"What?"
A new expression finally appeared on Eugene's face. Things did not seem to be going as he had expected.
But even with the divine body and power under his control, what could Ethan do?
Just as he was thinking this, the prayer beads Ethan had tossed aside emitted a faint, soft light, then transformed into a phantom.
"This is..."
"I have you to thank for teaching me how to condense the most important parts into a 'core.'"
Looking at Eugene, who was now tightly bound to his divine body and inseparable from it, Ethan was not worried that the other party had any further tricks up his sleeve. To ensure he could successfully "seize" Ethan's power, Eugene had put in a lot of effort, connecting himself very closely to Ethan's divine body to guarantee success.
So closely, in fact, that even now, knowing something was wrong, he could not stop.
"Since you like this body so much, I'll give it to you!"
Although it was called a body, it had actually transformed into something like an outer garment, worn by Eugene.
But ultimately, it was Ethan's body, and before it was completely controlled by Eugene, the power contained within it was still under Ethan's command.
"As long as you can withstand this blow!"
The semi-phantom Ethan silently snapped his fingers, and then the protective gear formed from Ethan's divine body exploded without a sound.
There were no earth-shattering light and shadow effects, no terrifying, irresistible impact. Eugene did not even get a chance to speak before he silently vanished into the Source Sea.
Looking at the spot where Eugene had completely disappeared, Ethan finally let out a long breath.
From beginning to end, he had never trusted Eugene. From the moment Eugene used his power to "force" Ethan to follow his arrangements, Ethan had already regarded him as an enemy.
Just as he had said back then, the greatest purpose of becoming stronger was to be able to refuse to do anything he did not want to do.
Unfortunately, his strength had been insufficient at the time, so he could only choose to endure.
If it had only been that, he would not have gone to such lengths. But in the Tower of Babel, he quickly sensed that something was wrong.
The various tasks were almost all designed to lure him into doing anything for power, and by the time he reached the task of finding the key, it was almost no longer concealed.
At first, the vampire countess who resembled Selene was merely there to lower his bottom line, but later, placing Diana directly opposite him was meant to make him completely abandon personal feelings.
All of this was preparation. Without personal feelings, purely pursuing power, when finally faced with immense power and various rule forces, he would undoubtedly absorb them for his own use without hesitation. More importantly, only by being willing to pursue power would he agree to cooperate with Eugene and go to the core of the Source Sea.
That way, he would truly fall into Eugene's trap, ensuring that Eugene could easily turn Ethan into armor.
It was not that Eugene was careless. He even had Ethan expend some power first before making his move, ensuring Ethan had no strength left to fight back.
He just never expected that Ethan had been wary of him from the start, or that his attachment to personal feelings far exceeded Eugene's imagination. Eugene thought that a god who had reached Ethan's level would surely have broken free from the constraints of human emotions, and that any remaining personal feelings would be easily discarded.
He did not realize that although Ethan had the realm and strength of a god, he had always lived like a "person." From the beginning, he refused to follow the path Eugene had arranged, which allowed him to detect the anomaly and respond.
"The Tower of Babel..."
Although it was a trap, the Tower of Babel had helped him. The method of condensing and compressing power into a core had saved him.
When Ethan realized he could not leave without absorbing the "prepared power and rules" from Eugene, he formulated his subsequent plan.
Although he did not know Eugene's goal was to seize his divine body and power at that time, Ethan had confirmed one thing. This flawed body was not worth keeping.
No matter how powerful it was, Ethan could not keep a body with hidden dangers. He resolutely recompressed his core power and hid his "true form" within the prayer beads.
To ensure Eugene would not become suspicious, Ethan left almost all of his divine power, even the newly mastered rule forces, in this divine body.
It was also thanks to this that Eugene attacked without suspicion. Ethan killing Abraham had actually been a display of his strength.
More importantly, only by leaving behind a sufficiently vast amount of energy and powerful rule forces could this body become a bomb capable of destroying Eugene.
If the gap in realm was too large, it would be impossible to harm Eugene. Only an existence at the same realm could truly kill him.
The difficulty of the operation was not limited to this. Ethan treated the powerful existence and rule forces equal to Eugene as a one-time item, which allowed him to instantly kill Eugene cleanly.
In Eugene's mind, he could not imagine a god being willing to abandon vast power and rule forces that might take countless years to master, especially such a powerful rule as "Destruction."
"Although the loss was heavy, the goal was ultimately achieved."
Looking at his phantom-like figure, Ethan did not feel it was a pity.
If he lost power, he could train it again. Moreover, his loss was not strictly that great. The recompressed divine core had become more pure and refined. Although most of the rule forces were consumed along with it, his understanding and comprehension of the rules were still in his mind, and he could master those rules again.
Other things aside, rules like space were almost integrated into his divine core and could easily be restored to their peak state.
As for energy?
Ethan looked around. This world had no shortage of energy. Being in the Source Sea, he was not worried about anyone disturbing him.
His semi-phantom figure flickered for a moment. Ethan knew his current state was very weak, and maintaining a "human figure" was unnecessary. He quickly withdrew his power.
After he withdrew his power, the prayer beads, strung with Infinity Stones mixed with ordinary stones, were immediately crushed by the vast surrounding energy, leaving only an unremarkable small black stone floating in the Source Sea.
This was Ethan's current true form. He was in a truly miserable state right now.
But being able to eliminate such a terrifying enemy as Eugene made it all worth it.
Ethan comforted himself in his heart and quietly restored his power.
He began to mobilize his mental power, operating it in the most familiar way. Even in this state, Ethan's mental power was still terrifyingly vast. With this terrifying mental power as the core, Ethan quickly gathered a large amount of pure energy around himself.
He did not absorb it directly, but repeatedly refined it and changed its energy properties. Only energy that was completely transformed into his own divine power was kept by Ethan and absorbed into his true form.
This process was very slow. Even with vast mental power as a foundation, at first, he could only transform it bit by bit.
Ethan was not in a hurry. He simply accumulated divine power bit by bit like this, and before he knew it, time flowed by rapidly.
After an unknown period, Ethan finally accumulated enough divine power. The next step was to reshape his divine body using divine power.
At this point, he had two choices.
He could directly use similar energy to "mold" a human-shaped body. He knew that even a casually molded divine body would not be worse than the one he originally had, but it definitely would not be as good as the one he had used as a bomb right after leaving the Tower of Babel.
The other option was to shape it bit by bit with divine power, starting from the most basic structure.
This would undoubtedly be a very time-consuming project. The time spent "creating" a divine body from the tiniest details until finally completing the entire body would be countless times longer than casually "molding" one.
The benefits were also obvious. If this divine body were truly shaped by him, it would be incredibly perfect.
Was there even a need to think? As someone with OCD, Ethan chose the second method without hesitation. So, he continued to float in the ocean of energy in his "small stone" form, only gradually feeling that the surrounding energy was becoming somewhat insufficient and beginning to actively move toward areas with denser energy.
After another unknown period, a human body slowly formed in this ocean of energy.
The initial sight was horrifying and somewhat disgusting. Fortunately, no one would see it. It was not until skin formed and hair grew that Ethan finally completed the shaping of his divine body.
With a wave of energy, the seemingly lifeless divine body gained a trace of "living" breath. The heart began to beat, blood began to circulate, and it began to breathe, although none of these were necessary.
Ethan also opened his eyes, observing the world with his eyes again after an unknown amount of time.
"It doesn't feel any different? Did I fail?"
When he clearly saw his surroundings, he realized that he had unknowingly drifted into the interior of the Source Sea. High-concentration pure energy and various rule forces were everywhere.
What attracted Ethan's eyes the most was the massive sphere of light not far in front of him.
"This is the core of the Source Sea?"
As the thought arose, Ethan drifted closer to the sphere of light. The dense energy and various rule forces here had almost no effect on him. Ethan found that he could move freely in this ocean of energy.
"Is it because I constructed my divine body in this Source Sea?"
Putting this question aside for now, Ethan reached out and touched the large sphere of light.
Although the core of the Source Sea was not something he pursued, he was still somewhat curious upon seeing it. He really wanted to know what this core actually was.
As soon as his hand touched the large sphere of light, Ethan immediately knew what this core was.
It was completely different from what he had initially guessed. This was the core of this world, the "core" in a conceptual sense.
"This thing... doesn't seem to be of any use to me!"
(To be continued.)
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◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)