The Star of Annihilation - Chapter 78 – Ancestry (2)

Chapter 78 – Ancestry (2)
Written by : eleven

* * *

Ba-ba-ba-boom!

The sounds of explosions rang out just a few hundred feet away from the campsite.

It was night time, and the sounds that were being made by the disciple and master sparring with their swords, sounded anything but the sounds of swords clashing.

Roy ducked and twisted his wrist as he let deletus curve it’s trajectory naturally around the lightning fast sword of his master.

Lucius chuckled and deflected the attack neatly by side stepping to the side and knocking the blade away with the rotational force of his ki inside of the blade.

In the past, Lucius and Roy only sparred with pure swordsmanship and nothing else.

But now, Lucius saw that Roy would need experience fighting against opponents much stronger than himself, especially if they wanted to have a productive outing at the Tournament of Young Lions.

On average, not many people Roy’s age would ever be at his level.

However, the average age of the Tournament’s participants were slightly above Roy’s age and the other participants from the Empire.

Normally this would not be such a hassle, but this was the prodigies of the entire northern continent gathering in one place for prestige and honor.

There would be no lack of talent whatsoever and most participants would be already at Roy’s level or slightly above him.

Therefore, Roy needed to reach 5-stars as soon as possible.

Roy was no longer having the dilemma of wondering whether he could surpass his former level of 4-stars.

It wasn’t that he miraculously found way to overcoming the wall to the first stage of Transcendence, but rather he had a desperation to reach it no matter what.

It was no longer an option to doubt himself or his capabilities.

He had used his previous life’s experiences as a structure and guideline for succeeding early in this one, but it was only a beginning. He knew well that if he couldn’t surpass his own limits of the past, he could never bring about satisfactory results or achieve his goal of revenge.

Twang!

Unlike before, Roy was now able to see his master’s sword and was able to deflect and redirect the course of the attacks his master put on him to a certain extent.

The fact remained that Lucius could still end these spars whenever he liked because he was able to see ‘grains’, whereas Roy was able to only see ‘lines’.

It was the difference in their levels of swordsmanship, but Roy would surely be able to see grains soon from what Lucius could tell.

Lucius stabbed forward, kicking Roy’s pivot foot, making him unable to change directions with the blow.

Roy sensing the danger, immediately cast a spell to defend since he was caught off guard.

[Flame illusion]

Fire was a form of light which was retractable and able to produce illusions so Roy used that to his advantage and cast the spell to step back and produce an image of him unable to defend.

Swoosh!

Lucius was not fooled and cut right through Roy’s spell and immediately pursued Roy unabated.

“Ugh.”

Thwak!

The result was set once again as Lucius tripped Roy and flipped him, pointing his sword at Roy’s neck signaling the end of the spar.

“Again.”

Lucius ordered as Roy stood up without question.

It was only the first night of their intensive training, and there would be many more.

* * *

Inside the Kingdom of Palest…

<AHHHHHH!>

Mazre covered his ears from the screams Hanu was giving.

Parish looked at his son that was lying on the table with a unreadable expression.

<…What happened?>

Parish turned to Mazre as he looked away from the gruesome sight of Hanu’s missing arm.

His only flesh and blood, his son, was screaming in excruciating pain as his arm would not regenerate back.

A black and corrosive energy was mixed into the wound from Ifrit’s destructive demonic energy that was stored within the last strike he left on Hanu as they escaped.

Turning his head down, not daring to look his Lord in the eye, Mazre stuttered as he realized how much of a failure this mission had been.

<I apologize m’lord…>

Mazre could offer no excuse.

<I didn’t ask for apologies. There must have been something you and Hanu did not predict. So, I ask you again. What happened?>

In the royal palace where they were, around the dragons, were the former royalty of the Palest kingdom on their knees, crawling in a submissive and fear-stricken gait.

They had chains on their necks and the former of dignity was nowhere to be found as they were butt naked, acting like slaves that were utterly helpless to their master’s whim.

<Ifrit… Ifrit interfered.>

<Ifrit you say? Hmmm.>

Parish rubbed his chin in a pensive manner.

‘He shouldn’t be able to descend to a lower realm like this often. They must have paid a price accordingly.’

Parish was not too displeased with the result, as there was no doubt in his mind that Ifrit would be limited in his amount of times to interfere in the lower realms as there would be a large price to pay for him being in this world through the laws of causality since he was technically still in the Spirit Realm with his true body.

<Alright, we will talk about this another time.>

Parish decided there was no need to punish Mazre, whom he specifically had chosen for the mission due to his careful nature. If Mazre had failed and Ifrit had interfered it was not without any gains or losses.

Parish turned to face the other members of the Great Three that were bowing respectfully to him.

<How are the preparations going with the experiments?>

Looking to Latras, Parish was hoping the prototypes for the ‘soldiers’ he requested would soon be finished.

<M’Lord, things are progressing rapidly. Within the next year or so, we should be able to see a finished product soon.>

<Good. I suppose now, the only thing we need to prepare for is to show ourselves at the Tournament then.>

Parish looked to the former king of the Palest Kingdom, who was crawling on all fours with his head down to hold back his tears.

The King of Palest had dropped down to nothing but a lowly slave.

However, the Kingdom of Palest did have its own talents still hidden to be used amongst the younger generation.

The reason that Parish had decided to take over a kingdom within the human territories was simply because of the advantages they could gain from causing internal strife within the human countries by manipulating a Kingdom from the inside to use against the others.

It was an open secret to all the other leaders of the other nations that the Kingdom of Palest had been compromised, but now…

Parish was ready to use this to his advantage to not only create an image of fear, but also to use it properly to gain submissiveness from the weaker countries.

No matter how powerful the Dragons were, this was a mid-tier realm that they were currently in. With mid-tier realms, the planets within were difficult to conquer if they just rushed head-on.

Parish and the others had aimed for the stronger continents at first, but came to a realization that although the Northern continent was fewer in numbers in regards to 9-star knights or wizards, they were not weak by any means.

In fact, there were only two beings that had reached the 9-star stage on this continent.

One of them was Trent from the Empire, and the other… was the strongest of the Seven Demon Kings from the Demon territory.

Although they weren’t ‘true demons’, they were still a force to be reckoned with.

Nonetheless, Parish already had Latras infiltrate and gain a disposable tool called ‘Alar’. Being one of the Seven Demon Kings, Alar would likely be a good tool when used properly to sow discord amongst the Demons.

‘Although his personality is rather twisted like Latras’…. It’s better to not think about it too much.’

Parish knew that Latras had weird and eccentric tastes for experimentation that knew no moral boundaries like Alar, but perhaps that was a better thing that at least Latras would be able to understand the Demon King to an extent.

With his dark robe majestically exuding an aura of dignity around himself, Parish turned around and opened a portal as he deemed there was nothing left for him to do here after checking the progress of the mission.

He had to finish his own tasks; the biggest was training.

Parish had long crossed the second stage of Transcendence and had become a Lord amongst the Dragon Race.

Becoming a Lord was akin to surpassing the human standard of 10-stars.

However, the Dragon known as Parish still had a long way to go before reaching Godhood.

There was the demi-god realm before godhood, and he had not quite reached the demigod realm yet.

Parish was currently making preparations to ascend to the demi-god realm and he felt that the ascension he was looking for was within his grasp.

The star of annihilation that had recently appeared was certainly something he was wary of, but Parish was also the owner of the aspect star known as the star of destruction.

Whether or not the Star of Annihilation would somehow be able to reach the unknown realm as 10-stars for humans, Parish would not have to worry if he attained the power of the demi-god realm.

Walking through the purple portal, Parish had these thoughts as he returned to the place he was training.

As the new vision entered his eyes, any human would be terrified if they saw where he was training.

The area he was in was nothing more than a barren wasteland.

However, it was not normally a barren wasteland originally.

White powder caked the brown sand from the dust of the bones that had been reduced to powder from the massacre Parish had committed while preparing himself for a training area.

The dried up red stains on the ground were from the blood of several monsters that had been in the area when parish first arrived.
This desolate scene was actually the same scenery for the thousand square miles or so around Parish. In fact, the entire land he was on was nearly the same.

Craters from enormous impacts, dried blood stains, ambient and rogue mana infesting the space….

This was the former remains of the Southern continent that had met its extinction just a decade or so ago.

Chapter 78 – Fin