Chapter 364 Awakening
The Symbol of Life and the Fairies' Blessing shone brightly while one wave after another of mana swept through the ground.
They influenced Nial, soothed his raging emotions, and brought warmth to his body and mind.
"Damian's memories are really a mess…" He mumbled, further expanding his range of perception.
Nial's [Mana Sense] was fully released and nourished because of the surrounding mana that reverberated through the ground and the air.
The atmosphere was filled with dense and pure mana, shrouding everything and everyone. Most citizens, who had yet to awaken their Origin either fainted or had awoken their Origin due to the sudden pressure that weighed on their bodies and minds.
Nial sensed that many Originals at the peak of the Origin and Mirae rank received a small push, which was enough for them to advance in the ranks.
Many Originals used the waves of mana to improve their mana core's rank but not Nial.
He tried to enter a state of full concentration. This was supposed to allow him to perceive everything around him and to sense when Jundra's planetary mana awakening was over.
At the same time, Nial wanted to digest the memories of the Darkness God. They influenced him a lot and took a toll on his mind, but the Ankh and the Fairies' Blessing countered this quite well.
He didn't have many issues retaining his calm on the outside. Unfortunately, it was not that easy for his heart and mind to stay at ease.
Memories flooded his mind while the entire planet trembled when Jundra was finally reawakening from its long slumber.
Time passed slowly and the tremors intensified. Various buildings collapsed, chaos descended, and whether it was humans or elves, all of them were suppressed, unable to move properly.
Even the Nightshadow Elves at the Prometheus rank had issued enduring the pressure of the awakening planet. It was unbearable and a clear sign that Jundra was not like any other planet…it was far more than that!
"So that's where we start?" Nial mumbled to himself as he sat down on the ground. He entered a meditative stance and breathed calmly in and out before he accepted all memories that the Odyssey seed was willing to share with him.
In the memories, Nial saw the reflection of the God of Darkness for the first time. He was not human but belonged to some other race he had never seen or heard of before.
Nial was able to see the memories of the God of Darkness and what he saw astonished him a little bit. In a particularly distinct memory, Kaeldur had emerged in front of Damian. The winged existence kneeled down in front of its master, both in fear and reverence, not daring to look into Damian's eyes.
Damian stretched out his hand that was shrouded in the purest Essence of Darkness. He made several motions Nial had never seen, or perceived before, causing Kaeldur to shrink in size.
Kaeldur continued to shrink until it was compressed and reduced to a grain-sized black mass. In fact, Kaeldur's size was even smaller than what the Odyssey seed had been when Nial had awoken it for the first time.
Nial had no idea what was going to happen with Kaeldur after it had been compressed but something was weird. However, before he could see anything further the memory blurred.
It was replaced by another memory in which thousands of Gods surrounded Damian. His creations were all around him but there was not a single ally on his side. He was all by himself, while the thousands of Gods looked down at him, with bright smiles on their faces.
The Gods belonged to numerous different races, races that ought to be each other's nemesis. Yet, while facing Damian, all of them had united and come under one banner.
They had created an alliance to oppose Damian, the God of Darkness, who didn't want anything else but to live peacefully.
Damian fought alone…he didn't want to die despite all the hatred that was thrown at him. He killed Gods, subdued their subjects, and experimented with them to make them his. He made them fight other Gods, and kill them and their races.
If anyone wanted him dead, he would kill every single one of them. There was no reason to leave any of the annoying pests behind, thus he killed…and annihilated everyone and everything around him while continuing to become stronger and stronger.
His strength increased the more his Empire expanded as he pilfered through the territories, claiming them as his own. The Darkness that shrouded everything expanded and it nourished the God of Darkness and his loyal subjects.
Damian fought for thousands of years that seemed to stretch for eons but his quest for power never seemed to end. Memories of countless battles flashed through Nial's mind. The bloodshed, death, and destruction were seared into his mind, never to be forgotten again.
Over time, Damian had conquered numerous stellar systems and dozens of galaxies, making it impossible to count the number of existences that had died in his hands and with his orders.
However, even after he had killed countless existences, there were still Gods and other existences, who were willing to fight him.
He never took a break, worked relentlessly and even if he had free time, nobody would be willing to spend it with him. He had subjects to rule, but no loyal followers. He had power and wealth but nobody to spend time with, no one to give a pat on his shoulder for his achievements. Loneliness gnawed at him, slowly making him more angry and resentful.
The only thing that had been on his mind was what he hated the most; War. Damian realized that it was time to end all of this, that it was time for him to gain freedom, true freedom.
And to achieve this, the Origin of the Universe, the only thing Damian was not able to oppose had to be destroyed…
"What a mess…" Nial repeated when he regained his senses. He took heavy breaths and tried to get up from the ground as he realized that his body was extremely weak.
The memories of the God of Darkness had flashed through him, numerous memories were etched in his mind, just to cause more and more questions.
"If Jundra is called Origin, and it's the thing Damian wanted to destroy, it seems like he failed miserably…or maybe he did not, considering that he can finally rest…" Nial mumbled, trying to get up in a second attempt.
He was not sure how much time had passed but the mana density and purity around him had increased drastically.
It affected more and more people. Most Origin-ranked Originals had finally collapsed on the ground, while everyone else had problems remaining standing on the ground.
Nial shrouded his body with dark energy, which he augmented with some of his Essence of Darkness. That was enough to prevent the mana around him to suppress Nial.
In fact, he could absorb the surrounding mana through the mantle of Dark energy without feeling too pressured.
"Mana during a planet's awakening is truly the purest. I wonder how strong Jundra's mana will be after its awakening. Hopefully not too powerful, otherwise, beings above the Deux rank will start troubling us…" Nial mumbled, feeling like they would be extremely unlucky if that were to happen.
He was pretty sure that the mana density and purity of the mana in his surroundings were more than enough to allow Originals at the Keltian rank to emerge and live on Jundra.
However, that would be quite problematic because Nial didn't want to deal with such troublesome Originals yet.
"I should focus on getting stronger rather than wasting my time thinking about problems," He told himself before he rushed through the shelter.
He then emerged in the center of the Forest of Life, sat down, and connected to the Forest using the Fairies' Blessing, and the Symbol of Life.
"Little Dryad, pull all the mana from the surrounding toward me, okay?" Nial asked quietly.
He received an affirmative response as a tiny, fist-sized existence appeared in front of Nial.
[Aye Aye, Sir!] A voice with high frequency reverberated through Nial's head. It caused him to calm down, which was quite helpful.
The tiny existence that had appeared in front of him could be considered the Guardian of the Forest of Life. It had been given birth when the artificially augmented Dryad Princess' tear had been used to strengthen the Forest of Life.
A Dryad or precisely a nature spirit had been born and only Nial and Master Crevian knew about this unique phenomenon.
Nial told Master Crevian about the nature spirit because only Nial was able to perceive and hear her. He was the only one in possession of the Fairies' Blessing, which made things a lot easier.
The Nature spirit was lonely and sought company so it was happy whenever Nial was near the Forest of Life. She did everything he asked her to do, and that was clearly visible as he was bombarded with swirls of mana.
He was nearly flung through the air due to the mana's high density. It was almost dense enough to manifest, which was quite astonishing.
However, Nial accepted it as he absorbed everything greedily.
'I wonder how long the awakening lasts? Crevian said at least a few days…in that case…I shall make use of that!' Nial thought greedily as he expanded his range of perception to absorb even more mana than the newborn nature spirit could provide.
Nial sat down on the ground, where he was able to focus the most. He entered a meditative state and focused only on his surrounding mana.
He absorbed every little bit of mana around him, annexed it, and started with the creation process of the seventh Ancient Origin ring.
As he was in a fully focused state, everything around him lost importance. Nial didn't even notice that his range of perception had expanded even further. It reached the shelter and covered it completely as his [Mana Sense] was fully unleashed and nourished to the extreme.
Nial absorbed the purest mana while leaving behind the rest. This was enough for him to be overflowing with energy and to take away the pressure from all the Originals around him, whether it was elves or humans.
Some regained their consciousness after a while, and those who could do it right away began absorbing mana as well.
The purest mana was taken away from Nial but there was still highly purified mana, in extremely high masses at that.
Time passed quickly and everyone regained their consciousness after a while. More and more humans awoke their Origin, even those humans who were in the other eight shelters, overwhelmed by the mana density around them.
They were affected the worst because Nial didn't devour the purest form of mana that permeated the air.
Days passed in the blink of an eye and it looked like the process of Jundra's mana awakening would never slow down. It was almost as if Jundra wasn't going to undergo the normal form of awakening by slowly reaching its limit but that it would immediately accelerate from 0 to 100.
Even the Elves from the Forest of Life were afraid that something like this would happen.
They had expected Jundra to be just like the other planets when awakening, but that didn't seem to be the case.
Only after two weeks had passed did it seem as if Jundra's planetary core had awoken and that it would only slowly become stronger until it would reach the limit of its planetary mana core.
However, Nial's guess had been reaffirmed, as the Empress' gate finally opened, allowing the first stronger Elves to emerge on Jundra.
But even then, the Empress was neither the first nor the last one to give her children the opportunity to step on Jundra. After all, there were numerous inpatient Gods, who wanted to gain control of Jundra…or regain it.