Lawrence, Serene Will, and Absolute Prominence descend the stairs, heading toward the mansion's basent. While Serene Will leads the way, Lawrence walks alongside Absolute Prominence, their shoulders currently touching, and she makes no effort to pull away. This is significant progress, it has been so ti since this tiger girl descended to the Inferior Plane, during which Lawrence has been attempting to win her over.
Until recently, she rejected his advances, but that is slowly beginning to change.
Once Serene Will stops, they find themselves in front of an already activated teleportation portal, emitting a faint light that illuminates the area around it.
Serene Will looks at the item in her hand and asks: "Are these all the corpses?"
Absolute Prominence nods, in that storage ring lie all the corpses she collected from that battlefield... the war between the two kingdoms. Her task was not only to collect the corpses but also to summon the strongest and most talented shadows that had perished on the battlefield.
The small shadow army that Absolute Prominence has gathered is enough to make her a variable in the conquest of the Inferior Plane.
"Wait here, neither you nor Lawrence should enter."
Serene Will walks towards the portal and then everything around her changes.
A tree with a white trunk and few branches, surrounded by beautiful flowers and grass. While from a certain distance onward there is a vast desert of huge dunes, whose view extends to the horizon.
This is the Forbidden Area Cloudsea and that tree which produces the Boundless Fruit.
"How have you been? Do you rember ?"
Her words receive no reply, but Serene Will does not stop. She walks to the tree and caresses its trunk. "I am Serene Will, I promised you I would never let you starve again."
She moves away from it and then heads towards those long protruding roots. Her next action is to raise her hand and release the contents of her storage ring. Hundreds of corpses fall in front of her forming a mountain. Imdiately, the sound of blood falling and the sll of death erge from their wounds and orifices.
"Eat. Eat until you are satiated."
Then the unusual happens. The roots that protrude toward the surface begin to move, like a living being moves its legs, and envelop the corpses. A disgusting sound of flesh being compressed occurs, but that's not all, from the large roots erge smaller roots that adhere to the corpses and suck out their insides.
Among the corpses, Serene Will notices soone familiar. It was a beautiful woman whose head was separated from her body. She was Fallen Feather, the sa woman who was summoned as a shadow by Absolute Prominence.
Her corpse is now being consud by the tree, but she feels nothing seeing this.
She waits patiently for this situation to end, but after a few hours Serene Will approaches the tree and, caressing its trunk, says goodbye.
"Eat peacefully, I will return tomorrow."
Then she walks towards the portal and her surroundings change in a blink. She has returned to the mansion, to her ho.
She notices the impatient gaze of the two people waiting for her and, without needing to read their thoughts, Serene Will understands what they desire.
"Their roots are consuming them, as we deduced. To produce the Boundless Fruit the tree needs to consu corpses."
"Was there any change?"
She shakes her head, "We won't know until tomorrow."
The tree seed to be enjoying itself, savoring the corpses slowly. As soon as Serene Will realized this she decided to say goodbye, because according to Sky Petal, this tree is one step away from achieving wisdom but unable to achieve it for the rest of its life. For such an entity, any change in its life would be sothing fun, even if that ans grotesquely eating corpses, tasting their flesh and blood.
"I see…"
Lawrence sighs and decides to continue with his plans for the day, "Let's leave the mansion, this is not a good place for Absolute Prominence to use her innate ability."
"Do you have corpses for , Lawrence?"
"Yes, follow ."
Absolute Prominence follows her husband with a smile on her face, her feline tail swinging happily, thinking about what kind of bodies Lawrence has for her.
As they move away from the mansion, he retrieves 6 corpses with a human appearance. So had lineage from another race, but their features were so minute that, if one did not observe them carefully, they would go unnoticed.
Absolute Prominence evaluates them and quickly her smile fades.
"They are hunters from the Divine Plane, but… the husband forbade from keeping my previous shadows. So, why?"
"Because these hunters died in the Inferior Plane."
Serene Will and Lawrence recognize the face of each one. Elder Ash, Elder Cloud, Elder Red Mountain... The six elders of the Sacred Rock Sect who tried to assassinate them, but who in turn t their own end.
"In the Inferior Plane...? I see, then there would be no problem in trying."
Absolute Prominence uses her innate ability and attempts to invoke the shadow of the dead. A dark aura surrounds the corpses, trying to strip them of everything they had in life.
"Tsk."
But the aura is forcibly cut. Her innate ability failed.
"Can you try again?"
"I can, I might be able to…"
She does not wish to disappoint her husband, but between doing that and embarrassing herself, she prefers the forr. "From how my ability responded, no matter how many tis I try, I won't be able to invoke their shadows. I'm sorry, Lawrence."
Her innate ability Shadow Regint is not absolute, it has a chance of success. If she ets the conditions then this chance increases, in these cases it is reasonable to keep trying, even when all chances are exhausted.
"I have no direct or indirect relationship, either in their life or with their death. If my level surpassed theirs, I could force them to serve for life, but it would make no sense when my shadows cannot level up."
Lawrence knew this could happen, but still he held hope and kept these corpses until the day he made Absolute Prominence his. These corpses are too special, despite that they may lose their potential in life by becoming shadows.
Then he rembers sothing and asks: "What are the conditions?"
Next to him, Serene Will reads his thoughts and takes a deep breath. Neither she nor he knows what will happen if they succeed. Would this be a good decision?
Unaware of this, Absolute Prominence answers. "I must have killed him or been part of the group that did, have had a relationship in life whether amicable or not. Have extensive knowledge of the other party or, lastly, luck."
"Luck?"
"Yes. Sotis, without eting any of the conditions, my innate ability succeeds in evoking the shadow of a hunter. Among my destroyed shadows was one like that, he was a man much more powerful than . After controlling him and interacting with his shadow, I discovered the cause of this. He died with great resentnt towards the living, was willing to follow even if he beca a slave."
Luck can be partnerd with many factors, but that's what Lawrence needs.
"Try with this body."
Imdiately, a huge body falls to the ground.
"A qilin?!"
The guardian beast of the Forbidden Area Cloudsea, Disdainful Tempest, a qilin.
"The origin of this qilin is very special, because in life his real level was not determined. It was changeable, depending on his opponent."
Absolute Prominence is surprised, after hearing Lawrence's description, she slowly walks to the body of the qilin and decides to give it a try. Again a dark aura cos out of her body and surrounds the qilin, if this aura is cut off like the previous ti, it would an there is no possibility of success in invoking his shadow.
"Hahaha."
Lawrence laughs, the aura has not been destroyed despite the minutes.
Absolute Prominence normally would inspect the body and try to gather as much information as possible to increase her probability of success, if she did not do this with the other corpses it was because the range of success would increase so little that it would not be worth losing ti over them.
That this ti her innate ability was not interrupted can only an one thing.
'My level exceeds that of the qilin? How is that possible?'
As baffled as she is, she does not lose concentration. Her aura strengthens with each second, performing illusory changes to the corpse. Ti passes and more of these changes occur, until the final transformation happens.
The corpse returns to its original state, but then, its shadow moves as if it had its own will. The shadow rises from the ground and takes on the appearance of a qilin.
"Disdainful Tempest..."
The shadow of Disdainful Tempest has been successfully invoked.
"Hahaha!"
Lawrence cannot believe what his eyes are seeing, the damn deer now part of the shadows of Absolute Prominence! He may not have been his slave in life, but he will be in his death!
The most surprising thing is that the shadow possesses the sa level as Absolute Prominence, when that qilin died having the level 700!
"Now try with the other corpses, do it!"
Absolute Prominence does not understand why Lawrence is so euphoric, what change this shadow will make in the success of the other corpses, but she tries because it is he who asks her.
"What's going on...?"
But this ti her aura is not interrupted until 5 minutes later. If the first ti failed because there was no possibility at all, this ti it failed because the level of these corpses far surpasses hers and because she lacks information about them.
As long as she ets one of these conditions, she will be able to turn the elders of the Sacred Rock Sect into her shadows.
"Are you wondering why? It's simple..."
Lawrence explains to the puzzled Absolute Prominence, "That deer you turned into a shadow was the killer of those elders, that's the cause!"
He cheerfully walks away from these two won and leaves the rest to Serene Will. She sighs and tells Absolute Prominence: "When I return to the Divine Plane I will look for information about these elders, until then inspect their bodies and discover who they were in life."
"Tsk, I would do it even if you didn't tell ."
Serene Will blinks with curiosity and then smiles at the rebelliousness of this tiger girl.
In the distance, Lawrence expands his senses and soon finds Coldness Divine, she notices this and looks at him. He retracts his senses and heads to where she is.
"What are you doing on the roof?"
"What do you need for?"
That his question is answered with another question does not bother him, Lawrence approaches her and reveals the reason for his visit.
"What happened in your regressions?"
Coldness Divine remains silent for a few seconds and then decides to narrate what happened. It was not sothing very special, it would not make sense for her to try to hide it. This was a fight against herself, one that she won, but which made her recognize the limits of her innate ability.
She will overco them, she is sure of it.
"...That Noble Indolence is more special than I thought."
Lawrence, as weak as he is, can see the strength in others. "Her innate ability and her Way are related to the magic formations, today they may not be of vital importance, but we cannot ensure that they will not be in the future. Coldness Divine, answer sothing--"
"I know what you're thinking Lawrence, because it's sothing I thought long before you."
Coldness Divine stops looking at the horizon and directs her gaze towards him. "I will forgive her if that is what you want, I can forget everything that happened, everything she did to , but... that woman has no future."
Lawrence frowns. "Explain."
"You may not rember, but in my regressions I was able to use the laws of the world to my advantage. Control them to assassinate rankers who far surpassed ..."
He is surprised at her words, 'Why didn't she ntion this before? Did Serene Will know about this?!'
If they found a way to manipulate the laws of the world at will, then who in the world could stand in their way? These laws are sothing that only the ancient dragons can co into contact with and that, only through the teachings of one, an archaic dragon like Coldness Divine could do this in this life.
If she was able to use them, she might also find a thod to teach them!
"Are you still able to do it? What are the consequences?"
"The consequences... Sacrificing your future."
Because in her regressions she used them, she knows very well what will happen if she does it and does not go back in ti. In exchange for a temporary good she will lose her future.
"There is a way to benefit from them and that is the sa reason why Noble Indolence will never be able to overco the barriers imposed by her Way, why she will fail."
In an instant Lawrence fits the pieces of the puzzle together.
"You used the laws of the world in your Way. I see, that's why you were able to advance so quickly despite having discarded your previous Way."
"That's right." Coldness Divine does not hide this information from her husband, "It is because of this that my Forgotten mories Way, a Way related to ti and one of the most difficult thes in the world, has managed to develop without limits. But it is because of this that I will never be able to use the laws of the world as I once did."
Noble Indolence, who has not co into contact with the laws of the world, will fail in her Way. The magic formations are related to the world more than anyone could imagine. That's what Coldness Divine feels.
"But if what you say is true, will we all eventually need the laws of the world to so extent to advance?"
"Perhaps, but by that ti we will be presented with a way to achieve it by our own ans. Carrying Noble Indolence until then… would make no sense. It would be a waste of ti and resources."
Lawrence clicks his tongue. He, who does not have a Way, how will he even be able to break through the limitations of this world?
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