The spectating Dragons were still spellbound and didn’t even realise that Aeshma had passed out until a few seconds later, but before they could fully recover and think of what to do next, a sea of Destruction-Wrath Essence emerged from Aeshma’s body and formed what looked like a cocoon around him.
It happened in an instant and there was nothing they could do about it. The energy quickly became solid and compact and even without testing it, they could just tell that trying to breach that cocoon would require herculean effort that they weren't quite sure they were capable of using.
So just like that, silence was once more returned to the 15 Peaks.
None of the Dragons spoke. The awe and fear in their hearts was gradually fading but there was still enough to leave them dazed, staring at Aeshma’s growing cocoon stupidly as if they had mental issues. Each and every one of them had their own thoughts about the situation and they felt like something had to be done, but ultimately, none of them felt qualified enough to make judgements about the situation. So one by one, they turned their heads to their spiritual figure.
Gaia, the goddess of Creation itself.
In all this time, Gaia had not made a single sound. She had only watched the events unfold as if they meant nothing to her, but thinking about it, that’s how it should be right? No matter how crazy Aeshma becomes, he’s still a mortal; How can anything he can accomplish amount to anything in front of a Primordial goddess like Gaia?
These were the thoughts running through their minds, and as they continued to watch the indifferent face of Gaia, some of them let out a breath of relief whilst others actually began to feel more confident.
But no matter their reaction, they all simultaneously thought that no matter what happened, their goddess would protect them. Their goddess would guide them. Everything was okay.
The faith that they had in Gaia grew and they all secretly prayed for her wellbeing, hoping that she could quickly regain her past strength and lead them to glory.
‘Our goddess…’ some of them thought with zeal in their eyes as they gazed at the Dragon with scales of brilliant Gold.
…
Contrary to their thoughts, Gaia was quite worried. Once again, ignorance was bliss and the wise were burdened. The Laws of Destruction were not in the slightest inferior to Creation, in fact, its battle potential was actually greater. But she had been able to suppress Aeshma and the others because of her knowledge, her greater experience with cultivation, her techniques, and the helpful fact that Beasts, especially young Beasts, were very willing to obey the strong. Thankfully, that wasn’t something that was different to other Worlds.
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But now, Aeshma had gained a significant increase in power and his Essence now consisted of 2 extremely powerful Laws. She didn’t know if what the Sins were could be considered a Law, but they were definitely on the same level. Considering this, even if Aeshma had not gone mad, how could he be so willing to obey every word of Gaia like before?
Yes she was a goddess, yes her techniques still gave her a much greater edge and yes her position in his heart should have caused him to submit, but…
Aeshma was no longer the Aeshma of before. She would be surprised if he didn’t attack everything in sight as soon as he woke up. The pure unadulterated rage she had sensed from him was only matched by eldritch Abominations that possessed a hatred for everything in existence including themselves.
Such hatred was not sane.
The introduction of that new Sin in Aeshma’s body had made him much stronger, so strong that it was unbelievable, but it had ruined him. She wholeheartedly believed that. So this begged the question, what was she going to do about it? She obviously could not ignore such a dangerous threat so she had to think of a solution.
She had been thinking for quite some time now and she had a few ideas, but she had not made a decision. After all, In a situation like this, she did not want to make a mistake. So, the first and most painful idea was to simply kill Aeshma as soon as the cocoon was removed.
As the age old adage goes, prevention is better than cure. Perhaps it was the wiser choice to completely remove the threat that was Aeshma, rather than leaving him alive to grow even more powerful than he was now.
But she did not want to do that. She had spent a lot of time with the Dragon and she had grown quite fond of him. Plus, what would others think of her if she were to so easily give up on one of her strongest ‘followers’ just because he stepped into the deep end. At the very least, she should be given a more acceptable reason. No need to kill him as soon as he arose from his evolution.
However, she didn’t bury the idea. If she sensed something that could really endanger her and her people if he was left alive for even a minute longer… she would deal with him.
Another idea was to somehow get him to learn a special mental technique that would help him control himself. It was a really good technique that she used herself called [The 9 Pillars of Heartfire], its uses were many and it could even help to enhance the Soul itself, but it was very difficult to learn. That was one reason that she hadn’t shared the technique with others, but the main one was purely because she didn’t feel the need.
It was a very special technique and what was treasured should be kept secret. On top of that, what if some powerful figure like the one known as Eridel traced back the special techniques that she handed out to her and decided to read or heavens forbid, devour her soul. Soul devouring techniques were so rare, so rare that even she, as old as she was, had never seen one and had only heard of them. Usually, the only thing that could devour Souls were Spirits and special Beasts, but she hadn’t heard of them being able to steal information from their soul devouring so aiming for her for information would be useless.
However, spinning this back, she now slightly regretted having not taught the techniques to at least the Destruction Dragons, as risky as it was.
Her last and final idea was to enslave his Soul. As an immortal who had lived for many, many years, she possessed an array of techniques that she used to consider evil when she was an insignificant mortal. Soul Enslavement was one of them.