Chapter 185: Choosing Another New Path
—
Tsubasa's heart raced as Aqua climbed the stairs, leading her to his room. It made her feel even better, briefly meeting the gaze of the two devils.
The adrenaline of the battle and the thrill of her successful advancement had her on edge, and she could feel her primal instincts clawing at her self-control. Mostly because of the smell – that smell – that he was releasing. What was up with that?
It had been weeks since they last had sex, and the thought of being intimate with him again made her body ache with desire. More than ever. He closed the door behind him and led her to the bed.
"Now," Aqua said, dropping her onto the bed with a laugh. "Try to hold in that urge, try to pull it back inside like a dot. Focus. Try to revert to your human side. Or else-"
But Tsubasa's hybrid form was truly active, and her body was begging for release. She grabbed him by the collar and pulled him onto her, her sharp nails and fangs on full display. Aqua's eyes widened for a moment, but then he chuckled and pulled her close, his body tense with anticipation.
Their kiss was fierce and demanding, and Tsubasa could feel herself losing control. She wanted to revert to her human form, but the urge to mate was too strong. She tore at Aqua's clothes, her sharp nails making quick work of the fabric, and he did the same to her.
It'd have been more optimal to just teleport the clothes, but who could logic with primal instincts?
As they tumbled onto the bed, Tsubasa's tail wrapped around Aqua's waist, pulling him closer. She could feel his hardness pressing against her, and she let out a low growl of pleasure.
Aqua's hands roamed Tsubasa's body, his touch sending shivers down her spine. He cupped her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her nipples, and she moaned into his mouth. His fingers trailed down her stomach, teasing the sensitive skin there, before finally reaching the apex of her thighs.
"Nghn…" Tsubasa's body was on fire, and she couldn't get enough of Aqua's touch. She arched her back, pressing her breasts against his chest, and ground her hips against his hand. Aqua's fingers slipped inside her, and she gasped, her nails digging into his skin.
"You're so wet, Tsubasa," Aqua growled, his lips trailing down her neck. "So ready for me."
"Y-yes," she panted, her body trembling. "Aqua, please. I need you."
Aqua's cock was rock hard, and he couldn't wait any longer. He positioned himself at Tsubasa's entrance and slammed inside her, making her cry out with pleasure. She was so tight, so hot, and he could feel himself losing control.
Tsubasa's fangs sank into Aqua's shoulder, marking him as hers, and he responded by biting her neck, claiming her as his. The pleasure was almost unbearable, and like that, the night grew hotter.
****
Two days later, I was not home. Morning birds chirped and gentle wind filled the mountain range. I sat at the peak, with my legs crossed and all my focus pinpointed on collecting Sun Qi.
I sat like that for hours, until at noon, I felt a sense of fulfillment in my Qi Pool. I opened my eyes, my pupils bright and blazing.
"Whew, finally," I let out a breath. "My second path reached Sage rank."
I fought against Indra when I was at Overlord Qi on this Path of the Darkest Sun. I'm even stronger than that now, and I'm not stopping here.
This means that not only was my Qi Pool twice the size as before, making it at least ten times that of an average Sage's, but this single Qi Pool now had six attributes as well. Wind, water, cloud, and lightning affinity from my first path, and sun and moon affinity from my new path.
At this rate, after training in a few more paths, I should be able to use any path without needing to gather Qi from scratch; the empty 'infinity' state of my body will finally reach its true potential. Grandmist, the Totality Qi, will have all the affinities in the universe. I'll be able to perform techniques from all paths in existence with a single thought, without ever learning them manually like this. The concept of a path at that point would be irrelevant.
That reminds me, since I finished Darkest Sun, I could learn a new path right away. "Let's see…" I decided to use Soul Reflection to make a list appear before me.
Path of the Celestial Radiance: A path running on the brilliant nine-colored Qi, a variation of pure Qi but with more destructive prowess. It can earn similar results to the legendary Hollow King path, though the mana-negation part is less focused, in exchange for stronger attack powers. Upon reaching the [Gold] rank, your eyes will be transformed into the Nine-Colored Eyes.
Path of the Black Flame: A path running on a mixture of Qi affinities between darkness and fire, turning you into a machine of destruction. Experienced users can demolish a continent into mere ashes with the [Black Dragon's Dance] attack. Upon reaching the [Gold] rank, you'd gain access to partial dragonification, as this is a path derived from a line of Black Dragons.
Path of the Hungry Deep: A path focused on devouring Qi; a mixture of blood and hunger affinity. Outside the usual advancement using Cycling Techniques, this allows the users to grow by another means. They can [Devour] the physical and spiritual strength of magical beasts and their latent authority, using them to empower the user. This devour is only usable on monsters and beasts, and is unusable on a humanoid creature due to the fundamental structure of the technique. Upon reaching the [Gold] rank, your forearms would be blackened and will give you an urge of constant hunger.
These were the three that I have yet to learn from the five initial paths I chose for this life. I would usually wait for a few weeks to let my Qi calm down before picking up a new path, but time is scarce. I'll only rest for a day instead, no, just till this evening.
I stood up, dusting off my hand. "I should decide by evening which one I want to learn. Then prepare the environment needed to absorb the new Qi type. I should go take a shower now, and see if Irina is done with what I told her to do," I stretched a little and then took off into the air.
My body let out a brilliant dark sheen, and I streaked across the sky faster than ever before. My speed has improved by a mile.
….
"Wow." After freshening up, I was at our gigantic gym, chuckling to myself. "Looks good, this is a great sword now." I held the Ex-Durandal in the air, looking at all the enhancements it received.
Xenovia's Durandal was a very special holy sword. It could easily assimilate with other swords if handled by an experienced blacksmith. And luckily, this household had a million-year-old blacksmith here.
Smithing is a basic skill to have for a powerful warrior, it is best to make your own weapons, after all. And when you live as long as me, it's a fun hobby to have. Yet for this, I didn't even need to grab a hammer to merge this big sword with the Excalibur pieces. It was more a merging between the soul and spirit of the multiple blades with one another than smelting.
"Um… wow…" Xenovia was staring at her new sword with glittering eyes. I let out a laugh, I understood what she felt. I handed it to her and allowed her to see the new enchantment for herself.
"Alright, it's decided then," I said a moment later, after observing her swing the sword a little. I turned to Irina, "You two will be coming to the other world as well. Since we'll be fighting Demon Gods, holy sword users are always welcome. So be sure to train more, or you'll not survive there. Now, two more spaces are vacant."
That meant me, Galaxara, Ai, Ruby, Tsubasa, Ranefer, and these two exorcists would be coming to Pangeal. I still had to raise them as Angels to power them up, however.
"Ah, thank you, boss!" The girls bowed, and I waved it off.
Irina's new power was quite extraordinary. I already had four Excalibur pieces, but missing the other three was a hassle. Thankfully, Irina's power was all about making Holy Swords. So she made replicas of those three Excalibur swords that we lacked.
Since she had seen and trained with them before back in the church, she had a greater understanding of them. So even though it took a bit of time and a lot of focus, she could make replicas almost as powerful as the real ones, and they even had the same abilities.
To think such an easy solution was right in front of my eyes. I was a little embarrassed to have missed this. Here I was thinking about messy plans to deal with the Angels.
I left the two girls behind, allowing them to train with Kalawarna, and returned to the living room. Ai was with Kana, chatting about magic, and my Goddess and Asia were on another couch, where the former was telling the latter a story from Pangeal.
Shoko and Yuzuru weren't here today, they had a family program, and Ruby was in her room, cultivating. Tsubasa was doing the same in her house. I walked over to the coffee maker in the kitchen and began to prepare a mug for myself.
"Get one for me too, please," Ai called when I was measuring water, and I nodded.
"How do you feel, by the way, Asia?" I asked the nun, my eyes on the coffee maker. "The advancement last night went perfectly, but if you feel anything weird anywhere, just tell me." Ranefer provided her with a phoenix's dead body, as promised, and using that I raised her into Gold.
"It's alright, I feel great," she said with a smile. She sounded as gentle as the first day Ai bought her here, even though now she held the power to destroy a city block at her fingertips. "Sorry that I'm not training right now like the others, I was quite interested in this story."
"It's alright, you can rest for a day." I chuckled. "I… helped Tsubasa rest too after her ascension, it's only natural you get a day off too. Which story though?"
"Malebranche, the Twelve Demons Kings," my Goddess replied instead. "Those who were defeated by the former hero, your senior, who established the Erebian Empire after freeing the world from those demons."
"Oh, that story. I heard that from the former hero too, she wouldn't stop blabbering and bragging about it when we were traveling together," I said with a chuckle. I was not the first hero of that world, although I was the only one from another world.
The former hero, Jasmine, connected her soul with her legendary sword. So after her death, when she lived in heaven, she could communicate with the new heroes through the sword to guide them. When a new demon king appeared, one stronger than all twelve from before, as well as far more intelligent too, the Goddess summoned a hero from another world. I received the holy sword of the former hero and communicated with her using it too. She materialized as a flying orb with a single eye that only I could see, and we journeyed together till the end.
"She wouldn't believe me when I said that my Demon King was stronger than all twelve of her combined, since that'd make her appear weaker than me," I let out a chuckle, pouring the coffee in two glasses. "I was looking forward to the day I would die only because I wanted to meet her in heaven and beat her up to see who's truly the strongest. Unfortunately, that day never came…"
I let out a soft sigh and took a sip of the coffee. It felt alright. I walked over to Ai and handed her the glass, and my eyes met with Kana briefly. I nodded at her and looked at my Goddess.
"So," I took another sip, "How's she these days?"
She was a mentor of mine, one of the few women in my life who I would always respect. It was her techniques that I performed to slay Demons, and even in Murim in my 4th life when I was called the Vagabond Blade of Destruction, I taught my blind disciple like how Jasmine taught me.
"...I reincarnated her," Galaxara said, lowering her gaze. "Before my battle with the two Outer Gods, I reincarnated her. I boosted her growth spurt, so she was an adult in just a few days and is fighting in the front lines now. I… am not sure if she's alive or not right now."
I hummed. "She'll be fine."
I knew too well that if she wasn't fine and ended up dying… I'd never see her. Since the Goddess is gone, the Angel of Death is too, the dead souls wouldn't reach heaven or hell and would rather perish. So I wanted to believe that she'd be fine.
"Yes, she will be," Ai looked at me and said. "Don't worry Aqua, I'm sure she is fine and is holding off against the Outer Gods as humanity's vanguard."
She didn't even know much, yet she was consoling me. I nodded. Kana was looking at me with odd eyes, as she had been for the last couple of weeks, but I didn't heed her. Her powers weren't exactly what I thought it'd be, so sadly she couldn't speed up our growth, so she was low on my priority list for now.
Still, the ability that her Sacred Gear [Kingprotea] granted her, the only one for now, allows her to grow in size and mass, depending on how much Mana she has. And it's not as if it took much mana either; Kana just had 2nd-circle's worth of mana, and she showed off by growing into the size of a whale in under three seconds.
I think, if she's supplied with 7th-circle mana, she can grow as large as a planet in a few seconds. If not larger. So I requested Ai to train her in magic, especially in Mana control and growth. She'll get stronger in no time, but not fast enough to become a part of this expedition.
After finishing my coffee, I put it down on the table. "I'm heading out again, mom."
"Huh? You were outside all morning and noon, though…" She looked at me and I just smiled. I was busy. She nodded, "When will you be back?"
"Late at night," I replied. "I'll see you." I said and left the house, taking the air.
I wasn't heading to the mountain this time, but to a forest not far from here. It was a dungeon, housing magical beasts inside. For the path that I'm about to learn now, I'll need a little blood-bath to train. If I had this path in Vedas, I could have gotten it to Sage easily, for my new path grows stronger when the blood of my enemies flows.
The Path of the Hungry Deep is the only path that could satiate my desire to grow.
**
**
**
Author Note: 😕 Depending on the rankings, there will be a chapter tomorrow too. Otherwise in Sunday. Throw some stones
Read the next chapter right away along with this entire month's, on my Patreon.
Link: Patreon.com/Master4thWall