Book 12, The Descent of the Gods – Chapter 23, The Elemental Sea
The terrifying natural Laws descended, and even Delia, who was training on the stone bed, was awakened and shocked. She stared in amazement at Linley, who was hovering in mid-air. That unique aura emanated from him, and in an instant, Delia realized what was happening.
“Linley is about to become a Deity?” Although Delia had never seen anyone else become a Deity, she could sense the presence of that enormous, boundless natural Law. Naturally, she could guess what was going on.
At this moment, Linley didn’t need to do anything at all.
A unique energy swept directly into Linley’s mind, surrounding Linley’s soul. In this moment...all of the secrets of Linley’s soul were laid bare. Naturally, the Profound Truths of Velocity which Linley trained in were also completely laid bare before this unique energy.
“Crackle...”
In the air above Linley’s head, an energy aura that contained the ‘Laws’ began to form, while at the same time, wind elemental essence also rapidly began to coalesce there. Large amounts of natural elemental essence began to charge into the pocket dimension from the chaotic space outside, focusing on that point.
“What is this?” Linley was somewhat puzzled.
But shortly...
The natural elemental essence dispersed, and a black gemstone which was emanating light green light was now hovering directly above Linley’s head. It was a wind-style Demigod spark. In that instant when this divine spark was formed, it automatically became connected to Linley’s soul.
Because this divine spark was formed from Linley’s spiritual aura, it was completely matched with Linley.
In fusing someone else’s divine spark, even if the fusion was complete, it couldn’t match one’s own divine spark, which was naturally formed in accordance with one’s own soul by the natural Laws.
“Divine spark.”
Raising his head, he stared up at that divine spark hovering above his head and glowing with light green light. Linley’s heart was filled with excitement. When he was young, under his father’s tutelage, Linley’s goal had only been to recover his ancestral heirloom. He had never imagined that he would become a Deity!
A Deity, like the War God or the High Priest!
In addition, he became a Deity through relying on his own power, and not through fusing with a divine spark.
“Finally...I’ve become a Deity.” Linley had a hint of a smile on his face. At this moment, Linley’s soul was naturally filled with some certain knowledge. “The natural Laws are currently waiting for me to choose to keep the divine spark outside of my body, or take it into my body.”
If he hadn’t been informed by Dylin of this choice in advance, Linley wouldn’t have known what the difference was between these two choices. Perhaps he would have found it hard to decide.
But now...
Without hesitating in the slightest, Linley controlled the divine spark to hover next to him.
“Aaaaah!” Linley suddenly let out an uncontrollable scream of agony. An enormous, ripping pain filled Linley, causing all of his muscles to spasm and distort. Deep within Linley’s mind, that sword-shaped soul within that sea of consciousness was suddenly surrounded by the natural Laws. With a ‘crunch’, it snapped into two pieces.
His soul had been broken in half. This sort of pain was countless times worse than mere physical pain.
In this moment, Linley lost all rational thought. He only had the ability to let out agonized howls.
“Linley!” The nearby Delia, seeing Linley like this, couldn’t help but grow worried. But Delia also knew...that in this critical moment of him becoming a Deity, no matter what happened, she, Delia, couldn’t interfere.
Delia was so nervous that her entire body began to slightly shudder uncontrollably.
She clutched her arms over her chest and prayed mentally, “Linley, you’ll definitely be fine.” Delia and Linley had been married for many years now, but she had never seen Linley in such agony.
Slowly...
Linley’s agonized howls grew softer.
Within Linley’s sea of consciousness, those two shattered halves of the first sword-shaped soul had already formed into new ‘sword-shapes’. Specifically speaking, Linley’s sword-shaped soul had now transformed into two sword-shaped souls that were each a size smaller. One of them remained within Linley’s sea of consciousness, while the other flew directly outside of Linley’s body.
“What’s that?” Delia looked at the sword-shaped soul in shock.
Delia, of course, had never seen Linley’s soul, and so she had no idea what it looked like.
The sword-shaped soul, glowing with the colors of the rainbow, flew directly towards the divine spark, and then it easily merged directly into it. The divine spark and the soul became one, a sign that the fusion was a success.
“Was that Linley’s soul?” Delia only now understood.
She had been training for over ten years now, but her soul still had yet to fuse completely with her divine spark. But Linley’s soul was able to instantly fuse with the divine spark, because this divine spark was formed based on Linley’s soul to begin with.
“Whew.” Only now did Linley regain his normal faculties.
At this moment, he felt much weaker than he had earlier. The splitting of his soul had caused tremendous damage to it. Perhaps even his ability to mentally envision and hypothesize regarding the Elemental Laws had become only a fraction of what it had previously been. However, for the sake of being able to continue to train in the Profound Truths of the Earth, Linley had to make this choice.
“How strange.”
Whether it was his original body or that divine spark, both contained Linley’s soul. Suddenly...
“Rumble...”
The nearby space began to shake, and the soul within the divine spark miraculously could sense a unique place. This was a place that was located in the heart of the endless universe, a boundless, infinite plane which one could only sense upon reaching the Deity level...
The Elemental Sea!
“Rumble...”
This was a foggy, indistinct area. There was no light at all in the skies, but the light green light which emanated from the Elemental Sea itself just barely made this plane visible.
The boundless waters of the Elemental Sea roiled about, rising up and crashing down in waves. This was the Elemental Sea of Wind.
The Elemental Sea...the surface of it was liquid elemental essence, while below it...was boundless divine power!
The deeper one went into the Elemental Sea, the purer the divine power was. At present, Linley was only barely capable of breaking through the ‘surface’ of the liquid elemental essence and sense to a depth of ten meters beneath the liquid elemental essence. From the divine power right beneath the liquid elemental essence to the divine power ten meters below the liquid essence...
Despite the ‘distance’ only being ten meters, the purity of the divine power was doubled.
What Linley didn’t know was that if he had become a Deity by fusing with a divine spark, he would have only been able to sense to a depth of one meter beneath the liquid elemental essence surface.
“Rumble...”
Ten meters below the surface of the liquid elemental essence, suddenly, a good amount of divine power disappeared through a unique corridor formed by the natural Laws, descending into Linley’s so-called ‘pocket dimension’, and then fused directly with the sword-shaped wind elemental essence divine spark, quickly forming a divine body.
“Crackle...” Visibly, from the head on downwards, a naked body that was absolutely identical to Linley’s original body was formed. With but a thought, Linley immediately caused the divine power within the clone body to form into a set of light green robes.
At this moment, that unique energy which represented the natural Laws disappeared, and the pocket dimension once more returned to its normal calm.
“It’s over.” Linley revealed a smile on his face, while at the same time, he controlled the clone body to merge with his original body.
The divine clone merged directly into Linley’s body, fusing with it. It was extremely bizarre.
“Linley, this...this...” Delia had already been quite surprised to see two ‘Linleys’ earlier, but now, seeing the two fuse into one body, she became even more shocked.
Linley looked at Delia and laughed, “Delia, wait a moment. I’ll explain to you in a moment. I haven’t figured it all out yet myself.” Having just become a Deity, there were many things which Linley had to understand, but Linley hadn’t imagined that when he asked Delia to ‘wait a moment’...he actually had to ask her to wait a very long time!
“Okay.” Delia nodded obediently.
Linley immediately sat down into the meditative posture, carefully inspecting the changes in his body.
Within his mind, above that sea of consciousness, there wasn’t just a small sword-shaped soul hovering above the sea. Below that sword-shaped soul, within the sea of consciousness, there was also a human figure floating there, seated in the meditative position. It was the divine clone that was dressed in the light green robe.
“This soul space is truly a strange place.” Linley sighed with praise repeatedly.
Actually, the ‘divine clone’ and the ‘original’...there really wasn’t much difference between the ‘clone’ and the ‘original’. After all, both of them contained a soul, and they were equally important.
“That Elemental Sea...” Through the divine clone, Linley once more sensed that boundless plane which lay at the heart of the cosmos. The boundless elemental sea surged, and Linley could sense to a depth of ten meters beneath the liquid elemental essence surface.
He gave a shot at acquiring some of that wind-style divine power.
“Huh?” Linley found out, to his amazement, that his acquisition speed was simply too slow.
A thread of divine power, through a special channel, entered Linley’s body. Although Linley had been able to withdraw some of the divine power, the speed at which he withdrew could not be compared to when the natural Laws controlled the process. Earlier, he had been able to absorb enough divine power to instantly form a divine body.
“It seems as though in the future, I’ll need to be careful. Once the divine body is destroyed, reforming it will require a large amount of divine power.” Linley sighed.
He could clearly sense how the Elemental Sea contained limitless amounts of divine power, but he could only absorb it in tiny amounts at a time.
“Dylin was right. Once the soul fuses with the divine spark, it becomes impossible to train in other Elemental Laws.” The soul of the divine clone attempted to sense the pulses of the earth elemental essence, but the pulses of the earth were simply too indistinct and blurry. Linley couldn’t clearly sense it at all.
Compared to even when Linley was but a child, the divine clone’s affinity for the earth elemental essence was thousands of times weaker and blurrier.
“Fortunately, I didn’t place the divine spark inside my body. Otherwise...I would never be able to train in the Laws of the Earth again.” Linley felt an after-taste of fear.
Although the divine clone couldn’t sense the Laws of the Earth, he could sense the Laws of the Wind hundreds of times more clearly than before. Only, ‘sensing them clearly’ was one matter; gaining insights into them was an entirely separate matter.
On the path of training in the Elemental Laws, the further one travelled, the harder the road would grow.
“First, let me strengthen my original body.” Linley could clearly feel how powerful the divine body of his divine clone was. Comparatively speaking, his original body was rather weak.
Linley began to control that hint of divine power he had withdrawn from the Elemental Sea and began to infuse it throughout his original body. Divine power was indeed extraordinarily effective; Linley’s body slowly began to transform. His muscles, his meridians, his internal organs, all began to transform and grow more powerful. However, this transformation lasted for only a short while before concluding.
“Although it only lasted a while, this body is now on a higher level as well.” Linley sighed to himself.
Because he himself already was a Dragonblood Warrior, his physical power was already very great. Even after being further refined by divine power, his original body was only able to rise a bit in power, by about one level.
“Switching between the original body and the divine clone is simple enough.”
With but a thought, Linley changed...instantly, Delia realized that the Linley in front of her, who had been wearing a sky-blue robe, transformed into a Linley who was wearing a light green robe.
“Linley changed clothes?” Delia didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. But she could guess that actually, what Linley had just done was to switch into another body.
Indeed, he had transformed into his divine clone.
Right now, it was Linley’s divine clone which was in the world. Within the deepest reaches of the clone’s mind, within that sea of consciousness, there was a rainbow-colored divine spark hovering high above, albeit the light green color being dominant.
Beneath the divine spark, seated in the meditative posture on the surface of that sea of consciousness was the sky-blue robed Linley.
“The two bodies can be swapped out at leisure. It truly is amazing.” Linley sighed nonstop.
Not just that. Even his interspatial ring, Bloodviolet flexible sword, Coiling Dragon ring, and other blood-bound items could be utilized by his divine clone. After all, the soul in his original body and his divine clone was the same. Naturally, the divine artifacts could be utilized by either the original body or the divine clone.
“Using wind-style divine power to execute ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’ is so much more powerful...”
Linley sighed in his heart. His body suddenly moved, and in the pocket dimension, dozens of Linleys suddenly appeared, then reformed into one. Just relying on pure speed...perhaps even the War God and the others were not on Linley’s level now. After all, Linley became a Deity through the ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’.
Each specialty had its own special benefits. Linley’s greatest specialty was naturally speed!
“Now that I am a Deity, it is time to take a look at Bloodviolet and the Coiling Dragon ring, and see what secrets the two are holding within them.” Linley first withdrew Bloodviolet with a flip of his hand.