Chapter 599 Originals&Ascenders
With two Darkness Temples strengthening his Sea of Darkness, Nial was extremely powerful. He was in possession of several means to increase his strength even further and he was finally able to use the full power of the Tier-3 Forgotten Runic Armaments as well.
There was no reason for him to be scared about his destination because there weren't too many things that could obliterate him in an instant. At least, most things that were capable of obliterating him in an instant shouldn't be too interested in something like him.
Nonetheless, he was a bit nervous because the isolated stellar system ended up being so far away off from the next closest stellar system with planets that may harbor intelligent life, capable of teleporting through space. It had been quite a while since he encountered any other intelligent races with Originals of a high rank and it was about time to actually meet some people!
Nial made the jump and sealed the dark energy and his range of perception within his body to prevent his mind from going crazy.
He was not sure how long he had been caught in the space tunnel that distorted space to make it seem as if he traveled only a short distance when he actually jumped through a huge part of space.
It didn't feel much different from his usual experience when exerting the Grasp of Eclipse movement technique, with the sole difference being that the movement in the shadows and darkness was much longer than usual.
Once he emerged in his designated position, Nial was surrounded by space once again. However, this time, the mana in the surrounding space didn't feel pristine, ancient, and overflowing with a pureness that had been attained from being compressed and purified over eons.
The mana in his surrounding space was still pure, but it was not comparable to his experience in the isolated stellar system. Of course, he didn't really think much about the mana. It was just an interesting point that he took note of.
His designated destination was quite far away from the closest planet within the stellar system he emerged from, but that was something he intended from the beginning. Nial didn't want to be too close to any of the planets because he didn't know whether the habitants or the planet itself would end up harming him. After all, a burning star was still considered a planet from his long-distance traveling compass.
Thinking about his compass, Nial reached out to his belt. However, what he found was not a fully intact long-distance traveling compass but a single piece of metal.
"Well, that is unexpected, or is it not?" Nial mumbled to himself, not really surprised that the compass broke apart. It was a shame but the compass did what he wanted from it. In fact, it allowed him to travel much farther than he had initially intended to travel with the support of the compass. He didn't really expect that he had to travel such a large distance to find the closest stellar system, after all!
Traveling a little through space, Nial quickly figured that there were a bunch of rockets, space-ships, and other high technological advanced mechanisms in this stellar system. The spaceships were pretty fast and Nial guessed pretty quickly that they replaced worldbridges and other means of teleportation.
As for the reason to guess something like that, Nial couldn't sense any familiar fluctuations that came from Worldbridges. Even if he was not exactly a know-it-all when it came to Worldbridges, he knew that the space tunnels they created by distorting space to a certain degree exuded unique sequences. Nial couldn't sense these radiations, which was why he ended up considering spaceships as the most important mean of space traveling within this stellar system.
It was, most likely, not as fast as the means Nial used in the past, but it left him some hope to find his way back home. It wouldn't really matter even if he had to travel for a year or two using some spaceship as his mean of transportation. As long as he could find a way home he would be fine!
Interested in where he was, Nial was just about to descend onto one of the many planets when his range of perception and Mana Sense took note of something.
'Looks like they prepared a welcome gift for me,' He thought when he noticed that more than five dozen men and women from an unknown race approached him with fast movements. They skipped through space as if they were running on ice, while Nial halted in his tracks. He didn't want to offend the races living in this stellar system, so he remained unmoving and waited for the 60-ish people at the Mythician rank to surround him.
The Devil Roc inside his Heart of Darkness wanted to emerge and wreak havoc but Nial restricted it. The appearance of the Devil Roc would only cause more problems, and Nial had already more than enough problems from the hostile mana fluctuations he perceived.
'Those people are Originals and Ascenders? I didn't expect to meet some more Ascenders anytime soon,' Nial thought, his attention on a few people whose Essence Crystal he perceived quite easily. Instead of a Mana Core in their abdomen, Ascenders were either born with an Essence Crystal, or they awoke the Essence Crystal over the passage of time.
Dilan, the Undying, was also an Ascender. His strength was exceptional, but even more so was his conviction and determination to accept dying hundreds of thousands of times as long as that meant he would come out victorious from a battle. Every battle Dilan fought was another trial that tested Dilan's conviction to attain greatness.
Nial didn't really like Dilan when he first met him, but over the course of a hundred days, he grew a considerable amount of respect for the Undying.
That was only obvious after all the things he had seen Dilan doing. It was a crazy achievement that Dilan had attained with his unique and seemingly overpowered powers. But, of course, not every Ascender was like Dilan.
In fact, not many Ascenders were like the Undying. Most could advance quickly in the ranks as long as they worked hard for a few years. It was not impossible for combatants to become Demi Gods just from killing other Ascenders for a few years. After all, Ascenders could absorb the remnants of Essence from their opponent's Essence Crystal and grow stronger that way.
That way, Dilan had grown up to become a Demi God in the blink of an eye. It was dangerous to be constantly fighting but the rewards were certainly worth it. But that didn't mean everyone was capable of replicating the achievements of the truly powerful. Most would advance slowly in strength, and struggle upon becoming Demi Gods.
However, no matter how little the talent of Ascenders was, all of them were capable of becoming Demi Gods. That was quite interesting because they didn't require a tremendous inborn talent to become powerful. As long as they attained a certain combat prowess and survived their encounters with powerful opponents, they were bound to become Demi Gods.
That was impressive, even if Demi God Ascenders were not actually much stronger than Mythician Originals. That was something Nial noticed quite easily as he encountered a bunch of Demi God Ascenders right now.
Of course, that didn't mean Nial should start fighting the Ascenders and Originals who had surrounded him.
He shouldn't kill them at the very least!