GDK 534: Giant Leap in Strength
Han Shuo racked his brain, yet he couldn’t understand what had really happened during the short few seconds of soul shuttling that caused such a phenomenon. It was all so strange, but it also made him incredibly happy!
Lowgod Datara and basegod of death Haley, every last trace of their wicked souls had been banished to obscurity and replaced with Han Shuo’s memory and awareness.
Simply put, lowgod Datara and basegod of death Haley may have just as well never existed at all. Their souls had been occupied by Han Shuo’s separate demons, and become attached to the Demonslayer Edge and the skeletal staff in a way that Han Shuo couldn’t yet understand, granting Han Shuo total control over the three souls, forming the so-called ‘avatars’ in demonic arts.
Datara became a lowgod by cultivating in the energy of looting. However, as the energy of looting wasn’t as widespread as the eight elemental energies and four edictal forces were among the material planes, after cultivating to the heights of lowgod, Datara progressed very slowly. He couldn’t advance further even after tens of thousands of years had passed.
Datara, this lowgod whose very nature it was to plunder, also participated in the great battle five thousand years ago on Profound Continent. However, he did not stand on either side of the battle but like a sneaky thief, he waited for opportunities for himself to plunder. In the end, his divine body was destroyed by a Druidic Order’s midgod cultivating in the edict of life, sealing his soul in the Purple Demon Eye formed of what remained of his divine body.
It was rarely heard of for a god cultivating in the edictal force of life to commit such acts as destroying a person’s body and soul unless forced to the last resort. In spite of the fact that Datara did not mix well with those evil gods of death and destruction, he managed to escape death, and was only sealed and imprisoned. It was even returned to the forest trolls.
Datara was a god after all. Although he was sealed by the eye-patch, he still wielded divine energy. During the endless days of five thousand years, the forest trolls remained faithful to their Datara. Hence, Datara still gained divine energy from the constant stream of faith that those forest trolls offered to him.
Not a moment went by that Datara had not thought about breaking free from the seal. Back then, when Little Skeleton inadvertently removed the eye-patch, dug out the Purple Demon Eye and placed it in his empty eye socket, Datara was overjoyed and immediately attempted to occupy Han Shuo and Little Skeleton’s souls.
When Little Skeleton and Han Shuo could no longer bear the pain, Han Shuo reminded Little Skeleton to put on the eye-patch that had kept Datara under. The eye-patch detected Datara’s plundering nature, and released energy left behind by that midgod of life, immediately causing heavy injuries to Datara.
Having suffered severely, Datara remained well-behaved for a long time. Gradually, as all the energy was released and exhausted, the eye-patch finally lost the ability to contain him. Having been injured once, Datara did not act impulsively for the fear that he might suffer yet another blowback. He silently waited for an appropriate opportunity to strike.
The occasion when Han Shuo utilized his consciousness to transfer memories to Little Skeleton was just the opportunity that this cunning Datara had patiently waited for all that time. He suddenly made his assault at the critical moment when both Han Shuo and Little Skeleton’s souls were connected, intending to possess the two of them at once in a spurt of energy.
Had it not been for the arrival of basegod of death Haley, Datara, who managed to remain concealed for so long, could have actually been successful in taking over both the souls of Han Shuo and Little Skeleton.
What a pity, he seemed to be an unlucky one. In the end, he had only benefited Han Shuo. The main soul of the Demonslayer Edge and Han Shuo had completely wiped away his soul imprint. Han Shuo’s consciousness then formed a ‘separate demon’ with the complete set of Han Shuo’s memories and took over his soul, fusing to become one with the main soul inside Demonslayer Edge. The Demonslayer Edge turned into the body of Han Shuo’s avatar.
Datara gained nothing. Worse still, he had lost everything he had. His memories, divine energy, soul, all was taken over by Han Shuo. The Demonslayer Edge, forged and refined using demonic arts and an exceptional murder weapon that had fused with the element of destruction, most bizarrely, was now a lowgod of destruction!
As for Haley, he cultivated from the soul of a necromancer. It was only after going through long, endless years of cultivation that Haley managed to become a basegod of death. The Nethervalley where he occupied housed a massive gravestone of unknown origin. That gravestone had the function of gathering the element of death. After he discovered the wonderful ability of the gravestone, as he couldn’t move it out from the Nethervalley, he stayed in there to speed up his cultivation and gathering of the element of death.
Han Shuo obtained a ton of useful information from Haley’s memories. As Haley was necromancer in the basegod realm, his knowledge of the element of death far exceeded that of Han Shuo’s. After gaining Haley’s memories, the Boundary of Aging that Han Shuo had been unable to deploy as well as some trouble he met in necromancy were suddenly so clear to him.
This was the second time that had Han Shuo absorbed the soul of a necromancer. The last time, that Clarendon directly made Han Shuo a grand magus while allowing him to understand things he previously couldn’t. This basegod of death known as Haley had knowledge and understanding of necromancy far above the level of Clarendon’s. Many of the cryptic, difficult to understand necromancy topics were plain to Han Shuo in an instant.
Inside the spacetime tunnel, Han Shuo had somehow managed to erase Haley’s soul imprint, with his consciousness’ separate demon forcibly occupying Haley’s thoughts and memories. With Haley’s original soul and the skeletal staff for a body, it formed an avatar of Han Shuo with the strength of a basegod.
Simultaneously, the secrets contained in the other two skulls of the skeletal staff had completely fused with Han Shuo’s secondary soul. One of the skulls contained bits of knowledge and understanding of necromancy, while the other skull detailed the floor plan of the Cemetery of Death and how to utilize all the secrets of the facility, including how to perform inter-planar transmission with the skeletal staff…
The original owner of the skeletal staff was a midgod of death. The knowledge and understanding of necromancy that he had left behind was absolutely suitable for the cultivation of Han Shuo’s death basegod avatar that inherited all memories and experiences of Haley. It couldn’t have turned out any better.
The only thing that was somewhat regrettable was that the Cemetery of Death wasn’t created by the original owner of the skeletal staff. He only knew how to operate it, but couldn’t rebuild one by himself.
The Cemetery of Death was manufactured by the overgod of death. It was handed down to his subordinates as an instrument, allowing lesser gods under his command to travel between different planes, spreading death and destruction to every corner of the universe, while recruiting more believers for the overgod, giving him greater and greater divine energy.
As long as he could find another interplanar transportation array, or perhaps another Cemetery of Death, given the memories he currently obtained from the skeletal staff, he could, without a doubt, perform an interplanar teleportation. Although there was still quite some distance to go before he could return home, it would be a breeze once he found an interplanar transportation matrix.
“Father… Father…”
Little Skeleton’s thoughts entered into his mind. Han Shuo stared blankly before coming to his senses soon after. He hastily and worriedly asked, “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, it’s just that my soul is separated from my body,” Little Skeleton replied. After a short pause, Little Skeleton suddenly asked in an extremely puzzled tone, “Father, why is it that my senses tell me you have three split personalities? What, what is going on? The other two energies, where, where did they go?”
During the soul transfer, Han Shuo’s consciousness had only aimed at Datara and Haley. Little Skeleton did not participate in that gravely dangerous battle between souls after entering the spacetime tunnel. Once he emerged from the tunnel, Little Skeleton’s soul had restored to normal, although he was slightly jolted by the aftershock generated from the final attack against Datara.
“Haha, there weren’t three people, it was just me alone,” Han Shuo was greatly delighted. Without any further explanation, he continued, “Come, let’s return to the netherworld and put your soul back in place.
This time, Han Shuo did not move a muscle in his main body, but he had the avatar fused with Haley’s soul and the skeletal staff to perform the task. After a bright flash of light, his soul traversed across spacetime and descended upon the netherworld. The big bony hand of the skeletal body he previously congealed still sat atop Little Skeleton’s skull. However, without souls within, the two skeletons appeared rather strange.
Once Han Shuo and Little Skeleton’s souls fell inside, the two skeletal bodies regained their vitality. The Purple Demon Eye in the left eye socket of Little Skeleton had completely shattered. Speckles of purple starlight absorbed into the jade-like bones of Little Skeleton’s.
This soul of Han Shuo’s was in the realm of basegod and had a tight affinity with the element of death. At a single thought, the element of death would gather, and release its might through all kinds of wonderful magic at Han Shuo’s.
Although this soul had all the memories, awareness, and ability to remember just like the consciousness of the main body, this soul was not the consciousness. Han Shuo couldn’t transfer his own memories using this death basegod soul of his. The process of memory transfer could only be achieved using the consciousness refined using demonic arts.
Han Shuo did not rush to anything. Using that skeletal body he congealed with the element of death, he cast his gaze at the army of undead that charged along with Haley.
No changes took place there either. Ahead of the Penta-elemental Undead Formation, the cloud of green smoke hovered still in the air. The three skeletal kings and two bone dragons behind it were silent and submissive as they waited for further commands from their master.
Han Shuo discarded the skeletal body he had congealed before turning into a shadow and entering the smoke. The green smoke lingering in the air gradually dissipated, revealing a rhombus-shaped green crystal.
The crystal was precisely Haley’s body. But after Han Shuo’s soul fused with the skeletal staff, this piece of green crystal formed of the pure and highly concentrated element of death was no longer needed. It served now the same purpose as an Origin Crystal, the only difference being that the former was used to fuse with the body, while the latter was used to fuse with the soul. A being cultivating in the element of death could fuse their body with this green crystal to form a Body of Death Element.
While Han Shuo had no need for it, he figured Fanny the necromancer would. As long as Han Shuo came to fully understand the method of cultivating the physical body in the Abyss realm, he would be able to assist Fanny in forming a Body of Element using the green crystal that was a Body of Element itself once he finally returned to Profound Continent.
Using the soul that had occupied the basegod soul of Haley’s, Han Shuo entered the green crystal and emitted Haley’s aura. The three skeletal kings and two bone dragons, as well as other high-level undead creatures, immediately kowtowed on the ground, and dared not twitch a muscle.
In this moment, Han Shuo was Haley. Those undead creatures naturally grew silent in his formidable presence. Han Shuo pointed straight at Little Skeleton in the distance and commanded, “From this day forth, you shall concede to this creature in addition to myself!”
Those high-level undead creatures were intelligent lifeforms. When they heard Han Shuo’s words, they revealed thoughts of confusion. However, the division of classes was deeply rooted among creatures of the netherworld. Even though they were puzzled and doubtful at heart, they dared not to disobey Han Shuo’s command. As they crept on the ground, the respectfully replied, “Yes, master!”
“There is a rather peculiar gravestone in Nethervalley. It has an intricate cryptic pattern engraved on it. Cultivate there in the future, you will improve a little faster. Also, spend some time and see if you can comprehend anything from it,” Han Shuo looked at Little Skeleton and transmitted in an amiable tone.
“Got it, father! Congratulations father! I now understand so much more. A remarkable transformation has befallen you. I know that father has become even mightier now!” said Little Skeleton.
He’s indeed the most intelligent of them, Han Shuo thought to himself. He replied, “Alright, I need to leave for a while. Soon, when I have the time, I will transfer my memories of necromancy to you using my main body.”
Shortly after, Han Shuo handed Haley’s green crystal to earth elite zombie and did a soul transfer back to the Abyss realm. Afterwards, he summoned earth elite zombie, collected the green crystal, and sent the naive and simple-minded earth elite zombie back.
Although Han Shuo’s soul could freely travel back and forth between the two planes, he couldn’t carry any material object with him. Therefore, he used earth elite zombie as the delivery man.
Han Shuo still couldn’t quite skillfully use two avatars of his that were just formed. Before he completely understood the secrets of his avatars, he would not separate the three souls from each other, lest there be any irreversible accident.
“Oh dang… almost forgot about that meeting Brakyah mentioned. I don’t even know how much time has passed. Hmm, I should go up and take a took.” The skeletal staff and the Demonslayer Edge turned into two streaks of light and simultaneously disappeared into Han Shuo’s body.
Given that Han Shuo’s strength had sharply increased at least ten fold, he no longer needed to pay any extra caution to Crosius. Han Shuo wasn’t at all worried that he might be late to the meeting. Those who possessed greater strength could absolutely make others wait. Such is the rule of the Abyss realm!