In a blink of the eye, Godfrey appeared in front of Akasha. Akasha’s body was only the size of Godfrey’s head and comparing the two was like comparing a cat to an elephant. His beak struck Akasha’s torso and continued to speed forward. Akasha even felt that his body would be pierced if he didn’t do anything fast.
Godfrey’s divine ability was called Fierce Flash, hence naming himself the Fierce Flash Golden Roc. It transformed the user’s body into a body of light and caused them to fly at an extremely fast speed that pierced everything. If Nova Purification was a strong soul attack, then Fierce Flash was an ultimate material attack.
A phantom of a giant dragon appeared above Akasha. Godfrey’s eyes widened. Although divine abilities were powerful, they couldn’t be used endlessly. The user had to consume a large amount of divine power and spiritual power to use it. However, since Akasha chose to use his divine ability, Godfrey increased the intensity of his attack.
The power of divine abilities wasn’t fixed. As long as the user possessed enough comprehension of the mysteries correlating to their divine ability, it would increase. So far, Godfrey could only increase the strength of his Fierce Flash a little bit. If he had fused the Profound Mystery of Lightspeed and another mystery, his divine ability’s power might increase by ten percent.
Ten percent didn’t sound like a lot, but Godfrey was a divine beast with the potential to increase his body’s strength to a Sovereign artifact. Ten percent was actually scary for experts.
As for Akasha. After using Howl of Destruction, he had immediately started restoring his spiritual power with Golden Soul Pearls. Golden Soul Pearls were made by refining the souls of countless creatures by a deity that trained in the Edict of Death. After millions of years, Akasha had stocked many Golden Soul Pearls after raising his soul to the limit. As for divine power, Akasha still had over half, and not to mention that he hadn’t tapped into the divine power of his light-type clone.
Under Akasha’s divine ability, Godfrey shrieked as his soul and body took damage. His speed slowed down as he could no longer maintain Fierce Flash. Simultaneously, the premonition of death erupted in Godfrey’s heart. He wanted to turn tail and run, but how could Akasha let him?
A black light covered Akasha’s body, and he pierced Godfrey’s skin and burrowed into his body. Godfrey only had the chance to scream before his eyes dulled. Light did not return to Godfrey’s eyes as his body shriveled up into a husk covered in feathers. Seconds later, Akasha burrowed out of the Fierce Flash Golden Roc.
After a moment of consideration, Akasha transformed into a giant, black dragon with two pairs of wings and six crown-like horns appeared. Unfortunately, spatial rings and other storage treasures haven’t appeared yet in the universe, so he could only physically carry Godfrey’s corpse back to Alspirit City.
Upon returning, Akasha immediately ordered his army to attack Fiendking City. Although he failed to kill the Fiend King, it would take a long time for the latter to recover—if he didn’t perish because of the soul damage, that is. Since that was the case, this was the perfect time to attack Fiendking City and absorb it into his forces.
However, Akasha didn’t bother with the war. Instead, he focused on the Fierce Flash Golden Roc’s body he brought back. Inside the innermost room of Alspirit Castle, he had turned into a wyrm again and burrowed into the divine beast's corpse.
Soon, the golden roc’s corpse began to change. First, its shriveled form regained its mass. Two crests that resembled back-pointing horns grew out above the eyes, and the lower half of the body thickened. Everything under the chest changed from golden feathers to white fur, making the roc resemble a mixture of eagle and lion. To be exact, the corpse could no longer be called a Fierce Flash Golden Roc.
When the transformation finished, Akasha flew out of the body and transformed back into his humanoid form. He turned around and face the giant corpse. Light returned to the corpse’s eyes a few minutes later. Although it had returned to life, the soul occupying the body was no longer Godfrey.
The eagle lion chimera shrunk until it turned into an angelic youth with braided golden hair and amber eyes. He wore a dark brown breastplate vest that barred his midriff, a white scarf, and hakama-like pants with boots.
This was also part of the genesis wyrm’s innate abilities. Akasha had already absorbed the blood essence and soul of the Fierce Flash Golden Roc, but as long as it was the corpse of the divine beast he devoured before, he could modify them with the other bloodlines he devoured. The gryphon was the result of mixing the Fierce Flash Golden Roc and the lion divine beast he devoured in the material realm.
In a way, Akasha’s current body was also the result of him mixing and optimizing the various destruction-type divine beasts he devoured. The only downside was that the saint clones couldn’t merge into one, but that was fine.
Akasha nodded in satisfaction. “From today onwards, you will be known as Aether.”
“Why are you telling me? Aren’t we the same person?” Aether asked with a smile. Although he said that, his aura no longer resembled Akasha’s. If they asked a third party, no one would think the two were the same person.
Akasha left soon after, leaving Aether alone in the room. Aether shook his head and chuckled. “From now on, I’ll be known as the Gold-Crowned Gryphon.”
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Aether sat on the lone throne in the room and closed his eyes. After experiencing the Fierce Flash Golden Roc’s divine ability, he had gained the final inspiration needed to merge Profound Mystery of Purification, Essence of Light, and Profound Mystery of Lightspeed perfectly.
He didn’t stop upon perfectly fusing all three profound mysteries, but attempted to fuse the fourth. The Fiend King’s fire-type clone brought Akasha massive pressure. Had it not been because he had always hidden his trump card, it might have been him that was chased. He had always focused on the Edict of Destruction, but now he was in a hurry to increase the strength of his light-type clone.
Aether had thought Linley was stupid when he became a highgod after seeing the Bloodridge Sovereign instead of continuing to stay a god and fuse more profound mysteries, but he kind of understood his standpoint now. Without strength, how would you have the peace of mind to continue to fuse the profound mysteries?
However, although he understood Linley’s standpoint, Aether did not take the same path. No matter what, he wanted to fuse as many profound mysteries as possible before becoming a highgod of light. At the very least, he had to fuse five profound mysteries before becoming a highgod.
Under Aether’s determined efforts, time flowed like water.
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Akasha sat on a large throne in the hall and looked down at his kneeling subordinates. Because he didn’t like the feeling of watching a zoo, he forced the gods beneath him to take humanoid forms. Humans have yet to appear, or at the very least, undergo apotheosis from the material planes and ascending to the four higher planes, so most of the deities kept their original forms. The only difference was that they changed their size to a universal standard outside of battle.
“Reporting to my lord, we have already taken over and absorb Godfrey City into our ranks,” the highgod of death reported.
He waited for Akasha to bestow rewards upon him, but all he got was a question that made him sweat profusely. “What about Fiendking City? It’s already been ten thousand years, have you not taken it down yet?”
The highgod of death gritted his teeth and answered. “Reporting to my lord, the people of Fiendking City have turned it into a fortress. It seems that they don’t have any thoughts of counterattacking. Instead, they just hole themselves in the city and defend like a turtle. It’s not that we can’t break through, but the price would be too much. As long as we take our time, we can grind their defenses and morale down.”
Akasha stared at the highgod, causing his sweat to thicken. “Nevermind. Just station the bare minimum. Allocate the forces away and focus on mapping the continent.”
The highgod of death released the breath he had unconsciously held. It felt as if he had been pardoned from death. “At once!”
A few orders later, Akasha sat alone in the grand hall.
Moments later, he pulled out a map. The map was very crude, and some parts only listed the most basic landmarks and cities. However, the description of Alspirit City and the surrounding was very detailed. The farther away from the Alspirit City, the less detail there was.
However, there was one part that attracted his attention—specifically the east, where the words coastline was clearly written.
Akasha’s heart rate increased as he narrowed his eyes into crescents. If he wasn’t wrong, this should be the juncture between the continent and the Chaotic Sea. However, there were still a few strange points, like why he hadn’t found the Starmist Sea. Although he only ruled a territory the size of a prefecture, it didn’t mean that his scouts only explored his territory.
To speed up the cartography, Akasha had specifically ordered a bunch of deities with more than one divine clone to explore the land while keeping one clone nearby. Akasha had enough confidence to declare that he had the largest map of any deity in the Infernal Realm. By his estimations, the map should have already reached the size of a continent, if not bigger.
But that only made him question his knowledge more. He clearly remembered that the Starmist Sea was surrounded by five continents like a donut. However, all the scouts he dispatched did not record any continents, just one continuous landmass. It was as if the five continents and Starmist Sea didn’t exist.
“Perhaps they really don’t,” Akasha said.
According to the novel, the Yulan Plane originally had more than one continent, but after the Descent of Gods, only one continent remained. Why couldn’t such a calamity occur to in the Infernal Realm? As for the ‘gods’ that caused the continent to split into five and form the Starmist Sea? It could only be because of the battle between Sovereigns.
Akasha, who felt as if he had touched upon the truth, sighed. Even if he intellectually understood the strength of Sovereigns, that was different experiencing it himself. Still, this was only his hypothesis, and he wanted to fill out the map more before making a move.
All he needed to do was wait until his subordinates explored the coastline more and verify that it was indeed the juncture between the Chaotic Sea and the continent. Perhaps he had underestimated the size of the Infernal Realm and the coastline led to the Starmist Sea.
Alas, someone popped up and interrupted Akasha’s plan.
“Come out, Akasha!”
Akasha instantly recognized the Fiend King’s voice. He disappeared from the grand hall and reappeared above the city. There, he saw the Fiend King’s figure. “I didn’t expect you to immediately find me after recovering. You should have obediently hidden yourself. But since you seek death, let me fulfill your wish!”
“No, I’ve come here to thank you,” the Fiend King said. He smiled, like he and Akasha were old friends.
Akasha snorted and transformed. The air cracked behind Akasha as he charged at the Fiend King. Both his hands had already formed a blade of destruction. Once he neared, he slashed forward with both hands. In response, the Fiend King gathered a red-black divine power in his fist and punched.
To Akasha's shock and horror, the Fiend King’s punchblocked both his blades of destruction. That only lasted a single second as the two blades of destruction shattered, allowing the Fiend King’s fist to land on his body. Akasha spat out a mouthful of blood as flew off into the distance.
Once Akasha stabilized himself, he stared at the Fiend King in shock. “You’ve already reached this level?”
The Fiend King smiled, his good mood evident. “Indeed, I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Akasha opened his mouth, but no words came out. Originally, he thought the Fiend King’s attainment in the Edict of Destruction reached the threshold of an asura, but it didn’t seem like it was the case. Combining the Fiend King’s words and the previous battle between the two, disbelief flashed in Akasha’s eyes.
“You’ve become a soul mutate!?”