Intermediate Gold Grade Pranic Beast—Grim Knell!
The name was the same as before, as it was the same race. The only difference was that it had now evolved, having lost its Mutated status in the process.
As a Gold Grade Pranic Beast, the Grim Knell’s size increased, now assuming a height of sixty metres. It had a humanoid shoulder, dangling from which was a bell. Like the legs of a stool, fourteen legs jutted out of the bell’s boundary.
They had no joints, with their ends sharp. The Grim Knell wasn’t capable of running. Rather, similar to a tumbler rolling about its circumferential axis when dropped on the floor, the Grim Knell’s legs stabbed into the ground, forming helical patterns as it slowly progressed forward.
The section within the bell was its mouth, large enough to gobble targets as big as itself. In terms of brain to body mass ratio, the Grim Knell already had a smaller brain at the Silver Grade. Now, the evolution affected this part further, making it possess the lowest brain to body mass ratio among all Gold Grade Pranic Beasts.
There was no head as the brain was situated within the humanoid shoulder. Stretching from the shoulders were a pair of arms, reaching a length of 120 metres. They behaved like crutches when the Grim Knell wanted to move past obstacles or climb a rocky terrain.
These arms were designed similar to a panglolin’s body in that they had two states. In the relaxed state, they behaved like tentacles, having a length of 120 metres each. In a tensed state, they shrunk to resemble a human hand, reaching a length of 40 metres, tough and rigid.
Littering the shoulder were eyes, a whopping forty. Along the legs were ear canals, numbering more than 300. Small pores existed on the arms, serving as a nasal cavity, too many to count. Within the bell were tendrils resembling the arm, only thinner.
They served as the tongue and numbered about thirty. All these body parts were organs, through which its ability could be employed. Possessing a Prana capacity of 6000 and a lifespan of 1480 years, the Grim Knell had now become an absolute menace.
Primary Nature—Astral Rupture!
It only had its Primary Nature now. Similar to Linked Rupture, Akashic Rupture took out the user’s senses alongside the target’s. But there was one difference now—the link no longer existed.
When a Death Knell used Linked Rupture, its Prana was consumed to maintain the ability’s effect. Once its Prana was expended, the ability vanished, allowing the target to recover its senses. The Death Knell lost the same senses it deprived of its target.
However, the Death Knell had multiple sensory organs, so it had no issues moving about while its target remained helpless.
The Grim Knell’s Secondary Nature of Akashic Transfer allowing it to transfer the Linked Rupture’s source to another entity, using their Prana to maintain the ability. Thereby, it could instantly neutralise an entire crowd.
Akashic Transfer was truly a cheat if the targeted party had no idea about it. But if they did, then they could make plans. First was to defend against the soundwaves carrying the power of Akashic Transfer. If the soundwaves don’t reach them, then the ability cannot take effect.
Secondly, if the pair who, through Akashic Transfer, had ruptured each other’s senses, manage to go beyond Spirit Weapon range of each other, then they break free from the ability’s effects. These were the two ways to overcome Akashic Transfer.
The Gold Grade Grim Knell’s Primary Nature of Astral Rupture wasn’t as overpowered against a crowd as Akashic Transfer. However, it was harder to guard against.
Unlike the Death Knell and the Silver Grade Grim Knell whose ability was dependent on sound, the Gold Grade Grim Knell had no restrictions on the medium usage. It could be sound, scent, smell, sight, etc.
As long as its Prana reaches the target, irrespective of the medium used, the ability takes effect. And it does so by influencing the target’s Prana to act against their senses.
The target’s Prana would consider the body’s senses as foreign entities and get rid of them. As it was the target’s Prana that was the culprit now, it’ll take a long time for them to make a recovery.
After all, the Prana would slowly have to revert to default settings and forget that it had considered the body’s senses as enemies. After this happens, it would regenerate the sensory organs. The entire recovery process would take a while.
Astral Rupture was spontaneous in its effect and no longer relied on a link. Upon activation, the respective sensory organ on the Gold Grade Grim Knell would rupture, and the rupture’s effects would be carried by its Prana to make contact with the target.
Upon contact, it would influence the target’s Prana to rupture the targeted body’s senses. This would be accompanied by double the pain—the target’s sensory organs rupturing plus the Grim Knell’s respective sensory organs rupturing.
The two-fold pain was another added advantage of Astral Rupture.
’It has its pros and cons. But overall, it’s stronger against individual targets.’ The Grim Knell analysed and smirked, ’All the sacrifices were worth it. Now, I simply have to start spawning my kind more.’
The Grim Knells followed a mating structure similar to the Rockatrice and the Mudroppers in that they had ancestral genetic information passed down from parent to child. Therefore, even without a mating partner, they had all the necessary genetic information to birth their progeny.
Death Knells were mostly female, but there were males too, although rarer.
[Do you see this? You can recreate the same. Though, without Akashic Transfer, you’ll need a significantly longer time, but this method guarantees success, even without a cultivation technique!]
That was the biggest benefit from the method the Grim Knell used to evolve. It employed Mystic Sumatra Art, alongside the Wean Clansman who used the same. And then, through the Wean Clansman, the accumulating influence was simply transferred into the Free Human who was susceptible to external influences, thanks to his Vara Human Avatar.
Even after the Vara Human Avatar, since the process was started before the Vara could be ejected out of the body, the Free Human’s Prana influenced the Spirit Container into activating Gold Inheritance Art.
And this cultivation technique’s properties allowed the Ravaged Tribesman characteristics to build up on the body until eventually, one of them entered the Life Stage.
The Ravaged Tribesmen who couldn’t reach that point can simply be consumed by the Wean Clansman, which only strengthened the influence flowing into the surviving Ravaged Tribesmen. This process of source and sink would continue until a Ravaged Tribesman turned into a Clansman.
Both Mystic Sumatra Art and Gold Inheritance Arts were complete arts and their effectiveness was on par with a Nature. That’s why their synergy could result in such a record-breaking success.
Thanks to them, Pranic Beasts didn’t have to worry about creating cultivation techniques and spend many centuries or more for it to be completed and then for its influence to stack on the Ravaged Tribesmen to eventually birth a Clansman.
"It...works!" The Empyrean Whisker, Pai had an infatuated expression as it communicated with the Grim Knell and quickly arrived at a conclusion, renewing another deal. ’I finally see hope of reaching Expert Gold Grade status!’
One after another, the librarians came to terms with the Grim Knell, gaining all the knowledge it had accumulated with the source-sink process. In return, they responded with all the knowledge, Skills, and Prime Skills they had accumulated for Mystic Sumatra Art.
These data would serve as valuable reference materials for the Grim Knell to create its own set of Skills.
’This was a fruitful journey.’ The Grim Knell observed its powerful body and thought, ’But I don’t see any possibilities of evolving again unless I mutate into a whole new race. But that’s not possible, as I am a Grim Knell.’
The Death Knell Race emerged from the remains of a Cosmic Being. So, similar to the Mudropper and Brully Race, their potential had no limits until Expert Gold Grade. Only when they enter the Mystic Grade will their race’s limit start to appear.
Therefore, the Grim Knell would have to spend multiple generations as its genetic strains gradually accumulate new strains until eventually, there is a qualitative effect, enough to attempt the Ravaged Tribesmen process once again.
Currently, even the Grim Knell creates a new Knell Tribe and turned one of them into a Clansman, it wouldn’t evolve. ’My next goal should be to mutate.’
’I need to venture into dangerous terrains one after another and try to adapt to them, so that one of my descendants manage to Mutate.’ The Grim Knell thought and used its arms to choke the Empyrean Boar to death.
It then consumed the corpse, digesting it to recover some Prana. Following that, it set its eyes upon the Knell Clansman, ’He’s no longer needed.’
However, right as its arms stretched towards the Knell Clansman, it felt a prickle on its skin, following which a clot formed in the blood flow of its arm, causing an explosion. The explosion was strong enough to tear off its arm, stunning it for a moment.
"Who did that?" It roared, turning serious upon noticing the nervous expression forming on the faces of the Librarians. It flinched, spotting a Millinger suddenly appear in the stands. Without hesitation, it unleashed Astral Rupture, watching the sensory organs of the Millinger explode in response.
However, the Millinger didn’t seem bothered with that and instead charged at it, "What the heck is that?"
Realising that the Knell Clansman was its target, the Grim Knell tried to crush the latter. However, every time it did so, explosions occurred across its body, preventing it from touching the Knell Clansman. By the time of its third failed attempt, the Grim Knell watched nervously as the Millinger loomed over it, safeguarding the Knell Clansman in its mouth.
And then, it retreated, following which a mildly incensed voice resounded in the Empyrean Colosseum, "There is a price to pay for daring to use the natives of this region, especially for a plan that heavily capitalises upon my sister’s creation."
"What...?" The Grim Knell expressed confusion upon seeing the Millinger vanish, when immediately, explosions covered its body.