Zelig was standing with the formation plate in hand, watching the golden ball before him, trying to figure out why it cracked in his hands a moment before. There were no weird fluctuations or problems with the formation; it worked perfectly, just as planned. Now he had finally defeated his rival; the only thing remaining was to take his time and grind him down to powder. Day by day. Year by year. Decade by decade.
"I should start with the girl…." Zelig murmured, looking towards Rozex, and then he froze in place, even dropping the formation plate from his hand.
"Yo, geezer! 'Sup?" Ren smiled at him with a wide grin, standing only a meter away, arriving without him ever noticing.
"..." Zelig was sure it was only a hallucination, not something real.
"Go, watch from the sides!" Ren patted the butt of her disciple, sending Ariana to stand atop a building nearby where she could observe them. "What? Did Kitten steal your tongue or something?" Ren asked as she tilted her head, running her fingers through her silvery locks.
"Impossible…"
"Just because you can't do it does not mean it can't be done!" She shook her head, and when Zelig blinked his eyes, Ren was gone, making him tumble backward, thinking it really was a hallucination. "It was not." Ren's playful voice caressed his ears, sending shivers down his spine as it came from behind him. Slowly turning, he saw her touching the golden ball, imprisoning Aerthus. "You know, you really fucked it up this time, geezer!" She sighed, shaking her head. "Twice nonetheless!"
"W-wha-..." trembled his whole body, failing to form correct thoughts or words.
"Don't worry, I'll explain it to you, my little, stupid ancestor!" She shook her head, walking around the cocoon, dragging her fingers along the side of it. "You controlled the formation under Rozex from afar, plus we sabotaged it. As a result, it had just the right amount of force to let me speed up condensing my energy points into a crystalline form. It let me form my core, thus reaching Demigod status in one go. The mental part was easy, as I already did it in the past! I have a clear conscience about what and who I am. About what my desires are!" She explained like a teacher, but her words were mainly towards Ariana, teaching her disciple about what the future will hold for her. "It propelled me into the next phase as soon as I was done! Without your little formation, I'd have to do it slowly, which would have taken me… maybe 6 years? Or 5. Anyway! Thanks!" She laughed, looking into his eyes. "Same for my Master here! He has completed fusing his energy points… he needed to finalize it and balance out his mind. No wonder he was with Rumira every possible moment; just as she was using him to learn how to control her aura and let him consume the excess, he used her as the perfect grinding stone to hone his mind! Your little prison here will help him fuse everything he knows and be our Sect's first… I mean second, Demigod!" Ren flashed such a grin that her white teeth were shining in the night's darkness, terrifying Zelig. "His immense life force needed this strong push; a weaker version would be ineffective!"
“No… nonono… this is… no…. Nooooo…. Nononononono!" He repeated again and again, starting to panic.
"Well, I'll take it as your first and last gift for me, gramps!"
"You are LYING!" Zelig roared, turning golden, rushing at Ren, trying to smash her head in, yet when his fists were only a millimeter away, almost feeling the touch of her skin, Ren just disappeared, standing behind him once again. His hands' momentum dragged him along, making him fall forward before finally finding his footing, preventing a comical fall.
"When you face a Demigod," Ren continued, "the most dangerous thing is to rely on your eyes. You need sharp senses, sharper than anything if you want to have a chance at fleeing! Before this, I was as fast as lightning." Ren looked back at Ariana with a warm smile. "Now I am as fast as a thought!" She blinked again, dodging Zelig's attack, appearing just enough of a distance away to watch him fall face first, right before her toes. "Someone at the Harmony stage, facing a Demigod, has to focus on his or her surroundings! Watch the air, the ground, the rocks, walls, weapons, buildings, and whatever is around you! You are in harmony with nature; you are going to feel it! Feel the change that will happen in an instant, and then you also have to recognize it! Your mind and your senses are in tune with nature; use it! When your instincts recognize it, you can tell when and where the Demigod will teleport to! It is but a flash… But it is your only chance!" While she held her particular lesson for Ariana, no matter how shocked Zelig was, he was also listening. When Ren teleported again, his fist was already flying… to his left, landing a solid hit on Ren's cheeks. It was a loud bang, sending rocks, pebbles, and dust flying everywhere, yet her face did not even move an inch, keeping up her smile. "Oh my… you are a genius~" She grabbed onto Zelig's wrist, pushing it away effortlessly, leaving cracks behind, sneaking up on his golden skin towards his shoulder.
"I-i-imp... Imp… imp…" He stuttered with horror in his voice.
"Imp? Well, that is a new one…" she tilted her head to the left side with surprise.
"I think it would have been the word 'impossible,' Master!" Ariana shouted from the sides. "He just can't focus!"
"Ooooh! That makes sense!" Ren clapped. "Thank you~ Sadly, my stuttering grandpa here is getting up in ages…." She said, watching Zelig with almost glowing eyes. "You did not listen well… I said it right at the start! I emphasized that this is your only chance at FLEEING and not your only chance at attacking! But I can't fault you… you never fought a Demigod. You don't even know what it is, do you? Why do you think people called it that even in the ancient days? It was the last step before becoming a God! It was and still is a stage that, if reached, the only people who can face you are at the same level!"
"What about the Gods, Master?" Ariana asked with honest curiosity.
"Gods don't fight! They don't need to. And they don't meddle with others; if you find yourself in a situation where you have to fight a God, you would be dead before you ever laid your eyes upon him or her. Demigod or not." she shook her head, "But to piss off a God so much, he or she comes down personally to end you… you can at least brag about it after reincarnation! You achieved something marvelous in your previous life!" She laughed loudly and proudly.
By then, Zelig was frantically trying to hit Ren. As she was speaking with Ariana, he was punching, kicking, roaring at her, even picking up slabs of concrete, hitting her with them, yet it did nothing. What he did not see or could not see because of his rage and fear was that every time he would land a blow, it was stopped by a hair's width before touching Ren's skin. They never made genuine contact with her body. Every attack he dished out was hitting a literal wall, never even reaching her body.
"Now," Ren continued, "A Demigod when using spells, is very similar to how you do it!" She spoke, turning her eyes back onto Zelig, "It has the same principles, only now it gets fed by energy from your core and not from your energy points, amplifying its strength! When you wave a hand and send out a wind blade, for example, the energy points you use are in your hands; those are the main points where your internal powers concentrate and are released! With your core, all your energy points are melted into one… giving your spells 9 times the strength!" She snapped her fingers, and the whole region lit up in a violet color as a thundering bolt streaked across the Sky, as thick as a mountain range. "When creating your core, you need to decide where to concentrate them, which will be your main focus. That is a secret you do not share with anybody you do not trust with your life… as if your core is destroyed, you are dead. Mine is in my head; that is where my core is." She said calmly, letting Zelig know. Even if he knew this, it was already a piece of useless information for him.
"..." he just fell to his butt, his golden body dissipating, watching the blindingly bright bolt high up in the Sky slowly fizzling out. Its thunder had just arrived, bringing a deafening rumble down on them with such a strong shockwave that the remaining houses were trembling, windows were breaking, and roof tiles were shattering away. He already knew that Ren let him know where her core was, which was an indicator that he would not live to tell it to others.
"Yet this new core itself also has a giant drawback…." Ren's voice turned solemn, watching Zelig yet not looking at him at all at the same time. "In the old times and even now, many Demigods tried to feed the endless stomach of their own cores with energy. Yet it is almost a pointless struggle. For one, when you fill it up with energy, it grows. It makes it stronger, giving you more room to feed energy into it. Again. Again… and again."
"How do you fill a colander with water…." Ariana murmured, listening to her Master.
"Yes!" Ren nodded with a proud smile. "That is the second point; When you use it, it depletes the energy you poured into it! Walking, eating, sleeping, whatever your body does, your everyday life requires energy! You have something that grows as you use it, and you have to fill it completely to the brim! Plus not consume any of it while doing so! Filling it IS using it…." She chuckled with a tone of nostalgia and sarcasm mixed together. "The road to Godhood is nothing but a road of patience and the fight of wills! It is about perseverance, completeness, and utter loneliness. Nothing must disturb you if you want to succeed! It is not a road that one must walk. I would not let any of my disciples do it! It is the WRONG path!" she said with utter conviction in her voice, making not just Ariana breathless but Zelig too. "I never knew the right path… I let it be discovered by those who I taught!" she placed her hands behind her back, looking up at the Sky, watching the Tear with a proud smile. "The road I walked was already a dead end! It led me into a brick wall! I wouldn't want my disciples to follow me into that street! So I did what I had to as their Master! Tore down that damned wall for them! Let them discover the correct path because I knew they had it in them! I am so proud to know what they did! Now they can be my Master and teach me how to cultivate correctly!" She laughed with excitement and happiness while Zelig was lost entirely.
"What are you... Talking about…?" He asked, with charred lips and dried throat.
"Oh… yes, you are still here." Ren flinched, looking back at him with a smile. "Don't worry. She knows, and that is enough." she pointed at his head, "I had thoughts about you. A lot, in fact! As to what to do with you. At first, I just wanted to kill you. That way, you could have been reborn one day, maybe try again, growing up differently, and living a different life. But seeing what you did here… I changed my mind. You do not deserve a second go at it! Souls retain inherent characteristics. This is something you won't be able to change, Zelig. So you are going… to… die." When she finished, she said it word by word as lightning bolts struck from the Sky, creating a formation around them.
Ariana immediately recognized it as it was the same Soul Tearer formation that killed Harimau. A few seconds later, the corporal hooks and chains dragged out the screaming, terrified Soul of Zelig, who had no chance to resist. Even as he was begging, pleading towards Ren, trying to fight off the chains, she watched it play out, looking into his eyes as his essence got dismembered and consumed by the electric pillars until nothing remained, only a husk of a body.
"Goodbye, my Ancestor…." she said with a stoic voice as everything went back to normal, returning to a quiet, silent night, leaving only them in the middle of a city that was turned into a graveyard for a million people.
Zelig was standing with the formation plate in hand, watching the golden ball before him, trying to figure out why it cracked in his hands a moment before. There were no weird fluctuations or problems with the formation; it worked perfectly, just as planned. Now he had finally defeated his rival; the only thing remaining was to take his time and grind him down to powder. Day by day. Year by year. Decade by decade.
"I should start with the girl…." Zelig murmured, looking towards Rozex, and then he froze in place, even dropping the formation plate from his hand.
"Yo, geezer! 'Sup?" Ren smiled at him with a wide grin, standing only a meter away, arriving without him ever noticing.
"..." Zelig was sure it was only a hallucination, not something real.
"Go, watch from the sides!" Ren patted the butt of her disciple, sending Ariana to stand atop a building nearby where she could observe them. "What? Did Kitten steal your tongue or something?" Ren asked as she tilted her head, running her fingers through her silvery locks.
"Impossible…"
"Just because you can't do it does not mean it can't be done!" She shook her head, and when Zelig blinked his eyes, Ren was gone, making him tumble backward, thinking it really was a hallucination. "It was not." Ren's playful voice caressed his ears, sending shivers down his spine as it came from behind him. Slowly turning, he saw her touching the golden ball, imprisoning Aerthus. "You know, you really fucked it up this time, geezer!" She sighed, shaking her head. "Twice nonetheless!"
"W-wha-..." trembled his whole body, failing to form correct thoughts or words.
"Don't worry, I'll explain it to you, my little, stupid ancestor!" She shook her head, walking around the cocoon, dragging her fingers along the side of it. "You controlled the formation under Rozex from afar, plus we sabotaged it. As a result, it had just the right amount of force to let me speed up condensing my energy points into a crystalline form. It let me form my core, thus reaching Demigod status in one go. The mental part was easy, as I already did it in the past! I have a clear conscience about what and who I am. About what my desires are!" She explained like a teacher, but her words were mainly towards Ariana, teaching her disciple about what the future will hold for her. "It propelled me into the next phase as soon as I was done! Without your little formation, I'd have to do it slowly, which would have taken me… maybe 6 years? Or 5. Anyway! Thanks!" She laughed, looking into his eyes. "Same for my Master here! He has completed fusing his energy points… he needed to finalize it and balance out his mind. No wonder he was with Rumira every possible moment; just as she was using him to learn how to control her aura and let him consume the excess, he used her as the perfect grinding stone to hone his mind! Your little prison here will help him fuse everything he knows and be our Sect's first… I mean second, Demigod!" Ren flashed such a grin that her white teeth were shining in the night's darkness, terrifying Zelig. "His immense life force needed this strong push; a weaker version would be ineffective!"
“No… nonono… this is… no…. Nooooo…. Nononononono!" He repeated again and again, starting to panic.
"Well, I'll take it as your first and last gift for me, gramps!"
"You are LYING!" Zelig roared, turning golden, rushing at Ren, trying to smash her head in, yet when his fists were only a millimeter away, almost feeling the touch of her skin, Ren just disappeared, standing behind him once again. His hands' momentum dragged him along, making him fall forward before finally finding his footing, preventing a comical fall.
"When you face a Demigod," Ren continued, "the most dangerous thing is to rely on your eyes. You need sharp senses, sharper than anything if you want to have a chance at fleeing! Before this, I was as fast as lightning." Ren looked back at Ariana with a warm smile. "Now I am as fast as a thought!" She blinked again, dodging Zelig's attack, appearing just enough of a distance away to watch him fall face first, right before her toes. "Someone at the Harmony stage, facing a Demigod, has to focus on his or her surroundings! Watch the air, the ground, the rocks, walls, weapons, buildings, and whatever is around you! You are in harmony with nature; you are going to feel it! Feel the change that will happen in an instant, and then you also have to recognize it! Your mind and your senses are in tune with nature; use it! When your instincts recognize it, you can tell when and where the Demigod will teleport to! It is but a flash… But it is your only chance!" While she held her particular lesson for Ariana, no matter how shocked Zelig was, he was also listening. When Ren teleported again, his fist was already flying… to his left, landing a solid hit on Ren's cheeks. It was a loud bang, sending rocks, pebbles, and dust flying everywhere, yet her face did not even move an inch, keeping up her smile. "Oh my… you are a genius~" She grabbed onto Zelig's wrist, pushing it away effortlessly, leaving cracks behind, sneaking up on his golden skin towards his shoulder.
"I-i-imp... Imp… imp…" He stuttered with horror in his voice.
"Imp? Well, that is a new one…" she tilted her head to the left side with surprise.
"I think it would have been the word 'impossible,' Master!" Ariana shouted from the sides. "He just can't focus!"
"Ooooh! That makes sense!" Ren clapped. "Thank you~ Sadly, my stuttering grandpa here is getting up in ages…." She said, watching Zelig with almost glowing eyes. "You did not listen well… I said it right at the start! I emphasized that this is your only chance at FLEEING and not your only chance at attacking! But I can't fault you… you never fought a Demigod. You don't even know what it is, do you? Why do you think people called it that even in the ancient days? It was the last step before becoming a God! It was and still is a stage that, if reached, the only people who can face you are at the same level!"
"What about the Gods, Master?" Ariana asked with honest curiosity.
"Gods don't fight! They don't need to. And they don't meddle with others; if you find yourself in a situation where you have to fight a God, you would be dead before you ever laid your eyes upon him or her. Demigod or not." she shook her head, "But to piss off a God so much, he or she comes down personally to end you… you can at least brag about it after reincarnation! You achieved something marvelous in your previous life!" She laughed loudly and proudly.
By then, Zelig was frantically trying to hit Ren. As she was speaking with Ariana, he was punching, kicking, roaring at her, even picking up slabs of concrete, hitting her with them, yet it did nothing. What he did not see or could not see because of his rage and fear was that every time he would land a blow, it was stopped by a hair's width before touching Ren's skin. They never made genuine contact with her body. Every attack he dished out was hitting a literal wall, never even reaching her body.
"Now," Ren continued, "A Demigod when using spells, is very similar to how you do it!" She spoke, turning her eyes back onto Zelig, "It has the same principles, only now it gets fed by energy from your core and not from your energy points, amplifying its strength! When you wave a hand and send out a wind blade, for example, the energy points you use are in your hands; those are the main points where your internal powers concentrate and are released! With your core, all your energy points are melted into one… giving your spells 9 times the strength!" She snapped her fingers, and the whole region lit up in a violet color as a thundering bolt streaked across the Sky, as thick as a mountain range. "When creating your core, you need to decide where to concentrate them, which will be your main focus. That is a secret you do not share with anybody you do not trust with your life… as if your core is destroyed, you are dead. Mine is in my head; that is where my core is." She said calmly, letting Zelig know. Even if he knew this, it was already a piece of useless information for him.
"..." he just fell to his butt, his golden body dissipating, watching the blindingly bright bolt high up in the Sky slowly fizzling out. Its thunder had just arrived, bringing a deafening rumble down on them with such a strong shockwave that the remaining houses were trembling, windows were breaking, and roof tiles were shattering away. He already knew that Ren let him know where her core was, which was an indicator that he would not live to tell it to others.
"Yet this new core itself also has a giant drawback…." Ren's voice turned solemn, watching Zelig yet not looking at him at all at the same time. "In the old times and even now, many Demigods tried to feed the endless stomach of their own cores with energy. Yet it is almost a pointless struggle. For one, when you fill it up with energy, it grows. It makes it stronger, giving you more room to feed energy into it. Again. Again… and again."
"How do you fill a colander with water…." Ariana murmured, listening to her Master.
"Yes!" Ren nodded with a proud smile. "That is the second point; When you use it, it depletes the energy you poured into it! Walking, eating, sleeping, whatever your body does, your everyday life requires energy! You have something that grows as you use it, and you have to fill it completely to the brim! Plus not consume any of it while doing so! Filling it IS using it…." She chuckled with a tone of nostalgia and sarcasm mixed together. "The road to Godhood is nothing but a road of patience and the fight of wills! It is about perseverance, completeness, and utter loneliness. Nothing must disturb you if you want to succeed! It is not a road that one must walk. I would not let any of my disciples do it! It is the WRONG path!" she said with utter conviction in her voice, making not just Ariana breathless but Zelig too. "I never knew the right path… I let it be discovered by those who I taught!" she placed her hands behind her back, looking up at the Sky, watching the Tear with a proud smile. "The road I walked was already a dead end! It led me into a brick wall! I wouldn't want my disciples to follow me into that street! So I did what I had to as their Master! Tore down that damned wall for them! Let them discover the correct path because I knew they had it in them! I am so proud to know what they did! Now they can be my Master and teach me how to cultivate correctly!" She laughed with excitement and happiness while Zelig was lost entirely.
"What are you... Talking about…?" He asked, with charred lips and dried throat.
"Oh… yes, you are still here." Ren flinched, looking back at him with a smile. "Don't worry. She knows, and that is enough." she pointed at his head, "I had thoughts about you. A lot, in fact! As to what to do with you. At first, I just wanted to kill you. That way, you could have been reborn one day, maybe try again, growing up differently, and living a different life. But seeing what you did here… I changed my mind. You do not deserve a second go at it! Souls retain inherent characteristics. This is something you won't be able to change, Zelig. So you are going… to… die." When she finished, she said it word by word as lightning bolts struck from the Sky, creating a formation around them.
Ariana immediately recognized it as it was the same Soul Tearer formation that killed Harimau. A few seconds later, the corporal hooks and chains dragged out the screaming, terrified Soul of Zelig, who had no chance to resist. Even as he was begging, pleading towards Ren, trying to fight off the chains, she watched it play out, looking into his eyes as his essence got dismembered and consumed by the electric pillars until nothing remained, only a husk of a body.
"Goodbye, my Ancestor…." she said with a stoic voice as everything went back to normal, returning to a quiet, silent night, leaving only them in the middle of a city that was turned into a graveyard for a million people.
