Remiel’s body arched violently in the air, his wings flailing out of control as he was hurled toward a distant mountain with terrifying force. The terrain beneath his trajectory cracked and splintered even before he landed, deep scars ripping across the battlefield as if the land itself was crying out.
The echo of the collision carried for miles, rolling through the continent like a lingering roar.
The mountain was blown to smithereens, massive rocks and scorching dust thrown violently into the sky. An earthquake shook the ground beneath, and the Central City was unable to endure the shock. The layers above finally collapsed, burying all the dead dwarves under the fallen stone and shattered foundations.
The Saints, witnessing the collapse, hurriedly fled outside. Their hearts were filled with dread, each step heavy as fear clawed at their minds.
Even Whisperer had a dark shadow cast over his expression. The disturbance caused such violent commotion that even Alia began to stir awake, but her ntal state was unstable after the last dream she had witnessed. Without hesitation, the old man forced her back into unconsciousness and retreated to a safer distance, his movents tense and controlled.
"Cough...Cough...Cough..."
Golden blood spilled from Remiel’s mouth as he lay within a deep crater where a massive mountain once stood. His body was drenched in radiant golden blood, and a gaping hole pierced his stomach where the Demon King’s strike had landed. Crimson energy lingered stubbornly around the wound, gnawing at his flesh and making the healing process painfully slow.
Remiel’s eyes, now bleeding, stared at the dust-filled surroundings with a hollow gaze. His mind was gripped by despair and an unfamiliar fear directed toward the Demon King of Destruction.
The crimson energy continued to interfere with his recovery, worsening his injuries with every passing mont.
Never had he imagined being defeated by a single punch. That realization burned fiercely within him, his blood boiling in defiance. His pride and arrogance, born from the natural superiority of his kind, scread in protest as he accepted the truth. To be reduced to such a state by what he considered a lowly demon was unbearable, and that humiliation only fueled his fury further.
Slowly, light returned to his eyes and his expression hardened into sothing grim and calculating. His mind churned relentlessly as he replayed the sensation of the attack again and again.
Unusual energy embodying destruction, having the power to destroy anything and unstoppable penetration that ignores all defenses, and energy stronger than even Divine energy.....don’t tell ...
A strange gleam appeared in his eyes.
Its a RUNE!!!!!!!
He scread inwardly, a mixture of horror, fear, and uncontrollable excitent flooding his thoughts.
How could he not recognize it. All Angels who ventured into the Cosmos were given foundational knowledge about the Runes. After all, one of the primary goals of Venturing was to search for and identify these forbidden existences.
Earlier, he had failed to realize it, but after enduring the attack directly, the sensation aligned perfectly with the description of one specific Rune he had studied before.
Although the energy he faced fell short when compared to the Pure Divine Energy wielded by high ranking Angels, he was still certain. Controlling a Rune was never a simple matter. Drawing out even a fragnt of its true power was beyond most beings, let alone releasing an energy that could rival Divine forces.
Its Rune of Destruction, damnit how can this lowly demon possess such Rune, but it explains his unusual powers, normally he is not my match, but using the power of Runes, he can bridge the gap between us. And the demons are also Abyssal creatures their powers is already above those in the Mortal realm....
Even with this realization, his emotions were tangled.
Fear surged through him at the possibility of death, yet excitent followed close behind. As long as he could survive and report this information, the rewards from the Heavenly Realm would be imnse, enough to push him higher within the rigid hierarchy.
-Step!!
The sound of approaching footsteps abruptly pulled him out of his thoughts.
***
Tsk, he survived....
Aamon, the Demon King of Destruction, thought as he sensed the Angel’s life force was still vibrant, though far dimr than before. It flickered unsteadily, like a dying star struggling to shine.
His gaze calmly settled on the crimson energy still swirling faintly around his fist, the power pulsing as if alive.
Just four percent comprehension of the Rune could bring out this much power. I cannot even imagine what would happen at one hundred percent. That Angel is only alive because the passive effect of the Rune did not trigger. If it had, he would have died for sure...
As those thoughts passed through his mind, his body trembled slightly, not from fear but from excitent. His blood boiled with renewed vigor, a deep sense of exhilaration flooding him.
Everything I faced until now was definitely worth it.
His journey had never been easy. He was not always what he looked like now. If Ash or even Orien were present, they would have been shocked beyond belief. In the original novel, the Demon King did not carry the title of Destruction, nor did he possess this youthful form.
Instead, he had been depicted as a middle aged man, bearing the weight of ti and authority. This complete reversal of fate was nothing short of a butterfly effect caused by Ash, one that had altered his entire existence.
Everything began the mont he acquired the Rune and the thod to absorb it. Using the true na of the Rune, he successfully absorbed it and learned about its passive effects through the Universal System status screen.
From that sa Ruin, he also learned fragnts of information regarding where Runes could possibly be found. Through divination and careful observation of the alignnt of stars and cosmic bodies, details recorded in ancient historical records within the Ruin, several coordinates were revealed.
Many planets fell under those coordinates. However, among all of them, only one planet harbored life. The others were nothing but barren wastelands.
As for who left behind the Rune, the absorption thod, and how that unknown party knew the locations where Runes could appear, he had no answers. Those mysteries remained buried far beyond his reach.
He sent his most trusted right hand man, Azgorth, to investigate anything unusual or possessing hidden power. Azgorth scoured all the barren planets first, but found nothing. There were no strange artifacts, no remnants, nothing of value.
After all, a Rune would not reside within lifeless rocks. Without man made artifacts or natural treasures, the probability of a Rune being hidden there was abysmally low.
In the end, Azgorth turned his attention toward the planet Akumia. Unlike the other life planets, this living planet possessed an extrely strong World Barrier.
They researched the barrier and eventually learned its true nature. Anyone who had stepped beyond the Rank of Saint and embarked on the path toward becoming a Demi God would be rejected entry. If soone of that level forcefully entered, the barrier would forcibly eject them out without exception.
And once soone was ejected out, they can’t enter again.
This restriction did not apply to the residents of the world. They could walk the path beyond Saint and begin that journey, yet no matter how far they went, they would never be able to truly reach the realm of a Demi God.
This anomaly only made the Demon King more excited. Such a defensive chanism was rare, and the possibility of a Rune existing there increased drastically.
Thus, Azgorth forced his way inside along with the Demon Prince, One Overlord demon, and a small army of demons hidden within a miniature concealed world. The task assigned to Orien was simple. Either dominate the world completely or damage the World Barrier enough to allow free and stable passage.
After entering Akumia, Azgorth was running out of ti. In few days he would be ejected out.
But by luck he learned of a hidden human town, isolated from the rest of humanity and guarding sothing of great importance. The information ca from a high ranking mber of the Black Market, an organization that had attempted to steal the guarded object multiple tis but always failed.
The guardians were far stronger than expected.
Azgorth went there personally, filled with excitent, convinced that he had finally found what the Demon King was searching for. After slaughtering everyone in his path and retrieving the item, he was finally ejected out of the world.
When he presented it, the Demon King was content.
As the artifact possessed ti related powers and could create a zone where ti flowed at a hundred tis the rate of the normal world, it beca invaluable to him.
Being in the Saint Realm, the demon king could easily access his Soul Space. Without hesitation, he began comprehending the Rune of Destruction, wasting no ti.
Even so, he still did not know whether the artifact he possessed was truly a Rune or not. He had no clear confirmation, but at the very least, he believed it to be sothing connected to Ti.
Yet he dared not try.
If by chance the Rune carried a na different from Ti, tied instead to so unknown cosmic concept related to temporal laws, or if the artifact did not bear a Rune at all, then casually attempting absorption and uttering the wrong Rune’s na could result in Soul Death.
Nas held power. True nas revealed everything about existence itself.
One could not simply utter such nas without absolute certainty, and no one was ever truly certain when it ca to the nas of Runes.
According to historical records, it had not always been this way. In ancient tis, the Runes were not sealed or hidden. Anyone who wished to comprehend them could attempt to do so. Yet even then, no one knew their true nas.
The knowledge contained within a Rune was so vast that a normal mind could not encompass even the entirety of a single Rune. As a result, people only comprehended fragnts of one Rune at a ti.
But nothing was impossible.
During a golden era, unparalleled geniuses were born one after another. Sohow, they gained the acknowledgnt of the Runes and absorbed them within themselves.
The entire Cosmos was shaken.
Before this, no one had even known that Runes possessed their own will. But once one person succeeded, others followed. One by one, the Runes were absorbed, leading to the formation of the Celestial Circle civilization.
However, after the Celestial Circle was eradicated in a single night, the Runes were sealed and hidden away. No one knew how or why the civilization fell, nor why the Runes were sealed.
All knowledge related to that civilization and its accumulated wisdom was lost and destroyed. What remained were only scraps salvaged from ancient Ruins.
Thus, even if the twenty Rune Bearers of that era had once known the true nas, that knowledge vanished with them. Still, through relentless searching, a few true nas were eventually uncovered.
They were not many, only around seven. The Rune of Destruction was one of them. Even so, no one knew where it was hidden or sealed, making the knowledge of its true na seemingly useless.
After the fall of the Celestial Circle, anyone who uttered an incorrect Rune na, or mistook a powerful artifact for a Rune and attempted to form a connection, t the sa fate. Their soul was destroyed and dissipated into the Cosmos.
No one understood why.
And so, everyone feared the unknown.
This subject gradually beca a taboo. Even though many high ranking beings possessed knowledge of how to absorb a Rune, no one dared to attempt it unless they were already at their final breath. If death awaited them regardless, then failure no longer mattered.
This was sothing even Ash, who had read the novel, never knew. He believed no one understood how to absorb a Rune, when in truth, it was not ignorance that stopped them, but fear.
How could sothing recorded within a Ruin and discovered by the Demon King remain unknown to others.
One thing led to another, and after enduring countless trials, I finally comprehended the Rune to at least four percent. If not for the ti dilation artifact Azgorth brought back, it would have taken centuries...
Although only a few years have passed in the outside world, within that ti zone I spent centuries comprehending just this four percent of the Rune...
Feeling that everything he had endured had finally borne fruit, a deep sense of satisfaction filled him.
For the first ti in a long while, he was genuinely happy.
***
User Comments
0 comments from readers