The air was clear, as the sun shone on a beautiful green valley filled with silver and blue flowers. Two figures stood there, facing each other.
One of them was a tall and lean man standing at about 1.8 meters. Two black horns, about 20 centimeters tall, extended from his forehead upward and curved back. Blood-red runes patterned the horns and the rest of the man's body, shining in an eerie, red light.
His skin was slightly toned, and even though his build was lean and slightly feminine, if observed closely, one could see the tightness of his skin, hinting at his terrifying physical strength.
An eerie blood red that seemed to melt and interchange with a dark gold defined his irises, and his sclera was a deep black abyss.
His hair was a smooth black that interchanged with a crimson red.
He wore a beautiful black robe extending to his ankles, filled with red dragon-scale patterns. The robe fluttered slightly in the wind, revealing two demonic swords concealed underneath. But even though they seemed demonic, they were paradoxically divine.
Demonic, yet divine, a being of contradiction.
He seemed calm as he looked at the woman across him with an indifferent gaze.
The other figure, the woman, stood at 186 centimeters. Her face was hidden beneath a white mask that seemed to be made out of a seemingly indestructible, marble-like material. The mask had two vertical lines extending for a few centimeters across the position of her eyes.
Golden blonde hair that shimmered in the sun grew from her head, reaching just slightly below her shoulders, fluttering in the wind as her slightly pointed yet delicate ears poked out of it.
Weirdly enough, though, it fluttered exactly opposite the man's robe.
Her body was donned in tight-fitting light armor adorned with a light green vine pattern, just like the rest of her marble white clothes.
Behind her, a long robe with a hood fastened around her neck fluttered, seeming like a cape.
A beautifully lean rapier with black rose patterns was hanging sheathed on the left side of her waist.
"Long time no see, you haven't changed a bit, have you, Lucifer?"
The woman asked with a charming and indifferent voice that was slightly muffled by the mask.
"Not much, no."
Lucifer stated plainly while standing still.
In between the two, even though they were standing there, spacetime seemed to be twisting endlessly from the clash of the auras leaking from the two of them.
"Have you broken free of the shackles binding you, or were you devoured by them?"
Lucifer asked indifferently.
"I don't know what you are talking about, demon."
She snapped back beneath the mask, her voice growing cold near the end.
"It seems to be the latter."
Lucifer said, releasing a sigh at the end, slight melancholy being visible in his eyes after that.
"Are you saying I am not myself?"
The woman asked, her voice becoming a cold hissing, like the unsealing of an airlock.
"So even the Great Hero Maria can't withstand the corruption of miasma. I am truly sorry I was unable to rescue you back then. If I had regained more strength, it would not have infected you in the first place. But the past is the past. Even I can't change it."
His eyes were filled with sadness and regret before they became firm.
"So, to amend for these sins, I will free you today."
As he said those words, his aura rose, slowly becoming towering, like a world in and of itself.
"Hehe. YOU want to free me?"
Maria asked, her aura rising at a far faster pace, quickly suppressing Lucifer's.
"You don't have the ability!"
A sinister gleam escaped the mask as the aura of a Peak God Realm expert was completely released.
Lucifer raised his eyebrows while looking at this scene. He was slightly surprised.
"I seem to have underestimated you. Your potential seems to be very close to a True Hero. But you are not the only one to underestimate the other."
He smiled as the runes on his body suddenly shone with a terrifying intensity. At some point, multiple runes shattered, and the rest dimmed back to the previous intensity.
In an instant, Lucifer's Realm seemed to rise from the Middle God Realm to the Middle Great God Realm.
"You have broken the seal!"
Her fear was evident even through the mask.
Lucifer opened his eyes. He had broken the seal, but it was only the outer layer.
"Enough talking."
His cold voice sounded out as his body, seeming to fuse into spacetime, instantly appeared in front of Maria.
Before she could react, intense pain assaulted her, and she released a mind-numbing scream.
Lucifer's sword had pierced her Divine Core instantly, and her cultivation shattered without resistance. Her aura quickly evaporated as she spat out a mouthful of deep, gold-red blood.
She fell to the ground weakly. Her body created a deep pit and threw dust and dirt into the air as it collided with the soil beneath her. Vibrations of the impact created cracks and split the earth around the pit in which her body lay.
Even though her cultivation was shattered, her body was still a Divine Body weighing more than ten thousand times that of a normal human body.
The pit was lined with silvery-white, string-like material, with about half the pit covered with something that resembled mercury.
Lucifer was surprised to see what was lining the walls of the pit, and before he could react, the string-like material seemed to come to life. It rushed toward the body of Maria, who was still conscious and alive in the pit.
But, with her cultivation shattered, the silvery-white strings managed to pierce into Maria's skin from multiple angles. These strings acted like drills. Digging further and further into her flesh. As it dug through, it branched out into multiple equally wide strings, spreading throughout her body.
From the around two thousand ends that had initially pierced her body, it had already branched into millions of strings, deeply rooting themselves into her body.
As Maria felt this, she screamed miserably. Her eyes were bloodshot as she flailed weakly, trying to pull off the material, but it was far too late. In desperation, she turned to look at Lucifer with her bloodshot eyes, but saw that he wasn't looking at her, but more at what was attacking her. She saw the interest in his eyes as he was ignoring her.
"AAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHH!!!!", she screamed desperately as the material was slowly devouring her flesh. It felt like the areas it ate were burning and at the same time being pierced by an uncountable number of needles. The pain was unimaginable. Every inch of her skin was being devoured and overtaken.
As Maria was screaming miserably in pain, Lucifer looked at the material with interest before he suddenly realized something. And as he looked closer, deep shock was visible in his eyes. 'A soul? No, not any soul!', he thought before his surprise quickly changed to fear, as he instantly teleported away for reasons unknown.
As time went on, Maria's screaming slowly grew weaker, and as the silvery-white strings completely wrapped her into a cocoon, she fell completely silent.
Soon enough, the cocoon receded inward, revealing the figure previously devoured. The only difference was that the previously worn clothes were replaced by a simple white, hooded robe adorned with complicated silver patterns, and her hair had turned silvery-white.
Even though the wind was blowing, the robe didn't budge and seemed to stick to the figure's skin.
Time slowly went by, and after an hour, the figure opened its eyes, a blood-red light escaping the holes of the mask. As the figure looked down, she tried picking up the rapier that lay on the ground, but was unable to do so.
Sighing, the rapier seemed to have disappeared without a trace.
Shortly after, the figure sat down and looked at the sky with a trace of happiness. "Finally, a human body," Cely said with happiness. "Though...", she touched the tips of her new ears below the hood. "I should rather say, humanoid."
She had just stopped cultivating, having stabilized her cultivation at the Third Stage of the Qi Gathering Realm, when a good chunk of her body was obliterated by Maria, who fell to the ground.
Angered, she rushed toward whatever had done so, wanting to devour it. And she succeeded with what felt like ease. Not only that, but she also managed to refine a humanoid body using the attacker's body as a template.
On top of all this, she absorbed its vitality, breaking through multiple Life Walls and reaching her current limit. This meant she could evolve her bloodline once she chose to.
This evolution involved a different cultivation system outside of Qi Cultivation, but who said you couldn't cultivate multiple systems at the same time? Also, the most important reason she did this was the translucent screen currently in front of her.
"I got a System, huh?"
Name: Cely
Cultivation: Tier 2 - Qi Gathering Realm: 3rd Stage
Level: 20/20 [Max Level Reached | Evolve: Yes | No]
Shop: Locked
Lottery: Closed
She knew what this thing was. She had heard about Systems before and had seen the husks they create. She had even glimpsed the one thing she should not have come into contact with, causing her to sacrifice herself for Earth, and because she really had no escape.
Systems are no boon. They are a trap. An artificial Rule created by the one known as System Master. But, though they created the System, they too are but a puppet of it. That is the scariest part about it. It's the equivalent of gravity gaining sentience.
Its only goal is to gain control over everything and bring about eternal order. To ensure eternal systematic balance. Luckily, it is also restricted by its nature and cannot just enforce this order. It can only act through puppets that advance to demi-devinity using the system.
As long as Cely gets rid of it before doing so, she will be fine.
The most useful functionality of the System is its ability to allow for life evolutions with bloodlines not even present in the body. Of course, bloodlines need to be of the same general race as the original, but beyond that? There are not really any limits.
Pulling herself out of this train of thought, Cely looked at the other gain she had made. A demi-divinity level spatial storage ring. Erasing the mark of the previous owner, the vast inner space was visualized in her head. Looking through it, she didn't actually find any money, which was surprising, considering the person she just devoured should not be a nobody with such a spatial treasure. Somehow, the only thing inside was a single rapier technique book.
"Disappointing."
Overall, although unlucky, she had obtained a lot.
After thinking for a short moment, Cely tried to return to her true form and found it easily doable, as her body melted into the floor with the storage ring stored in her soul with a little technique she had from her previous life. Somehow, though, the mask seemed to melt over her body as she did this, still concealing the parts of her tendril-like roots that previously made up the face.
After attaining an optimal state, she willed the yes option on the interface. A feeling of drowsiness quickly overwhelmed her, as a comfortable warmth radiated throughout.
What would she become after this evolution?