Book 12, The Descent of the Gods – Chapter 24, Violet Blood, Coiling Dragon
The wind-style divine power in his body seeped into Bloodviolet. Out of nowhere, the edge of Bloodviolet became covered with a thin spatial edge, while at the same time, that faint bloody aura began to circulate on top of Bloodviolet while letting out a nonstop humming sword song.
“Linley, stop, quick, stop!” Delia hurriedly called out.
Linley immediately stopped using his divine power, turning to look at Delia in confusion. “Delia, what is it?”
Delia’s face was ashen. She stared at Bloodviolet in terror, saying in astonishment, “That sword, just now, it...”
“What happened? Quick, tell me.” Linley asked.
Delia’s face slowly returned to her normal color, but she was still filled with the after-taste of fear. “Just then, when Bloodviolet let out that humming sword song, for some reason, I felt my soul begin to shudder, and the energy in my body began to run wild. It was as though my body was somewhat losing control of itself.
“Eh?” Linley’s eyes were filled with surprise and delight.
To Linley, that humming sword song sounded very ordinary. He hadn’t imagined that others would be affected by it in such a way.
“Linley, can you make Bloodviolet not emit that humming sword song? I can’t take it.” Delia said apologetically.
But Linley knew that it was his fault. He hurriedly said, “Delia, don’t worry, I won’t let Bloodviolet make any noise again.” Linley was still quite surprised and delighted at what had just happened. Actually, just looking at the spatial edge which had appeared on the surface of Bloodviolet, he was already delighted.
He hadn’t utilized any Laws, just divine power, but Bloodviolet had already become so incredibly sharp.
“Divine artifacts truly do require divine power in order to reach a truly high level of power. In the past, I was only relying on Bloodviolet’s material strength to do battle.”
Next, Linley used his spiritual energy to enter Bloodviolet, sensing once more that incredibly powerful baleful aura within it. When his spiritual energy had interacted with that baleful aura, Linley had been able to clearly sense the scene contained within that baleful aura.
The boundless sea of blood.
All sorts of corpses from all sorts of races. Skeletons floating amidst the bloody sea...massive corpses that were dozens of meters high...white skeletal corpses that were emitting a green light...scaled creatures, horned creatures, four-armed creatures...
Countless corpses floating within that bloody sea.
Dimly, Linley began to sense a mental picture form. This mental picture had a devilish violet colored longsword that had fresh blood flowing from it. It also had a devilish man with long, violet hair, a long, violet robe, sword-like eyebrows, and a slightly bloodthirsty look in his eyes.
This was nothing more than what his spiritual energy sensed, but Linley still felt a tremendous pressure, so strong that he felt he could barely breathe.
“That sword is Bloodviolet.” Linley was absolutely certain. “And that violet-haired man...is he the previous master of Bloodviolet?”
One scene after another of the devilish man wielding Bloodviolet and engaging in acts of slaughter flashed through his mind as fast as lightning. Each scene, however, was very indistinct and blurry. Occasionally, it would grow bit clearer, but then the scene would disappear entirely.
“Funny. Funny.” Wielding Bloodviolet in his hand, Linley began to laugh.
He had been hoping to discover from within Bloodviolet the secrets to utilizing Bloodviolet.
“No matter how powerful a divine artifact is, it’s still just a weapon. It isn’t a living thing. How could it possibly tell me how its special attacks should be utilized? I still have to rely on myself to find them.” Linley understood that perhaps the previous owner of Bloodviolet knew how to utilize Bloodviolet, but...he couldn’t find that previous owner.
Perhaps the previous owner had already died. After all, if he hadn’t died, how would his blood-bound divine artifact have ended up being used to seal that dimensional gateway?
“However, at least I know two things right now. After filling it with divine power, Bloodviolet will become incomparably sharp. When matched with my ‘Profound Truths of Velocity – Dimensional Decapitator’ attack, the power will become far greater.” Linley felt very confident. “In addition, that humming sword song actually has the power to shake someone’s soul and to affect others in such a way.”
When he did battle, he could let the sword constantly emit noise. The enemy would be impacted, but he would not. This would create a huge advantage.
“However, I still need to slowly analyze how to effectively create the humming sword song.” Linley stored Bloodviolet into his interspatial ring once more, and then he focused his attention on the item he valued most...the Coiling Dragon ring!
He had discovered the Coiling Dragon ring within his ancestral home.
The previous owner of the Coiling Dragon ring was Grandpa Doehring. Because of the Coiling Dragon ring, he had met Grandpa Doehring and was able to step onto the path of becoming an expert.
Linley had been feeling extremely excited, but upon seeing the Coiling Dragon ring, he calmed down. He seemed to see that kindly, white-haired Grandpa Doehring within it. In his time, Grandpa Doehring had dreamed of becoming a Deity, but after being forced to enter the Coiling Dragon ring, he had lost that opportunity. He had thus cultivated and trained Linley, hoping that Linley would be able to reach the highest peaks.
“Grandpa Doehring, today, I have finally reached the Deity-level.” Linley sighed softly in his heart.
“If, Grandpa Doehring, you were still alive, how wonderful that would be.” Linley sighed in his heart.
After taking a deep breath, Linley filled the Coiling Dragon ring with his wind-style divine power, but what Linley discovered was...”Useless? Filling the Coiling Dragon ring with divine power is useless?” Linley was somewhat confused. Whenever a divine artifact was filled with divine power, it should have some response at least.
But the Coiling Dragon ring had no response at all.
“Could it be that this is a rather special divine artifact?” Linley retracted his divine power, then filled the Coiling Dragon with his spiritual energy.
When becoming a Deity, the natural Laws had surrounded Linley’s soul. Thus, despite splitting in half, after having interacted with the natural Laws, Linley’s soul had already transformed on a basic level.
All people who became Deities on their own would have this sort of transformation.
Linley’s spiritual transformation had also caused his great reservoir of spiritual energy, based on his soul, to change with it as well. After this pure spiritual energy entered the Coiling Dragon ring, a faint, azure light flashed through the Coiling Dragon ring while at the same time, Linley could sense that within the Coiling Dragon ring, there was an extremely strange energy.
“What’s this?”
Linley was extraordinarily surprised.
Suddenly, an extremely powerful aura touched Linley’s spiritual energy. This aura was so powerful that Linley began shaking from the depths of his heart. It was simply too powerful. The aura contained within the Coiling Dragon ring was far more powerful than the aura which Bloodviolet had contained.
“Lucky young fellow.” A deep, rumbling voice echoed in Linley’s mind. “This was a ring that I liked very much when I was alive. It is a soul-protecting Sovereign artifact. Only, it is damaged now. It wasn’t able to successfully protect me, and so, naturally, it was damaged. To repair it, the only thing you can do is to slowly heal it through your spiritual energy...as for how long it will take, even I cannot predict it. Actually, I very much want to know who will be the one to inherit this ring of mine. Unfortunately, I won’t have the chance. I’ll never have the chance...”
That deep, rumbling voice slowly faded away.
Linley was completely stunned.
A soul-protecting Sovereign artifact? A damaged one?
“A Sovereign artifact?” Linley’s body was shaking slightly. He had only heard of ‘divine artifacts’. No one had ever told him that there was such a thing as a Sovereign artifact.
Above the Saint level, there were Demigods, Gods, Highgods, and Sovereigns.
So weapons were divided into ‘divine artifacts’ and ‘Sovereign artifacts’.
“A soul-protecting Sovereign artifact?” Linley discovered that the Coiling Dragon ring contained a special energy within it. “Since it is a soul-protecting artifact, then...” Linley immediately controlled this unique energy, having it enter his soul. Instantly...
A huge, translucent membrane of energy, shaped like countless scales, suddenly formed around his sea of consciousness, including his divine spark and his original body. This translucent membrane contained within it an aura of spiritual energy. The scaly membrane should have been formed from spiritual energy-type power.
Only...
In the center of this translucent membrane, there was a hole, as though it had been cut apart.
“Damaged. It truly is damaged.” Linley sighed to himself.
The most important thing to a Deity was his soul!
A soul-protecting divine artifact was naturally precious. As for a soul-protecting Sovereign artifact, that was something one couldn’t even hope to gain. Unfortunately, this one was damaged.
For example, that Soulsilk attack encapsulated one’s entire soul. Once a large amount of Soulsilk gathered there, it would definitely be able to flood through into his consciousness through that gap. Although the other areas of this translucent membrane were durable, with such a gap in it, the value of it would drop dramatically.
“Use spiritual energy to repair it?”
Linley laughed bitterly.
He could guess that the deep, rumbling voice was most likely that of a Sovereign who had then passed away. As for this soul-protecting Sovereign artifact, it was broken through and damaged. That voice was perhaps nothing more than some information which the deceased Sovereign had left behind.
But of course, perhaps it wasn’t a Sovereign.
It wasn’t necessarily only a Sovereign who could be in possession of a Sovereign artifact.
“Even that expert had no idea how long it would take to repair it. It definitely must take a very long time.” Linley tested fusing his spiritual energy into that scale-like membrane. Instantly, a large amount of his spiritual energy entered the membrane, passing through even the gap.
At the same time, a large amount of spiritual energy began to try and ‘patch’ the gap.
This ‘patch’ formed from Linley’s spiritual energy was able to stop up the gap.
“The defensive strength of the ‘patch’ my spiritual energy made is definitely very low.” However, Linley discovered that as he constantly used his spiritual energy to nourish this translucent membrane, the strength of the ‘patch’ he had over the gap was slowly rising as well, gaining in strength.
Only, the speed of the increase was simply too slow.
“To reach the same level of defensive power as the rest of that scaly membrane will most likely take thousands of years at best.” Linley shook his head, sighing. “Still, right now, all I need to do is focus my spiritual energy on defending that little gap, and I can ignore the rest. This does indeed allow my soul defense to rise dramatically.”
In terms of power, this damaged soul-protecting Sovereign artifact was actually inferior to an ordinary soul-protecting divine artifact.
“Huh?” As Linley’s spiritual energy once more entered the Coiling Dragon ring, he discovered...
After the translucent membrane’s energy faded away, there were still two other surges of energy auras contained within the Coiling Dragon ring.
One of the energy auras was coming from a gold-colored drop of blood, while the other surge of energy was coming from three azure water drops.
“Gold liquid?” For some reason, when Linley sensed that gold-colored liquid, Linley felt his original body began to tremble. Not hesitating at all, Linley immediately once more transformed into his original body, storing his divine clone back into his soul-realm.
Indeed, the sensation now was much clearer.
The blood within his body was beginning to boil. The strange thing was...at this moment, that golden drop of blood flew out from within the Coiling Dragon ring, then fused directly with Linley’s original body.
“This...?” Linley was shocked.
“Linley?” The nearby Delia had been watching Linley this entire time. When she saw the golden drop of blood fly into Linley’s body, she was deeply surprised. But then...Delia grew frantic, because Linley began to let out low roars of agony.
“Delia...I...I’m fine!” Linley ground out.
Seeing the fierce look on Linley’s face, and how his muscles were spasming, Delia refused to believe that Linley was fine.
Compared to last time, though, when his soul had been cut in half, this time Linley at least maintained consciousness.
“Aaaaaah!” Linley couldn’t help but raise his head and let out an angry roar. “Bang!” The sky-blue robe covering Linley’s body shattered into countless tiny pieces, and instantly, an enormous amount of dark, gleaming draconic scales erupted forth from Linley’s body, and even his draconic tail emerged.
Linley was currently undergoing an uncontrollable Dragonblood Warrior transformation.
“Linley.” Delia looked at Linley, her eyes filled with worry.
Linley’s deep azure draconic scales were slowly transforming. The deep azure scales were changing, first becoming azure, just like the Pure Dragonblood Warriors. And then, Linley’s draconic scales began to emit a faint, golden aura.
The azure-gold draconic scales covered Linley’s entire body.
The horns on Linley’s forehead and along his spine were beginning to transform as well...
“Aaaaah!” Linley was filled with pain, releasing deep, growling sounds. The pain from this transformation was far greater than when Linley had originally drank the blood of the Armored Razorback Wyrm and transformed. Only, Linley’s endurance was now far greater than before, and so he didn’t pass out like he did when he was young.
Although he was in great pain, Linley’s heart was filled with wild joy.
“What on earth was that golden drop of blood? My body...has become...so powerful!” His Dragonblood Warrior form was still slowly transforming, but Linley could already sense that his body contained boundless power. Every single scale flashed with that azure-gold light, and that horn on his forehead was unspeakably sharp.
This was far more powerful than even his divine body!