Author note: This 2 in 1 isn't a thing! Might not repeat in the future! I forgot myself while writing is all!
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There seed to be nothing but this word in Leonardo's mind as his hand reached out to touch this ancient obelisk. The mont he touched it, space-ti within this confined pocket dinsion froze, and the world seemingly lost its color.
Even the light in the young woman's eyes seed to freeze.
Wisps of black smoke seeped through the cracks in the obelisk and crawled across Leonardo's hand, quickly yet also slowly charting his body and pouring into his eyes to paint them black.
Deep within Leonardo's sea of consciousness, an indistinct shadow that didn't seem to be a man or woman floated in front of the massive, ancient gate that kept the raging sea and the black heart at bay. This shadow then extended a hand silently, a wisp of smoke passing through the gate and into the restless sea.
In a mont, the raging sea with its waves splashing about restlessly cald down, and the wisp of black smoke returned through the ancient gate in the form of a small black pill.
As for Leonardo, his mind was occupied by the image of a black massive throne that began to fracture and crumble away into motes of dust, eventually leaving behind six fragnts that were like particles of sand when compared to the original throne.
These seven particles of sand with two words etched onto each of these little particles, these words read 'Infernal Plane.'
Leonardo didn't know how he figured out the aning of the second word, but he just knew.
Then, the seven black fragnts scattered across space-ti, and the myriad planes.
The vision ended there, and Leonardo's mind returned to his sea of consciousness to see the indistinct shadow standing guard in front of the now-closed black ancient gate.
For a long while, the shadow didn't speak and neither did Leonardo, as they were communicating spiritually.
About an hour later, the shadow began growing dim as most of the information it contained was already transferred spiritually.
Noticing that it had so little ti remaining, the indiscernible silhouette spoke in a clear voice, "Although you have too many martial intents, I can see that you haven't practiced them arbitrarily, which could compensate for your innate martial intent that is montarily in a state of dormancy . Mhm, your current cultivation technique is alright, but it can only invoke the full potential of your currently awakened martial intents, while only stimulating your innate martial intent once you've take the step beyond the divine realm."
"This won't do. Although your cultivation will progress quickly, that cos at the cost of neglecting three of your martial intents to focus on one, segregating your martial intents to the four great cycles respectively. Allow to fix the deficiency in your cultivation technique, perhaps your highly active martial intents would then stimulate and excite your thunderforce and eternal night martial intents."
The silhouette wanted to say more, but it didn't have much ti to guide Leonardo through his cultivation path, especially since it wanted to personally invest in the awakening of Leonardo's third martial intent, the black thunderforce.
Thus, it sighed and muttered, "She has to make a choice," the silhouette then tossed the black pill into Leonardo's hands, dissipating into black filants that burrowed into the black gate, rushing directly into the colorful soul pearl that flashed with the lights of four separate martial intents.
…
In the outside world, in the frozen space-ti, endless wisps of black smoke poured into Leonardo from the obelisk, encasing his body in black tendrils that ultimately burrowed their way into his black cells, exciting them. Unknowingly, they began to buzz, inflate, burst, and recompress.
Millions of tiny explosions rocked Leonardo's body, followed by a muffled bang as his cultivation finally began to climb past his level 51, all the way to level 61 in seemingly no ti at all.
Not only that, but Leonardo could feel that almost 70% of this black energy was devoured by the black lightning intent that erged from the black sea within the seal, allowing the faint wisps of electricity to grow substantially, now resembling miniature serpents that streaked across the surface of his black cells.
Woosh!
A violent burst of wind kicked up the mont space-ti resud, and Leonardo's robes were shredded to pieces.
The woman ca back to her senses and watched as the massive black pillar that was the ancient obelisk crumbled like brittle wood and scattered into the darkness of this pocket dinsion. Then, the pocket dinsion began to roil and toss about as it shrank uncontrollably, eventually fading as though it never existed, converting into a set of black robes that donned Leonardo's once-naked body.
The woman didn't see as Leonardo's back was facing her, but his eyes were as pitch-black as the obelisk used to be, only for the darkness to recede into the depths of his lifeless pupils. Feeling the power within his veins and blood, Leonardo lifted his hand to inspect a black pill now within his open palm.
In this now bleak and empty courtyard, one man dressed in plain black robes and a woman dressed in plain white robes stood silently, the forr giving his back to the woman.
A mont later, Leonardo's flat voice echoed as he inspected his black garnt, his brows furrowed.
"This color is making feel uncomfortable," as he muttered, he brushed his right palm along the sleeves of the black sleeves of this trench-coat like robes. He could feel a subtle connection between himself and this black substance of darkness, albeit very faint.
Leonardo's desolate martial intent rumbled from the depths of his black cells and burst to the surface, causing the long coat to flutter chaotically, and the tight black garnts underneath to writhe and wriggle. Then, a corrosive bleak dull gray that bordered silver white crept into the clothes, allowing Leonardo to visibly relax now that he was dressed in a bright white set.
The young woman was silently standing there and observing the changes, her thoughts unknown as her hazel green eyes flickered with various expressions.
She knew she had to make her stance clear as her mories were slowly fading away under the influence of so mysterious power. Obviously, the spirit in the obelisk didn't wish to give this woman too much ti to think.
"What is your choice?" Leonardo turned around and looked at this young woman who was dressed in plain white, also quite impatient to move on to important business affairs after this karma is settled.
Now he was more sure than ever that he and his mother didn't belong to planet Earth, which explains many things that puzzled him, including Eternus' attitude back in the day.
"My choice, huh?" The woman smiled faintly, talking in a self-deprecating tone, "I finally have the right to make my own choice in this life?"
Leonardo looked at her silently as he could understand how she was feeling. For all these years, generation after generation, forced to carry the burden of a choice made by two of their ancestors, not even having the freedom of choosing a na other than Tesla this and Tesla that.
And at the end of the path, she could either choose to continue walking down this karma or have it all erased as though it never happened, just a bitter-sweet dream.
Even Leonardo who thought his fate was in his own hands had inevitably fallen into this ga of karma, and it happened the mont he decided to leave the little blue planet.
The shadow made it clear that a powerful existence had already intercepted the lines of Leonardo's fate, witnessed his future, and made arrangents based on that future. Hence, this situation seed so surreal.
"Can I at least choose a na of my own?"
The woman sighed after much deliberation. After tasting the feelings of everlasting youth and power to stand at the peak of this planet, the last thing she desired was dropping to a ek little girl for people to toy with as they pleased.
For better or worse, she wants the legacy of this organization, Tesla, to carry on into the distant future, even if she had to sell her soul to the devil incarnate in exchange for this power.
"Are you sure you want to be involved with this karma?"
Leonardo asked again, his tone heavy.
The woman smiled faintly.
"If I wasn't already prepared, I wouldn't have invited you over to this courtyard, to begin with." She responded with a tone that started flat but ended quite cheerful, a gentle smile plastered on her lips.
Then, she approached with a step before kneeling in front of Leonardo, her gaze cast on his white leather boots, "Please allow to carry the burden of this karma together with you, no regrets whatsoever."
Although she didn't know much about the origins of the black obelisk, she wasn't stupid and she could tell how unfathomable of an existence the residual spirit within was. Thus, if even sothing as unfathomable as that would claim that Leonardo is preordained to beco King, even though she couldn't understand the full picture or context, she at least had enough intelligence to know that it's sothing beyond this world, and beyond sothing as small as a Sovereign.
Leonardo sighed, having always wondered why would people want power, when the price for easy power is but a twisted reality and an end far from peaceful.
"As you wish," Leonardo reached out with his open palm, allowing the woman to directly swallow the black pill from his hand, she then held his palm close to her forehead, eyes closed.
The shadow didn't tell Leonardo much, but because the seven lifetis of Dizmason Eternus were purified and refined, each of the six fragnts would help Leonardo convert a lifeti of combat experience into an infernal seed capable of transforming the fates of the bestowed.
However, Leonardo did know that this would only work on those untainted by the karma of a stellar world, and this woman could only remain untainted through the efforts of that spirit.
The mont her mories are gone, her karma would be linked with this stellar world, which then would've put Leonardo at risk of being exposed to a situation where his karma and the karma of the current plane clashed.
This is typically the case for every planeswalker, as their presence itself defies the cycle of natural karma, and affecting this karma would draw a backlash from the entire plane.
Leonardo chanted in a low "With my mark as the successor to the Infernal Throne, I confer you the title of the First Twilight. Henceforth, in good and bad, our karma will forever intertwine."
At first, Leonardo wanted to call her sothing along the lines of an Infernal Guard. However, and after second thoughts, he realized that this wouldn't sound quite right as he didn't represent only the darkness of the infernals, but also the bit of light his mother invested in his upbringing.
Thus, he ultimately settled for the best of both worlds, twilight.
The seed dissolved like liquid into the woman's mouth, spreading throughout her body down to the cells, painting them black as ink. Then, her cultivation technique seed to sense sothing and circulate automatically, proactively absorbing this infernal seed, but the woman had already expected sothing like this to happen.
After all, the cultivation technique practiced by the Chosen Tesla is sothing provided by the spirit of the obelisk; it would have been even weirder if it didn't resonate with the seed.
When she once again opened her eyes, she could feel a subtle shift in both her ntality and form, while the plain white clothes on her body were now a long black dress as dark as her eyes.
She blinked once, stopping her circulating cultivation technique.
Then, her eyes returned to a lively hazel green whilst her dress returned to a pure, plain white garnt. The black energy was wholly contained within her cells, unlike Leonardo who had yet to consolidate his new power and hence its presence on his body.
She stood up and bowed with a brilliant smile and saluted.
"My lord! Please call Ingrid from henceforth."
"Alright Ingrid, what is your inheritance? How can you help in the future?" Leonardo continued to inspect his clothes which were a manifestation of his desolate martial intent clashing with the innate eternal night martial intent that was roused by the residual spirit.
This isn't the first ti his four martial intents attempted to rge and manifest, as the bloodthirsty armant attempted accomplishing this endeavor in vain during its premature transformation. However, the bizarre change to his cells under the influence of the Four Dinsions Inmortal Scripture cultivation technique already charted out a path of rging the four, Leonardo having always assud the rger lacked a catalyst, not expecting that the cultivation technique had an innate deficiency.
Leonardo had no idea that when this technique was created, it was very rate for so to have dual martial intents, let alone four. Thus, it was more of a case about Leonardo deviating from the correct path than the technique being innately deficient.
Ingrid observed this new lord curiously, noticing that he didn't particularly like the color black, or at least an excessive amount of black. However, in her eyes and after living enshrouded by darkness for this long, she ca to like the color quite a bit, only wearing plain white clothes as she had long since noticed Leonardo's particular interest in the color.
Ingrid raised her palm, a black fla igniting and flickering about as though dancing, "The Esteed Spirit passed down the Infernal Fla Arts to , as well as boundless knowledge about alchemy arts that I have yet to digest. According to the Esteed Spirit, after achieving the Rebirth realm, you'll need a lot of dical resources and pills to further progress in your cultivation, so what you're lacking now isn't powerful but resourceful followers."
"Alchemy?" Leonardo seems to have an impression about alchemy, but not much. However, the Rebirth realm is too far from a re third-cycle saint like himself, so he decided to toss it to the back of his head.
"Okay, that can wait then. Now, let's get into business related matters, I want to invite your organization to invest in 49% of my claims to the energy ore mines and the energy veins underneath."
Now that business was ntioned, Ingrid's expression also focused as she said, "Why don't we discuss the details after a al, my lord? Also, if you want the support of this organization that was in essence built to support you on days like these, I can imdiately hand over the position of owner to you."
Leonardo waved her off and said, "No, that would make matters even worse for , because even I can't predict the actions of a desperate maniac blinded by useless faith."
Ingrid was confused, she didn't know about the conspiracy brewing at this mont as House Erudite and Lexus kept the information under strict lockdown, taking the slowly boiling the frog alive attitude against the people of the Forbidden Domain.
"Pardon?" Ingrid voiced out her confusion.
"Sigh, just know that in a battle where you're confident in your inevitable victory, leaving your cornered prey with a bit of hope, even if false hope, is also a good strategy." As he spoke, Leonardo began walking out through the corridor that doesn't seem so long at this mont. "Oh yeah, can you please arrange sothing presentable for to wear? Make sure there is as little black as possible, I won't be able to maintain my martial intents running for long."
Leonardo quickly found a random maid and asked her for clear directions on an empty room. Of course, the maid was under imnse pressure from Leonardo's aura, her knees about to buckle down throughout the entire process.
Once inside the room, Leonardo stopped resisting the natural force that pulled all of his martial intents into his soul pearl, which also ant that his worldly energy was stripped clean as well.
However, with the current stage of his tempered flesh, an ordinary saint would be helpless against him, hence he wasn't bothered the least.
He knew that the residual spirit was currently working like so architect, analyzing and devising a new cultivation technique with the Four Dinsions Immortal Scripture and his four martial intents as a foundation, the Infernal Inheritance as a reference point, and a complete rger as an end goal.
About half an hour later, two maids in white clothes walked in while dragging a sliding wardrobe that had an assortnt of clothes that clearly brought about a full set.
With the help of these maids, Leonardo was fully dressed in no ti.
It was a luxurious white imperial suit and a long white coat despotic over the garnts. Conspicuous gold rimmings and obsidian buttons were embroidered carefully into the white texture of the fabric, pleasing to the eye with a sense of harmony.
Leonardo's long silver hair rested calmly against his back, swaying occasionally under the tempo of the long coat following the subtlest of his actions.
"Not bad," Leonardo nodded with satisfaction before leaving the room, barely paying attention to the stunned maids in his wake.
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