Translator: Ryogawa
TLC: Hedonist
Han Shuo had completely no idea what the God of Darkness was planning. As his two avatars gradually weakened amidst the vortex of darkness, he felt a really foreboding sense of danger and focused all his attention on resisting the God of Darkness. It was only now that he realized that his imperfectly fused avatars still weren’t powerful enough for him to deal with Quintessence Overgods.
As the two different forces were ground down by the vortex, Han Shuo began to feel more and more powerless. The only thing he could try to do was attempt to fuse them together, for as long as he could do it, he definitely wouldn’t have to fear the God of Darkness any longer. It was a shame that fusing all thirteen types of energies was far too hard. It would be a miracle if he really succeeded in doing so within such a short time.
As his avatar’s powers were slowly ground down, he slowly began to panic. All of a sudden, an idea occurred to him. If he couldn’t fuse them together, perhaps he could try making the conflicting energies clash with each other to generate a powerful reaction.
He immediately brought his two avatars close together. Now, the defensive energies he had around his bodies were converted into two distinct rampaging streams of energy which were sent shooting into each other. A huge explosion could be heard once more as the force of the repellant reaction spread out in all directions.
Han Shuo managed to utilize the shockwave generated from the explosion to propel himself out of the dark vortex. Without a second thought, he immediately made his way to anywhere with a lower concentration of the dark element.
“Oh?” It sounded like someone was surprised that Han Shuo’s two avatars managed to escape the power of the Quintessence of Darkness. However, Han Shuo couldn’t be bothered by anything else other than making his retreat in an attempt to make as much distance as he could from the Quintessence.
Even then, he had underestimated the power of Quintessence. Countless dark tendrils came streaming out of the vortex towards Han Shuo at great speed, homing down on him no matter how many turns he made. Even though it was so dark nothing was visible, the dark tendrils still managed to seek him out. However, Han Shuo was so fast that the God of Darkness wasn’t able to make another vortex to trap him within.
Then, an odd sound could be heard descending from the sky as a wave of destruction energy came pressing down. Han Shuo found out too late and wasn’t able to avoid having his two avatars pressed to the ground. At the same time, the light of death appeared in front of Han Shuo. Nestor’s visage was slightly visible in that light.
The Gods of Death, Destruction and Darkness’ figures now appeared before him. When he saw them appear, he calmed down. There wasn’t much else he could do now to escape now that the three of them had shown up.
Even if his two avatars ended up destroyed here, his main body was still in Pandemonium. In a desperate bid, he forced his two avatars together and had each avatar hold the other’s hand tightly. All of a sudden, unbelievable waves of pain could be felt throughout his body. The clashing energies had traveled from each of the avatars to the other through the held hands that acted like a bridge rapidly and unseen, but it sent lots of torment into the souls of both his avatars. It was so painful he felt like his heart and lungs were being torn out.
The whole time, he hadn’t dared to let the two avatars actually touch one another, because he felt the pain of his soul burning when their hands accidentally brushed against each other once. It was the kind of pain ten times worse than what he felt when breaking through to the Skybreak Realm. If not for his insane endurance and willpower he had obtained from cultivating demonic arts, the pain in his soul would have caused them to dissipate. However, he also realized back then that the two avatars touching generated an unbelievably powerful energy field. It was a last resort.
“Whoa!”
“Amazing!”
“Not bad!”
The three Quintessence Overgods expressed their amazement unanimously when they felt that energy field as Han Shuo stared at Nestor furiously before two beams shot out towards Nestor.
Nestor’s expression changed before he yelled, “Not good!” He then immediately dodged in a panic.
“Bryan, don’t be hasty! We were only testing you out and didn’t mean to harm you!” Nestor said after evading the attack. As he said so, the boundless darkness receded and moonlight began to find its way to the ground again.
At the same time, a cold and handsome youth and a burly man stepped out of the darkness. The two of them looked at Han Shuo, their eyes shining with the unmistakable powers of Quintessence.
When Han Shuo heard what Nestor said and saw the two other Quintessence Overgods make an appearance, he hesitated before slowly letting go of his hands. The powerful energy field could no longer be felt all of a sudden.
He then turned to glare at them, both his palms still crackling from the contact and emanating colorful light. It was as if his body stored a boundless force of nature that was trying to force its way out of him. He didn’t know whether Nestor was lying or not, so he made sure to not take his hands two far apart, leaving only a fist’s distance in between.
The pain he felt suddenly vanished. Feeling the crackling between his palms, he took a deep breath and shot a hostile look to the handsome youth bearing the Quintessence of Darkness. He looked to be really young, forlorn, but pleasant to the eyes. Han Shuo gave him a sweep with his consciousness and sensed an ancient power aside from the Quintessence of Darkness. It was as if he was an existence that had seen and experienced it all. He knew that the man was only young on the surface. There was no doubt that he had lived through aeons and had probably existed before Profound Continent did.
The God of Darkness, Amon, returned the favor by looking Han Shuo up and down. After that, he nodded and said in a gentle voice, “That was pretty decent. You now have the qualifications to talk to us… Well, that just now was just a lesson. You killed two of my city lords in my dominion, after all.”
“I fought to test if you were qualified to talk to us,” said the burly man with the Quintessence of Destruction. All three of them had the same ancient aura about them. Han Shou knew that their appearances were far from representative of their actual age. His own age couldn’t even compare.
Even then, Han Shuo still couldn’t let his guard down. He carefully observed their expressions and behavior and eventually noticed that they didn’t contain the slightest hint of deceit. He felt that they really didn’t ask him to come with the intention of wiping him out. Putting aside the role he would play in the opening of Aethernia, there was little he could really do about it if Nestor was serious about dealing with him.
After this encounter, he knew that he was still not a match for the Quintessence Overgods until he could fuse all thirteen energies together. Perhaps he would only stand a chance if he could fuse the thirteen energies together or after his main body breaks through to the Diablo Realm, which would cause the demonic yuan he had to transform. He firmly believed that nobody would be able to match up to him if that day ever came.
Han Shuo relaxed himself after much pondering and pulled his two hands apart. Nestor smiled when he saw that Han Shuo truly believed them.
“I didn’t think that you’d really take that small matter to heart,” Han Shuo said with a relaxed smile after he turned to Amon. Though he said that, he himself definitely wouldn’t forgive such an act.
Amon seemed a little surprised at how quickly Han Shuo had put the matter behind them and secretly approved of it. Though, his voice didn’t sound the least bit different from before. “Wallace and Hofs have served me as city lords for a long time. Even if they weren’t exemplary in that regard, they still get credit for the sheer time they served me for. I can’t just let their deaths go by unanswered. But from now on, I shall drop the matter for good. Let us begin our talk.”
“What are we here to discuss?” Han Shuo said, feeling his agitation bubbling up. He had traveled really far just to get some answers, and that was finally going to happen.
Amon turned to Nestor and said, “We shall talk about the battle of the gods and Aethernia.”
