Just as Ves looked forward to receiving a profound lesson from his mother, she soon disappointed him with her next words.
"I will not resort to this solution today, Ves. You have already received nurous gifts from in the past, but I have yet to do so for your latest iteration of yourself. He has never received a boon from since he ca into existence."
The Superior Mother gazed lovingly at his giant son’s face.
"Dark Apostle. You have certainly chosen an interesting na for yourself. Know that this title carries power far beyond what is obvious on the surface. Know that each ti you or others invoke this title, they will empower it further, causing what is currently a falsehood to slowly turn into reality. This is... both beneficial and detrintal to yourself."
The recently born entity adopted a humble posture in front of his apparent mother. "How so?"
"You should be able to figure out the surface changes with the help of the understanding that you have inherited from Ves. I will not spell it out to you as that would be an insult to your intelligence. What Ves does not necessarily know is that your attempts to avoid the powerful existence that lurks in the darkest layers of reality are superficial at best. It is clever on his part to transfer his ’worship’ from this unspeakable existence to Blinky, but he is a fool if he thinks that such a shallow exploit can circumvent the reach of an entity that far surpasses the might of a True God. Nas have power. The more it is being used, the more this connection will recover."
"Hey! I was doing my best, alright?!"
The Dark Apostle shuddered. "Did I sign my own death warrant by choosing this na? Should I change to a different one?"
"Not necessarily, my son. The risks are great, but the benefits are great as well. Your situation is not unacceptable. It is unlikely for this dark existence to pay special attention to a weakling such as you. So long as this is the case, you can build a transactional relationship with an exceedingly powerful source of darkness, thereby empowering your actions far beyond what other sources can produce."
Ves understood what she was talking about.
"Are you suggesting for my other self to engage in a form of contract cultivation?"
The Superior Mother nodded.
"Yes, but not to the extent you are thinking of. No matter what, you must never lose your awe to power, and powerful existences in particular. No force that exceeds the might of a True God is safe to interact with. Any mortal that dares to consort with such an existence can easily be wiped out from existence due to a casual move. This is one of the reasons why mortals are wise to keep their distance from gods."
"What must I do, mother?" The Dark Apostle earnestly asked.
"I shall impart to you a basic weapon art that builds upon what you have already learned and allows you to invoke the power of this dark existence in a restricted and selective fashion." She said. "It is up to you to improve and develop this art to your exclusive advantage. You may also choose to neglect it and focus on developing your other strengths. I will not deprive you of your freedom to choose."
The Dark Apostle would be a fool if he disregarded his mother’s gift.
"T-Thank you! I shall definitely cherish this weapon art of yours. What will I be able to do once I have learned it?" He asked.
"You and Ves have developed a shallow understanding of the corruption and demonic aspects of darkness. You can wield great power if you deepen your mastery into these concepts and take the ti to refine more advanced techniques. However, there are tis when you must confront your enemies more directly. Corruption takes ti to do its work and demons are best prepared in advance. This is why I wish for you to wield the power of nihility."
Ves shuddered as soon as she spoke that word. The Dark Apostle also felt a trill of fear coursing through his true body.
It was as if the very ntion of this concept brought their doom a little closer.
"This concept... is tied to that dark existence... right?"
The Superior Mother nodded. "The answer is more complicated than that, but you can consider that to be the case according to your current understanding. It takes the least amount of effort to borrow a fraction of the power of nihility from the dark existence. Doing this by performing a weapon art further increases the safety of this operation. Instead of using words to call upon this source of power, you use actions instead. If you speak the wrong words, there is a significant chance that you will attract the great existence’s attention. If you fail to execute your weapon techniques correctly, you will generate the equivalent of static, which is not even close to interesting enough to rit any attention. Do you understand?"
"I do, mother."
"Then accept my gift of knowledge."
His mother did sothing that Ves was not able to detect.
He guessed that she was imitating the process of ingesting an enlightennt fruit to the Dark Apostle.
It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that she was able to replicate or imitate this System function given her vast knowledge and power. Even if her own thod was not as good as the genuine article, it was enough so long as it did the job.
The Dark Apostle soon regained his wits. "I... wow... this is... incredible. I never knew you could draw upon the power of nihility so easily. It is just... I am afraid I cannot execute any of these techniques, especially with a weapon as long and unwieldy as a lance. I need to spend a large amount of ti on practice to succeed."
His mother imparted him with a large amount of theory, but did not instill the muscle mory, physical skills and instincts to perform the new weapon art.
Perhaps she had the power to do so, but deliberately withheld these benefits so that the Dark Apostle would spend the ti to master his new art step-by-step.
"Do not worry. I will help you execute one of the techniques in this duel so that you understand the right feeling and approach." His mother generously said. "You should be aware that this weapon art is centered around contract cultivation. You are using a fusion of qi and body techniques to beseech the dark existence to share a tiny asure of his power. No matter how many precautions you take, there is always a chance that you will suffer an accident. This is one of the inherent dangers of harnessing the power of darkness. It is an unstable source of power. That is both an advantage and a disadvantage."
"How so?" Ves asked as he grew very interested in this statent.
He felt as if his mother had just voiced a profound truth.
"If light is associated with order, then darkness is associated with chaos. Darkness encompasses many daughter concepts that are dangerous, unstable, inconsistent and undesirable. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are firmly in the minority. One of the consequences of this truth is that it is easier to draw power from darkness than it is with many other elents. It is difficult to rely on the power of fire to burn through those Krytak Class A Seashells because it has a strong tendency to obey the laws of conservation of energy and all of those other boring laws. The sa does not necessarily apply to the power of darkness. It is theoretically possible for you to solely rely on your own strength to completely collapse your opponent’s defenses."
That sounded extrely unlikely. Ves and Blinky could only wield so much darkness energy at any ti. It didn’t seem as if this quantity was enough to produce such a profound effect.
However, that was when they relied on their current proficiency in E energy manipulation.
If they deepened their mastery of the withering curse and improved their techniques until they were able to reach an efficiency rate of over 90 percent like his mother, then it may actually be possible to make this scenario happen!
Unfortunately, Ves estimated that it would take at least several decades of patient study, practice and dangerous experintation to reach this level of mastery and proficiency.
"I think I understand." Ves said with a hint of gratitude. "More stable elents such as the five classical elents are much more orderly. The input is always proportional to the output. The sa is not necessarily the case with darkness. It defies order so much that it is possible to yield an exaggerated level of output with just a small amount of input. The difficulty is trying to make this happen in a consistent manner."
Ves could think of many potential gains if he was able to master this phenonon!
Breaking the law of conservation of energy should be as easy as eating breakfast for him. This could be incredibly useful if he was able to incorporate into his ch designs as well as his phase lord gear!
"You are on the right path. You will have to learn how to do this on your own. I have given you enough guidance. Now, enough about you. It is ti for the Dark Apostle to receive his first demonstration. Open yourself up to and allow to guide your body."
"Y-Yes, mother."
The passage of ti began to speed up again. The Oblivion Empress had lifted the abnormal state that caused the three’s thinking and perception to run a lot faster than normal.
Nothing much seed to have changed. The Superior Mother had just manifested herself into Blinky’s form and the Oscillating Fist had just assud another defensive stance in order to et the second charge.
Though he could no longer rely on his energy defenses, the Oscillating Fist still radiated a huge amount of confidence!
He was convinced that he would be able to block the second explosive charge attack!
Once the Dark Apostle had run out of blast lances, the Oscillating Fist should easily be able to run down his opponent in ti and win the duel!
Sadly for him, he never understood that he had made a fatal mistake in the previous negotiations.
From the mont the Superior Mother answered the call, Ves knew that the outco of this duel was already set.
A part of him felt bad about depriving the Oscillating Fist of the ’honorable’ duel that he craved, but if he truly wanted a good fight, then he should have abided by the terms of the agreent!
There was no obligation for Ves to make things fair for the current polemarchos anymore!
At this ti, the manifestation of the Superior Mother had already rged into the Dark Apostle’s true body.
Under her expert guidance, the Dark Apostle began to circle around in order to accumulate montum for his next charge.
He also began to draw upon a huge amount of darkness energy in the environnt.
The energy vortex created by their mother was much larger and more powerful than what they could produce themselves!
A massive amount of darkness energy began to gather in the raint as well as the blast lance.
This imdiately beca evident to outside observers as the darkness miasma that ford around the Dark Apostle grew thicker and much more ominous than past manifestations!
It was as if the Dark Apostle had beco a genuine darkness deity. Any form of light and radiation seed to grow progressively weaker until disappearing entirely.
Even the stars in the background appeared to dim in his presence. Those who continued to gaze at him even began to feel a primordial fear that their lives did not matter at all in the presence of this foreboding phase lord!
User Comments
0 comments from readers