Chapter 980 The seed of destruction
Max had warned Severus several times that he might lose control of himself once he came in contact with the seed of destruction and that the seed might play games with his head and show him things that were not true, but he trusted Severus to always have his head in the right place and see through those illusions.
Severus too took Max's warnings quite seriously and touched the seed of destruction with the expectation that the seed would play mind games on him, however, what he did not expect was physical suffering.
The second he touched the seed of destruction he felt all the strength inside his body leaving and failing him as he dropped down to one knee and his consciousness blacked out.
Immediately Max was there to tackle him and save his life as from start to finish Severus did not even touch the seed of destruction for a total of 0.3 seconds nor did he use its power even once.
Yet despite not even using the seeds power, he felt the effects of the seeds corruption as it took two hellish hours for him to regain his consciousness where for two solid hours he was battling his own personal demons within his brain trying to control his rage and not destroy the people that he hated the most.
Max did not understand why this was happening? Odin was able to touch the seed of destruction without fainting and according to him there was a tier6 god before him who touched the seed as well and was fine for a few hours, yet Severus could not last even for a few seconds.
Was it perhaps because Severus created a mental wall before touching the seed that the mental shock knocked him out?
Was it because Severus did not have emotional resistance which was as robust as that of Odin?
Max was not sure, however, his attempt to understand the safety of operating the seed of destruction also turned out to be an epic failure.
Fighting and understanding the weakness of the celestial warrior aside, Max felt like taming the seeds of power was the most difficult part in of itself as he could not imagine what sort of trouble his brother must have gone through to be able to withstand such power.
Quitting was never an option and sooner or later Max knew he had to tame these seeds as well, however, for now he did not see a clear way to achieve his goals.
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( Meanwhile the Church Of Cowards )
The church of cowards were a organisation that saw their influence increase significantly over the past twenty years throughout the universe.
At the centre of the Church was Sebastian the pope, however, Max the vampire king and the second disciple of Kremeth the turtle was equally revered as one of the church's apostles.
On the surface, the church was much loosely regulated than the orthodox religions and it did not have many rituals or festivals to celebrate. However, as time passed by, the followers began creating festivals and celebrations of their own as slowly a culture was being birthed around the relegion.
The festival they celebrated was called ' The fall of the demon Angakok', a three day holiday where the believers of the church got together with family, exchanged presents and ate sumptuous food to mark the monumental victory of their leader Sebastian and their apostle Max over the oppressive shaman god Angakok.
A decade ago, it was only being celebrated in Dombivli, the spiritual capital of the church, however, slowly but surely the concept caught on and now it was a universal festival.
There were three newly acquired vampire planets that were fully consisting of only primordial vampires, where the church of cowards held a grand celebration of Victory Day Festival and converted a massive population to church believers in a matter of one year.
The lost and suffering primordial vampires who were ostracised by most in the traditional vampire society and only wanted a way to live peacefully and survive, found their calling within the church of cowards and it's commandments focused around survival.
Dracula was the father of these children, to hate Dracula was akin to hating their own blood and race, which was why Max never made the narrative on those planets about how good triumphed over evil but rather always made it about coexistence and how Dracula had to die because he rejected the others out of superiority complex.
Max ensured that he never crippled the self confidence of the young primordial vampires and it began to show as once the primordial vampires were free'd from Dracula's oppression and allowed into the church of cowards, their personality change was visible as slowly but surely they began to learn how to control their bloodlust and become honourable warriors.
Naturally, this was a slow process and only applied to a select few while the majority of the society still struggled to adapt, however, seeing as how a select few were doing better than the others, the majority also believed that the church held the answers to all their problems and more and more began to join every weak.
Chants of ' May the cowardice be with you' became the staple greeting between soldiers while attending the mandatory military training imposed by Max, which felt like some secret cult that only a select few were part of, prompting even more to join it as to not feel left out.
Max did not understand why, he did not understand how, yet somehow the church of cowards completely integrated themselves with the primordial vampires and became an inseparable part of their culture.
The same primordial vampires that the universe expected to be always drunk on bloodlust and having a destructive personality, now chanted the turtle hermit rules and ran away from fights in what could only be described as a comical scene.
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/// A/N - This bonus sponsored by patron Cervantez91, please thank him in the comments for this one ///