Devil Fruit Powers In The Tower Of God - Chapter 36

After Lumen lost consciousness, the next time he opened his eyes, he was in a dark and enclosed space. Having no idea where he is, he tried breaking through but realized that he is in his Pheonix form, and couldn’t even change back to his human form. Another odd thing is that he felt he had more than one pair of wings.

Lumen panicked, not knowing what’s happening to him, and tried to remember what occurred that led to this. His last memories were of him fighting Karaka, and the armored man was about to kill him. After that, everything went blank.

Calming down, Lumen found out that he instinctively knew what had happened to him. He had been reborn and had gone through an Awakening. An Awakening that required a couple conditions to be met in order to be successful.

One of them is that he needs at least 20 years of life energy stored. The more life energy he has, the faster his rebirth will be. Should he have had less than that, he wouldn’t have been able to go through this process.

The second condition is that he needs suitable material for his body to be reconstructed. Even if he had the necessary amount of life energy stored, he wouldn’t be able to revive himself without having the substance to do so. Thankfully, his flames had refined Karaka and the armor that he wore and used that for the material for his body. That was a nice bonus, considering he felt a lot stronger than before.

He also knew that it would take quite some time before he could escape his confinement. Knowing that he couldn’t break through the shell surrounding him now, he focused on improving himself using the techniques Urek taught him.

Lumen, reading the flow of Shinsoo, knew everything that his group had gone through during the three years he was in his egg. His range of reading Shinsoo had grown tremendously during that time, and he could easily perceive other people’s emotions, even if they try to hide them. He was touched when he felt the emotions and feelings of his teammates, especially when they didn’t leave him behind and carried him up the Tower.

He no longer needed to focus when reading the flow of Shinsoo, as it had become like an instinct, and he would subconsciously do it.

However, that wasn’t the only thing he did. Lumen also focused on improving his body, with the Shinsoo strengthening technique. His body was already stronger than before after his rebirth, but being strengthened for three years with Shinsoo made it even more powerful.

Like with reading the flow of Shinsoo, this was another thing he had started doing subconsciously without even trying. He would instinctively fill his body with Shinsoo strengthening it in the process.

Every now and then, he would peck at the shell trying to escape it, but had no success with that. He had tried using his other abilities to break the shell, but for some reason, he wasn’t able to use them at all.

However, exactly three years after being in his confinement, something snapped within Lumen. His Phoenix flames burst out and burned his shell to ashes.

The whole group watched as a bird made of flames and with four wings appeared from the metallic orb. It let out a bird’s cry and flew a circle in the room, before landing on an empty chair.

The bird’s main body was made up of white flames, and a pair of his wings was made up of the same white flames. However, the other pair was made up of black ominous looking flames.

Lumen felt so much more powerful than before. He felt he could crush anyone with when it comes to physical strength alone. His body was filled to the brim with power, waiting to be unleashed on someone or something.

He also felt the overwhelming emotions everyone had from seeing him. The emotions were so strong that he had to stop using his technique. He didn’t think that they would care about him that much, and that changed the way he looks at them. Before, if he had found someone that’s stronger and more useful, he would have replaced his teammates in an instant. Now, he didn’t know if he could make that choice so easily.

After observing them for a bit, the flaming bird transformed into Lumen in his birthday suit. Immediately, he noticed something wasn’t right. Everyone in the room looked gigantic, and even the small girls Anak, Verdi, and Vespa looked bigger than him. He realized that they haven’t grown bigger, but he was shorter than before, way shorter.

Before he knew it, the chibi Lumen was squashed between two girls. Anak was hugging him with one arm while rubbing her face against his while Verdi was on the other side, also rubbing her face against his.

Anak didn’t say a word, as tears of happiness kept pouring out of her eyes. Exhilarated that what she considered her only family member, was still alive. She couldn’t even put into words how happy she felt seeing him. Anak kept sobbing and hugging him as tightly as she could, making sure that he wouldn’t disappear again.

“Lumen’s back! And he loves me so much, he turned into a cute doll!” Verdi happily exclaimed, mistaking his small form for a doll. Nonetheless, she was extremely happy to see him again.

“Finally, you decide to show up. It took you long enough.” Androssi said with a smile on her face, happy to see him again.

“I knew you were okay!”

“Good to see you back!”

“I told you all, he was just taking a nap.”

“I knew a random FUG Slayer couldn’t possibly kill you!”

“I told you he was going to come back.”

Everyone else in the group, except Tiana, chipped in as well, expressing how relieved they are to see him again. They had gone through many hardships due to Karaka, but knowing that Lumen is back, they felt that everything will be okay. They also knew that with him here, they would definitely get their revenge on the group.

After that incident, FUG had boldly proclaimed that they have killed of White Star, but that didn’t end up the way they expected it. The two Great Families that were interested in him hadn’t taken any actions, but Wolhaiksong was a different story.

Numerous of FUG’s bases had been destroyed by Urek’s group. They had lost thousands of members to Wolkaiksong, as Urek had mobilized every single member of his group. A Princess of Zahard had also been a part of the murdering spree that the group went on.

More than once, FUG had tried negotiation with Urek, and they had even sent high ranking members for the meetings, but each time, they were all killed. Two of FUG’s eleven Slayers had been killed by them alongside an Elder as well. All three of them were torn limb from limb and sent to back to FUG in pieces.

FUG had gotten so scared of Wolhaiksong, that they had holed up themselves, not daring to show up in public. For the moment they make a move or an appearance, the grim reaper known as Urek would storm the Floor that they appeared on and annihilate them all.

The most dangerous and secretive criminal syndicate in the Tower, that troubled all the Great Families, was crushed into submission by one man and his group. This event had bumped up Urek to the third place in the Ranking of the Tower, and Zahard, the King of the Tower, had dropped down to fourth. Since even Zahard himself wasn’t able to scare FUG to this extent.

Despite his death, everyone in the Tower didn’t forget about White Star, or now more commonly known as Lights End due to his death. Not only were two of the Great Families interested in him while he was only an F-Rank Regular, but Urek Mazino, the now strongest active Ranker, had gone on a killing spree due to him dying. Everyone was gossiping what kind of connection did Lights End have with Urek, for him to have such a strong reaction to his death.

A day had passed since he broke out of his shell, and Lumen was currently sitting on a chair, dressed in a black suit that Verdi gave him. Since she was the only one that had clothes his current size.

Verdi was in front of him, taking doll after doll from her dollhouse.

“How about this one? You would make a great pair!” She exclaimed.

“Verdi, I’m not a doll!” Lumen told her.

“What about this one? Look how cute she is?” Verdi took out a blonde-haired doll and presented it to him.

“Verdi, I already said that I’m not a doll!” As if she didn’t hear him, she took out a black-haired one.

“Do you like this one better? You would make a great pair!” Giggling, she said.

“Verdi!”

“Maybe you don’t like female ones? How about this one?” Verdi asked as she pulled out a male one.

“Verdi, I swear if you don’t stop, I will go back to the egg.” Lumen’s words immediately caused a reaction in Verdi. With panic in her eyes, she latched onto him in a second.

“Noooo!!! I’m not letting you! I will come with you if I have to!” Verdi stated while hugging him tightly.

“Then stop trying to hook me up with your dolls!” Lumen told her.

“But I just want you to be happy,” Verdi replied with tears already forming in her eyes. If he knew that she was playing around, he was going to scold her, but he could feel her sincere emotions. She truly wanted him to be happy.

Lumen hugged her back. “Look, Verdi, I don’t need to marry one of your dolls to be happy. I’m happy knowing that I’m alive and that I’m with you.”

Verdi sniffed and uttered under her breath. “Promise you won’t go away again. I was very sad when you disappeared.”

“I promise you that won’t happen again.” Lumen vowed not only to her but also to himself.

“Now, could you give me some space, so I can try practicing with my abilities.” He gently told her.

“Mhm, but are you sure you don’t want to marry this one? I was saving the best for last.” Verdi pulled out an azure-haired doll.

“Verdi!”

“I’m sorry! I won’t ask you again, but I’m not letting you leave my sight! Anak gets to watch you during the night, while I get to watch you during the day!” The two girls were taking shifts watching over him, making sure that something doesn’t happen to him.

“That’s fine, just stay a bit further away from me. I don’t want to hurt you.” She nodded to his words and stepped back.

Seeing her a distance away from him, Lumen focused and summoned his Phoenix flames. Unlike before, where they were the warm gentle white flames, now they were an ominous black color and emitted tremendous heat. It only takes a single spark of the black flames to burn something to ashes in an instant.

In a moment, the black flame in his hand turned back to the white one, but a few seconds later, it turned back to being black. The flame was fluctuating from black to white, and he had no control over it.

Lumen had tried healing Hatsu’s leg yesterday, but he had ended up making his injury even worse. The black flame had nearly spread to Hatsu’s torso before he was able to absorb it back into himself. Now, the swordsman was out shopping for a new prosthetic since the previous was worthless.

His Pheonix flames were out of control, and he was trying his best to learn how to use the two types of flames separately.

His flames weren’t the only new thing that happened to him. Lumen also now had small control over the darkness element. He couldn’t transform his body into the element like with his light form, but he could create objects made of black mass and even infuse it in his Baangs. He still hadn’t had the time to test out all the capabilities of the darkness element he could now use.

However, that wasn’t all. He had another new ability. He could create the same armor that Karaka wore. A black like substance would appear from his skin and form the armor around him.

Lumen was also trying to adjust to his chibi form, but that wasn’t easy as well. Especially when he had grown a few centimeters during the night. Should he continue to grow in size like this, he would get back to his original size within a few months.

He had so much on his plate, but his main priority at the moment was to learn how to control his Phoenix flames. Lumen wanted to heal his team as soon as possible.