Aaron stood in a dense forest, closing his eyes and extending his spiritual sense to a range of 5000 meters. Despite the lack of any visible change in his expression, he came up empty handed and found only tall trees and Demon beasts in his surroundings.
There was no sign of human life or any trace of the tainted Feng Zhiming. However, Aaron could sense a vile and putrid presence observing him from a distance, lurking in the depths of his existence.
With a frown on his face, he was compelled to address the unknown entity.
“Reveal yourself, only cowards hide in the shadows." The words barely made their way out of his mouth, despite the suppression of his cultivation the instincts of a Heavenly Eye cultivator remained, even when the Heavenly Eye was shut.
After Bringing one's soul to actualization, the avatar of the soul would open its eyes. From those eyes the single greatest qualitative change since spiritual sense bloomed. The ability to see beyond Qi, the ability to perceive and process the fundamental nature of reality, to gaze at concepts, also known as primordial matter.
To kill a Heavenly Eye cultivator one would have to not only shatter their souls, but have to utilize an attack that could shut their heavenly eye, an attack greater than just an amalgamation of Qi, an attack that utilized primordial matter.
Spiritual Awakening cultivators who could utilize something along those lines were exceedingly rare, monsters if there ever were.
However Aaron was in an interesting situation, his Heavenly Eye had shut and soul had become dormant, this meant if his core was shattered he would undoubtedly perish. But to catch them would be beyond difficult.
As he opened his eyes a shadow of a woman appeared on the ground, a shadow not cast by the moon in the sky, a shadow that was sourceless.
“Here I am.” She spoke in an eerie almost detached tone.
Aaron immediately swung his sword trying to stab the shadow, however the sword merely cut through the shadow like air and the woman remained.
“Unwarranted hostility, expected from the slave of a doctrine rooted in absolute control.”
Aaron sheathed his sword and crossed his arms, he had faced taunts like this more than once. The one’s he vanquished always had the same words for him.
“I’ll kill you as soon as I find you, and I’ll be killing that tainted one as well.”
“Bold words, they should only be used by those capable of acting on them.” the shadow replied.
Tendrils engraved with ancient symbols and markings emerged from the ground, trying to strangle the Holy Knight.
Aaron merely grunted and a golden light began to emanate from his body, the tendrils retreated quickly and back into the woman’s shadow.
“I see, you’re the creature, more accurately you’ve become the host of the creature.”
Aaron continued to walk forward, if he walked enough he would run into someone eventually.
“Of course, the laws of the world would never allow you to remain here as an offshoot of the abyss. So you captured an innocent woman and bonded with her.” he reasoned as he analyzed the situation.
“Is that what you think?” the woman responded.
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Aaron looked ahead, walking slowly.
“Although I once possessed a name, Hani. I assure you, I am no mindless creature of the abyss. I asked for the power the creature gave me.”
The shadow stood up from the ground and transformed into a woman, covered completely in a black robe.
Aaron grabbed his sword and swung at her again, however the result did not change, it still went through her.
“Since you are destined to die, I will cure a certain misunderstanding you have.”
She began to explain.
“The Acaritas are beings far, far beyond what you refer to as a “Greater one.” they are beings that would never be allowed to exist in the mortal realms, no matter what they did. The same is true for the divinities of the Qi domain, like the goddess you worship.”
She walked around him slowly, trying to gauge his reactions.
“The reason being that the realm itself couldn’t tolerate their existence, it was composed of material things, things such as space and time, things that underwent entropy and obeyed laws of physics.”
She raised her hand and the projection of a miniature solar system appeared in her hand, twin stars surrounded by four planets.
“If someone unable to be defined by these properties attempted to enter the mortal realm they would shatter the world. So for many cycles the gods followed this rule, to shelter the mortal realm.”
She closed her hand into a fist and the solar system was crushed into a singular point..
“However as cycles passed the Acaritas found a way around such a restriction, to compete for the throne the rules had changed and they had to adapt. At the end of any given cycle, when the throne inevitably shattered, the laws of the Qi domain were weakened immensely.”
She opened her fist and the solar system that had been crushed exploded into a giant mess of particles and atoms.
“In that instance they determined that they could plant a seed, a seed that would sprout when the time was right. A seed holding a creature of communion.”
A blob of darkness appeared on her shoulder.
“Whenever the Administrator and his followers play at this charade and the Caelum Juravi are thrown into Primus, the center of all Mortal Realms. The Acaritas awaken the seeds.”
Aaron looked at her with a furious expression before speaking.
“Keep spouting your lies, demons who want to end the world, that’s all you are! You speak of thrones, of cycles, but do you have any proof? We have proof, our Goddess is eternal. There is no such thing as cycles. There is only the Goddess!”
He touched off the ground and flew into the sky, only to be quickly brought crashing to the ground.
“As the seeds awaken they feed to sustain themselves, but at the same time they possess unexplainable power, power beyond what should be possible in the mortal domain, power like resurrecting the dead at will.”
She was personally proof of that ability.
“As the world begins to notice these transgressions it moves to banish these creatures, back to the abyss. But in this case the creature merged with me, in doing so it lost the impermissible abilities but kept most of them, by merging with me.”
The woman smiled as she felt an immense power coursing through her.
“By merging with a native of this world the creature too becomes native and abides by the laws of the world, since they can no longer exceed the peak of the world, that being the Dao Lord Realm. The world permits the existence of those at the peak of Dao Lord. So naturally it deemed me Dao Lord.”
She began to slowly release her aura, a suffocating pressure engulfed Aaron as he fell to his knees.
He grabbed the Sigil on his neck and began to pray.
“Maiden Everbright grant me strength!”
A golden glow surrounded him and the pressure decreased.
The woman merely smirked and the aura she emanated began to turn into an abyssal black from its earlier dark gray hue.
“Relying on borrowed Divinity from an object will not save you from one who has fused with Divinity itself. You, the one destined to be a step stone for my fated one, resist all you want but you cannot hope to win this battle.”
"To hell with you vile creature, kill me if you must! But I will not yield, not in this life, and not in the next. My Goddess will grant me an embrace Everbright and she will send another, far more powerful then I, than she will send another. Until it is you who kneels. Such is the power of her command, such is her commitment to order."
The woman smirked, Aaron instead of despairing had actually strengthened his resolve, unwavering even in the face of death.
"Your death is not one that I am fated to deliver."