Chapter 54: One with Killing Intent
Percy looked at the sword after drinking his glass of wine. At his current range, something like normal wine barely did anything to him, he drank it simply to enjoy the taste of a good wine, nothing more.
This time, every step he took to get closer to the asura demonic sword was much firmer and more determined. Percy's eyes were now filled with determination, there was no doubt about what he was about to do, he had no doubts about his goals, the things he must protect. The fears of becoming something he hated vanished completely as his right hand tightened on the hilt of the ultra-divine tool.
The killing intent that seemed invisible to the naked eye and could only be felt through the senses, this time was not locked away or annihilated. No, Percy received it all with calm eyes. He, however, did not exert any strength. His eyes of different colors remained fixed on the sword without blinking.
Killing intent suddenly flooded his spiritual sea, causing the almost golden landscape inside Percy to start turning white and blood red.
A calm but not very wide smile appeared on Percy's face. As the killing intent flooded his entire being, Percy didn't even attack it or urge it to be removed from his body. Anaklusmos, within his spiritual sea, remained static, floating in the center of the almost golden sea. Percy didn't want it to do anything, he simply let it float in place.
As time slowly passed, thin crimson threads began to show from Percy. These threads looked like blood that had evaporated and was coming out of Percy, but it wasn't life-giving liquid, it was pure visible killing intent!
Slowly but steadily, the killing intent condensed more and more around Percy's body that came to resemble crimson whips that constantly moved around him. After hours of this, Percy noticed that the killing intent now resembled an immortal flame that could not be extinguished.
But he still did not stop smiling and calmly looked at his hand around the hilt of the sword.
In the distance, Murong Yun watched intently with a small smile.
"He finally accepted it. But, I wonder if he really knows what he has to do…" she muttered as she continued to watch. She did not know if Percy had noticed it, but the enormous killing intent, even if it was visible on and around Percy, its sensation had spread throughout the entirety of the city of slaughter. The people in the city trembled, knelt down, or even clenched their throats as if they were being choked.
Murong Yun only watched intently, but when a day passed, her eyebrows rose in a slightly alarmed expression. She leaped across the rooftops and approached, the killing intent not seeming to affect her. Agilely and calmly dodging the rubble, he stood on a huge rock in the destroyed part of the city and looked at Percy, still smiling, but now with his eyes closed as if he were concentrating.
She stared, waiting, watching carefully. But, when three days passed, she could only look up in shock, where the purple moon was, now blood red. She didn't look because of the change in the moon's color, but because she could feel the killing intent piercing through even the space above them and reaching the surface.
When a week was up, Percy was trembling slightly. The city of slaughter was surrounded by a blood red mist. A day ago, any screams had ceased, and if Percy was using his spiritual power and not concentrating on what he was doing, he would have realized that, except for Murong Yun, the entire population of the city of slaughter had been choked to death by the killing intent.
In the city of the spiritual hall, Bibi Dong, Qian Renxue, and Qian Daoliu looked in the direction of the city of slaughter in shock and disbelief. They could feel a power that shouldn't belong to this plane appearing alongside endless killing intent.
"This is... Percy..." Bibi Dong smiled lightly as she continued to look in the same direction as many other people on the continent. Be it the higher-ups of the Clear Sky Clan, the two titled douluo of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan, the Blue Electric Tyrant Dragon Clan, or the titled douluo of the Spiritual Hall's Elder Hall, they all looked with surprise and a bit of fear towards the same place.
"Good boy, you have exceeded my expectations," the Asura God allowed himself a smile as he looked at Percy through a white halo.
Within the city of slaughter, Murong Yun witnessed the change of killing intent. The bloody mist began to swirl in a single point - Percy's heart. The place where Percy's heart was was like a maelstrom that swirled all the killing intent. He was no longer subconsciously rejecting the position of god, no longer doing the same with the killing intent that he had previously been uneasy about possessing. While his killing intent kept him in check, it bothered him and made him a little scared because it would even make the melodies he tried to play with his ocarina sound bad. Now, however, he was accepting all of his killing intent and that of the asura demon sword.
Percy had opened his heart to the killing intent, he was accepting it consciously and openly. The killing intent was swallowed and accepted by Percy; hours, days, and then weeks passed, but there seemed to be no end to it. Slowly, and without him realizing it, his eyes were permanently changing to the color of blood. This would not take away his eye of annihilation, but they were changing according to the killing intent he was accepting and slowly becoming one with.
Suddenly, on a certain day, all of the killing intent faded away, with the last visible speck disappearing from Percy's body.
Thump-thump!
Percy heard his heart pound once, then twice. The killing intent had vanished, his heart didn't feel heavy or burdened, neither did his mind. In fact, he felt relaxed. As his now blood-red eyes opened, he gripped the hilt of the Asura Demonic Sword with a bit of force; it wasn't a level of force like before, it was much less, almost as if he was gently unsheathing the sword.
Slowly and with a slightly rough sound, the Asura Demonic Sword slid out of the ground without much difficulty. The blood-red blade began to show as Percy raised his hand higher and higher until it was above his head and the tip of the sword was out of the ground.
As the sword was seen in all its glory, a small sound seemed to come from it before it disappeared into motes of light that entered Percy's body. Finally, the sword had been withdrawn and Percy was accepted by it.
Slowly, Percy's eyes moved towards Murong Yun. She smiled, but felt a small chill. Percy's eyes held no malice, but the feeling deep within them made Murong Yun glimpse her death for a moment.
"How did you know the answer to taking the sword?" Percy asked, a sharp warning in his words.
Murong Yun looked at him more seriously and then jumped towards Percy. She took a few steps closer before stopping and speaking.
"I told you a while ago that children born in the city of slaughter were taken to become part of the city's knights. That, of course, was not a lie. I was different, however."
Murong Yun slowly extended her hand with her fingers pointing towards Percy.
"You should know this already, but gods simply cannot descend into the mortal plane. This is the rule of the god realms, and it can only be broken when something happens and the abilities of a god are needed to resolve whatever the event is."
"In order for an individual to inherit the position of a god, a gate, or a bridge, as you prefer to call it, needs to be opened. To do so, a high-level sacrifice is needed. Only in this way can a god truly contact his heir and hand over his position as a god."
"So you are this sacrifice?"
"Yes," Murong Yun nodded. "Just like Bo Saixi on the Sea God Island, or Qian Daoliu in the Elder Hall belonging to the Spiritual Hall, I am an Apostle of God, the sacrifice to open the door made your ascension to divinity."
"So when you asked me to help you leave..."
"It was not a lie, I assure you. While I have the power to fight other apostles, I can only leave the Slaughter City when an heir allows me to. Regrettably, my communication with His Excellency, the Asura God, is less than that of Bo Saixi or Qian Daoliu. I did not know what trial you were undergoing, but I understood that I should not be the first if you had to fight Tang Chen."
"Therefore, my request was to accompany you after completing your mission in the Slaughter City. As an Apostle of God I cannot actively help you, but my duty to you is also to protect you from certain possibilities. In the end, my request was to watch over you in case of any extreme danger."
Percy looked at her attentively, his Blood red eyes locked onto her black ones. In the end, he just nodded.
"Are you still going to accompany me?"
Murong Yun smiled before shaking his head gently.
"No… it's not necessary anymore."
"What do you mean?" Percy asked in bewilderment. If her purpose was to keep an eye on him in case of any extreme danger, then she should accompany him now, was what Percy thought.
But at that moment, the monotonous voice rang out near his ear again, indicating that he had completed his eighth test. His spirit rings appeared as their ages increased, turning Percy's sixth and seventh spirit rings into a red color, indicating that they had reached 100,000 years. The rest of the spirit rings remained black, but were of a much more concentrated darkness.
When the process was over, the city of slaughter began to tremble violently. Percy looked carefully before a red pillar appeared many meters behind Murong Yun. It was a pillar similar to the one that appeared in the lake of blood within the road of hell. Murong Yun gave it a smile before she turned around and raised her hands as she muttered words.
Her spirit rings lit up around her: black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, red.
"So she hid her power…" Percy muttered as he looked on curiously, but his eyes widened in surprise as he felt Murong Yun's vitality begin to drop as the pillar lit up with a red light that shot up into the sky and pierced over them as if nothing existed. Outside the place, the red lightning reached the sky, splitting open the clouds and then a hole in the sky itself.
The space surrounding Percy seemed to blur completely before he found himself on a platform that couldn't measure more than ten meters on each side. Surrounding the platform were several pillars and a red sea as if it was blood outside said platform.
In front of Percy, a tall man, a little taller than Percy, appeared with a small smile.
"You have exceeded my expectations, heir."
"You are the Asura God," Percy said with a matter-of-fact tone, staring intently at the tall man with black hair, red eyes like his own, and armor that seemed to be made of bones.
Frowning, Percy spoke again, "I thought this shouldn't happen until I complete the nine trials."
"Normally, it should be like this, young heir," Asura nodded, then pointed a finger at Percy.
"But you should have sensed it already: by absorbing so much killing intent, refining it, and becoming one with it, you advanced to become a titled rank 99 douluo," the Asura God stopped pointing and put his hands behind his back.
"At first, when I watched you, I didn't understand how you could advance so quickly in soul power levels. At first, I thought it was some kind of blessing from His Excellency, Chaos. But then I realized that this was incorrect."
"I was very curious about that, so I asked him to show me your past, and only then did I understand."
Percy raised an eyebrow, not caring that the god knew about his past. But he was definitely curious about the Asura God's discovery.
"You have exceeded your limits, young one."
"All mortals have their limits, some more than others; some less than others, but they are there. When an individual becomes a God, those mortal limits disappear, but new limits appear. With your knowledge, you should already know what the limit of the gods is, right?"
"Gods cannot exceed the rank of God-King, not unless they decide to completely accept the will of the universe and are one hundred percent bound to it. When this happens, a God-King, regardless of whether he is a supreme one or not, becomes something... higher, so to speak."
The god Asura nodded seriously.
"While the so-called Supreme God-King does not count as a rank in itself, it is someone who has absorbed the core of their God Realm, fusing with it. As the Supreme God-King, they have complete control over their realm, able to change the rules and laws of it to suit their desires or needs similar to a realm's Planar Lord. They can also draw power from the realm's core, allowing them to increase their strength and abilities. This also means that if the God Realm was a higher dimension than the Supreme God-King, they would be able to increase their strength to that level."
"Regardless of these individuals, a god realm can only hold six god-kings, one more and the god realm would collapse. In order for a god realm to accommodate more god-kings, the realm itself needs to evolve into a divine star, which can only be achieved by the approval of the will of the universe."
"What does all this have to do with my limits?" Percy asked in bewilderment.
"Your mortal limit disappeared when they were broken in that place called Tartarus. Your will not to perish, caused you to continue to push that limit again and again, until it was completely broken. The reason you can fight against people who exceed your level is not only due to your martial spirit, spiritual power, or even the eye of annihilation. Sure, these might have been helpful, but it was mostly because of your broken limits."
"Now, to your doubt of why I am here earlier, it is because there is no need to wait any longer. The ninth test, is usually about feelings or desires, some gods modify this a little to make the test a little more aligned to their positions as a god, but it is generally about the same."
"Therefore, it can be said that you have already passed the ninth test. You have left behind all your fears, you have accepted your feelings, worries about your family are resolved. Lust for battle or women has not even been a problem since I have observed you, much less now. You are honorable, but to a certain extent, which is good. Your will really is amazing and indomitable. Honestly, you have exceeded my expectations."
"So, Perseus Jackson. Will you take my position?"
Percy stared at the god in front of him for a moment, his eyes focused on the other's. It didn't take long, but he seemed to be annoyed.
Percy nodded decisively.
The Asura God nodded before a power descended upon Percy. His mind seemed to open up to new and incredible things as his soul power soared while a tenth spirit ring formed behind him.
"I thought I should endure a tribulation."
"You want a tribulation?" The Asura God raised his eyebrow, his gaze shining with a bit of amusement.
"Well, that would usually be the case. But this isn't really necessary when an heir goes through the baptism of the god who gives him his position. The tribulation is more of a test for an individual who exceeds the level of a mortal. You should know by now, if you want to be a god without inheriting a position, you need to be revered by millions of people and spirit beasts as a god. By accomplishing this, you can create your position, but you will need to withstand the tribulation."
Percy nodded, noticing how his perception of the world changed completely. He now seemed to be able to easily sense the principles of the world, most notably the concept of slaughter. Slaughter wasn't a concept simply tied to killing or being an executioner. Slaughter didn't mean just that, killing. It was a truth of the universe, a necessity, a judgment.
Slaughter was tied to life and death, but also to destruction and creation. It was something a bit abstract in between. It was said that light couldn't exist without darkness and vice versa, but it was also the case for life and death, as well as life and destruction.
Slaughter could give way to destruction, and thus the creation of something new. Likewise, slaughter could give way to death, and then life. It was part of the infinite cycle of the expansion of the entire universe.
As Percy's understanding seemed to come to an end, Percy's tenth ring was a deeper red than a 100,000 year old ring could be, and surrounding the ring was a white light. But the change of the rings didn't stop there, each of the spirit rings slowly moved to position themselves behind Percy's head and glowed as they all turned the same color as the tenth spirit ring.
They were no longer spirit rings...
They had become divine rings, indicating that Percy became a god!
"Nine?" Percy asked, feeling that he now possessed nine divine rings, not ten as he thought. But when he saw the Asura God, he saw him blink a little in confusion.
"You really destroyed any limits…" he muttered in amazement. But he decided to clear up Percy's confusion.
"When an individual becomes a God, they can easily reach the rank of First Class God, or True God if you want another term. Even if the heir is from a God-King, they would need some time to reach that rank. You, however, jumped straight to a God-King."
"One divine ring for a god officer, three divine rings for third class gods, five for second class gods, seven for first class gods, and finally nine for god kings. Of course, not all gods have divine rings, this is evidence of the system having a plane to reach godhood. Another way of putting it is that gods who come from the douluo plane or the same sector/galaxy, would have spirit rings and thus divine rings."
Asura shook his head slightly, "Sadly, you can now stay for much less time in the mortal plane. Perhaps ten years or a little more."
"Now go, young god. I'm sure you'll want to see your family."
Percy looked at the former God Asura before bowing slightly.
"Thank you..."
"No, thanks to you. While I promised to teach you the things you don't know about the God Realm, I will now be able to travel the universe. I am no longer held back."
Percy nodded, remembering that he would need an heir to leave the God Realm to travel to Earth.
When Percy turned around he appeared in the City of Slaughter and carefully picked up Murong Yun's lifeless body.
"Thank you very much... only thanks to you giving your life and opening the door, I can be closer to my goal," Percy looked up a little, sensing and being able to see the entire City of Slaughter easily. There was now nothing living in this place.
Percy shook his head and looked back at Murong Yun's pale face. And, exerting his divine power, he enveloped her body in a golden light before turning it into specks of light that traveled into the sky.
"I'm not yet fully attached to the God Realm. Sending someone to that place was a bit tiring."
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