SACRED

The help of the Fawkes was quite complex. It required a level of manipulation that was only possible thanks to the God Beasts of Creation.

Of course, the God Beasts of Creation didn't act directly, or else the favor wouldn't be owed to the Fawkes in the first place.

Instead, it was rather related to the God Beasts of Creation by proxy due to the uniqueness of IIumans.

It had to be remembered that before choosing the Human Race, the God Beasts of Creation had tried to create Envoys of Creation with all sorts of other, seemingly much more powerful Races.

However, in the end, they failed every time.

It was simply impossible to get another Race to take on the strength of the Beast Envoys, let alone they as Gods of Creation themselves.

That was when an Ancestor of the God Beasts of Creation chose to think outside of the box. Why start with an already powerful Race when they were granting them power anyway? In such a case, wouldn't it be best to just pick the most malleable Race?

As one might expect, the most malleable of the Races was the one Race that didn't seem to have a single talent shared across their people.

This made the Human Race perfect.

The method the Fawkes used to help the Pluto was simple when this was understood. All they needed to do was to share some of their malleability with the Pluto. As for how they did that, it was reliant on what was none other than the most feared Lineage Factor in Existence.

Emperor's Might.

Or more accurately: [Assimilate].

Leonel personally knew the power of [Assimilate]. After all, it was thanks to [Assimilate] that he was able to fuse the corpse of a God Beast of Creation into Little Tolly, thus raising his Crafting to another level.

Honestly speaking, Leonel felt that he was still not using Tolliver adequately. He hadn't studied how to maximize his new powers nearly enough.

As of now, Tolliver's extra abilities were just glorified mass producing. As explained before, he could create Ores he had seen before, and he could fuse two or more Ores of different characteristics to create a new one, essentially leaping over the hardest parts of forging a Life Grade treasure.

But whether he was using Tolliver to the best degree or not was a matter for a different time. What was most important now was the power of [Assimilate], a power that couldn't be denied.

The Fawkes essentially used the bodies of their Ancestors to give the core members of the Pluto a chance to peek into what it would feel like to be Human.

But what none of them expected was the change that would occur after the fact.

Before the interference of the Fawkes, the Path of Death the Pluto followed was a bit unique. Rather than being Gods of Death, they were more like reapers along the stream of Death. They could guide it, accelerate it, slow it down, but they didn't actually control Death itself. It just seemed like they did by proxy.

For example, it was impossible for them to do what Shan Rae had done, essentially coming back from the dead. But that was also why they were Demi-Gods and not Gods just yet.Content © provided by .

This was also why their bodies were so shockingly powerful. A lot of their strength came from borrowing from their lifespans, and manipulating their death dates. It was a lot like how Aina's Blood Force, or even Blood Sovereigns in general, worked.

The Pluto believed that once they broke into the God Realms, they would finally be able to exhibit. the kind of control over Death they had always longed for.

But they didn't expect to run into an even better mutation of it all. Or maybe they should have...

It turned out that the foundation for their mastery over Death had never been Death Force itself, but rather an extremely rudimentary form of Time Force.

When everything came to a head, a legend was born and their Time Force flourished, but that also led to something else.

Their bodies had grown robust due to the constant manipulation of their Life Force. Unlike Aina, who had flexible Blood Force and could add and subtract from her Life Force whenever she wanted, the Pluto hadn't had the ability to do this. They had to rely on external items to supplement themselves, and often when they went too far, they would simply die.

This was why they had evolved to grow so powerful. Because only a powerful body could possibly withstand the wild fluctuations of Life Force they had to endure without the foundation of Blood Force affinity.

When their Death control became Time control, though, their strength of body didn't regress but instead reached another level entirely.

Now they weren't just capable of withstanding the ravages of Death-or the fluctuations in Life Force in this case-but they were also capable of withstanding the ravages of time.

It was said that the bodies of Pluto simply never decayed. And the moment they stepped into Godhood, they reached a level of sacredness and sanctity that couldn't be touched.

However, as with everything, there was a give and a take.

Their bodies were only so powerful now because they were bound by the Laws of Time, and the Laws of Time had its own rules that needed to be followed.

Things like Karma and Fate bound them inextricably, and though they had suddenly become a Race so supremely powerful that most well-established Gods feared them, they could not forget or hope to forget the debt they owed to the Fawkes.

However, there were some things left unsaid that didn't need to be stated so explicitly... but one only need think about it for a moment to understand.

If the Pluto were so good at repaying their debts, how could it ever be the case that the Fawkes would fall in the first place?