The Hero Becomes the Duke's Eldest Son

Translator: Marctempest

Editor: Rynfinity

Chapter 185

The beings who transcended the racial limits of earthly creatures had obtained 'divinity.'

And within the Philosopher's Stone were the divinities that had once been held by the divine beasts but had been forcibly taken away.

- **Devours the energy of the 'Incomplete Philosopher's Stone'.**

There wasn’t any significant flash of light, nor did anything extraordinary occur.

It was simply that an enormous power, like a tidal wave, surged into his body.

‘The energy held by the divine beasts.’

And even the 'divinity' that was its source.

Baalzebul’s power of Gluttony greedily absorbed everything from the stone, including its very essence.

- **Devoured the 'Nearly Completed Philosopher's Stone'.**

Aden merely felt a strange new power seeping into his body for the first time.

*Crumble.*

The pitch-black stone, the Philosopher's Stone, turned to ash and vanished.

"Kuaaaagh!"

As the Philosopher's Stone disappeared, a lieutenant of Chaos screamed a tearing cry.

*Crumble, crumble,* its body rapidly turned to ash, taking on a grotesque form, before soon collapsing.

"Aaagh!"

"Why are our bodies, why are they?!"

Even the members of the Black Tiger Tribe, who had been revived once after death, soon found their bodies turning to ash, and they fell into despair and terror.

Seeing this, Aden realized.

‘As expected, it wasn't a complete resurrection.’

With the disappearance of the Philosopher's Stone, the mysterious power that had sustained their existence also vanished.

*Crumble, crumble.*

In the end, all the members of the Black Tiger Tribe met their demise, turning into ashes.

A brief silence followed.

- **You have devoured an excessive amount of energy at once!**

- **The energy is settling into the user's body!**

*Creak, crack.*

Bones and muscles twisted and slightly deformed as they began to change.

Mana permeated not just the mana organ but seeped into the bones, muscles, and blood vessels all over the body.

- **The user's 'rank' is rising.**

- **The level of the realm is being adjusted.**

As a result, Aden's physical body ascended to a higher level of mastery.

- **Current Realm Level: 'Advanced Sword Master'.**

A realm comparable to an 8-star mage, an advanced Sword Master.

It was the final stage that Aden had reached in his previous life at the peak of his prime.

He had finally regained that realm.

However, Aden was too strained to celebrate, as cold sweat dripped down his body.

‘This is dangerous……’

*Bubbling.*

The energy contained in the stone was immense, to the point where he couldn’t fully digest it.

The energy that hadn't yet been processed, and the 'divinities' held by the divine beasts, started to run rampant.

If left like this, his body would burst, like an overfilled vessel that shattered from too much water.

‘That cannot happen.’

He had even managed to subjugate the dragon's mana that the Mad Dragon had possessed.

It made no sense that he couldn't handle this energy.

Aden employed his superhuman mana control, which he had always possessed, combined with the enhanced mana cultivation technique of the Mercenary King.

These two elements worked together desperately to control the energy.

‘The problem is simple. The overwhelming amount of energy entering my body at once exceeds what my body can accept and what my mana organ can process.’

It was like water overflowing from a container as you poured it.

The solution was simple.

He needed to divide the excess into another container and slowly process it.

Aden directed the energy towards another mana organ within his body, the Blood Jewel.

- **The Blood Jewel absorbs the remaining energy and divinity!**

As Aden anticipated, the Blood Jewel devoured the leftover energy like a sponge.

The pain that had been threatening to make his entire body burst soon subsided.

- **The user's energy is stabilizing.**

"Phew……."

Aden let out a sigh of relief.

A faint blue mist, the lingering scent of mana, mixed with his breath as it escaped his lips.

Fortunately, he had passed the critical point.

Curs’s grumbling voice was heard.

- So, who told you to gobble up such a thing? You foolishly consumed it, and now you’re in trouble, aren't you?

Aden frowned sharply at this.

"Hey, if there’s something to gain, you might as well take it. It’d be a waste to just destroy it, don’t you think?"

Moreover, there was a reason why he specifically used the power of Gluttony.

The stone contained tremendous power within it.

If he had simply destroyed it physically, the resulting explosion would have been powerful enough to blow away the entire surrounding area.

"I expected that the Blood Jewel would absorb it well."

No matter how great the power was, without that certainty, he wouldn't have attempted it.

After all, one's life was the most important thing.

At that moment, the wolf divine beast Fenrir slowly walked up from a distance.

Her entire body was battered, and she was limping as if one of her legs was broken.

"Are you alright?"

- It’s hard to say that I am…… but I’ll recover soon enough. I owe you my life. I express my gratitude.

The divine beast bowed her head slightly.

The cat divine beast and the snake divine beast might have seemed a bit dim-witted, but this wolf divine beast was dignified and worthy of the title.

However, it was then that Aden felt something stirring within him.

‘This is……?’

He sensed it instinctively.

The Spirit Dragon Leo, who had been in a dormant state within the Blood Jewel, started to stir.

A message appeared at that moment.

- **The Phantom Beast 'Leo' awakens from its dormant state.**

At the same time, a blue light emerged from Aden’s body, forming a round shape before landing on the ground with a 'thud.'

It was Leo's egg.

However,

“It’s big?”

The egg encasing Leo had grown so large that it couldn’t even be compared to before.

A round egg with a diameter of over 5 meters.

*Crack.*

A crack appeared on the surface of the egg.

*Crack, crackle.*

The crack rapidly spread like a spiderweb, covering the entire surface of the egg, and soon, a massive fissure formed, causing the shell to crumble from the top.

One by one, the pieces of the shell fell away.

The fallen shell fragments turned into a cluster of blue light and scattered.

Leo's revealed appearance was somewhat different from before.

The scales covering the body were a mix of black and white scales, and the body had grown slightly longer than before.

Leo's amber eyes, now much more mature, gazed at Aden.

A completely different sense of intimidation could be felt from Leo.

The wolf divine beast Fenrir expressed admiration.

- It must be a divine beast. Has it absorbed the divinities of the other divine beasts?

It was only then that Aden realized the source of the intimidation he felt from Leo.

Through the mental connection formed by the contract with the phantom beast, Aden could sense everything.

The power that the divine beasts had lost, and the divinities that Aden had absorbed with the power of Gluttony but had been unable to control and stored in the Blood Jewel.

Leo had absorbed all of it.

From Leo, Aden could feel the fiery energy of the cat divine beast Miao, the watery energy of the snake divine beast Jormungandr.

And though he wasn’t sure which divine beast it belonged to, he could also sense the energy of the earth.

‘Amazing…….’

It was as if the body contained all kinds of natural disasters within it.

No matter how high the potential of a phantom beast was, even if a Spirit Dragon was the highest-ranking phantom beast, he hadn’t expected it to grasp such diverse powers.

To think he’d gain such an outcome.

Indeed, it was worth the risk to absorb the stone.

"Leo?"

At Aden's call, the dragon with black and white scales narrowed its amber eyes, displaying a gentle light.

Leo cheerfully exclaimed.

- Yeah! Hi, Dad!

……What?

* * *

- Heh, suddenly you’ve become a dad? Dragon Slayer.

“Damn it, shut up.”

- Dad, is something wrong?

"……Nothing."

No matter how much of a phantom beast Leo was, and even though it had gained divinity and increased intelligence, in reality, it had only been a few months since it had hatched.

He had hatched Leo, fed him aura, and even let him use his home as a substitute.

As a result, Leo regarded Aden as his parent.

‘I suppose it’s fortunate he didn’t think of me as his mother?’

It was an idle thought.

Since it wasn't practical to let Leo roam around in that large body, Aden sent him back into the Blood Jewel.

He then sorted out the information he had obtained from facing Kaliph, the lieutenant of Chaos.

Chaos was controlling the Black Tiger Tribe from behind and researching the Philosopher's Stone.

And when connected to future events, it was highly likely that Archmage Shaura was deeply involved in this matter as well.

‘The Philosopher's Stone…… It was truly terrifying.’

Though it was incomplete, it had the power to turn an ordinary warrior into a master and revive the dead.

Just the thought that they were hiding with such power in the future sent chills down his spine.

‘Although I destroyed the stone that lieutenant had…….’

There was no guarantee that there was only that one Philosopher's Stone.

No, they would likely have at least one more stone like that.

‘The divinity that Leo absorbed only belonged to the divine beasts of the eastern forest.’

That meant there was no divinity from the divine beasts of the western forest.

There was no way the ones attacking the divine beasts would have left the divine beasts of the western forest alone.

They would have hunted the divine beasts of the western forest long ago and used them to create at least one more Philosopher's Stone.

The Philosopher's Stone, an unexpected and greatest variable and threat, had emerged.

He had to come up with a solution somehow.

‘The Slaughter God, and the Lawful God.’

Could they have already known about this? Was that why they were favoring him?

‘They are gods, so it’s natural they might know.’

That lieutenant of Chaos had said this.

“Our boss will become a true god! He will overthrow those false gods who deceive us and rule over us, and become the only true god!”

Their boss would become the 'one and only god.'

And they would overthrow the current gods.

‘If that statement is true, then Chaos's real goal is to make their leader a god. And to eliminate the three main deities of today?’

It was an absurd and ridiculous notion, but they were a mad enough group to try and actually carry it out.

There was also another point that concerned him.

‘He said the gods are deceiving us.’

The Slaughter God, the Lawful God, and the Lord of the Sacred Fire.

The three main deities were referred to as false gods.

It was the words of a madman, so they couldn’t be fully trusted, but they couldn’t be ignored either.

‘Something is being hidden.’

Aden decided to find out what that was. There was one thing he had to do to achieve this.

The first holy temple.

He needed to light the Sacred Fire there.

‘The God of Justice and Law said that if I obtain the final sacred relic, I would learn the whole truth.’

Had he not found the temple, he might have been able to ignore it, but since he had, he had to check it out.

“Agh! I’m suffocating! Now that we've arrived, everyone, get off me!”

“Aden oppa!”

“Aden-nim! Are you alright!”

- Kind human! Are you still alive!

“We heard you were in danger, so our tribe has come to assist you!”

Just shortly after the battle with Kaliph ended, a group appeared through teleportation, including the companions clinging to Unknown like barnacles, the cat divine beast, and dozens of Red Cat Tribe warriors.

The place instantly became noisy.

Seeing this, Aden smiled faintly.

He had been planning to call them anyway because of the holy temple, so it worked out well.

* * *

The protector of the first holy temple and the strongest divine beast in the east, ‘Eunrang the Sky Devourer,’ Fenrir.

She allowed only Aden and Elise to enter the first holy temple.

Aden looked at Fenrir with curious eyes.

"……You can transform into a human?"

"I can. Although I usually refrain from doing so, except when entering the temple or when absolutely necessary."

In her human form, Fenrir had long gray hair, sharp features, and blue eyes, appearing as a beautiful woman.

However, perhaps due to her divine beast nature, she emitted an inhuman aura, similar to what one felt when looking at Hermit, and there was a deep sense of time reflected in her gaze.

Fenrir looked at Aden and spoke.

“It was my duty, given by my master, to protect this temple. I have guarded it for a thousand years.”

“Is your master the Lord of the Sacred Fire?”

“The Lord of the Sacred Fire. Yes, that was one of the names by which He was called.”

There was a touch of longing in her eyes as she nodded.

As expected, the wolf divine beast Fenrir was a servant of the Lord of the Sacred Fire.

Fenrir continued.

“When the successor to His legacy appears, I will meet my master once again. Therefore, I have guarded this place until the successor appeared.”

“Now that I think about it, you mentioned that before. Does that mean the Lord of the Sacred Fire will truly appear?”

“If it is as my master said.”

Fenrir looked at Aden, who possessed the eyes of the Lord of the Sacred Fire, Elise, the saintess of the Lord of the Sacred Fire, and Choco, who had received His blessing.

They were already fully qualified.

“It seems that today is the last day of my mission. Follow me.”

Aden and Elise followed Fenrir deeper into the temple.

After walking for some time, they arrived at a vast space within the first holy temple.

“This is the heart of the temple.”

“What are those……?”

“Wow! So many animal statues!”

As Elise mentioned, there were indeed many statues of animals.

Northwest, west, south, southeast, south, east, northeast, southwest.

At the end of each of the eight directions, a statue of an animal was placed.

The statues of various animals, such as ox, rooster, horse, and dog, were all facing the center of the temple.

‘A furnace?’

At that center, there was something resembling a large iron furnace commonly seen in blacksmiths.

However, it was absurdly massive compared to a typical furnace, and the opening from which molten iron should flow was sealed by an iron door.

Fenrir spoke.

“Light the fire according to the flow followed by the Eyes of Fire. Then the door will open.”

The Eyes of Fire, there was only one thing that could mean.

The Fire Eyes that Aden possessed.

- **Activating the Fire Eyes.**

The eyes that could see through all things revealed the hidden secrets of this temple and transmitted them to Aden.

“Elise.”

“Yes?”

“Light the Sacred Fire inside each of the statues’ mouths in the order I tell you.”

“Got it! Which one should I start with?”

“Start with the ox statue over there.”

Elise briskly walked over and inserted her hand into the ox statue’s mouth.

*Sizzle.*

Golden divine power flowed into the ox statue’s mouth.

*Whoosh!*

The Sacred Fire ignited.

“Next, the statue next to it.”

The young saintess Elise, following Aden's instructions, approached each statue and lit the fire.

*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.*

After setting fire to seven statues, it was when the Sacred Fire was lit inside the last animal, the wolf statue.

*Whooosh!*

A huge iron furnace stood in the center.

Golden flames roared to life from beneath the furnace.

*Crack.* The sealed iron door at the furnace’s opening began to crack.

And eventually.

*Boom!*

The iron door shattered and opened, blown apart by the fierce flames from within.

The furnace, sealed for a thousand years, finally opened.

*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.*

Golden flames flowed out from inside.

- **I have many titles.**

A voice came from the flames.

- **Some called me Narayana, the Destroyer of the Rakshasas, who caused chaos in the world.**

The flames formed a large fireball and then started to take shape.

- **Some referred to me as the Infernal Emperor, who even burned the heavens with the flames of hellfire.**

Arms, legs, torso, head. The flames began to take the form of a human.

Soon, standing there was a man with a sturdy physique, his short hair of flames blowing in the wind.

- **In this foreign land, I was called the Master of the Sacred Fire, chosen by the holy flames. But there is only one name that truly identifies my essence.**

The human-shaped flame declared itself thus:

- **I am Tianma.**

The Lord of the Sacred Fire.

A god had manifested in this world.