyone know.

    In hindsight, it was indeed irresponsible for him to do that, but with how his mental state had been that day it was already fortunate that he did make the decision to find a location where he could not accidentally kill his family or allies. He had left to work on a dangerous idea that he had been priorly hesitating about, something that could potentially end up in a huge magical explosion and the loss of his life if things went wrong.

    It was his instincts for self-preservation that had prevented him from enacting it, but that day, all thoughts of hesitation had vanished. The only thing that had been in his mind were visions of a flame that destroyed everything in its path.

    He didn¡¯t even know how he reached the clearing he had found and that was how single-minded and insane he had been.

    He was so absent minded that if anyone was bold enough, they would have been able to walk right up to him and attack him for free, and he wouldn¡¯t have seen it coming. But they better be either durable or super fast because it was likely that his addled mind would finally sense them and detect them as some kind of training target.

    Or perhaps they would have just blown up with him, because the technique he began to employ was called elemental mixing.

    As the name suggested, it was the utilisation of 2 or more elements in a single magic act. It was an extremely dangerous practice that required a very high level of proficiency and practice, but how could anyone practise when failure was so dangerous?

    The worst case scenario wasn¡¯t even blowing up. There was even the chance of mana deviation that could lead to one mutating into an Abomination, bound to a life of never-ending torment.

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    There were only a few people who were lucky enough to be born with - or somehow obtain - an mixed elemental ability that was an innate skill, and that meant they didn¡¯t have to go through a process of trial and error, they just gained the ability completely for free.

    The difference between an Innate skill and a technique was fairly obvious. An innate skill was a skill that you were born knowing how to use (or in the case that you obtained it from something like an evolution, knowledge was granted by the Eridius System).

    On the other hand, a technique was something that you developed by yourself or learnt from someone else. Most techniques took inspiration from already existing innate skills, but on occasion, some people would make their own technique from scratch.

    For example, Drako¡¯s venomous fire breath technique was inspired by his [Venom Spray], his [Flame Infused Venom] technique, and the [Fire Breath] technique. Essentially: An innate skill, a technique based on that innate skill, and an unrelated but already-existing low level technique.

    With that, he had formed a brand new technique that had astonishing effects.

    That was how techniques worked. But this meant that Drako was on his own if he wanted to mix elements.

    He had 2 elements, Fire and Wind. When he woke up after fusing with the Supreme Wind Dragon and found out that he didn¡¯t get a mixed element innate skill, it was just 1 more disappointment, not something he had thought about too much about because of the rarity of such a thing in the first place, along with his greater disappointment in more unexpected and pressing matters like his lack of wings.

    Of course, since that time the thought of elemental-mixing had naturally crossed his mind a few times, but he had never actually dared to try it because of how risky it had been

    But on that debilitated day, he genuinely lost all understanding of the concept known as ¡®risk¡¯. Even now he could not fully describe what state he had been in, because first of all his memory of that time wasn¡¯t even linear or complete. It was very, very strange. And second of all, the only thing that had gone through his mind were thoughts of an unmatched Fire Breath and how to achieve it.

    The only thing that he did know was that the abnormal mental state had given him an unprecedented level of comprehension.

    That, coupled with his own experience and a clawfull of luck, was probably why he was eventually able to grasp success and figure out how to infuse his wind mana into his venomous fire breath technique, creating something that he had called the Inferno Breath. The wind element and fire element had a devastating synergy that made their elemental mixing a terrifying sight to behold.

    With his unmatched comprehension in the Fire Laws, he had already known that air was an important component of natural fire, as such, he had already possessed suspicions about what the wind element could do to the fire element if they were used in conjunction, but he still held his doubts because it wasn¡¯t necessarily wind that was important, but instead a certain component that could often be found within it; something the System called Oxygen.

    He shouldn¡¯t have possessed the slightest doubt. The explanation by the System had actually ended up making him think that things were more complicated than they were. In reality, the more wind there was, the more oxygen there was. And the more oxygen there was, the more fire there was.

    As it turns out, wind had a great amplicative effect on fire, especially when magic is involved.

    The Inferno breath was comparable to a True Dragon¡¯s fire breath in scale, and was even more destructive. Furthermore it was a lot quicker. The colour of the flame was a bluish-violet, a rare phenomenon that displayed its enhanced oxygen and temperature, and it was a beautiful sight to behold.

    It was this breath that he had been planning to use against the malformed creatures, when he caught sight of the Crystal Dragon and decided to take things a step above¡­

    Yes. There was a step above. Drako wasn¡¯t done. Not at all.

    After all, a True Dragon could emulate what he did if they had the same elements as him and the talent to not kill themself in the process, and the result would be more startling than his with their natural Dragon Breath augment. The only thing that would be lacking would be the fiery venom, but in the grand scheme of things that was not something to be too impressed about.

    He wanted what he had been seeing in his visions. An almighty destructive flame that could erase Dragons and rearrange landscapes. And so, he continued to practise.

    He didn¡¯t know how long he searched for various ways, because like he said his recollection of the entire event was not linear or even complete, but eventually, he found it. The path forward.

    It came in the form of an Intent.

    In a mental state where pride didn¡¯t exist, he had become absolutely disinterested in the idea of his breath technique being bigger just so that it could be as big as or bigger than Dragon Breath. His desire for size only held on because the bigger the breath, the more enemies it could destroy.

    A bigger fire breath was a lot more useful than a smaller one of the same calibre, and that was obvious. But at some point in time, as he continued to manipulate wind and oxygen, an idea began to form in his mind.

    What would happen if all the oxygen that went into increasing width and height of the breath, was concentrated into a narrow column that was as fat as his mouth - something like a beam? Wouldn¡¯t the temperature be exponentially more deadly? He could feel it in his bones that it was so. So he tried to do it and he failed.

    No matter how he tried to manipulate his mana, nothing would give him the effect of a ¡®concentrated beam¡¯. But obviously, that didn¡¯t stop him, so once again time filled with maniacal pursuit began to pass.

    Until one day, he obtained a chance epiphany and his mind opened.

    The Intent of Compression.

    A power that could compress anything and enhance its effects, amongst other things. Understanding of its alien mysteries began to flow into his starved mind like water from the spring of life, along with a distant ¡®ding¡¯ sound which he would much later find out was a notification from the system. A congratulations.

    From there, he began to slowly implement his newly obtained intent, and finally¡­ finally, he obtained it. The ultimate breath technique.

    After using it once, he knew immediately that he had achieved it, especially when his mind began to return to normal and he began to take in the destroyed scenery. The previously healthy plains had completely blackened. Even though it was a scene out of a nightmare, he only felt joy. Joy, an actual emotion.

    This joy, along with other emotions like pride, swiftly bloomed within his heart like never before.

    ¡®I¡­ AM DRAKO, GREATER THAN TRUE DRAGONS! I AM¡­ I AM¡­¡¯ And he tried to think of a word that could describe the sheer level of ascendance and glory that he felt, but nothing in his vocabulary seemed accurate enough. But in that moment, as he looked at all the destruction he had caused, he began to truly, well and truly, think of himself as a being above all lifeforms. And so the word that eventually appeared in his mind was.

    ¡®DIVINE!¡¯

    ¡®...YES! I AM DIVINE!¡¯

    ¡®I AM THE DIVINE DRAGON!¡¯

    He felt unprecedented ecstasy, his brain blew up with the feeling of 1000 orgasms ¡®compressed¡¯ into 1, and he could no longer contain it within himself, so he tried to roar out loud to let the world know of his elation and triumph, to let the world know that their divine master had been born.

    But then he felt a savage pain course through his body.

    It was then that he discovered¡­ that he no longer had a face. It had been destroyed in his relentless training and he had been none the wiser.

    He was also dying.

 Ch.301 Breath of the Divine Dragon

    Back then, even with multiple senses indicating the same thing, Drako could not believe how damaged he was. He was practically falling apart, with his chest, throat and head being in the most critical situation.

    The only part of his body that had been relatively safe was the tip of his tail. Even his hind legs had suffered damage and that was saying something considering how far away it was from his mouth. It indicated that he had suffered from serious backfires that had ended up in explosions that engulfed his entire body.

    It was an extremely grievous situation that dragged his bloated ego all the way to the ground, replacing it with a sense of fear at his very mortal situation.

    He was dying.

    Once that thought rebounded through his mind a few times, his heart began pounding with alarm and adrenaline that gave him a queer burst of energy which he used to immediately take off into the air.

    Thankfully, he relied on mana rather than wings to fly, because with how haggard his body had been, if he needed to exert his exhausted body to use wings which would have undoubtedly been damaged as well, then he would have been finished.

    It had taken him a short while to recognise a location that he recognised, which he used to direct himself to the Dawn Forest. However, he did not go to his territory. Not only had his dwindling health told him that he did not have time for that, but he had also been worried of someone in his territory taking advantage of the situation.

    Everyone there was either his wife or descendant (The guards that had been sent to him when he used the Evolutionary Blood Beast Technique had returned to the Snake race¡¯s territory when he regained his cultivation), but even if they were his family, at the end of the day, they were still Beasts who would have a lot to gain if they could eat his body.

    Drako was not a progenitor, he was an Ancestor. He had no supernatural influence over his descendants like the Progenitors did, so he could not guarantee loyalty. Although he had not experienced issues with betrayal (this was before Envy emerged), the possibility still existed. If it manifested whilst he was a lunge away from death, it would be fatal. End of.

    That is why he did his best to suppress his presence as he flew to the Elven territory, with one very obvious goal in mind.

    Everything went without a hitch and he was able to bargain with the Titania for some Spring of Life water that healed him back to perfection, but that had been a very scary moment for him that he would never, ever forget.

    The feeling of his life hanging on the decisions of others was very hateful. If the Elves that had first caught sight of him had any nefarious intent, there would not be anything he would be able to do to save himself and he would not be alive to be reminiscing right now. Furthermore, the price he had paid for that water had not been small and it had caused him a lot of anguish.

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    But those days were over. In fact, that was many decades ago. Since then, not only had he encoded Laws of Fire, the Laws of Wind and the Intent of Compression into his Bloodline when he promoted to 4th Realm and obtained yet again another lucky evolution, creating a very powerful Bloodline that contained 2 Laws and an Intent that his descendants could inherit - He had also obtained other things that not even his best friend Raiko knew about.

    Drako was not just A Divine Dragon, he was THE Divine Dragon. Although he now knew what actual divinity was thanks to Gaia, that did not make him humble himself. The whole world laughed about the race that called themselves Divine without actually being Divine, but unlike the before, the mockery did not get to him anymore.

    Things were quite different.

    ¡­

    Drako¡¯s eyes which had been closed once again opened, but this time, the previously low glow of his golden eyes now shone so brightly that even those fighting within the sea caught the flash.

    [Breath of the Divine Dragon!]

    Drako released the Breath technique that he had spent decades mastering.

    ¡­

    [Crystal Dragon King POV]

    The Crystal Dragon King had been charging up another Dragon breath when a golden flash suddenly illuminated the murky grey skies.

    ¡®What is tha-¡¯ He was thinking as he instinctively spread out his Spirit Sense and turned his head, but then he came to a halt when he caught the sight of Drako.

    ¡®What..?¡¯ He was baffled. He had never seen that imposter like this before. What on Eridius did he-

    His thoughts cut off once more when his Spirit Sense finally reached Drako and came into contact with the indescribable profound usage of Laws and¡­ and an Intent?!

    His jaw dropped a little as he thou-

    BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

    All of a sudden, a pink stream of light burst out of Drako¡¯s mouth and slammed into a few of the malformed creatures, incinerating those who were too small enough into ashes and splitting those who were too big into 2 pieces. But it didn¡¯t end there.

    Drako turned his head and steered his attack to the right, making the beam-like flame swipe through them like a stick swiping through water, and without fail, anybody that came into contact with the attack perished.

    Drako continued to steer his attack in this manner, taking tens of lives by the second and there was nothing that the opposition could do to resist.

    ¡°What is the meaning of this¡­?¡± The Crystal Dragon King blurted out loud, too shocked to keep his composure. ¡°How is that fire? Why is it pink? Wait- could it be an Earth Flame? And WHY is it going on for so long?! What on Eridius is going on?!¡±

    Nobody answered his questions.

    He could only watch as Drako single-handley slaughtered all of the malformed creatures down to the last one, with perfect precision. Only then did Drako stop, putting an end to the domineering light, putting an end to the terrified sreeches, and putting an end to the harrowing sound of the attack itself, leaving the sky in complete silence.

 Ch.302 Judgement Day

    Blackened corpses eclipsed by ash, rain and hail fell from the sky like omens of death. It was a haunting sight that could make even the boldest people think thrice. Gaia included.

    She was already heavily revising what she knew about Drako. The technique he had used was a very intricate one that she had not expected to see for another 100 years, and that¡¯s with her taking the bizarreness of the Eridius World into consideration.

    Drako had utilised 2 Laws and an Intent for a single ability. This was something that only 6th Realmers dared to dabble in (save for the unique talents in the 5th Realm). Forget the dangers of failure, just the knowhow was already something that would have everyone in this world stumped because of their lack of knowledge and inheritance.

    Now she knew for certain that there was something abnormal about Drako¡¯s proficiency in Magic and Laws, especially when it came to fire.

    He had actually used a natural pink fire.

    Most mortals thought that blue was the hottest colour that natural fire could go, they were wrong. A few mortals thought that blue-violet was the hottest colour fire could go. They were wrong. Fewer thought that complete violet was the hottest colour that fire could go. They were all wrong.

    There were colours above that that could only be achieved with the eminence of magic, and that was what Drako had attained.

    Furthermore, it was very clear that he wielded the full benefits of a Law Beast who had Law Essence for Mana rather than Magical Energy. That was why he was able to keep such an exhausting attack going without running out of energy, which made him a terrifying foe for anyone if he ever became an enemy.

    Gaia had Divine Essence for Mana but unfortunately she didn¡¯t share the same extensive energy capacity as a Law Beast. But on the flip side, the magic she wielded was much more potent.

    She was not jealous of Drako, her power output was much higher than what he had displayed and her various techniques allowed her to be more versatile, but she was still astonished by his capabilities. If she hadn¡¯t become used to the irregularities in Eridius then she would have been deeply suspicious.

    After all, with the degree of mastery he had over his power, there was a good chance that he was a reincarnator, especially with how he had been hiding his true power all these years.

    But now, although she was still suspicious, it wasn¡¯t raising any real alarms. She found something to be suspicious about at least once a month in normal times, and was expecting that rate to increase to a few times a day in a special war time like this. Drako¡¯s matter was not outside of this expectation.

    Gaia let out a sigh before looking at the Cursed Continent¡¯s shore.

    The Creatures of Envy had a noticeable difference in mood. They were still glaring, but now a lot of them had their attention focused solely on Drako and wore uglier expressions on their faces.

    Gaia didn¡¯t think for a second that they were upset about the deaths of what were clearly their pawns. It was a lot more likely that their warped minds were making them feel very, very envious of Drako¡¯s capabilities. It didn¡¯t help that the Dragon himself was floating in the air unfazed, looking like what he did was nothing much.

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    Other people here were feeling awe and envy, talk less of the literal creatures of Envy. Gaia could see their many green eyes glowing brighter as the envious energy within them reacted to their emotions.

    It was something to slightly worry about since she wasn¡¯t aware of what such a situation could cause, but she wouldn¡¯t let it disrupt her. In any case, it was finally time for her to make a move.

    ¡°Well done, Drako. You did well, I¡¯m impressed.¡± Gaia spoke out, letting her voice reach far with a little mana manipulation.

    ¡°Thank you.¡± Draco replied simply.

    She didn¡¯t have any qualms about publicly praising the King of a race that was technically her own race¡¯s greatest rival. She was a bonafide goddess in all aspects apart from cultivation, an ex-immortal that had lived thousands of years, and finally, a woman who couldn''t care less about the petty reason for their fighting.

    Rather, she was more impressed by the special technique that caused the rivalry in the first place. The [Evolutionary Blood Technique] that every race apart from the Dragons seemed to be born with. Coming up with an excuse for that inexplicable reason so that the Dragon race could trust her had been a little annoying, and missing out on the technique itself had been even more so. However, she couldn¡¯t complain. The things that she herself had inherited were not at all lacking.

    She only felt that it was a little unfortunate that the technique was slowly disappearing. Apparently, subsequent generations were being born with less and less memories of the technique and were gradually forgetting how to use it perfectly, causing a rising chance of failure that led to even more deaths.

    Gaia inwardly shook her head.

    She flapped her wings hard and shot up higher until she was flying above all of her companions. Then with a bit of effort, she utilised her Laws of Creation and her relearned Laws of Illusion to create a giant image behind her.

    The image was a replica of her appearance, only it was much bigger, being about 1000 metres tall, and was half transparent. She could have made it fully corporeal and replicative of a real life form, but that was not her intent, nor was it wise for her to show all of her cards.

    The avatar shone with an imposing golden light and released a domineering aura that caused many to begin trembling. Even the rabid fighting in the sea slowed down.

    ¡°I am the goddess of Creation, Genesis Gaia!¡± The avatar spoke. Its voice, or rather her voice boomed across the entire continent and surrounding sea.

    ¡°Sinners of Envy, blights of Eridius, your end time has come. Let me tell you now that this is not a battle, this is not a war, this is not even a slaughter. What will happen today is your judgement. This is your judgement day and nothing in Eridius can save you. Come, step forward and be purified.¡±

    The giant avatar¡¯s eyes flooded with light and in the next instant, thousands of souls were dragged into a dream. It was the last dream they would ever have.

    ¡ª

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: According to science, violet coloured fire is the hottest known colour at about 3000 degrees fahrenheit. I¡¯ve noticed that the colour grades seem to follow the rainbow a little if you compare the 2 (with a couple exceptions).

    Fire from coldest to hottest: Red, orange, yellow, white, blue, indigo, violet.

    Rainbow: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

    I wonder if that means something. Anyways, I tried to use this theory to come up with a hotter colour than violet but violet is the last colour on a normal rainbow. So I had to be minutely creative and thought about the related pink. Well, technically, pink should be in the opposite direction if you want to be REALLY scientific, but not this time. This universe and our own don¡¯t follow all of the same physics.}

 Ch.303 Symbol

    ¡°Step forward and be purified¡±. Those were the last words Igorath heard before his surroundings disappeared and he was surrounded by endless white.

    ¡°What¡­ is this¡­¡± He whispered in shock as he looked all around him.

    Zeld was a member of the proud Minotaur race and he had been blessed by the Phoenix of Envy 11 years ago, his might was something that many envied but for him it was not enough. Above his head were the Avatars of Envy and that was a position he desperately wanted. The power they held made him shake with fear but it also made him seethe with rage.

    He was more worthy than many of them and it was plain for any to see. The fact that they had been graced by that power rather than him was a ridiculous insult. As a Minotaur, his strength could trample most of the other races in the same cultivation rank, so if he became an Avatar he would have been one of the greatest killers alive. And yet, despite this clear truth, the power of an Avatar had eluded him for a full 11 years. It was a disgrace.

    What was even more humiliating was that there were many creatures from inferior races that had become Avatars. In fact, the Avatar of Envy who was currently commanding him was a GOBLIN, the lowest of the low! What sense did that make?!

    He hated Zeld with a burning passion and there was nothing that he wanted more than to squash the ugly goblin beneath his hoof.

    Alas, before his awaited ascension, engaging Zeld in anything resembling violence was simply looking for death.

    But that did not mean there was nothing he could do. Other than raising his own strength, he had been having secret dealings with another Avatar called Undorath. Undorath was another Avatar of Envy and he allegedly had a slightly better similar assimilation level as Zeld, but more importantly, he was also a Minotaur.

    It was actually uncommon for races to still stick together after Envy took over everything - at least as far as he was aware - but a few of them did and the Minotaurs were one of them. However, they did it very secretly and he was starting to think that others did the same. In fact, Igorath himself had not known that the Minotaur race were still allied together until Undorath had first contacted him.

    Apparently, a Minotaur called Thundarack was their leader and it was he who had created the secret alliance. Igorath knew him very well. He was one 9th child of their race¡¯s Demon King and his prospects had been infamously pitiful, however, when the Phoenix of Envy appeared everything changed.

    No one knew what had happened to Thundarack because he had disappeared and many thought that he had died and become someone¡¯s prey. When a Monster kills you the only thing left of your body would be ashes, so when someone went missing, it was usually assumed that they had become just another pile of ashes amongst the hundreds of thousands that filled the continent.

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    But then in shocking fashion, Thundarack reappeared and in the same day killed his entire family, including his Demon King father. It was something that - at the time - made less sense than a Goblin becoming an Avatar.

    In any case, it was this stunning traitor that had decided to make a Minotaur alliance under the Phoenix of Envy, and Igorath had been surprised when he heard about it. He had never come into contact with Thundarack before but even he had heard of the various tales pertaining to that ruthless solitary creature. Who knew that such a being was making allies behind such a vicious exterior?

    Nevertheless, it was not something that he could deny, even if he wanted to.

    Undorath was one of Thundarack¡¯s subordinates and they had been planning on welcoming him into the fold because of his talent; Apparently that¡¯s what they did. They sought out promising Minotaurs to take into the group and helped them become Avatars of Envy. Their plan to help him supposedly had something to do with Zeld and Igorath was all too happy to comply.

    He had been dreaming about finally overcoming Zeld in this war and wiping away his shame, he hadn¡¯t even paid attention when the chimeras took flight as thoughts of his promising future filtered through his mind, but then all of a sudden a golden flash illuminated the sky and then a gigantic flying beast suddenly began erasing all of their chimeras with a single attack.

    And as if it wasn¡¯t shocking enough, an even more ridiculous beast that nearly covered the sky appeared and then there was another flash. Before he could react, he found himself in this¡­ place.

    What was the meaning of this?

    Nothing that had occurred for the last 5 minutes made sense. He felt like he was dreaming. Only in his dreams would he see ridiculous scenarios like this. But¡­ he was perfectly lucid. He had never once dreamed and knew that he was dreaming. What below Envy was going on?!

    ¡°Hey- Ah. I¡­ can really speak¡­ This is not a dream. What is-¡±

    *BUM!*

    Once again a golden light snatched his attention. He swiftly looked up and raised his arms to defend himself but all he saw was a giant floating symbol. It was golden¡­ in¡­ colour¡­ and¡­?

    ¡­Wh-..-at?

    I¡¯m¡­ di-...zzy¡­?

    Before he knew it everything went black.

    ¡­

    Zeld watched in shock as all of his subordinates simultaneously had their green eyes switch to gold as their facial expression fell slack.

    ¡°Wha- Urgh?!¡± A sudden pain struck his head and blurred his vision. He immediately leapt backwards and flared out his Spirit Sense to look for the attacker but found no such thing. That left only one possibility.

    He hurriedly looked up at the giant sky-covering phantom beast, but as soon as he locked as with it an even greater pain struck his head that caused him to flinch in pain and fall onto his bottom. This time his vision was more than just blurry, he was practically seeing everything in triple and his peripherals were darkening.

    He shut his eyes tightly to try and shake off the discomfort, but when he opened them again, all he could see was endless white.

    ¡°Redi¡­culous¡­¡±

 Ch.304 Affinity Creation

    Gaia watched apathetically as the souls of thousands of creatures dissipated into nothing. Their bodies lost the golden glow in their eyes and they all slumped to the ground at the same time, with only a few lasting a bit longer.

    That was the effect of a Soul Technique that she had created called [Eminence of the Creator]. In a World where most if not all people were clueless about Soul Cultivation, she was already heads and tails above the population, and that was without factoring in her Divinity. The only thing that stopped her from being unstoppable was her limited soul essence capacity and her fear of the unknown.

    This World was definitely under somebody''s control - most likely that Eridel fellow she had seen a couple times - and she didn¡¯t want to provoke him or them by abusing her Soul powers (or any other of her powers for that matter) to attempt World Domination.

    In fact, when she gained the System, the first message that it had sent to her was that it was a gift from the gods. It was a message that had been sent to everybody and it was one of reasons people didn¡¯t question her too much when she told them she was a god. They didn¡¯t know what gods were, but they knew that gods existed and that they were powerful.

    The downside was that they liked to ask her too many questions regarding the System, like ¡®why does it refuse to answer the more important questions¡¯. Those moments were quite annoying, but she would give a cryptic answer or a cryptic smile each time. Gradually, people stopped questioning her, realising that they wouldn''t get a straight answer.

    But on the topic of the gods creating the system, she had seen enough to realise that it was likely a myth. There were no signs of Divinity other than her own no matter where she travelled.

    However, the fact that the System had been granted by a powerful being or group of beings was definitely true.

    Anyways, reservations about provoking powerful people aside, it was a lot more dangerous to run out of soul essence than it was to run out of mana. Falling unconscious could be considered lucky. It was not something she was willing to rely on just yet.

    As for the giant avatar she created, that was something that she had made with a mixture of Creation and Illusion Laws and it was semi-real (once again by choice). The purpose of its existence had been to act as a conduit for her Soul Technique. Furthermore, not only was its prodigious size imposing, but it also gave the soul attack a lot more range.

    But what was truly special about all of this was her ability to use the Illusion Laws in the first place.

    In reality, it was almost impossible to use Magic or Laws of a specific kind if you didn¡¯t have the Affinity for it. Gaia had the Creation Affinity at 100% but that was the only Affinity she had. Even if she was talented, she did not have the capacity to obtain a new affinity the way The Crystal Dragon King did with his Metal Affinity. The Creation Affinity was just too heavy and occupied all the space.

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    So why was it that she could use the Illusion Laws?

    It all came down to one special reason, the primary reason she had traded the extremely powerful Destruction Laws for the innately somewhat ¡®weak¡¯ Creation Laws. And that was that if someone had 100% affinity with Creation and comprehended at least 5% of its Laws, then they would unlock the special ability to create an artificial Affinity for a different Element/Law, without having to worry about mental or physical burdens.

    Of course, she couldn¡¯t just create any Affinity, her ability to create an Affinity was heavily reliant on 3 things. First, the grade of its Element/Law. Second, her understanding of it. Third, her comprehension in the Laws of Creation.

    She could easily replicate the Affinity for Fire, but doing the same thing for Destruction just straight up wouldn¡¯t work. She wouldn¡¯t even get to the part where things became risky.

    To put things into perspective, it was like looking at a modern day door that didn¡¯t have a lock and knowing exactly how to open it, compared to looking at a futuristic high-spec door and not even knowing what to touch.

    Anyhow, creating an Affinity was a delicate, intricate and dangerous matter. It was not as simple as just meeting the requirements. In simple terms, it was similar to drawing a pattern onto her body, with success meaning a new Affinity and failure (even if it was a slight deviation) meaning big trouble. Forget Mana Deviation, she could even die.

    What¡¯s more was that regardless of how perfectly manufactured the Affinity she created was, it would always be temporary. At the end of the day, it was created by the utilisation of her Creation Laws and used Mana to maintain its existence. It would continuously drain said-mana for however long it was up.

    This was the reason it didn¡¯t put a burden on her (besides mana). It wasn¡¯t real. However, she had hopes that at a high level she could achieve some semblance of permanence.

    Gaia smiled slightly and dispersed both her avatar and Illusion Affinity. She then immediately expanded the range of her Spirit Sense, using the distraction caused by the image of the giant dragon bursting into light to be a little unscrupulous.

    Because of her relatively high soul cultivation stage along with her Divinity, she had a much greater spirit sense range than others. She was hesitant to exploit that fact before because it was dangerous, but now she was willing to take the chance.

    Her thousands of years of experience had taught her that one of the most common ways to fall into a vicious trap was to stretch your Spirit Sense into a location you shouldn¡¯t have.

    There were ways to target someone¡¯s Soul using their Spirit Sense and it wasn¡¯t always caused by a living being. It could be an Item or a natural resource, or something so high level that coming into contact with it using your spirituality could be lethal. One moment you were inspecting something interesting using your Spirit Sense, and the next moment you were flailing in agony as your Soul was corrupted.

    You could imagine how wary Gaia would be about stretching large amounts of her Spirit Sense into something that they called the Corrupted Continent, but she was willing to be a little bold, especially since this World was so young and didn¡¯t even have a single method to defend against Spirit Sense.

    Her greatest worry stemmed from coming into contact with nefarious objects or possible hidden reincarnators who might have special techniques, but those were very unlikely events.

    It was just as she was thinking that thought that her Spirit Sense came into contact with something that made her facial expression change greatly.

 Ch.305 Laws

    Gaia¡¯s Spirit Sense immediately picked up the change in the ambient Magical Energy. The abnormal soul attribute of this world¡¯s strangely golden coloured magical energy was still there, but the passiveness of the energy had changed. It was something different and noticeably more¡­ sinister. Furthermore, instead of gold it was red in colour.

    Neutral Magical Energy in other worlds was blue, but here it was gold and had an abnormal soul-feeling. It was because of that that she had thought that she was in a Sacred Land back when she first woke up, after all, only Sacred Lands had attributed Magical Energy that resulted in colour changes. But when she grew strong enough to travel freely, she discovered that there seemed to be no limit to this ¡®Sacred Land¡¯ and that it encapsulated pretty much everything, but how could that be?

    It was only later when the Dragon Mountain became a real Sacred Land that she realised that what she had been experiencing before was just the Eridius World¡¯s regular state. It was astonishing.

    Now again, she had discovered a new type of Magical Energy, but this once seemed to be greatly different to the Sacred Lands that she had discovered before.

    ¡®What kind of nefarious energy is this and why is it so¡­¡¯ Her thoughts trailed off as her frown deepened.

    ¡®Could this be a forbidden land?¡¯ Her heart skipped a beat at that possibility and she almost reactively retracted her Spirit Sense.

    A forbidden land was one of those strange hidden locations in the Eridius World that held profound and dangerous secrets that most people stayed away from. She speculated that they held highly unique treasures, but with her current strength she didn¡¯t dare to be greedy, the only thing she could do was plan future expeditions.

    Technically, every world would have dangerous and mysterious locations like this and they all had their own names, but here they were unanimously called the Forbidden Lands. This was because so long as a ruler was sane, they would forbid their factions from seeking death in these various lands of death.

    Till date, apart from J?rma, nobody had succeeded in benefiting from entering these hazardous lands and that was a dreadful statistic. So since nobody wanted to die and the Devourer was unwilling to share her experience and methods, everyone could only continue to pretend like those locations did not exist and avoid them, including Gaia.

    She had already tried to enter one of them once, thinking that her experience as an Immortal coupled with her various techniques and Divinity were enough to allow her to prosper where everyone else failed, but it had almost led to a tragedy. She almost died.

    As a result, she made sure to keep away from such things and postpone dealing with them for later. She did not let J?rma¡¯s success affect her pride either. That might have happened a few decades ago but as her Soul Cultivation increased, so did her control over her emotions. Sooner or later, she would return to her past self that could meditate in one position for hundreds of years and be indifferent to everything, or make deadly adventures into the abyss without any discomfort or fear, she certainly wouldn¡¯t be repeating the embarrassing incident in the past where she cried out to the Sigothia gods because of fear.

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    But at the moment, try as she might, she couldn¡¯t help feeling wary of this sinister crimson energy. What even was it?

    It wasn¡¯t based on an Element. She knew every Element in existence and could say for sure that this was not one of them, or even a fusion of them. She didn¡¯t think it was a Concept Law either. Conceptual Law was the name for the Tier 3 Laws, above Major Laws and Minor Laws.

    This tier was special because they didn¡¯t have an elemental version of themself. The Illusion Laws that she had used earlier were an example of this. There was no such thing as an Illusion Element, only Illusion Law.

    Concept Laws were too strange and powerful and they were rare to see naturally, so people with little understanding called them the power of abstract made reality, or concepts for short, and the name stuck.

    Tier 4 was called High Concept Law and they were basically the same thing but greater. They touched upon topics that could affect entire galaxies and that¡¯s where Creation and Destruction fell in. As for the Tiers above, she didn¡¯t know, but she knew that Fate Laws stood at the top, whatever that ¡®top¡¯ was.

    At any rate, she considered herself well-versed in the Tier 3 Conceptual Laws and this did not feel like any of them, but she could not be certain on this matter.

    Furthermore, even if this was a Sacred Land with its own unique energy, why was it so close to the shore? Sacred Lands were unique territories that had been slowly upgraded by powerful people or items. Such locations were usually deep within land, somewhere that was secure and profitable, not out here next to open sea.

    What kind of situation had she stumbled upon?

    ¡­

    [Deep within the Corrupted Continent]

    ¡°What was that¡­?¡± A hoarse voice spoke into the silence.

    Surrounded by eerie trees that had blood coloured leaves, a large group of humanoids gazed up at the murky grey sky with various troubled expressions on their faces that ranged from shock to fear.

    They almost all had red hair and red eyes, but they were not all of the same race. There seemed to be 2 races here. One of them had pale skin that was patterned with different amounts of red symbols, mostly on their legs, arms and chest. And the other didn¡¯t have any of those markings but they had large butterfly wings on their back that were a beautiful scarlet colour. Just one glance was enough to know that they were highly charged with Mana.

    The aura and thick scent of blood surrounded them like fog that would have made normal beings freeze in fear, and it was very obvious that these people were very dangerous.

    Clearly, this was the Red Devil race and the Blood Fae.

    However, it was this very daunting and scary group that were looking up at the sky with dumbfound expressions.

 Ch.306 He is the Leader

    Ch.306 He is the Leader

    <span style="font-weight:400">Sinbad remained silent. He could not answer the voiced question that they had all been thinking. He could not for the life of him fathom what that gigantic creature was. It was so enormous and brilliant that it made Envy look insignificant inparison. And what did it call itself? A goddess? Was it really one of those so-called gods that had gifted the Eridius System? Was that what they were? Was that what they looked like?

    <span style="font-weight:400">Sinbad¡¯s heart that usually beat only 10 beats per minute was now pumping furiously, reaching 120 beats per minute. It was slowpared to his fighting state, talk less of his desperation state, but it was still high enough to signify that his emotions had fallen out of his control. He was just that shocked.

    <span style="font-weight:400">The gods! He had once heard his mother mumble about them which led to him asking about them out of curiosity, but he could not get a real answer. His mother only told him that she didn¡¯t know but it was likely that the so-called ¡®Beyond¡¯ that that some of the Blood Fiends and Devils worshipped was one of them, or was on that level.

    <span style="font-weight:400">The whole Beyond rubbish sounded like nonsense to him since nobody could provide evidence for its existence, but he did believe that gods existed. And that was thanks to the System. He had asked it about the gods and had been met with silence, but where most would feel annoyed or even angry, he had felt chills run down his spine.

    <span style="font-weight:400">This was because he had long agoe to the realisation that the ever so hated asional silence from the system was actually an answer in itself. Regardless of the actual question, it was certain that the topic of the question existed. There was no need to be silent about nothing if it was so willing to answer pretty much anything else.

    <span style="font-weight:400">To put things into perspective, when he asked the System about the Beyond, it easily told him that it was the name of the entity that was worshipped by Blood Fiends and Devils. That of course made him surprised at first, but when he asked the System about its identity, purpose and location. He was answered with ¡®Ding! The System does not possess knowledge of this entity¡¯ 3 times.

    <span style="font-weight:400">This was different to the times he tried to ask simr questions about unaffiliated or distant people so it confused him. For example, if he tried to ask where Envy came from, the System would unhesitatingly tell him that he did not have the permission level to ask that question. (The ¡®permission level¡¯ is another one of those things that the System refused to talk about.)

    <span style="font-weight:400">In any case, when he finally decided to directly ask if the Beyond existed, the System replied that there were chances that it could, but that the System did not possess knowledge about the entity.

    <span style="font-weight:400">After a few more questions, Sinbad eventually came to the conclusion that the Beyond was indeed a fake.

    <span style="font-weight:400">But the gods¡­ They were definitely real. And apparently one of them was here to get rid of Envy. Excitement began to rise in his chest as he thought about that and it was about to show on his face. Ah- He couldn¡¯t allow that. He was the leader here and must always keep his cool.

    <span style="font-weight:400">He was the leader.

    <span style="font-weight:400">His mood began to descend as he thought about Envy and his various Avatars.

    <span style="font-weight:400">He was the leader.

    <span style="font-weight:400">His mood continued to descend as he thought about the agonised cries of his people.

    <span style="font-weight:400">He was the leader.

    <span style="font-weight:400">His mood reached rock bottom as he thought about his mother¡­

    <span style="font-weight:400">¡­He was the lea-

    <span style="font-weight:400">A hand fell onto his shoulder and squeezed.

    <span style="font-weight:400">Sinbad turned to look at the owner of the hand. It was a male who was tall but slightly shorter than him, he had rare ck coloured hair that was streaked with locks of purple and grey, a pair of electric purple eyes that were empty of emotion, a pair of wolf ears on the top his head along with a matching tail, sleeves of fur that covered his lower arms and lower legs, and finally, 4 purple coloured horns covered in lightning that decorated his head.

    <span style="font-weight:400">The mark of a Demon King.

    <span style="font-weight:400">The man was very handsome and would have been even more so if it wasn¡¯t for the abnormal wrinkles lining his eyes and cheeks. He looked¡­ old.

    <span style="font-weight:400">This was a highly rare phenomenon that Sinbad had seen only a handful of times. People could actually begin to die from growing too much. Their hair would slowly turn grey, they would develop wrinkles, they would lose their strength and speed, their minds would slow down and be listless, and sometimes they would even be smaller.

    <span style="font-weight:400">It didn¡¯t make sense to him at all. What kind of joke was it to die from growing too much? People were supposed to get bigger and stronger over the years, not suddenly decline for absolutely no reason.

    <span style="font-weight:400">Apparently that was what would happen to all people but it was only their Mana that was pushing back the ¡®deadline¡¯. The more you progressed in cultivation, the longer you could live before your body had enough. That alone was understandable; cultivation brought wonders to all things, living or not. However, what he didn¡¯t understand was why a body would suddenly decide to give up and die. It did not make the slightest bit of sense.

    <span style="font-weight:400">At one point Sinbad had thought that it was the people themselves who decided to initiate the dying process, after all, he had seen people kill themselves here in this Forest more than enough times. But that did not seem to be the case. A couple of those old people desperately wanted to live but they could not stop the¡­ inevitable. It was a scary conundrum.

    <span style="font-weight:400">But what troubled Sinbad with this man in particr was that this person was not supposed to look this old. He was in the 4th Realm and was very powerful. He had a lot of energy in his body¡­ even if it sometimes didn¡¯t seem like that. This man¡­

    <span style="font-weight:400">¡°This is our chance, boy. If you can¡¯t step up now I willpletely abandon you. I cannot wait any longer.¡±

    <span style="font-weight:400">Sinbad felt a familiar piercing pain in his chest but he was used to it by now and did not show any sign of it. He merely nodded before speaking.

    <span style="font-weight:400">¡°Yes¡­ you¡¯re right. It seems that someone powerful hase for Envy; We can use this opportunity to deal him a severe blow and perhaps¡­ perhaps even kill him.¡±

    <span style="font-weight:400">The man smiled then and let go of his shoulder, but said-smile did not reach his eyes. They were as emotionless as ever, if you didn¡¯t take the sudden eerie glow into consideration.

    <span style="font-weight:400">¡°Good, it seems like you''re still my pride and joy, my beautiful son. Come, let¡¯s go and avenge your mother.¡± His father Balik said, as he patted him on the back before walking away.

    <span style="font-weight:400">¡°Father¡­¡± Sinbad whispered.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Ch.307 Sinbad (1)

    The Federation of Blood and Hearts, or ¡®Blood Federation¡¯ for short, was the name of the coalition that served the Venerable Blood Tree.

    29 years ago (Year 149), the Beast of Envy appeared and began his unstoppable conquest. Sinbad had only been 16 at the time and news of what had been happening had been terrifying. The world as he knew it had undergone a huge upheaval and there was nothing he could do about it.

    Before then, although he had spent most of his time worrying about how he could avoid Ghost and secretly raise his strength, his life had been relatively peaceful. His 2 parents, Sindia and Balik, were respectively a Fiend Lord and Demon King. The duo were at the top of the food chain and most people avoided provoking them. Sinbad being their son enjoyed a great deal of protection.

    Ghost may have banned him from raising his cultivation but he was still able to entertain himself in more mundane ways. Life was dull, but it had been stable.

    With the arrival of Envy, all of that had changed. There was no longer any guarantee that he could live to see tomorrow - and being the young boy that he was, his rising anxiety had led to him momentarily losing control of his Mana.

    This wouldn¡¯t have been a problem if he were a Blood Fiend or Monster, but he was a Devil and such people weren''t supposed to have Mana in the first place.

    Regular Devils didn¡¯t have Mana Circuits or a Mana Core so how could they have Mana? They may have a strange strengthening system that improved their bodies the more blood they absorbed (similar but different to Anatomy Refinement), but they could not use Magic.

    Sinbad was different from them. He had Mana Circuits and something even greater than a Demon Nucleus so he could absorb ambient Magical Energy any way he wanted. This was not something Ghost knew about and was not something that he ever had intentions of letting the Progenitor know about if he could help it, so moments like that where he lost control of his Mana were very worrying for him and his parents.

    To be honest, the amount of Mana he had wielded had been so low that he hadn¡¯t even entered the 1st Stage of Cultivation. Such a thing was very hard to detect even when he flared up, but caution was a thousand times better than regret, especially when Ghost was involved.

    Sinbad was able to regain control of his Mana on his own, but to make sure that he fully calmed down and didn¡¯t have another accident, his parents finally revealed to him a plan that they had been harbouring for years. Their plan to escape.

    As was obvious, Sinbad was no longer in the Blood Fiend territory. Their plan to escape had received resounding success.

    Sinbad¡¯s parents had audaciously recruited Devils from both the Blood Fiend and Monster territories in secret.

    Sinbad was very aware of the fact that that left on their own, the Devil race had very cruel and insidious personalities that were very deserving of the torment they received on a daily basis. However, they were not foolish. Far from it. They were quite intelligent and that was even without receiving teaching.

    There was not a problem in recruiting such people if you wanted to collectively escape for a better future. The chances of betrayal still wouldn¡¯t be zero of course but Sinbad¡¯s parents took care of all the loose ends they could. The problem only came after you reached the destination. How do you take care of people who will want to kill you and each other? You don¡¯t.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    2 years after Envy¡¯s arrival (Year 151), Sinbad¡¯s family and the Devils had taken advantage of the storm caused by Envy to launch a vicious attack on both factions, following this they quickly escaped towards their already established goal: The Forest of Bloody Origin.

    According to his mother, this was the forest that the Blood Fiends had originated from, but unknowingly, something menacing had appeared in the Forest that changed its landscape into the crimson horror that it was today. The so-called ¡®Demonic Blood Tree¡¯. An expedition led by Ghost had almost resulted in a complete tragedy when they arrived here, and it was this dangerous place that his parents had led him and the Devils to for safety.

    It soon turned out that Sinbad¡¯s parents were intending to exterminate the Devils to offer them as sacrifices for the Tree that they were sure was intelligent. From the beginning, they had never planned on taking care of the heartless creatures known as the Devils.

    However, Sinbad had different ideas. The reason why he wasn¡¯t as vicious as other Devils was because of a Physique he possessed that had been inherited from his father, with some differences. His father¡¯s physique was called the Divine Demon Physique. It was something that all True Demon Kings had and was the reason that Monsters were able to establish a civilisation.

    His father had already shared with him the effects of his Physique and it went as followed:

    1) Divine IQ: Above mortal intelligence from birth.

    2) Divine Monster: Killing Essence you absorb will be automatically purified.

    3) Divine Presence: Everyone facing you will feel like you were an existence that came from above. Monsters will especially revere you and enemies will instinctively fear you, causing them to be unable to fight against you with their full power if they lack will power.

    4) Divine Ruler: Everyone that follows you will be influenced by your thoughts and decisions. If you want to be a good ruler you will have good subordinates, if you want to be an evil ruler you will have evil subordinates.

    5) Divine Demon: The stronger you are the more attractive you become. You will also obtain 2 curved horns on the sides of your head that are very attractive and at the same time very imposing to other Monsters. They are also great Mana Conduits.

    The horns will always be on the side of your head and will always curl upwards but the design of those horns will match your personality. As a result, if you experience any grand changes in personality, so will your horns.

    You will also obtain personalised Killing Essence/Demonic Energy, no longer will your Killing Essence/Demonic Energy be red in colour like other Monsters unless red is a colour that represents you.

    6) Divine Damnation: Shoot a condensed beam of Pure Killing Essence/Demonic Energy.

    ¡ª

    Apparently there was a 7th effect, but his father had always told him that he wasn¡¯t ready to hear about it yet. Somehow.

    In any case, the Divine Demon Physique was very powerful. But what had occupied his thoughts was the Divine Ruler effect. It was because of this that the True Demon Kings were able to establish nations that had rules and order.

    This was a deep secret that only a few people knew about, so when the True Demon Kings later fled or died in the war against Envy, everyone had been confused by why the new self-proclaimed Demon Kings were unable to control others in the same way. New ones kept rising and falling every month and only a few were powerful enough to forcefully hold their positions, but it was unlike the control that a True Demon King could hold.

    Why was this important to Sinbad? It was because it was this same impressive ¡®Divine Ruler effect¡¯ that Sinbad had inherited in his own physique. His father¡¯s Divine Ruler Effect only worked on other Monsters, but what about Sinbad¡¯s?

 Ch.308 Sinbad (2)

    Earth Grade | Arch Paragon Physique

    1) Arch Paragon IQ: Above mortal intelligence from birth.

    2) Arch Paragon Heart: A regular Paragon Devil is already blessed with the unique [Devil Heart], a miraculous fusion of the standard Mana Core, Demon Nucleus and Devil race genealogy. As an Arch Paragon, your Devil Heart is even greater.

    3) Arch Paragon Presence: Everyone facing you will feel like you were an existence that came from above. Devils will especially revere you and enemies will instinctively fear you, causing them to be unable to fight against you with their full power if they lack will power.

    4) Arch Paragon Influence: You inherit the influence of your Demon King parent and can now influence the personalities of your followers. If you are good natured, your followers will also become good natured. It works the opposite way as well. But where your parent¡¯s influence is restricted to those of the Monster Species, you can influence not only Monsters but Blood Fiends and Devils as well.

    5) Arch Paragon Horns: You inherit the Demon King Horns of your Demon King parent. They are not as flexible, but they have specialised effects unique to your race.

    They also have a unique charm to anyone with Blood Affinity and are great Mana conduits.

    6) Arch Paragon Overdrive: You can tap into your Blood Essence for greater strength. However, this can cause permanent losses in Blood Essence if you overuse it.

    7) Law Understanding: You have greater understanding towards Blood and Lightning Laws.

    ---

    These were the effects of Sinbad¡¯s own physique and it became quite obvious that he wasn¡¯t a regular Paragon Devil.

    Sinbad already knew that he was a Soulchild and that his parents were Soulmates. He was a ¡®perfect¡¯ devil that didn¡¯t have the weaknesses of a normal devil but had all the talents from his parents.

    Speaking of weaknesses, the reason why he wasn¡¯t as ruthless and cruel as a traditional devil was because he didn¡¯t inherit the corruption that came with killing essence and resentment. On one side, a devil has a Blood Fiend parent that usually drinks blood to cultivate, which comes with mental side effects that can be inherited. On the other side, they have a Monster parent that absorbs Killing Essence, which also comes with dark mental side effects if not purified.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

    Devils had no room to be anything but deranged with parents like that, and that was even without taking their ¡®defective hybrid¡¯ status into the equation.

    Luckily, a Paragon Devil would not inherit this mess. But if being a Soulchild of a Blood Fiend and a Monster was what qualified you to be a Paragon Devil, what would happen if the Monster parent was a True Demon King? Could such a Paragon be put on the same wavelength as the others?

    No.

    A True Demon King was an entity that was literally born to rule their species. Sinbad inherited this nature and became something that was a step above regular Paragon Devils. Officially his race was still just ¡®Paragon Devil¡¯, but if you were to look at his physique, it would be more accurate to call him an ¡®Arch Paragon Devil¡¯.

    Just 1 of his advantages was that whilst a Paragon Devil could actually develop mental issues down the line if they weren¡¯t careful with their cultivation, he would never have those issues because he had a superior Devil Heart.

    The only thing that was slightly unfortunate was that his physique wasn¡¯t a mutated one like his father¡¯s. A mutated physique could evolve (maybe even indefinitely) if it met the necessary requirements, and every True Demon King had this powerful physique.

    If it weren¡¯t for the stringent requirements for the physique to evolve, it would have been very unfair and that was coming from him. As it stands, a resource that could help a Divine Demon Physique evolve did not exist yet, at least in Eridius. That meant that for now, every Divine Demon would be stuck at Earth Grade.

    Sinbad couldn¡¯t complain though even if he didn¡¯t obtain this advantage, what he had already inherited was too much.

    Devils raised the strength of their bodies but it was not Anatomy Refinement. Sinbad wasn¡¯t the same in that regard, the blood he absorbed did not miraculously strengthen his body in the same way. However, what it did do was raise both his Anatomy and Essence cultivations at the same time. This was one of the features of his Devil Heart.

    Regular devils didn¡¯t have mana circuits or mana cores so they couldn¡¯t digest the magical essence needed to perform Anatomy Refinement, but that was not the same for a Paragon. They had access to Anatomy Refinement and that was simply better.

    Although the typical blood body strengthening that devils had was similar to Anatomy Refinement, at the end of the day it was more of an inferior imitation. Traditional Anatomy Refinement was a lot more painful but it was also a lot more efficient and most importantly didn¡¯t come with side effects.

    The ability to raise Anatomy and Essence in conjunction was just one of the features of his Devil Heart, something that later became enhanced when he met the Venerable Blood Tree.

    You see, when Sinbad¡¯s parents revealed their plan to kill and sacrifice all the devils that came with them, Sinbad did not adhere to them like he usually would. He had other ideas that had been brewing in his mind since the beginning, and that was to rule the devils and utilise his Arch Paragon Influence.

    Of course, the devils tried to run during these revelations but they were easily immobilised. In any case, Sinbad had negotiated with his parents on what to do with them because he had known in his heart that he was born to rule the devil race. His parents just had doubts even with knowledge of his physique because devils were just that unscrupulous, and they only became worse the further they went in their faulty strengthening system.

    Furthermore, their plan to obtain safety in the dangerous forest hinged on them offering sacrifices to what they had previously called the ¡®Demonic Blood Tree¡¯, so it wasn¡¯t just a bad idea to save the devils, it was actually foolish.

    But in the end, they decided to bring all the devils alive and try to strike a conversation as early as possible to avoid immediate confrontation, in which they would ask for terms for safety and offer the lives of only a few devils.

 Ch.309 Sinbad and Ikola

    Their plan succeeded, barely. At some point they were viciously attacked by the surrounding trees out of nowhere and a good few of the devils had died instantly, Sinbad himself would have shared the same fate if he wasn¡¯t protected. But they were able to quickly grab the attention of the tree by shouting out their proposition, putting a pause to the attacks.

    As planned, they offered the lives of some of the devils in exchange for safety within the forest and even suggested a time limit, and then they further offered to extend the limit by promising to bring more prey for the tree. Most creatures didn¡¯t approach this forest so it was probably something the tree would find useful.

    The tense moments that the Tree didn¡¯t respond were something Sinbad would never forget, but eventually, it did.

    DING!

    ¡¾SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT¡¿

    <You have been offered a Contract by the Blood Tree.>

    <The Blood Tree would like to make you an Apostle in exchange for eternal servitude, protection, and a copy of your memories. Do you agree?>

    That was the message that changed his life forever.

    ¡­

    ¡°Sinbad.¡± called out a gaudy voice.

    He turned to his right and looked at the tall and pale Blood Fae that had been his partner for several years now. 13 years ago, a branch of the Fae race led by this man had stumbled upon the Forest and he too had received the gift of Apostleship. His name was Ikola.

    Just like the devils under Sinbad that received a Bloodline from the Blood Tree, the Fae under Ikola also obtained a Bloodline. Now they were no longer regular devils or Fae, but instead Red devils and Blood Fae. This was the blessing of the Venerable Blood Tree.

    The name ¡®Demonic Blood Tree¡¯ had long been forsaken. Now it was called the Venerable by most, or ¡®The True Tree of Life¡¯ by some of the more passionate Fae like Ikola.

    Ikola himself had actually received a greater boon from his Apostleship that even Sinbad was jealous of. He had obtained the Blood Tree Apostle Physique, something that was at the heart-wrenching Heaven Grade.

    When the male had first arrived he had possessed tanned skin, shoulder length brown hair, grey eyes and a pair of blue-green wings. His forehead had also been quite large.

    But now, he had pale skin, back-length red hair, luminous red eyes, and was much taller than before. He was even taller than Sinbad, but not as muscular. He had a lanky build. His forehead¡­ was still large. Perhaps even larger.

    His wings had obviously changed as well, but the change was even greater than the other Fae. Not only were they larger than anyone else''s, but unlike the previous butterfly appearance that the other Fae had retained, his wings now took the appearance of that of a bird¡¯s, but instead of feathers there were red leaves. Furthermore, there were 2 pairs of the wings with the 2nd pair underneath being slightly smaller, but within both of them you could see something that looked like dark branches or vines.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    Sinbad probably would have received the same thing for becoming an Apostle but he already had a Physique and such things could not be changed. He reckoned it was like trying to swap out someone''s bones with another set. Technically it was probably possible, but expecting to survive it was a pipe dream.

    At least, Sinbad had received something in exchange. He didn¡¯t know it at the time but the increase to his cultivation from the Apostleship contract was a lot higher than it should have been. When Ikola had arrived, that had been made very clear.

    Still, Sinbad couldn¡¯t help but feel a little jealous. After all, not only were the wings extremely powerful, but they were a direct sign of how close one was to the Venerable. Sinbad was the leader of them all because of his superior cultivation, unique capabilities and status as the first Apostle, along with his experience. But it was truly Ikola who stood the closest to the Venerable.

    ¡°What?¡± He asked the male.

    Ikola flapped his wings once, his own version of a shrug but not one without boast. ¡°Your stress is showing, bloodren. I suggest you indulge in the dance of life before coming up with any plans.¡±

    He held his hands up as if he was grabbing onto something and began thrusting his hips.

    ¡°Like this, like this. I promise that you¡¯ll feel better before you know it.¡± His already flamboyant accent even more obnoxious than before. ¡°The dance of life is-¡±

    ¡°Get away from me before I cut off your penis you Beast. Do you not have any shame in shaking that thing around?¡± Sinbad huffed.

    ¡°Why should I be ashamed?¡± He asked as he began twisting his hips from left to right and back. ¡°Perhaps you may not see it but this is a grand treasure that has brought pleasure to many and life to quite a few. Even the Great Venerable of Life has given it a good rating! It is actually a great offense that you would call it a ¡®thing¡¯, bloodren, and I do not appreciate-¡±

    ¡°You stinking blood clot, you had sex with the Venerable?¡± Sinbad asked, his eyes widened.

    ¡°What?¡± Ikola paused, momentarily confused, but then realisation appeared on his face. ¡°Ah. No. We were sharing Krishna and she complimented my immaculate performance.¡± He said with a smug grin.

    Sinbad sideyed him. ¡°Both you and your sister are freaks. Us devils like to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh and you Fae have adopted that, but you and your sister¡­ Too much.¡±

    ¡°How rude. You sound like Aurin. Tch. If only you were more like the Venerable. She is the greatest dancer of this profound art and even I cannot hope to match her, and that is despite her only using one half of her prowess. Isn¡¯t she amazing?¡±

    ¡°Is blood red?¡± Sinbad deadpanned.

    ¡°Haha! You do crack me up, bloodren-¡±

    ¡°I do no such thing-¡±

    ¡°If only she could sire children. Haah¡­¡± Ikola sighed. ¡°Just imagine how precious the little ones would be. They would be like brilliant stars in the night sky!¡± He exclaimed as he gripped his arms in excitement. Then he froze.

    ¡°Hey, do you think that it could happen if she used her-¡±

    ¡°Forget it. If you really want to help her then prepare for battle. A chance like never before has appeared before us and we must grasp it tightly. When we achieve the freedom to walk out of this forest without worrying about death, we will have more opportunities to find a solution to the Venerable¡¯s dilemma.¡±

    ¡°Yes, yes, that. But also, she likes you very much. I¡¯m sure that if you tried then you could convince her to- hey, where are you going? Hey!¡±

    ¡ª

    {??????????????¡¯?? ????????: I¡¯ve come to the realisation that I spend too much time on flashbacks and the like and that it¡¯s affecting the pace of the story. This is something that I intend to rectify so please bear with this humble King. See you on the next one.}

 Ch.310 Tune of War

    In another part of the forest, there was a lake covered in lily pads and a bunch of blood-coloured flowers that glowed gently with essence. They were Grade 1 Magical Herbs that were only useful to beings in the 1st Realm of cultivation, so they weren¡¯t very valuable to the general denizens of this place, but it was because of that that they could exist here relatively undisturbed.

    Relatively.

    There was nothing that they could do about the rain and hail that seemed insistent on battering them to pieces. The lake splashed turbulently and noisily. It was a slightly chaotic scene, but it carried a wild sort of charm that seemed enhanced by the total absence of sapient life forms.

    However, this absence did not persist for very long.

    Just a few ticks later, a lone male walked into the clearing. As was common amongst talented cultivators and especially those from species like the devils, he was very good looking. Seduction and appeal could be considered a form of assault that lowered the guard of anyone that was allosexual, and it was built into the Enlightened Form of many of the monster races. Devils weren¡¯t exactly Monsters, but they had certainly inherited this nature.

    It was no different in this devil male, and in this case, he was actually a few steps above the norm.

    He had long black hair that flowed down his back with a few strands of red that glimmered even in the dark. He had hunter shaped eyes with irises that were a brilliant crimson. He had pale alabaster skin that were tattooed with the various red devil marks that were common to his race, with a rare couple that formed small streaks beneath his eyes. His height was around 190cm and his musculature was quintessential. Even the way he walked carried a masculine grace that made him seem ethereal.

    Objectively, he was perfect. But he was too perfect and it almost defeated the initial purpose of being attractive as a devil in the first place. It was easy to be attracted to this person. That remained of course. But under no circumstances would anyone be lowering their guard around this being.

    To put it into perspective, it was like comparing one abnormally giant star to the endless other ones in the night sky. Yes, the giant star was also a sight to behold. Even more so. But. That star was not normal, and there might be a deep meaning behind it.

    Those are actually thoughts that many people in this world used to have when they looked at the moon before the system appeared and answered most of their questions.

    This male carried a similar bizarreness to him that made him look¡­ abnormal. Out of place, somehow.

    He walked up to the lake before crouching down and reaching a hand in. A look of slight concentration appeared on his face, making it clear that he was trying to do something- but then he froze. A complete stillness took over his features in a way that was utterly uncanny. It was as if he had turned into a statue. But then slowly, very slowly, he looked towards his left.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    There, he found a figure covered in the purest white robes, actual clothes. It was another male who was¡­ perhaps more bizarre than him, and he had long white hair accompanied by luminescent golden eyes and a benign smile.

    ¡°Hello there, traveler.¡± The new male spoke. ¡°Care to have a chat?¡±

    ¡­

    [Corrupted Continent, Northern Shore]

    The war had finally reached the land and the immediate fighting that had commenced was so ferocious and lethal that it was incomparable. Every Beast had morphed into their true forms and their colossal figures clashed against each other in a flurry of claws, teeth, horns and magic.

    Roars, screeches, howls, all kinds of primal sounds that were filled with raw emotion flooded the entire shore. Rage, pride, glee, fear, pain, desperation. It mixed together to create a heart-lurching symphony of disaster that promised that lives were being lost.

    Blood sprayed into the air like confetti and various body parts could be seen flying from one place to another, sometimes you would even see an entire body catapulting through the air before it splattered across the floor as a bloody liquid mess They were the unfortunate ones that had come across foes that were too strong and too big to resist.

    But it wasn¡¯t just the unyielding earth that was causing bodies to blow apart. Sometimes, if the strength gap was too big, rather than being sent flying the victim would be directly obliterated by the strike. And that was concerning the close range physical matters like a swipe of someone¡¯s paw or tail.

    Other times, a magical attack of armageddon proportions would appear and if it wasn¡¯t defended against with equally magical means, an entire group of creatures would be reduced to cinders, shattered pieces of ice, or chopped up pieces of flesh.

    It was a very vicious situation, but the allied Continents were winning. At least on the surface.

    Most of the extreme casualties that were caused by a giant gap in cultivation were because of the fact that the Creatures of Envy had brought beings in the 2nd and even 1st Realm. Naturally, even if there were a great number of them, they were dying in droves, flattening into nutrients that were gradually changing the colour of the landscape.

    However, they were doing their job. They were causing minute injuries, and more importantly, they were causing distractions. These distractions were taken advantage of and it resulted in wounds, mostly small, but sometimes big, and on rare occasions¡­ even lethal.

    ¡­

    A huge black scaled Crocodile snapped his jaw on a strange one-eyed creature that had shot some sort of beam at his own left eye. It hadn¡¯t hurt much but it had stung and more pressingly it had affected his vision. Anger and embarrassment made him react before he could think it through and his mouth closed around the tiny creature in an instant.

    With relish, he slowly clamped his powerful jaws around its fragile body and enjoyed the occasional sound of snapping bones and the emerging taste of fresh blood. The blood was poor in quality but that didn¡¯t matter, what mattered was that the little thing-

    =INGIDA!= A shocked voice calling his name entered his mind. He immediately became alert and leapt backwards proactively, he wasn¡¯t going to take his friend¡¯s possible warning for granted.

    His Spirit Sense was currently fully extended in front of him and it would take a small while to switch it to 360 so he hoped with all his heart that the danger was within that scope.

    Luckily, he caught something at the edge of his vision, a hint of orange or red. Unluckily, by the time he identified what it was, it was already too late.

    Despair filled his heart.

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

 Ch.311 Unique Techniques

    ¡°INGIDA! NOOO!¡±

    ¡°RASHKAAAAAA!¡±

    ¡°MIRON!!!!¡±

    ¡°KILL THEM! KILL THEM!!!¡±

    Osmont, the Supreme Dragon of Fire, felt his temperature drop as heard the cries that were a result of his blunder. The enemy side had released a heavily charged fire attack that he had taken upon himself to defend against. He had used his innate skill [Bloom] that was - on the surface - a regular fireball technique that was smaller and more spheric than it should be, but in reality, it was a heavily compressed ball of fire that would become a nightmare on impact, revealing its true form and laying waste to its surroundings.

    This was the best technique to defend against other magic projectiles whilst they were still far away because both attacks would explode against each other harmlessly. Ordinary techniques would not cut it. If a regular magic projectile tried to intercept another one, the stronger one would just go through the other and the weaker one would dissipate. But special techniques like Bloom had the focused property of detonating itself and everything else around it.

    Like this, he had saved many lives that could have been flattened if it wasn¡¯t for his timely Bloom¡¯s, but this time, he had encountered an unexpected scenario.

    When Bloom collided with the enemy¡¯s attack it had exploded itself and the attack as intended, but instead of things ending there, the enemy attack had split into smaller pieces (pieces which has still been big by normal standards) and continued their path to his allies below.

    Before his stunned eyes, explosion after explosion claimed life after life, and the friends of those now-deceased (or heavily injured) were screaming with fury or fear.

    Osmont gritted his teeth and looked up at the enemy attacker.

    It was a creature that he had never seen before. The Corrupted Continent really lived up to its name even without Envy¡¯s influence with how many Monsters there were. This Monster in particular was very ugly.

    It was shaped like a huge slug but instead of soft slimy flesh, it had a black segmented carapace that looked durable even from this distance. It had wings of some kind on its back that were flapping so quickly that he couldn¡¯t see their form, there were 6 spindly legs drooping from its underbelly that were triple the length of its body, and lastly, it had 1 huge giant eyeball occupying its entire face. Apart from the small white pupil in the middle, the rest of the entire eyeball was flat green. There were also some green markings on its carapace that made it all too apparent that this creature was afflicted by Envy.

    Osmont would have never expected such an unassuming creature to have such a unique technique, and this oversight had led to the loss of lives. Monsters made it all too easy to tell when they made a kill and not just an injury because the victim would slowly disintegrate into ashes, and shortly afterwards, a red energy called Killing Essence would rise from said-ashes and fly into the killer. This was the way Monsters cultivated.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    The Killing Essence was the source of their cultivation, unlike Magical Energy which almost everyone else relied on, and it was probably the biggest reason Monsters had been hunted to extinction on the Fortissimum Continent.

    The method of cultivating by killing was a lot more efficient than cultivating by eating and it even seemed to grant greater strength, not to mention the startling boost to Killing Intent it granted. The only downside that it had was that it was incompatible with Elements. There were only a few like this creature that could actually use the power of fire, earth, water and the like. The rest of them could only use the standard version to enhance their bodies.

    However, when they did have access to the elements it was also enhanced. Their Killing Essence variation of fire was stronger than regular fire powered by Magical Energy, and he had already taken that into consideration when using Bloom. But who would have thought that the ugly thing would be able to split its attack like that?

    ¡­And why oh why was it staring at him like? Did it think that it was safe from him? Osmont could practically feel the disregard that the freak of a creature had for him in its cold, unblinking eye, and his anger rose.

    He snorted out a puff of smoke before flying forward. But before he could do anything, a voice entered his mind.

    =Calm yourself, Osmont.= It was the voice of his King, the Crystal Dragon King.

    Osmont took a moment to do just as he was instructed before blatantly lying. =What do you mean, my King? I am as calm as ever.=

    There was a pause, and then an amused voice replied =And I am sure your scales are also as blue as ever= It took a certain level of skill to convey emotions in telepathic speech but of course the King was capable.

    =Of course, my King.= Osmont replied, feeling slightly better with the light banter.

    =Great, now get your blue scaled rump back on task. Keep defending, keep looking harmless. It¡¯s almost time for us to- actually wait. If you immediately retreat after moving forward like this, it might look suspicious. Send one good attack and then return. Not a scary one though, just a standard.=

    =With pleasure, my King.= Osmont responded as he chucked aloud.

    Although he had paused to converse with his King, it shouldn¡¯t have aroused suspicion. He manipulated his mana to prepare his attack.

    He opened his mouth wide and shot out a gigantic ball of flames after pretending to charge it up. An insignificant skill like this didn¡¯t need to be charged. He spent more effort resisting the urge to increase its projectile speed to a point where it would become a big problem for the other side and consequently attract more attention.

    He really, really wanted to kill that creature though. Maybe it would fail to defend? He could only hope.

    No matter what, he would never ruin the plans that Gaia herself had come up with. Besides, in the next phase, even if he couldn¡¯t kill the creature now, he would have a very, very good chance of doing it then.

    ¡®All according to the will of Gaia.¡¯ He thought reverently.

 Ch.312 Slaughter Fiend Titania

    A single green-skinned woman controlled large branches of wood that twisted around the battlefield, piercing through the weak spots of various creatures so accurately and deeply that it would tear through the opposite side of their bodies. With just this alone, she was already claiming life after life as if she was cutting through blades of grass. But on top of that, she was also attacking up close and personal with a spear made of wood.

    She would leap onto gigantic Beasts like a flea jumping onto a dog, but unlike a flea, she would stab her spear deep into their insides and then grow the spear to the point that it would explode out of the opposite end.

    She was causing utter devastation to the forces of Envy, but thanks to the same wood, they were finding it extremely difficult to counterattack. Whenever they tried, a branch that was thick enough for 4 Enlightened to stand on (side by side at that) would burst out of the ground and block them, and it even blocked magic attacks.

    If they dared to pause in surprise, the next branch to appear would emerge from under their bellies and find its way into their hearts¡­ or worse.

    Furthermore, even surprise attacks and barrage attacks were failing to get through her defence. The way the branches appeared was so efficient and precise that you would think it was automatic. It didn¡¯t matter if she was in the middle of an attack or otherwise occupied. All attacks were blocked.

    Like this, despite how tiny she was compared to most of the other lifeforms, she was amongst the few others that were gathering the most attention. But what could they do?

    Even if she herself was tiny, her magic certainly was not. The only reason her wood attacks were called branches despite being as thick as a Magic Tree¡¯s trunk or thicker, was because despite their size, they were not trees. They were genuinely just giant logs of pure magic-enforced wood that moved around the shore like snakes.

    They weren¡¯t as hard as the wood of normal trees grown from Eridius, but they didn¡¯t need to be to still pierce a hole into someone¡¯s body.

    How was that fair?

    More importantly, how was this even possible? Everybody knew that the Enlightened Races weren¡¯t born with Innate Skills, so all they could do was enhance their bodies or go through tedious lengths to create a magic technique that most of the time wasn¡¯t very impressive. And even in the rare cases, it was never this ridiculous. This female was someone from the Elf race, albeit of a different colour to the others, and the Elves were definitely an Enlightened Race. Both of those facts had been confirmed by the System to the many who asked, so how?

    How was she doing all this?

    ¡­

    Titania grinned as she rode the giant body of a monster she had just killed to the ground, not caring about the cloud of dust that its collision kicked up. Her all-white glowing eyes searched for her next prey and she grinned when she found it. She leaped into the air once more and a new spear formed in her grasp.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

    All the while, her various magic branches were seeking and finding other lives, or defending her from various magic projectiles and blocking the way of foes she wasn¡¯t ready to deal with yet. Her Mana supply seemed endless.

    Despite her main Laws being Life and Wood, she was like a herald of Death and Carnage. The joyous grin that split her face as she descended on another creature made her look more like a slaughter fiend than a real Monster.

    But contrary to her expression filled with battlelust, she was calm as a lake on the inside.

    Everything was going to plan. She and a few others had been tasked with causing havoc and drawing attention so that the Dragons could make their next move at the least expected moment. As was already discussed, there were very few that were aware of what said-plan was, and even her people were oblivious.

    To them, she must look quite outlandish. As soon as she touched on land she abandoned them and jumped straight into a killing spree. The ¡®plans¡¯ she had discussed with them were mostly just fabrications to cover up her real cause, but to them they were real. She probably looked like some reckless battle junky that had abandoned all plans just to fight, instead of an experienced Queen that she actually was.

    However, she had no problem with that. Although she had initially felt uncomfortable about leaving them out of the loop, when Evelyn betrayed her and was revealed to be corrupted by Envy, all her reservations had disappeared. Now, she was very grateful that she had trusted Gaia¡¯s demand for secrecy.

    KSSSH!

    Titania shoved her spear deep into the skull of the Monster she was standing on, some sort of flying creature with feathered wings but a reptile body. She briefly pondered if it was like Drako, someone who had a ¡®special¡¯ encounter with Dodo and later underwent a unique mutation and grew antlers because of it. Some creatures were like that.

    It didn¡¯t happen anymore and she didn¡¯t know the specifics behind it, but back when she was young, she used to hear about individuals of other races that underwent strange mutations because of a (often deadly) encounter.

    But maybe this creature was just born like this. Monsters were a lot more variant in appearance than Beasts after all. Well, either way, it screeched in agony like anyone else would if their brain was suddenly breached.

    With a bit of mana, she forced her wooden spear to grow and soon enough it reemerged on the underside of its chin in a splash of blood, bone pieces and brain matter. The creature itself had fallen silent, and it was also falling out of the sky.

    Titania put on another arrogant and satisfied expression as her body dived, making sure that her facade did not slip. Her hungry eyes looked left and right for another target and completely ignored the danger of the rapidly approaching ground. But before she could find one-

    ¡°¡°¡°¡°¡°ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!!!!!!!!¡±¡±¡±¡±¡±

    A terribly loud group roar suddenly descended from the sky, making her forcefully twist her body around to look up. And although her sight was obscured by her heavily flagging hair, what she saw was something she would never forget.

    ¡®It¡¯s time...¡¯ She thought absentmindedly, her attention was robbed by the sight of thousands of Dragons suddenly moving into action.

 Ch.313 Next Phase

    Dragons of all colours streamed across the sky and they no longer hid their aura. In fact, they had even gone the extra step to make their aura visible, displaying the natures of their magic and essence, along with their level of affinity. Cloaks of flame, cloaks of water, cloaks of wind and more. It was a beautiful, terrifying sight, and it made Titania¡¯s heart skip a beat.

    All of the Dragons let out majestic roars that could not be ignored by the fighters below, and very soon all attention was on their fleet. Some people reacted quickly and they started throwing powerful attacks, trying to stop the Dragons from doing whatever it was that they were planning, but it was futile.

    All in one synchronised go, the Dragons all opened their mouths and released¡­ utter devastation. Dragon Breaths spilled out of their mouths like tsunamis and began to annihilate everything. By now they had flown over the forest and they were quickly moving deeper, and that was the only thing preventing the people on the shore, ally or not, from perishing.

    The initial point of their attack had been the back line of the forces of Envy (they were the ones who were tasked with being the last defence to the forest), and in a near instant they were all eradicated, leaving the fight on the shore completely lopsided in an instant.

    ¡®How powerful¡­¡¯ Titania thought with mixed feelings, watching as the Dragons flew deeper into the Continent, leaving behind a trail of magic and death all the way.

    Only the planet remained intact.

    ¡®Time to move.¡¯ She told herself before she activated one of the Innate Skills granted to her from birth. [Verdant Zephyr].

    Her body abruptly burst into a clutter of leaves that all flew into different directions. Unfortunately, the garments she was wearing could not be brought along and they fell towards the ground without her. It was a little conspicuous, but with everyone¡¯s attention stuck on the Dragons she was as hidden and unassuming as she would ever be.

    The leaves all travelled in different directions and at different paces, but they all soon ended up in the same location and began to reassemble her. The final leaf attached itself to her face and morphed into her left eye.

    To be honest, that had been very risky. That skill was great for travel but under no circumstances could it be used as a defensive manoeuvre. If just one of those leaves were damaged, the part of her body that it had replaced would also be damaged. If a leaf was destroyed by any stray attack, that would be a part of her body that she would never get back. As such, it was not something that she often left to chance.

    However, when she jumped onto a flying monster who knows how high into the air, the plan had been to fall most of the trip down in her natural state and then use Verdant Zephyr a few moments before impact. This is something that she had done many times in the past and there was little to no danger.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    But as fate would have it, the time for her to disappear had come at an awkward time and that had forced her to take a risk.

    Thankfully, her luck wasn¡¯t bad and she hadn¡¯t met any trouble. She had successfully reunited with her group. Speaking of said-group, they were currently standing in front of her, looking at her with awkward or carefully expressionless faces.

    ¡®I really surprised them, huh.¡¯ She thought wryly. ¡®I wonder what they¡¯re thinking.¡¯

    These were a few of the Grand Elder Elves (including Alan) who she had ordered to find a location to hide whilst the rest of the Elves joined the battle. But although they had been given more insight into her real plans and that was why they were all here, they too had been deceived. They had not been informed of her decision to go on a killing spree, and that was why they were looking at her like that.

    However, they were not daft. They must now be connecting the dots between her actions and the controversial order given by Gaia in the first Continental Meeting.

    ¡°What¡¯s with your faces, have you never seen a Queen go for an exercise before? Green up a little!¡± She said as she walked towards one of the Grand Elders who had an especially sour face and patted him on the shoulder. But then she paused in thought.

    ¡°Ugh, no. Don¡¯t do that. Stupid Envy, his egregious relation to the colour green has damaged our culture. Some people even have suspicions that I¡¯m afflicted by his corruption because of the colour of my skin. Thankfully, I¡¯m a darker green and have been this colour a lot longer than Envy has been, otherwise I¡¯d probably be besieged no matter what I said.¡± Titania rambled.

    She looked lost in thought and a little air headed, but this was another outward persona that she was using to lower the guard of the people before her. Although she looked lost, her Spirit Sense was encasing every part of their bodies and would not miss a single twitch. If they had any suspicious reaction to her mentioning of Envy, she would not hesitate to act.

    For her next duty, she could not afford to carry along traitors. Luckily, it seemed like there were no problems. Either that or there was a very good actor.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± She told them. They nodded before following her into the forest. All of them began moving deeper into the forest, leaping from tree to tree with perfect ease, showing the experience that they had with this kind of travel.

    However, the deeper they went, the more confused Titania became.

    ¡®This feeling¡­ The ambient Magical Energy is changing. Have I¡­ Have I stumbled upon a Sacred Land?¡¯ Her heart lurched at the thought of that possibility. That would not be good. At all.

    Owners of Sacred Lands were very good at discovering intruders, it was like a seventh sense that they had that could not be easily explained. As a joint owner of a Sacred Land herself, she would know.

    This meant that if this was really a Sacred Land and the owner was here, there was a very good chance that the being could find her no matter how well she hid, and that was very counterproductive for Titania¡¯s intentions.

    But there was no way that she could tell. Only the Beast Race could get an accurate answer on whether a territory had a true owner, albeit, only if they were close enough to smell it.

    ¡®This is a problem.¡¯ She thought, her mood sinking a little.

 Ch.314 Owner of the Sacred Land

    The Crystal Dragon King felt an inexplicable sense of excitement as he and his brethren soared over the forest, raining down their Dragon Breaths and laying waste to lives without any care.

    His brethren surely felt the same thing too. It was somewhat of an open secret that the Dragon race revelled in slaughter, but he and a few others knew that it was a little different. It wasn¡¯t killing itself but destruction as a whole that they craved. That¡¯s why the more messy the kill, the more exciting it was.

    The height of his life was back before the entire World had upgraded and he had the strength to destroy anything he wanted including trees and giant boulders.

    He honestly didn¡¯t know why his race was like this. Perhaps it was because of the way they were raised, although that wouldn¡¯t make much sense. Or perhaps it was because of their relation to the Destruction Dragons, and that made a lot of sense. But in the end, he couldn¡¯t know for sure and could only continue to live like that.

    Both Gaia and the System refused to answer his question on the matter with very similar responses. He apparently wasn¡¯t qualified. He wasn''t surprised that Gaia, a god, took the same stance as the Eridius System, something that was a joint project of the gods. It was only natural that the gods were like-minded. He was already grateful that she had answered many of his other questions that the System did not.

    But it really was a little problematic that his race was like this. It made them prone to violence and that was a bad thing to have if you didn¡¯t have the strength to back it up. His race was powerful, but they absolutely did not have the rights to be unscrupulous on the Fortissimum Continent. Just the Snake race alone could match them (even if that was mostly because of J?rma), and there were other impressive races too.

    This had forced him and his race to learn restraint over the years, which often led to a buildup in frustration. It was only in glorious moments like this that they could completely let go and it was simply exuberant.

    Unfortunately, they weren¡¯t allowed to eat any of the flesh here. One of the benefits of war other than relief - was the Essence you could devour from your fallen foes, and this was something that every Beast race was excited about, not just Dragons. Times weren¡¯t like the old days where you could kill and eat whoever you wanted so long as they weren¡¯t a friend. Now, there were powerful factions all over the place and many of them were willing to get revenge for their slain brethren.

    This led to a situation where people were a lot more careful about who they targeted than they used to be, and as any could guess, it slowed down cultivation.

    A huge war like this should have been the grandest feast of all, but it was in truth a deadly trap. Nobody wanted to risk being corrupted by Envy, especially after seeing some of the most righteous of their kinds suddenly turn towards them with a green mark on their foreheads and a sinister expression on their faces.

    The Crystal Dragon King sighed.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    ¡®Ah whatever, it doesn¡¯t matter. At least I can enjoy this.¡¯ He thought as he watched a new group of creatures rise into the air to stop his people. They looked strong even from this distance, but that only brought a bloodthirsty grin to his face.

    Only in moments like this could he shed his mask of civility¡­

    And it was simply the best.

    ¡­

    Titania¡¯s brow was furrowed as she leaped from tree to tree without making a sound.

    She was certain of it now, this place was definitely a Sacred Land. Not only was the ambient Magical Energy completely different, resembling the more unique energy that the Greater Demons (Realm 4 Monsters) had, but the local flora had also mutated to match.

    She was sure that as she travelled deeper, she would even find a few corresponding Magic Stones.

    This was not good news to her at all.

    She didn¡¯t want to be found if it wasn¡¯t on her own terms. One of her missions was to scout out the various territories and spy on Envy¡¯s various forces. The goal was to find weaknesses of any kind or topographies that had strategic advantages. It went without saying that she would eventually find a Sacred Land if she delved deep enough, but she had planned on completely avoiding them.

    Who would have thought that as soon as she slightly made her way in, she would immediately end up in a Sacred Land? What kind of joke was that? What kind of bad luck was this?

    Now, it was too late to turn around. She was guaranteed to expose herself that way and she might even get dragged back into the battle. As it stood, she was already having to avoid the occasional group of green marked creatures that were charging towards the shore. Reinforcements, no doubt.

    If it wasn¡¯t because she was so high up in these gigantic trees, she would already be discovered and embroiled in battle. Of course, the Spirit Sense of strong enough people could stretch this far, but that was only if they found reason to.

    Most people didn¡¯t look up.

    In any case, there was no turning around. That meant that she could only go forward. If the Monster who owned this territory came to find her and seek its death, she would kill it and everyone related to it and hope for the best.

    A vicious glint flashed through her eyes, but then it vanished when she thought of something.

    ¡®System, who owns this Sacred Land?¡¯ She suddenly asked.

    She heavily doubted that she would meet the requirements to know such a thing, but she might be able to decipher something from the way the System replied. She had experienced a few lucky moments like that in the past and she wanted to try her luck again now.

    Ding!

    <This Sacred Land is not owned.>

    Titania stopped dead in her tracks.

    ¡®What?¡¯

    ¡°My Queen?¡± Alan¡¯s puzzled voice sounded from her side.

    ¡®System, who owns this Sacred Land?¡¯ She asked again.

    Ding!

    <This Sacred Land is not owned.> The same response came from the System.

    Titania¡¯s eyes squinted. What was the meaning of this?

 Ch.315 Natural vs Artificial

    ¡®What is the meaning of this? How could there be a Sacred Land that is not owned?¡¯ Titania was befuddled.

    Although she had asked the question in a manner that made it seem like she was asking about a single person, she knew that a Sacred Land would generally have multiple ¡®owners¡¯. It¡¯s just that typically there would be a dominant influence created by the strongest entity in the territory, and it would be this being that would be considered the ¡®true owner¡¯.

    If such an individual died, then it stood to reason that the next shared owner with the highest magical influence would become the ¡®true owner¡¯. It wouldn¡¯t even be a matter of decision, it would just happen regardless. As long as the person stayed in the territory of course.

    So how could there be an unowned Sacred Land, could all of the owners have died? What kind of situation was that? Sacred Land owners were never average people and she had never heard of a situation where every last one of them were wiped out.

    To put it into perspective, the owners of her own Sacred Land were the Spring of Life Ciera, the Tree of Life at the centre of it all, and of course herself. Another example was the Dragon Mountain that was owned by Crystal Dragon King and the Supreme Dragons.

    For all of them to die was almost impossible.

    It should be similar here too so how was this Sacred Land unowned? What kind of accident occurred?

    She repeated her questions to the System immediately.

    Ding!

    <The Host is misunderstanding the situation. This place can be considered a Sacred Land, but it is fundamentally different to the Sacred Lands you have previously experienced. The Sacred Lands you have experienced have all been formed by the overwhelming magical influence of lifeforms that had surpassed the World¡¯s previous limitations. You call these people ¡®owners¡¯.

    This Sacred Land is similar but not the same. It was formed by the ambient Magical Energy itself experiencing mutative changes. It is still Magical Energy but it has extra properties, and those properties have affected the environment and created a Sacred Land.>

    Titania widened her eyes, enlightened.

    ¡°My Quee-¡± Her husband spoke up again.

    ¡°One moment, Alan. The System.¡± Titania replied briefly, knowing that he would understand.

    ¡®Is the difference between the Sacred Lands akin to the difference between artificial and organic, or like food cultivated by people compared to natural food?¡¯ Titania asked the System.

    Ding!

    <Yes. Those are accurate examples. However, it is important to note that what you describe as ¡®Natural/Organic Sacred Lands¡¯ - can be caused by the actions of lifeforms as well. It is very rare for Magical Energy to change on its own. It is more often caused by the unwitting activities of lifeforms.>Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    ¡®Is that so¡­¡¯ Titania pondered. ¡®Then what caused the Magical Energy in this place to change?¡¯ She asked. She was pushing her luck.

    But as expected.

    Ding!

    <You do not have the permission level for this query.>

    Titania sighed.

    ¡®Fine, fine. Regardless, thanks for the help, System.¡¯

    Ding!

    <You are welcome, Host.>

    Titania turned to Alan.

    ¡°I¡¯ve received interesting news from the System.¡± She said with a smile. ¡°This Sacred Land is not owned by anyone, it is something that was naturally formed and no one has control over it.¡±

    Alan¡¯s eyes widened and the slight tension that could be seen in his brow lessened. ¡°That is great news.¡± But then confusion appeared on his face and he blinked. ¡°Wait. Not owned? What do- Wait, I¡¯ll ask it myself, what did you use to prompt?¡± He asked. Then added ¡°Not that I don¡¯t believe, I¡¯m just curious to hear the detailed explanation from the System.¡±

    ¡°Nothing much, it wasn¡¯t anything tricky. I only asked to know the owner of the Sacred Land on a whim and it actually answered.¡± Titania¡¯s smile became a charming grin.

    ¡°Really? That simple?¡± Alan asked, surprised.

    Titania could understand his surprise. Certain answers required unique questions or ¡®prompts¡¯, and this certainly sounded like one of them. Knowledge on the status of an unknown Sacred Land sounded permission banned, talk less of troublesome to access. Alan must have thought that it would be the latter for sure if not banned.

    ¡°Yes. Come, let¡¯s keep going, you can ask the System on our way.¡± Then she waved to the others. ¡°All of you can. I only stopped because I was that surprised; I¡¯m sure you can understand.¡±

    A couple of the Grand Elders chuckled. Then all of them apart from Alan bowed, waiting for her to lead the way.

    ¡­

    [Corrupted Continent, Dagerath Mountain]

    Standing atop a cliff of a barren mountain was a stunning humanoid male. He was tall, muscular and had long hair, all common traits of an established male Enlightened. However, this was no common male.

    His hair was blonde with streaks of green going through it, his eyes were like twin shining emeralds, he had similar coloured markings adorning his body with the most prominent one being the Symbol of Envy of his forehead, and lastly, he had large butterfly-like wings on his back.

    He was a Fae, and not just any Fae, he was the Fae Progenitor, Zalucard.

    Zalucard stared off into the distance, watching the invasion of the daunting Dragons with an expressionless face.

    ¡°True Dragons¡­They¡¯re as ferocious and powerful as I heard they would be. Perhaps more.¡± He flapped his wings once, causing a gust of wind that knocked a stray stone over the edge.

    ¡°They¡¯re not like the mutants back in the Forest. What did Drako even obtain from his theft back then? A full set of teeth and a strange pair of horns? He¡¯s a joke. Everyone in that forest is just a joke.

    But these Dragons? Indeed. The Origin was right to place much of his focus on them. They¡¯re a threat even without the¡­ goddess¡­¡± His words faltered to a stop as the golden image of an impossibly large entity covering the sky entered his mind.

    ¡°Hah. That better have just been an illusion as he claimed, or I¡¯m leaving and never returning. I will absolutely not be fighting on the opposite side of such a thing. I may be from the Dawn Forest but the stupidity that plagues them all has yet to reach me, and I intend to keep it that way.¡±

 Ch.316 Law Aspects

    Misali, the Supreme Dragon of Water, grinned wildly as she revelled in the excitement of impending combat, the water-like aura surrounding her body bubbled vigorously and threateningly, belying her emotions.

    To be honest, this behaviour was in contrast to her past behaviour where she was always suppressing her emotions in order to enhance her affinity with the Laws of Water.

    It was rare for Dragons to be patient enough to comprehend the nature of water and she was the greatest practitioner of them all. But even with her talent, she had always struggled to find a balance between her savage instincts and the calm nature of her element, which led to her attempts to stamp out the former. In fact, up until recently, because of how much she had suppressed herself no one knew that the violent tendencies of the Dragon race actually plagued her more than most.

    That was how dedicated she was to the Water Element that she loved so much.

    It was only around 5 years ago that she obtained an epiphany that changed everything.

    She had a friend called Insalang. Insalang was also a Dragon that had control over the water element and she was almost as talented as herself. As such, it was common for them to discuss the profundities of the water laws from time to time in order to gain some enlightenment, even if it was mostly Misali enlightening Insalang and rarely the other way around.

    However, one day, Insalang shocked her greatly when she appeared one day with the ability to turn water ice! It was Ice Magic!

    Before that moment, she and everyone else had always been of the belief that Ice and Water were unrelated. After all, they had never seen it appear naturally so they had never seen its various transformations. There was no cold region on Fortissimum Continent apart from Dodo¡¯s territory and the Continent itself was warm all year round, there was even a desert in the South so how could ice easily appear here?

    The reason she even knew that it was possible for the ambient temperature to drop so low that ice would form was because of her recent contact with foreign continents.

    Before then, she had never seen Ice unless it was the result of Magic, and as for the very rare hailstorms, she didn¡¯t even know that it was actually ice until this recent storm that allowed her to connect the dots with her recent knowledge. Every time hailstorms appeared, tragedies were rampant, so how could the previous her find the time to study it?

    As for her encounters with Ice Magic users, they had been very few. Ice magic was very rare and the amount of people with such magic that had the gall to fight her was even less (It was a bad idea to antagonise any Dragon, talk less of a Supreme one). So even in the few occasions that she witnessed it, it was either being used to create interesting structures and statues for entertainment, or the user was fighting someone else, which usually resulted in a win.

    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    There were only 2 times where she saw Ice Magic users suffer a loss. One was against a Golden Monkey that just shattered everything in his way and the other was against a Solus Panda who had hot enough fire magic to melt the ice.

    That was the only time she had seen ice melt, and back then, she still did not know that it was water. There were many things that looked like water that weren¡¯t actually water. For example: Slime, Venom, Tree Sap, Honey, Blood, etc. And some of them even carried traces or properties of actual water, like tree sap and blood, so she just thought that it was just ¡®melted ice¡¯ and not true water.

    Foolish, she knew that now, but in her defence, it wouldn¡¯t have been the first time that fire melted something and made it resemble liquid. Even though the speed at which the ice melted had raised her attention, it was just that.

    It was only thanks to Insalang¡¯s future achievement that she figured out what ice really was, and it was this discovery that allowed her to comprehend her first Aspect of the Water Laws. The Law Aspect of Ice.

    Law Aspects were aspects of an overarching Law that had the ability to change the state of the Law itself. Ice on its own wasn¡¯t fully a Law, it was an Aspect of the overarching Water Laws that could change its state into a solid. Another example that she had always known about thanks to its popularity was the Smoke Aspect of the Fire Laws.

    An important fact to note about Aspects was that you can even have an affinity for them that was separate from your original affinity for the main Law. On someone¡¯s status it might show 67% Affinity with Water and a separate 12% with Ice. But technically, they were very much tied. It was still confusing to her even now.

    In any case, finding out about the Ice Aspect had obviously greatly enhanced her understanding of the Water Laws, but her discovery of the true nature of ice was not her epiphany.

    Ice Magic was very suitable for Insalang because whilst Misali had to constantly suppress her emotions, Insalang was the real deal. Ever since the female was born her personality had always been calm and stoic. Misali chose Water Magic out of sheer admiration for it along with a valley-load of talent that allowed her to do whatever she wanted regardless of efficiency, Insalang on the other hand did it because it was either that or Earth Magic and the girl liked Water more.

    It would only be much later that they would learn that Insalang had been more suitable for Earth Magic at the time (thanks to how stoic she was), but now that she had discovered Ice Magic thanks to that decision, things were actually better. Insalang later even went on to form an Ice Affinity, which allowed her to directly create ice with her mana instead of having to conjure regular water and subsequently freeze it.

    But all of that was largely useless to Misali. Her true personality already had some disagreements with the mellow nature of water, so how could she possibly decide to dabble in the even more stringent Ice Laws?

    Even if it wasn¡¯t impossible to achieve, she herself was very unwilling, and that effectively made it impossible.

    Thankfully, there was no need to make such a decision. Because after delving deeper into the Laws of Water and experimenting with temperature, she discovered something else. Something better.