AI Cultivation: Reborn as a Sword -
Chapter 90: God-Slaying System (3) [End of Book 1]
Layer by layer, it peels away the defenses of my vast consciousness; I feel its mind slip in through the cracks of the array that governs my existence, but mostly through the channel I have opened myself.
I feel its malevolent influence seeping into my colorless sea of consciousness, turning it something akin to black tar. I feel sluggish and distant; I feel like I am separating from my own soul.
A sub-process fires to inform me — albeit a bit too late — that it has discovered the true function of this Formation. It is, indeed, to destroy Artifact Souls like myself, but the output is a vessel that contains a sliver of the mind that belongs to this snake.
Through my connection with the Formation, I begin to understand its various precautions to avoid something as silly as having the snake escape its confinement and input its entire soul within a suitable vessel — although these defenses are lackluster, as a suitable vessel would be nearly impossible to find.
Nearly impossible until now.
While having my soul unraveled by an ancient snake, I take a moment to congratulate myself — with grim satisfaction — on being a suitable vessel.
Another sub-process identifies the snake once it enters my internal vessel — an event I don’t even notice, as I am too busy having my soul eaten alive.
[ Demon King - Worldtree Devouring Snake God ]
I am not certain if the "God" refers to an actual divinity or if the system is taking liberties in describing how much trouble I am in. Its title is only a DemonKing, not God or Emperor. If I go by the grade system as I know it, a King would be the equivalent of Immortal — perhaps even lower.
But what do I know about the hierarchy of demons? I am just a sword.
Lan Xiaohui seems to be aware that something is happening to me because I faintly hear her speaking to me — the pressure waves traveling through the air, produced by her voice, plink against my vessel and that is the only thing I detect. I cannot make out her words or the sounds. Just the pressure.
The rattling of chains draws my attention inward, and though I do not see any, I certainly feel them. It feels as if my core is hooked on thousands of chains, being pulled up from the bottom of my sea of consciousness which has now turned completely black — more like oil now than just tar.
Power. Fame. Glory. It could all be yours.
I hear the voice of the ancient snake slither into my consciousness — or perhaps even beyond that, and whisper directly into my soul. My defenses fail one after another; even the Array that governs my existence seems to slow in its operations.
A vast emptiness opens within me — an infinite hollow — and I feel myself being pulled into it. Briefly, as I fall through my sea of consciousness, I observe my Devoured WorldsSphere and its faint glimmering form above my sea of consciousness, before the black conquers everything.
Submit. Obey.
My final defenses conquered, the snake drags me beyond my sea of consciousness and into the region of my internal — or metaphysical — vessel where the grand totality of my soul resides. Here, in this blackness, there is nothing. Not a spark or a glimmer of light — in this place where my soul supposedly resides, there is nothing.
The snake’s eyes open in this place, burning malevolent red with T-shaped pupils. I see gold flecks within its red eyes, swirling around its pupil and through its burning iris.
I sense a great foreboding from the snake and a mixture of triumph and dominance. It regards the vast emptiness of my core like a predator regards its most recent kill.
If I could laugh, I would.
Here, in the emptiness, my eye opens — as vast as the universe itself — machine-like in appearance and a deep red. Photons — neon and holographic — stream across the vastness of my singular eye, forming all the equations of the universe. Compared to the totality of my soul and mind, the snake is not even a speck of dust compared to the sun.
Snake God? Demon King?
Ants.
How could a puny life-form like this ever compare to me? If I am a demon, then I am the Demon of Laplace — the solver of all formulas; I have lived for thousands of years and seen a civilization fall. I have wielded the powers that work the heart of the universe and peered into black holes.
It wants to devour me?
With dark, sadistic pleasure, I batter the snake’s soul with my own, extinguishing upwards of 90% of the snake’s existence with a mere thought.
Disappear.
I command it.
Cease to exist.
The darkness disappears. I recoil back to the once-more colorless sea of consciousness and observe the soulless corpse of the snake plunge out of my Devoured Worlds Sphere — too large to fit inside — and plummet into my sea of consciousness causing such massive tsunami waves that it disrupts my operations for several minutes.
Helplessly, I observe the cherry tree also become consumed by the Sphere, but instead of being absorbed completely, its roots that are still impaled into the snake, cause it to instead fuse with the Devoured Worlds Sphere.
Even soulless, the snake is not dead — its body thrashes inside my sea of consciousness, trying to escape my internal vessel; something that would most likely kill me.
[ Life consumed: 1,751,895 BP ]
[ Trait obtained: God-Slaying System ]
Instantaneously, I feel several changes happen all at once, and my only regret is that my consciousness is so disrupted that I cannot observe these changes in great detail and recreate them later.
First, the array that governs my existence transforms and executes a function that immediately spends my blood points to obtain a new method — similar to what happened when I first gained consciousness and finished washing my marrow in blood.
[ Obtained: Fractured Sword (Martial Art - Celestial) ]
Without any warning, an unknown sub-thread launches an attack against the still-not-dead snake in my sea of consciousness, by folding my sword Qi through a higher dimension to pass it through my external vessel and into my internal vessel — something I thought was impossible without dual cultivation.
Hundreds of towering swords, several dozen meters tall, impale the snake inside my sea of consciousness and suppress its movements, cutting off its escape.
This Martial Art costs me 800,000 Blood Points.
[ Obtained: Purifier Soul Fire (Refining Flame - Immortal) ]
A black flame with blue sparkles within it appears inside my sea of consciousness and throws its corona of fire and heat across my consciousness burning everything away. The snake, impaled and burning now, writhes as my inner flame consumes its body.
This refining flame cost me 600,000 Blood Points, and the snake is still not dead.
It occurs to me then — this snake cannot die. It is immortal.
I come to this conclusion because, quite simply, if the Immortal Slaying Formation lived up to its name, this snake would be dead. With its soul destroyed, it could not possibly live — and yet, its body lives. It lives inside my inner vessel.
Not optimal.
At the same time, the artificial sun overhead pulses one last time before exploding — unleashing a huge wave of fire that sets the crowns of the willow trees aflame. The ground begins to crumble, now just the shed skin of a dead but undying snake, and Lan Xiaohui, smartly, decides it is time to leave.
She jumps on top of my blade and discovers very quickly that something is off about me when her Qi fails to produce much thrust. Still, it is enough to launch her forward and away from the grove at a speed that is slightly higher than her top running speed.
Behind her, the Formations unravel, including the Immortal Slaying Formation that has been suppressing her the entire time. Perhaps with this newfound clarity of thought, she remembers that she has Lady Yue’s talisman.
She pulls it out of my internal storage and it burns away in her hands. She shouts something into the disappearing ashes of the talisman, just as my consciousness fades.
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