NOVEL NEXT Chapter 106 – Working as a Lord Inquisitor
A few weeks later, main world time.
With the exception of the central continent where the paladins of the Sacred Alliance’s churches are patrolling routinely thus significantly reducing the amount of environmental hazards, the other four regions are plagued by bandits, hostile races, or dangerous beasts. Roaming freely outside of walled cities or protected areas if you’re a mortal is practically impossible since wandering rank 2 beasts would be capable of causing genocide by its sheer radiation alone. Cities would be obliterated, villages would be erased from the map. Their mere presence is literally lethal.
For powerful cultivators, they’ll have an easier time staying outside walled cities. Dangerous beasts that threaten the existence of mortals are sources of revenue for them. All high-rank beasts are precious resources as long as one has the method to fully utilize them.
Thud! Larissa Agatha drops the rank 2 boar beast on her shoulder onto the ground. It has become another corpse that she piled into a hill. “Was that a rank 2 ice and snow-path domain? I feel my methods are greatly amplified.” She asked as she noticed the area around her started to brighten a few tones and the temperature rapidly rising, indicating a Domain being deactivated.
“Correct.” Mordred, or in this case, ‘Lord Erebus’ candidly admits. He had completely ‘cured’ his vampirism, ‘resurrecting’ himself as an ice and snow-path ‘mage’. Now, Lord Erebus is no longer a vampire but a human. Naturally, he still have some of his enslavement-path methods, but his slaves are no longer vampires but ice and snow-path puppets, the Fenris Wolf Brood that he ‘asked’ from Larissa. However, he did not bring them out on this mission.
“It feels space-time is ‘locked’ in its place. How are using my Chronophagous Hoarfrost as a catalyst for your domain? It has the property of locking space-time, similar to a Dimensional Anchor! Furthermore, my passive time-path investigative method is ineffective, timeflow is being normalized…” She asked once more. As a transcendent of ice and snow-path, she was capable of instantly recognizing the fact that although his domain was based on her ice radix, there are some differences.
“Vladimirovich Stukov.” Mordred mentioned the name of his mentor. “The Sovereign of the Deep Sea Abyss, the Monarch of Eternal Winters, Abyssal Tzar… er, whatever, he has so many titles under his belt. Anyway, his ice radix, Profound Dao Ice, is capable of freezing space-time itself, unlike yours that specialized in ‘terraforming’. My ice and snow-path methods mimic his to the truest sense, I am just following his true inheritance since I have no time to truly innovate or develop them.”
Mordred did not tell her that his Myriad Synesthesia picked up myriad reactions from the future. Although he got reactions from various paths, the most troublesome was regarding space-path. Sooner or later, he’ll be fighting against a space-path cultivator(s) at some point, therefore have begun planning countermeasures for that.
Unlike elemental paths, conceptual paths are far more troublesome because of their nature. For refinement, enslavement and transformation, Mordred has no worries because they are barely effective on him. Dream-path, food-path, rule-path or star-path are foreign; Morgen World has little to no one that cultivates them yet. However, time-path and space-path are different. Not only are they highly developed far more than in Holy Terra, there’s also a rank 7(?) dragon god who fucks around with timelines.
His soul might be extremely resistant to time-path due to the leftover traits of Indestructible Soul, but his mortal shell definitely isn't immune. As for space-path, his soul or mortal shell definitely couldn’t defend against high-dimensional attack just yet. Therefore, he would rather have some method to ‘stabilize’ space. He also wanted a contingency against time-path users, but the lack of resources forced him to hold his plan for the time being.
Larissa shrugged her shoulders. “In any case, we’ve eliminated all of their cannon fodders. Do you have a method to open the way?”
Currently, they are standing in front of an unassuming stone gate embedded in a rock wall, similar to one of stonehenge in Holy Terra. Specifically, they are on top of a hilly location which was suspected to be a hideout for the necromancer organization, Requiescat in Pace. The beasts that were ‘naturally’ nesting in this area were actually their cannon fodder.
“The entrance is completely shut. Still, the river of time flows towards the sub-dimension. Although I cannot pierce through it, I can detect the presence of a sub-dimension around this area.” Larissa added while gesturing towards a certain area in a circular motion while collecting the beast corpses into her dimensional storage ring.
It was common for organizations to use subsidiary dimensions, especially artificial ones, to safeguard certain facilities or resource points. When all of their entrances are closed, the sub-dimension can be hidden in plain sight. A city-sized micro-plane, or perhaps, even country-sized mezzo-plane will be compressed into a single point in the material world. Therefore, other than opening it through a portal or having deep attainment and methods in space-path, it is impossible to forcefully invade sub dimensions.
“You’re able to detect the flow of time?” Mordred raised his eyebrows as he began preparing a spell formation. Myriad types of spell catalysts are being brought out of his dimensional storage, they were of high quality and variety.
“Apex of Time.” Larissa smiled. Typically, one’s attainment is a secret weapon, especially for cultivators of her caliber, but she wouldn’t believe it if someone told her Mordred did not have all of her personal information. In the first place, Mordred’s computation power must be being used somewhere else, thus forgetting small details. Telling him about personal information isn’t a big deal. “I can somewhat sense there’s a small tributary of the river of time around here.”
‘Huh… An Apex of time. I guess it should be expected.’ “Can you slow or accelerate time without an external source of timeforce, then?” Mordred raised a question while busy preparing an extremely complex spell formation.
“Of myself, yes but not for others. In fact, I’ve been using time acceleration to age myself faster. After all, our daughter’s body is extremely young, it’ll probably take me a few more years before it ‘matures’ and naturally awakens a mana pool.”
“Ah, that’s right.” Mordred recalled the fact that Larissa’s physical body is still extremely young. There are efforts to accelerate the ‘age’ of her body by using Nurturing Techniques, special food and time-path potions, but the result isn’t too apparent because the bloodline is too potent. After all, the daughter of the Demon King of Grand Strategy and the Great Archmage carries so much potential that it is basically immune to mid-grade or even high-grade potions and poison. Only the strongest poison or potions works on her.
It was like how the bloodline of Kaiser Reinhardt Jaeger is quite resistant to clairvoyance and psychometry, and practically immune to most forms of memory plundering methods.
In her case, she is inhabiting the body of a descendant from two Sovereigns, and not a common sovereign but a triple-transcendent and Mordred. Her potential is significantly far higher than Annalise. Furthermore, during her prenatal phase she was genetically engineered and received various special treatments and augmentations from the Great Archmage directly. It wouldn’t even be strange for her body to reach ‘maturity’ after a thousand years.
Her flesh-and-blood was one of the Great Archmage’s Magnum Opuses, comparable to Alistair, the first Floating Fortress in Morgen World. It should be considered as a True Inheritance.
Larissa released a sigh. “Why are you making me inhabit this body at all? From shapeshifting, adaptability, resistance to investigative methods, learning everything with a single glance, durable enough to survive in the vacuum of space for an indefinite amount of time… This body is too high spec!” she raised a question. ‘In fact, with how resistant this body is to time, it seems like this body was designed to physically travel in the river of time.’ She could not utter the last part of her words vocally as some information is so sensitive that if spoken, it’ll invoke karmic backlash.
‘Considering I am an apex of time, he must be planning to scheme beyond the current timeline, but since I was brought out of Lemegeton, he had never spoken about his plans to scheme across timelines.’ Larissa waits for Mordred’s replies as she realizes she must be his trump card, his contingency plan if things went awry.
“I’ll try to refine higher quality potions to accelerate your body’s growth.” Mordred simply replied while still preparing the spell formation. “We’ll need your multi-mana pool sooner or later. Having the capability of casting spells will lighten the burden of your dependence on Pale Hunter.”
Larissa stared blankly at Mordred. ‘Huh, he doesn’t want to speak of it. Well, considering time travel is possible with this body, it is irrelevant if we’re talking about the when.’ She then shrugged.
“For now, let’s focus on the task at hand..” Mordred finished drawing a complicated spell formation in front of the stonehenge-like structure embedded in the rock. “I sent an [Active Dimensional Sonar] just now and from the feedback, I can tell you that the sub-dimension is as large as my own micro-plane, but the environment is necro-path in essence. At the very least, it’s as big as singapore.”
“What’s a singapore?”
Mordred realized the slip of his tongue. “Ah, forget it. The sub-dimension is around 700 to 800 square kilometers wide, with roughly a dozen kilometers of vertical space. There’s around 15.000 intellectual souls within, with most of them being mortals and rank 0 apprentices. The primary combatants should be rank 1 undeads led by a few elite rank 2 Lords. There’s also a necropolis in the core of the sub-dimension, though, I’m not getting reactions from rank 3 Legendaries, there shouldn’t be any inside.”
“Pale Hunter’s blessing would remain strong since the sub-dimension is still within the boundary of Morgen World.” Larissa reported. “Should I slaughter them alone?” She offered her service.
For other cultivators, such arrogance would be an unfunny joke, but this woman is a reincarnated Sovereign like Mordred. She has her own method to slaughter a sub dimension filled with rank 2s with her mid-stage rank 1 foundation. Unlike Mordred who lost his Elemental Radix, she retains hers.
“There are some things that I needed to test out, away from the prying eyes of the World’s Will of Morgen World.” Mordred rejected her request to harvest souls alone as he activated his methods. “Rank 3 compound killer move, [Quantum Tunneling]!”
Although the spell is inherently space-path in nature, it contains an extremely high amount of information-path and sound-path profundity. In fact, almost 30% of the spell catalysts being used are actually information-path resources and an additional 30% was that of sound-path. With that said, the two of them who are standing on top of the spell formation quickly dissipate with a bright flash of prismatic pixels.
….
Gurgle! Larissa puked the content of her guts into the dark gray toxic soil. “Ugh, did that contain sound-path profundity?”
“Kinda. Quantum Tunneling works by rendering physical particles to take on the properties of waves.” Mordred briefly explained how his method works. Both of their figures are currently flickering, glitching as if they are badly rendered holographic images. “Don’t try to move too much, your body’s physical particles are still returning to the level where they were before.”
It took twenty seconds for Mordred figure to stop glitching while it took Larissa almost an entire minute.
Mordred did not tell her that most lifeforms could not survive Quantum Tunneling without sufficient preparation. He was able to safely phase through the dimensional barrier because he was experienced in this in the first place. Furthermore, he only descends into this sub dimension with his truesoul instead of his body. His Mortal Shell is currently in the main world.
His Chaldean Truesoul was originally a pure stream of information, therefore far easier to temporarily convert into waves than physical particles. In fact, the reason why this method took so long and elevated into rank 3 was because he’s altering it so that it could accommodate Larissa’s flesh-and-blood. She endured the damage of quantum tunneling through her own body without turning into whatever particles existed in the quantum realm.
‘With that kind of body, she’ll be able to survive a trip in the River of Time… or perhaps, swimming upstream is possible… If I fucked up somewhere, I’ll send her into the past.’ was Mordred’s conclusion. “Alright, let’s be pragmatic.” Mordred’s expression turned serious, he began reciting his method. “Rank 2 ice and snow-path killer move, [Galatreon’s Frostfield]!”
In this dark, gloomy, sunless necro-path sub dimension filled with boneyards, bone forest and deathly air, a wave of frost wind spread originated from Mordred’s holographic-like truesoul. The deathly air lethal to most lifeforms is being pushed outward, slowly being replaced by the cold radiation of Mordred’s domain. The freezing air stopped after reaching 1 kilometer away from Mordred, forming a sphere-like boundary.
The moment Larissa is engulfed in his domain, her pale complexion turns to normal as color returns to her face. Due to her attainment, she was able to absorb the cold radiation to heal herself at an accelerated rate.
“Finally, a place where I can vent. Aspect of the Devil, Rank 2 compound killer move, [Demon King Paimon: Ice Form]!” Larissa Agatha quickly stacked Pale Hunter’s blessings, her own soul arts and various secret methods to create the largest icy Mage Armor she had ever used post-Lemegeton summoning. The ice was so thick and large that it encases her body fully like a permafrost glacier in the arctic regions.
Seeing the ice keep accumulating on her that it slowly turned into a 12-meter long ice dragon with three heads, Mordred just shook his head. ‘It’ll be bad if she uses this killer move in the main world. The Sacred Alliance’s global investigative method would slowly pick up the clues and would declare a demonic incursion briefly after. Since she already used this method, I have no choice but to completely obliterate this dimension to erase any trace she left behind…’
He sighed as he saw Larissa within her icy king ghidorah mage armor flew and started spewing Chronophagous Hoarfrost, Demonplague Chaos Dragon Flame, and her other flame that burns in purple conflagration. In any case, it’s not like the necro-Lords of this world would be capable of dispatching her, considering she’s a triple-transcendent of enslavement, ice and fire.
And so Mordred can leave her to do his own thing.
He condensed the little moisture that existed in this world onto his palm. From a single block of ice, it slowly turned into an elongated, curved blade that could be gripped on one edge. Naturally, his truesoul isn’t a physical object therefore unable to interact with material, but he used his AT-Field to grip the ice sword.
‘The last time I’ve ever gone into my own dream was in Holy Terra… Lord Erebus’ [Hypothetical Bloodshed] was a great chance to meet big brother Crimspur and Takemikazuchi in a dream…’ He swung the ice sword on his hand a few times, each casual slash producing sword force that would slice the black bony trees or boulders of this dimension like a hot knife through butter.
‘Unfortunately, if I cancel my soul-path defensive killer move, [Dreamless Soul Empiric Reality], to regain the ability to dream my own dream, my dream-path wound would flare up.’ Mordred clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘I only murdered a few billion humans, including a few of her core disciples to increase my own dream-path attainment. Why did Her Majesty have to inflict eternal nightmare onto my poor, wicked soul? I can’t even descend into my own dream to construct the ideal [Country of Delusions]...’
< Oi, send me a Lord, with their soul intact > Mordred sent a telepathic message towards the king ghidorah outside his domain. He received a heavy grunting as reply, but he didn’t need to wait long before a centaur-like ice-path lifeform arrived on his location, carrying an elven Lord on his back. The ice centaur dropped the elf before returning into the frontline.
‘Synthesizing ice lifeforms from Chronophagous Hoarfrost and souls… as expected of a triple-transcendent.’ Mordred notes Larissa’ improvement before throwing the distraction into the back of his mind.
“Requiescat in Pace is being used by those damned elves to cause chaos all over the four regions, huh?” As far as he remembers, the necromancer organization isn’t specifically an elven organization.
He is now glaring at the pale white, skinny Moon Elf necromancer whose four limbs have been severed, but the soul relatively untouched. In the main world, Superior Elf variants like her would be ostracized anywhere with the exception of the northern region, the Land of Eternal Springs, where they thrived. Nevertheless, elven races are well-known for their beauty and like it or not, the quad-amputee elf is still a beautiful maiden with modest breast and skinny body.
Unfortunately, Mordred wasn’t thinking of extracting yin essence from her.
“Rank 2 soul-path killer move, [Immaterial Dreaming Lullaby]!” The next second, Mordred’s truesoul puked pink and dark red ectoplasmic matter that quickly evaporates. If not for his extremely durable soul foundation, his truesoul would crumble.
“DREAMBREAK FANTASY!!” Mordred wiped the ‘blood’ that his soul produced, fuming with pure wrath. He only managed to actively dream for a second, which was around half an hour of dreamtime before he was forcefully ejected because he died in his dream.
In other words, he wasn’t experiencing a dream, but a nightmare.
“So Her Majesty Dreambreak Fantasy’s curse is activated according to my intent. As long as I enter my own dream, it’ll turn into a nightmare.” After slightly recovering from the damage, he stood up. “Then, the case of Lord Erebus capable of dragging me into his dream must be because it wasn't my intention. Despite knowing I’ll be dragged into a dream, the nightmare curse didn’t sprung, but if I went to my own dream, it’ll turn into a nightmare. Even if I use split souls to replicate Lord Erebus’ case, the nightmare curse seemed to be able to discern whether it was my intention or not, therefore not allowing me to dream peacefully. Nevertheless, almost nobody in Morgen World or its surrounding galaxies cultivates in dream-path, so I shouldn't be too worried.”
“But then again, if it was that simple, I could just drag a Legend or even a Paragon into my dream before triggering the curse, using Her Majesty’s curse to instantly kill them…” Mordred shook his head. The dream-path wound is caused by a rank 6 killer move, and each and every single one of them are special because not even Apex-level attainment, which grants ‘Resource Exemption' trait, could accommodate. More often than not, rank 6 killer moves are permanent or possessing special traits. After all, it requires rank 6 resources to activate.
An example of this was his [Faux Soul Configuration] that renders most investigative methods useless towards him.
Naturally, he was able to somewhat mitigate the effect of this curse by using [Dreamless Soul Empiric Reality] that does not allow him to dream naturally like how mortals experience dreams during their sleep. However, this does not completely solve the root of the cause.
“Hahah, so this is Dreambreak Fantasy’s contingency plan to stop me from gaining dream-path attainment. It’s no wonder that I’ve never innovated dream-path methods across multiple lives, this was Her Majesty’s plan all along.” Mordred saw the elven Lord had her seven orifice bled. Her sea of consciousness must be in the process of collapsing right now, suffering the brunt of Mordred’s nightmare. “I’ll have to slowly deduce the parameter of the curse. If used well, it can be used as a double-suicide trump card…”
Nevertheless, Mordred ended her suffering by using the ice sword to stab her heart before devouring her soul, healing his own in the process.
“Takemikazuchi’s True Inheritance… What was it? Sword Genesis?” Mordred pierced his sword onto the ground, penetrating the elven Lord’s corpse. “Rank 2 sword-path killer move, [Sword Genesis]!”
Within his icy soul domain, swords of various shapes and sizes suddenly grew from the frozen, deathly soil. Be it ice, blood, rock, earth, bones… they are all turned into extremely sharp swords. Some are as small as daggers, most swords are the size of normal blades, whereas some are as big as a bus. The terrain quickly turned into a forest of swords and all the small wild critters or beasts in the domain were killed.
The moon elf’s corpse was desecrated, with multiple swords of blood, bone, and rocks penetrating it.
Mordred shook his head. “Clearing my own mental block of not using sword-path was the right choice.” Mordred pulled the ice sword and the forest of blades retracted to whatever material it was before. “[Sword Genesis] is a sword-path true inheritance that governs the aspect of [Refinement]. Holy Terra has no refinement-path so Takemikazuchi’s Sword Genesis is lackluster, but in this world, I am arguably at the peak of refinement-path. When I combined the profundity of refinement-path with my Sword Genesis, its performance across all parameters were augmented greatly.”
“Hahahah… Innovation. All these schemes and battles have robbed me out of my nature as a Magus. Even a remnant memory of big brother was able to innovate Pandemic Blade from skimming Takemikazuchi’s fragmented inheritances.” He smirked. “Well, it was my big brother, after all. It shouldn’t be surprising. I should slowly integrate my old combat system to my current one.”
Mordred was reluctant in doing so because it’ll reduce the efficiency of plundering resources since it was so destructive that not much is left behind after his slaughter. Now that he is ‘officially’ a Lord Inquisitor, his ways of earning resources aren’t limited to plundering.
“Rank 2 sound-path killer move, [Monumental Sound Path]!” Boom! His figure turned into a bullet train that reached the frontline in no time, leaving a trail of black mist on his wake. Reaching the place where combat is intense, he saw the icy King Ghidorah being hunted like a raid boss. Multiple necro-path killer moves are raining down onto her body, shaving off the ice that made her body, but it quickly recovers since she is under the support of Mordred’s domain.
As long as Mordred uses his ice and snow-path domain, she could absorb his radiation and turn them into her own strength. This is the benefit of having a ‘Lord’ on her side. Naturally, the necromancers also unleash their own domain, but most rank 2 Lord’s domains could not compete with Mordred’s in terms of intensity and range, their domains are ‘pushed away’, not being able to initiate a contest of domain.
Nevertheless, the raid boss was not only able to create ice lifeforms to assist her, she could also move or attack faster than any of the necromancers in this world. Since she’s no longer restricted by the watchful eyes of the World’s Will of Morgen World, she could forcefully draw the tributary of the River of Time directly onto her body. Her time rate is around 5:1 compared to Mordred.
Translated to battle performance, she’s steamrolling the inhabitants of this dimension.
Reaching the spot slightly above the raid boss, Mordred deactivated his [Monumental Sound Path]. “We need to quickly destroy three more sub dimensions like this before we have sufficient contribution points to purchase what I need from the Secret Division. The faster, the better, so let’s quickly end this farce. Quickly murder, pillage, and destroy what we can’t take.” He told Larissa as he used his fingers to trace the air, spreading intense black soul smoke. At this point, he had recalled his ice and snow-path domain and began emitting intense soul-path radiation: a sign of his Undying Slaughterfest Rapture being unfolded. “Rank 2 compound killer move, [Sword Genesis: Gates of Babylon]!”
The black soul smokes slowly coagulated into black gates with a tinge of golden orange behind him. From the 24 circular gates barely enough for a weapon to come out, there were spectral swords, sabers, katanas, broadswords, bastard swords and other types of swords with various shapes and sizes peeking through the material world from the other side. With a thought, the swords began pouring out towards the necromancers and their undead servants. These ‘soul bombs’, though, did not only slice, penetrate, puncture or explode on its target. The moment they stabbed the ground, they grew into swords made out of the material it touched, therefore increasing its lethality further.
Larissa shook her primary head while looking at the carnage Mordred caused, a tinge of fear hidden deep within her eyes. ‘This is Mordred’s original combat system when he’s roaming the Boundless Astral Realm as Grimsong Specter a few hundred years ago… With this combat system, he subdued Demon Kings, Grand Dukes, and countless other demon nobilities and locked them up in that accursed grimoire known as Lemegeton.’
Between the explosion of black soul bombs that rendered physical objects into black ash and the spectral swords that became a medium for more swords to grow from the soil, she couldn’t compare in terms of lethality to Mordred. Despite having more time and three heads, she could not outpace the rank 2 Soul Lord.
‘The Scholar of Death who has brought absolute terror to my home galaxy, is truly a frightening being…’ Larissa kept her thoughts within her mind as the environment literally dies every time he uses his methods. Mordred’s truesoul is vibrating intensely, slowly turning the gray soil of this world into a desert of black sand filled with corpses which are quickly dissolving into black ash. This land of absolute death which kills even the undead is actually spreading at the rate visible to the eyes.
‘How the fuck am I suppose to kill this man?’ She felt the burden on her shoulder increase quite literally and figuratively. Not only does he have to defend against Mordred’s sound-path and soul-path radiation that kills everything in his vicinity, freedom seems to be further and further away from her grasp. ‘What can I do to out-scheme a penta-transcendent? I’ve never received any telepathic will from my future selves ever since I fell into his hands. Does that mean even my future selves from countless timelines have zero chance of snatching freedom from Grimsong Specter?’
As she’s lost in thought, the dimension is continuously creaking. Heavenly Tribulations appeared and suppressed the two invaders, but since Mordred had decided to completely obliterate this dimension, his methods became even more brutal with each passing second. Not long after he began using his old combat style, the space around him is filled with dimensional wounds, its dimensional laws could not out-heal the damage caused by Mordred.
