Road to Hell (5)
"Hui Mie!" The voice that appeared possessed enormous majesty, but it was accompanied by a coldness that would freeze people's bones and a killing intent that would drown even the most evil.
"Asura..." Black lines appeared on the face of the God of Destruction as he stood up from his throne and watched as a man appeared at the entrance of the enormous hall. The darkness of the throne room of the castle of destruction was dark, and only a few windows provided light. But, even so, the light did not help the purple being much.
"Do you have any idea what you could have caused, Hui Mie?!" Asura advanced while releasing all his pressure forward. A blood-red wind and aura manifested as raging waves that charged forward. But, at the same time, a pressure loaded with destruction collided against each other.
The two auras collided in the middle as they fought. Meanwhile, purple and red eyes stared at each other coldly without blinking.
"Enough! We can talk things over!" At that moment, the voice of the goddess of life echoed throughout the place, causing two pairs of eyes to look at her before the two men snorted.
"Asura…" she continued and looked at the God Asura with a slightly embarrassed look. "We are sorry, but I wanted to help the child. I didn't think that Hui Mie would decide to bless him with an attribute like ruin."
Asura remained silent for a few moments before walking a little further forward, showing his appearance in front of the light from a large window. He was a tall man, almost two meters tall. His body was covered by a red armor that seemed to be made of bones. But, even so, one could notice how robust his body was. His hair as black as the starless night slowly fell down his back and a crown of bones remained on his head. The two red eyes actually looked like two bright stars.
"Do you really think I'm that petty, Sheng Ming?" Asura snorted in annoyance. His sword-shaped eyebrows moved in obvious displeasure.
"That woman, Rakshasa, has already gotten her hands on my previous heir. If she were such a petty and murderous person, then I would have killed her long ago. I, like many other gods, understand the boredom of being a part of our god realm. After all, we would only be able to see the wonders of the universe when we hand over our positions to heirs."
"However!" Asura shouted angrily, his expression changing completely: "Do you realize the danger you could leave our god realm in?!"
"I did not accept Perseus simply for the sake of gaining an heir! While having an heir would give me the ability to travel the universe in the future, I also have to take into account the safety of this realm." Inhaling sharply, Asura glared at Hui Mie.
"Or did you forget who asked him to train the boy?"
Hui Mie was about to shout in annoyance, one of the things he disliked the most was other gods telling him what to do with an attitude of: I know more than you. But when Asura asked that final question, the body of the god of destruction froze for a few moments before slowly relaxing.
In the end, a sigh came out of his mouth.
Unbeknownst to his wife, Hui Mie didn't want to simply help Percy for nothing. Oh no, that wasn't his attitude. And while helping him gain power might result in a long-term benefit, it wouldn't be worth it.
Hui Mie's true goal was to tempt Percy with the power of the Eye of Ruin. He wanted the young man to move towards it and, little by little, give him some other benefits while releasing tests camouflaged as disasters, powerful beasts and other things. That way, when he saw that it was enough, he would directly hand over his position as the God of Destruction to her.
At the same time, while this was going on, he would slowly push his wife to have some girl close to Percy obtain the position of the goddess of life. In the end, if it had worked out as he expected, the two married gods would have gone off on a long, well-deserved vacation! Or even reincarnated into mortals.
In the end, a god would remember their entire previous life if they chose to be reincarnated.
But, in the end, Hui Mie was too hasty.
Looking at Asura, the God of Destruction sat back down before nodding.
"You're right, in this specific case, I was hasty."
While he might be arrogant and perhaps a little evil about some things, he was not someone who did not know how to accept the truth.
Sheng Ming looked on with a bit of surprise as her husband acknowledged his mistake. Although she snorted a little in annoyance. She, as a wife who has known her husband for a long time, knew what he was thinking when he saw the eye of ruin.
"Hehe… They really have almost spoiled this old man's plan."
The elderly voice made the three gods' leg bones turn soft as their marrows turned cold.
"… "
"… "
"Oh…" the goddess of life could only look on with a bit of fear at the old man. To them, he was not just Chaos, the first being of the universe. To many divine realms, he was a saint, a demon, the creator, the destroyer. The one who was born from nothing and shaped the universe.
He was the universe… He was the law of the universe… He was everything, but also nothing.
Throughout the entire universe's expanse and existence, he has had countless incarnations. And on a single planet, he could be several people and the origin of many myths and legends.
He was not evil, but he was not a saint either.
"So you want a vacation, little purple one?" the old man asked as he raised his eyebrows. His eyes were closed, but even so, the gods could sense a powerful and dangerous feeling.
"Oh... Not at all, not at all. This young god still has a lot to do as a god," Hui Mie shook his hands as his back became drenched in sweat.
The old man nodded, but then tilted his head looking at Sheng Ming: "So you want the vacation? It seems that your husband does not want to accept the one I had planned for you."
"Don't worry, this grandson doesn't want to... wait, what did he say?" Hui Mie had rushed to speak, but then stopped in shock.
Even Asura, who had been frozen staring ahead, turned his head in surprise at Chaos' words.
"Could you please be clearer, ancestor?" Sheng Ming asked with a clear tone of respect. But when the old man heard the word ancestor, his eyebrow trembled slightly. Such a word had been used many times to refer to him, but there came a time when he simply could not accept such a thing. And not because he was someone timid or anything else, but rather because in the development of many worlds, people have been born that you can only call idiots.
And yes, well, feeling like the ancestor of those people is…
But completely ignoring his internal problems, the universe sighed.
"Do you think you could hide your plans from me, children?" he asked with a slightly tired look. His appearance was like that of a father watching his children when they do something wrong and try to hide it but, in said process, fail miserably.
"On Planet Douluo itself, there is a woman who could function as the inheritor of the position of the Goddess of Life. You can look for her at the place called Moon Pavilion in the Heaven Dou Empire."
"Regrettably, if you want to hand over your position, that girl needs to find a way to overcome the mutation problem her martial spirit was born with."
"As for the position of the God of Destruction…" Looking towards Hui Mie, the old man stroked his beard for a moment, thinking some things over.
"Actually, you have two options, both equally good."
"Please speak, sir," Hui Mie requested respectfully.
"The first option is to hand over your position to Percy through a kind of container. This so-called container has to be a person related to the young man, so that when he enters a... we can call it destruction mode, then the Asura position would be temporarily transferred to that container," the old man mentioned while glancing at Asura. He knew perfectly well that Asura could have done that in the future.
"The other option is the most common one, handing over your position to another person...", the old man raised his hand and the image of a young woman appeared in front of the three gods. But this image was not static, but what was happening to said woman at this moment. Her emotions and even her thoughts could be felt.
"It's not suitable," Hui Mie frowned and said immediately, "While love may be an agent of destruction, her thoughts are scattered all over the place; love, grudge, revenge, hatred, affection, fear… the girl doesn't even fully understand her emotions."
"Also, seeing the harmony she has with nature, isn't it better to show this to the goddess of nature?" Hui Mie asked, seeing how the girl seemed to understand animals and be careful with the nature around her.
"It's fine… nevermind," Hui Mie shook his hand slightly and let out a slightly annoyed sigh. Finding an heir was so difficult and troublesome, which was why he wanted to tempt Percy as well. It was suitable for his position. The young man he had seen, even if he had grudge in his heart and a huge desire to kill and destroy, knew and understood not to involve innocents, as well as not going crazy over it.
The very fusion with the eye of ruin was proof of that!
The old man looked at Hui Mie before slightly shrugging his shoulders. In the end, it was the choice of the god of destruction.
"By the way, young Perseus is starting once again," the old man smiled and the gods looked at the projection of the path of hell, noticing how Percy's left eye emitted a grey light that carried a sense of decay.
As he jumped into the lake of blood, all the blood in front of him began to evaporate into bloody mist. But, even if he could shake off the enormous feeling of heat after the thousandth step, the pressure still crushed his body.
While the seed nourished and improved his body, it was not to a point where a pressure exerted by the powers of a god would become nothing. Second by second, step by step, Percy moved forward with determination. He did not know who gave him these benefits, but he was grateful that they helped him with his goal.
"Hui Mie, you bastard!" Even if Asura accepted the old man's request, he still had his pride as a god. And he still felt annoyed that a god intervened in his trials. If it weren't for being one of the enforcers of the laws, then he would have already beaten Rakshasa more than necessary in that time.
Chaos ignored the gazes and grunts of the gods, only watching with a small smile as Percy advanced and descended through the lake of blood on the road to hell.
Everyone stared at the test Percy was going through. Time in the realm of the gods didn't advance too much, but Percy persevered for quite some time in a mortal mind. When he finally reached the last ten steps, Percy groaned as he spat out blood and clenched his left eye tightly. While using the Eye of Ruin wasn't difficult in terms of activating and deactivating its power, it was very difficult to control said power.
Percy's head hurt and seemed to rumble with every sound. His heart seemed to be in his head at the moment, pounding. So, inhaling sharply, he took another step to begin the final descent.
Asura nodded to himself in approval. And while his heir did receive help, it could only be fully obtained by suffering a tremendous amount of mental and physical damage. In fact, he could feel how Percy had changed his mindset a bit. After all, he was helped by the universe itself, so he had thought at one point that no one could beat him. The damage to his body could be ignored by the suffering he had gone through, he didn't care about dying as long as he could achieve his revenge, there was no love in his heart, only the mere memory of feelings.
But, when that hellish pain worse than everything he had suffered came, he remembered his promises again, continued to fight and, once again, wanted to feel his mother's embrace without fear. Now, he hoped to see Liu Erlong once more and tell him to have a little patience for being a man who made it difficult for him to believe and trust in people.
Even now, Asura thought that Percy would not have crawled around whimpering like he was now. And when his head hit the bottom of the lake hard and rolled with his body, a small smile appeared on the young mortal's gaunt face.
"Yes. That's it, boy. If you are to inherit my position, you need a heart powerful enough to carry out massacres, but also calm enough to understand love and trust even one person. After all, loneliness can be maddening," Asura smiled slightly before moving his hands to hand over the reward for the second test and report on the third test.
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