"NO! NO! NO! NO! Nā!" A human man was screaming in denial as his body withered under the touch of the figure looming over him. He had been so confident and full of the certainty he could never die.
They always believed that.
The impossibly beautiful Fiend was empty. It was just an overgrown fingernail to the creature controlling it.
[Why do I not progress?] It was the mystery the Great One could not solve. People opposing him were fine, expected even. He was not delusional about the price of his ascension. It would be folly to assume they would just allow him to proceed.
Yet, until the Eternal Realm, the cost was always within reach. No matter how monstrous, he at least grasped the scope of it.
He had assumed, since that wretched fox reset his old world, that he was held back by the echoes of himself reborn in those timelines.
There had been battles where he was able to consume other Eternal Realm cultivators but if he touched any from the Divine World he came from, they would be restored when the cycle reset!
Those damned Twins had survived twice thanks to that effect! They had ascended during his time and had repeated the process. When an Eternal Realm ascended, their souls were ripped from his dantian!
He did not repeat that mistake after the 2nd time it happened. It was the closest he came to truly dying!
Now, he had avenged himself on the Twins and so many others. Yet, he still fell short.
The sound of the thrall's hands cracking snapped him out of his narrow focus. He was about to move on to his next prey when the thrall stumbled.
He felt it then. Something invading the thrall's body. LIND FREY!
He saw the battlefield and his greater consciousness pulled more resources to restore coordination when his mind went blank.
[He broke the realm anchors? How?] The final moments of the guards he had set were just gone. Worse, the majority of his puppets were gone.
He had millions and they had been reduced to thousands. Of those that remained, nearly ā were needed to maintain the various traps or other functions of his fortress.
Even when he was trapped, he had been able to direct their movements by imprinted command. The structure had taken a very long time to build without drawing attention to a point but afterwards, the interior could be worked on endlessly.
Now, he saw his well thought out plans collapsing one after another!
[They are wearing thin but I can no longer get at them!] He finally confirmed via the stable thralls that the majority had been ejected into the next region of the complex. It was the true area of the fortress.
No more special realms or simple distractions. All that remained were traps and corridors that looked identical.
He sighed as he moved onto the next nearest target. The man he had killed was part of a group of 3. He had abandoned them to try and save himself. He enjoyed killing them first.
He hunted his targets and sneered as he heard the whimpering. Eternal Realm cultivators had forgotten the fear of death. They had lived too long in their holds without any true worries.
They all wanted to advance but that was common. The normal scramble for resources was useless as they had all they needed in their holds. Thus, the life and death path was brought to an end.
They might fight amongst each other but that was all.
He turned a corner and found a human woman with an aether child man. They were nearly exhausted and unable to take time to recover. His disturbing eyes sparked with hunger.
He reached out his hands and prepared to strike when pain lanced through the connection!
What just happened?!
He tried again but when he attempted to prepare to extract life force, the pain returned! He could still move the thrall but his feeding method was locked away?! How?!
He snarled and the pair whirled to see him. The pale faces and terror would normally bring him great joy but now it was empty. He could not take them!
He moved fast but realized he was slower than before. The terror blinded the pair to his weakness and he summoned a dark metal blade. It sliced through their skin with ease. The aether child screamed in pain.
He lost control of his powers and the injuries would not heal. The formation in the blade worked but it was limited. He tried to grasp the now free flowing vitality via the blade.
His hand burned to the point he nearly dropped it!
[NO! WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!] Lind Frey had done something! He absolutely had done something!
He quickly shifted to the other thralls and found the same issue. No matter what he tried or how far away the thrall had been, extraction resulted in pain!
He made a decision in an instant.
The thrall looming over the pair in the dark corridor blew up to reveal his true self. He stood before them and his shadowy limbs ripped them apart as he took their life force into himself.
There was no more pain but that was a small comfort.
His plans had been thwarted! Even if he wished to keep wearing them down, he could not go near the large group as himself.
"He somehow caused the thralls to be broken. I can't fix them since I do not know what he did! Just how many ways can you frustrate me?!" The Great One felt something rise in him ever since he learned his cultivation path had been revealed as limited.
Despair.
He could not advance to the next tier no matter how many cultivators he took in and he had been hounded on all sides by 1 dragon for so long he could not recall his life before him!
He proceeded to vent his rage by consuming all he could reach by hopping from one thrall to another. No matter how he studied them, he could not grasp what had changed.
Whatever trick Lind Frey had used to interfere was not based on Qi, Path, or Intent. That left only one damn thing! The thrice cursed harmony!
The Fusion Path had been bad enough but the Defiance Path was horrifying! No matter what he tried to adapt, it seemed to slip away from his understanding!
Now, it had proven even more insidious than he had imagined. Why was he trapped in unending combat with one being?!
His white orbs narrowed as he came back to an old thought. So long as Lind Frey lived, he could not advance. Lind was the final trial or key to breaking the bottleneck he had been unable to overcome!
At the same time, he was the greatest threat! A direct confrontation was too dangerous even before the newest revelations!
He returned to the center of his power. The small azure sphere hung from the ceiling as he infused his power into panels on the wall. The area lit up with screens showing the now recovering forces of Lind and his army.
He had brought them to below half their force but that meant those that remained were fierce warriors.
He noted the known Eternal Realm cultivators he badly needed to kill. The natives, so to speak, were not as dangerous as one group, however.
Lind was surrounded by the most troublesome of his wives. Any thought to slip out and go to his hold to cause havoc was dismissed as he saw a massive figure waiting outside.
The First had moved. It was far stronger than him too. He had only felt it from afar and his body had screamed at him to run.
He had lured in his enemy but he was the one stuck now! He had to become more aggressive! They must pay for every centimeter!
"You thought my traps were simple before, just wait. I have learned a lot from you. You will have to choose soon. Will you abandon the ones you love or die with them when I come for you all?" He sneered as he controlled the remaining thralls to change the interior layout.
It was not fixed and certain segments had but one purpose, to kill! Lind Frey would likely survive but no one else.
He narrowed his eyes at the old fool in golden robes leading a force deeper into a hall he had found. There were no treasures but 3 doors to go to new areas.
"Goldthorn, it is well past time for you to become a part of me." He prepared to ensnare them when his hands froze.
A glaring flaw suddenly roared back to the front of his mind. The traps and dead ends would work fine but their ultimate goal was already neutered!
No thrall could feed on them! He could not simply consume them himself as he would run out of thralls before he could get them all.
Despair bloomed in his heart once more.
"DAMN YOU LIND FREY!" He would still kill. He would make it so they could never leave and he could take them in at his leisure once Lind was dead!
He slammed his palm onto a control panel and the hall doors vanished. It was time to get his revenge!
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