Another month bled away outside the Haven while its inner chambers still tasted of rose-gold lust.
Ash stood at the heart of the Greater Chamber, ten snow-white tails edged in soft rose-pink drifting behind him like living ribbons of dawn, matching fox ears flicking lazily atop hair that looked spun from moonlight and blushing petals.
He wore a loose, open-front crimson jacket the color of fresh-spilled blood over a black silk shirt, sleeves rolled high, collar low enough to reveal the slow pulse of rose-gold runes beneath warm light-brown skin.
Nia and Vaeloria lingered closest, cheeks flushed crimson, eyes soft and glassy from ten straight months of being utterly, gloriously ruined.
Seris kept drifting nearer without noticing, pupils blown wide, breath shallow.
Thalion simply stared, mouth open, words lost somewhere between awe and terror.
"Your Majesty…" Thalion finally rasped, voice cracking like dry parchment. "The tails…?"
Vaeloria's own midnight tails curled instinctively toward Ash's, trembling as though drawn by gravity. "Yea, I was meaning to ask that as well? And even my bloodline seems to be... trembling?" she whispered, ancient voice cracking with something perilously close to reverence. "What in the hell are you now?"
Ash's smile curved slow, rose-pink eyes glowing faintly.
"Well.... that comes from my former human bloodline. As I mentioned before, I'm Lust, and when I became that, I also inherited a unique bloodline along with a few other things, such as this place. With it, anyone I bond with allows me to acquire their bloodlines, affinities, memories, and more. "
He spoke without holding anything back. No one here could even think to betray him and even if they did some way.... Heh right.
Silence fell so complete the chamber itself seemed to hold its breath. Four S-ranks stared at him like he'd just confessed to swallowing stars for breakfast.... And his ten tails drifted with lazy sentience, brushing the air as though tasting their shock.
Ash clapped once,
"Anyways... Enough gawking. You four have two months of outside time to drag us onto the Kingdom Stele. Top ten thousand or bust. Do it, and I'll give each of you something.... special."
He leaned in, voice dropping to a purr that made every woman present shiver.
"Fail… and I'll still love you. But I'll be very, very disappointed."
They scattered like startled birds, already plotting conquest.
Ash watched them vanish and spoked as he stood alone.
"Let's see what changed over the last few months..."
He then stepped back into Elaris for the first time in what for him and his companions was 30 months.
He materialized beside a weathered lesser Stele in a sun-blasted border town, crimson jacket fluttering in hot, dusty wind, hands buried in pockets.
The obsidian monolith blazed with fresh rankings.
----
THE VOSS KINGDOM CONTINUES TO BLAZE THROUGH THE RANKINGS! - 2 DAYS AGO
EBONREACH KINGDOM REACHES 9,990 ON THE WORLD RANKINGS - 1 WEEK AGO
WHO IS THE RULER OF EBONREACH? - 3 DAYS AGO
OBSIDIAN INFERNO KINGDOM WINS THIRD STRAIGHT WAGER IN 6 MONTHS - 3 DAYS AGO
THE 10,000TH RANKED STORMREND FALLS - 1 MONTH AGO
KALE VOSS AND THE VOSS KINGDOM ENTERS THE WORLD RANKINGS - 1 MONTH AGO
TWO MYSTERIOUS WOMEN SPOTTED IN 17 KINGDOMS - 1 MONTH AGO
---
"Hmm, he entered the world ranking's so early?" He muttered seeing the news about the Voss Kingdom.
He then thought of Sonna and smiled a bit. Before he planned to let her be, even after understanding her pain... but now he no longer carried for her past. Since she was broken and manipulated through lust then he would remake her.... through lust.
However, this time in the proper way.
"I will make you into the warm fairy again...." He muttered as he turned away.
Before he stepped into the S rank he had plans, he wanted to carry out... but now he had a complete change of mind. He was sure his companions would get the job done in two months, or even less. So, he needed to keep his end of the bargain and with the path he now walked... it would be perfect to begin gathering fragments.
'Hmm, what should the creation be... a bloodline? Nah, I will wait for that...' The more he thought, an idea came to mind.
-----
In the royal coliseum of the Obsidian Inferno Kingdom, two B-rank gladiators clashed beneath a sky choked with smoke and cinders.
One fought with ordinary crimson fire that roared and died.
The other bathed his blade in pitch-black flame that devoured everything it kissed...steel melted, stone turned to ash, even the air hissed and vanished in thin black ribbons.
Ash lounged in the highest stand, disguised as a bored noble beneath a grey cloak, rose-pink eyes glowing faintly as he activated.
|Inspect|
[Black Devouring Flames – A rare mutation born from the Obsidian Inferno royal bloodline.
Flame that consumes whatever it touches, converting mass directly into more flame.]
[Devouring] [Burning] [Heat] [Self-Proliferation] [Corrosion]
[Choose one fragment of the Black Devouring Flames]
"So, this how it works..." he muttered to himself as he selected Devouring.
An illusory white hand descended from nowhere, brushed the gladiator's shoulder, and peeled the
Devouring trait away like silk.
The man never noticed anything... and neither did anyone else in the arena.
[Fragment 001 – Devouring Trait acquired]
Ash vanished with a satisfied smirk.
Days later, deep beneath the Ironveil Kingdom in pits that stank of blood and iron, an A-rank sword master carved through opponents with the legendary Adamant Edge affinity, his blade sliced through A-rank armor like parchment.
Ash watched from the shadows, selected Unbreakable Sharpness, and like before the same illusory white hand showed and copied the trait from the man.
The sword master continued on with his display as Ash had already disappeared.
He then continued on and later found himself in Eternal Mist Kingdom.
A reclusive A-rank illusionist whose Phantasmal Mist could create perfect copies of anything she'd ever seen... complete with aura, voice, even heartbeat. Ash appeared behind her in her own garden and simply used his ability.
It was just that simple, as he was now walking the path of the One True Architect.... it wasn't anything he could claim for himself....
Just not in its entirety of course.
[Fragment 003 – Replication Trait acquired]
Three Days later, Ash floated above an empty land under a new moon, 999 fragments shimmering inside his soul like captured stars. None of the fragments were concepts or laws just the purest, rawest traits affinities could provide in these unranked kingdoms.
But together they would birth something never seen before.
He smiled slowly as he got started.
"First creation..." he whispered.
His path stirred, hungry.
The air behind him tore open like silk parting for a blade.
From the wound blossomed an illusory vault so vast it dwarfed continents... an endless cathedral of white marble veined with living rose-gold, pillars rising into impossible heights, arches curving into places that hurt to perceive.
Its gates were two colossal doors of translucent crystal, each carved with 999 empty sockets that pulsed hungrily, waiting to be filled.
The moment it fully manifested, the world itself dimmed; the moon above flickered as though bowing, and the land beneath turned completely still, not even the blades of grass moved.
Ash lifted his hand.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine fragments rose from his soul like a galaxy being born... shards of Devouring, Unbreakable Sharpness, Perfect Replication, and hundreds more, each one a captured star of pure affinity, glittering in every color fire and light had ever dreamed of.
They orbited him in a slow, majestic spiral, casting rose-pink auroras across the night as his ten tails flared wide, tips glowing like newborn suns.
With a single thought he commanded them.
The fragments surged forward in a single, breathtaking torrent, slamming into the vault's open sockets with a soundless chorus of crystalline chimes.... each impact sending ripples of rose-gold light racing across the cathedral's walls, lighting runes that had never existed before this exact moment.
The gates shuddered.
The pillars sang.
The entire illusory structure blazed so brightly the stars themselves seemed to dim in shame. Ash's rose-pink eyes burned like twin galaxies as he shaped the final form.
In the center of the vault, suspended in a sphere of liquid light, a single seed condensed no larger than a teardrop, yet heavier than mountains.
"Perfect," he said, and laughed into the night.
It pulsed once… twice… then bloomed with a heartbeat of pure rose-gold that rolled across the land like a silent detonation, turning the gras into a molten dawn for one perfect instant.
[Creation: Myriad Ascension Seed (SS-rank physique)]
One seed, ten thousand futures.
Ash closed his fist.
The cathedral folded in on itself with the grace of a dying star, vanishing back into the wound in space that sealed without a scar.
Only the seed remained, resting warm and alive against his palm.
He stared at it for a long moment, tails swaying in slow, satisfied arcs, then laughed low and delightful.
"Haha, now let's move to the final part."
He closed his hand once more around the seed and then clenched. The seed dissolved into pure rose-gold light that flowed up his arm. The light continued until it all funneled into his eyes, making his eyes seem more enchanting. The color didn't change or anything, but they seemed to become more desirable.
[Myriad Ascension Seed Pattern Acquired.]
"Now, I can keep my promise." He muttered before leaving...
And his next destination....
Velora Kingdom