Return of the Mythic Bloodline

"Sword Aura! Lightning Decree!"

A pillar of black lightning descended from the gathered cloud in the air, just below the mist, upon a massive figure of death.

The death demon was a gigantic lion, as large as the Soul-devouring Ape. But what made it different wasn’t just its sheer size. It had five legs and nine heads spread across its long, dark mane. It was a Rank-Seven death demon, the Nine-headed Lion.

The lightning struck one of its heads, the impact shattering the ground below and sending dust and debris in every direction.

"RAWRRR!!" it roared in fury as the strike disfigured one of its faces.

With a sudden lunge, it launched itself at Maximilian, who was flying high in the air in his full draconic form.

"It’s your turn, Wukong," Maximilian commanded as the lion’s wide jaw reached his face.

It stopped just inches away from Maximilian’s face. Slowly, its body was forced backward, toward the ground.

The Ape had grabbed it by the tail on the ground, pushing it back. With a heave over its shoulder, the Ape slammed the lion onto its back.

The heavy impact of its body sent ripples through the dark ground, shattering the nearby terrain.

At the same time, Maximilian turned back into his demi-human form, forming a rapid series of hand signs.

Four magical circles with intricate patterns materialized above his head. From them emerged dark metallic chains with sharp nails at their ends.

"Death Lightning: Bindings of Hell!"

The lion had only just returned to its feet when the chains coiled around its body, each end moving down its limbs, where the sharp nails pierced its paws and stabbed into the ground.

"GRAWR!!!" The lion roared as it tried to break the chains, its body squirming in pain.

Except for the destroyed head, all of its remaining heads began gathering concentrated dark energy above them, the air growing thick from the sheer destructive power it carried.

"W-Wukong, I c-can’t hold it for much longer," Maximilian muttered, his hands joined together as he struggled to keep the chains in place.

The lion released a beam of dark energy into the air toward Maximilian.

It was intercepted midway by the Ape as it arrived between the beam and Maximilian, its mouth wide open as it devoured all the incoming energy.

Maximilian kept one hand fixed in place, controlling the chains that were holding the lion down. He moved the fingers of his other hand, their tips burning with the dark flames of his Soulforce.

From the movement of his fingers, a blade emerged from his storage pouch. The Soulforce from his fingers entered the sword, turning its silver blade deep black. It began spinning on its axis like a drill, death lightning crackling around it.

The Ape was still absorbing the beam, but it seemed to be struggling to devour the raw power the Nine-headed Lion was releasing.

Even the chains that bound it had several cracks spreading across their surfaces as they reached their limits trying to restrain the lion.

It was about to break free when Maximilian shot down the sword with a wave of his hand. It moved like a blur, too fast for the lion to see.

Slash!

It pierced straight through the forehead of the central head, tearing its head open before landing on the ground behind it.

The beam slowly vanished as its legs buckled. It fell to the ground with one last, weak growl.

"Hah... hah... we finally did it," Maximilian gasped as he lowered himself to the ground, breathing heavily. "This was the strongest Rank-Seven death demon we’ve slain in the past four months."

"Nice work, buddy," he said, lightly bumping his fist against the Ape’s ankle.

It didn’t respond. Its face was filled with disgust, its brows twitching as if it had eaten more than it could digest.

Slowly, its body began shrinking until it reached the same height as Maximilian. Its entire body resembled that of a human, with the only differences being the dark fur covering its limbs and back and its face, which remained that of a monkey.

"Brother, I-I think I might puke any moment," Wukong said, holding his stomach.

"Since you are so full, you don’t need to devour the body of the Nine-headed Lion, right?" Maximilian asked, the corner of his lips rising into a smirk.

"No, body is mine. Core is yours," Wukong repeated what they had agreed upon when they first began hunting the Rank-Seven death demons.

"Alright, go ahead and eat it," Maximilian said, pointing toward the corpse of the lion.

Wukong walked toward it and stared at it for a few seconds. His hand snapped to his mouth as he almost puked just from thinking about eating one more thing.

"Keep it in your storage pouch," he told Maximilian. "I will eat it later."

"Definitely not," Maximilian shook his head. "There are some clothes of your sister-in-law in my pouch. She is going to kill me if they begin stinking like a rotten corpse."

"Th-then you can devour it," Wukong muttered reluctantly. It would take him several days just to digest the energy he had devoured. For once, he decided to let go of his food.

"You sure about it?" Maximilian asked to get confirmation. "You cannot go back on your words later."

"Yes, brother," Wukong nodded. "You can take this body."

Maximilian extended his hand toward the lion. From the injury in its head, a hand-sized sphere emerged, dark flames dancing around it.

He put the sphere in his storage pouch and whispered, "With this, I have gathered all one hundred spheres needed to reach the Celestial Realm. As for its body, it can be used to craft the seventy-two swords needed for the Seventy-Two Death Sword Formation."

He drew another storage pouch that he was keeping inside his inner robe and put the body inside it.

"Brother! You never said you had an extra storage pouch," Wukong protested, pointing at Maximilian. "That body is mine now."

"Are you going back on your words?" Maximilian asked, his eyes narrowing.

"B-but you lied to me," he countered.

"I never did. I didn’t put it in the pouch in which I’m keeping your sister-in-law’s clothes," Maximilian shrugged as he tapped Wukong on the shoulder before flying into the sky.

"Y-you tricked me, brother," Wukong’s angry voice echoed in the background while Maximilian moved through the air with a smirk of victory.

"Just you wait. I’m going to tell Sister-in-law that you bullied me," Wukong declared with clenched fists, soon following him from behind.

---

Four months ago, Maximilian had only deciphered part of the scriptures that revealed the materials he needed to ascend to the Celestial Realm.

The Root of the Eternal Tree, Celestial Marrow, and a drop of Heaven’s Tears were the other materials needed alongside highly concentrated Death Energy.

Naturally, Maximilian hadn’t heard of even one of these materials. He would have decided to give up this method and focus on his closed-door cultivation to gain the insights needed to reach the next realm if not for Evangeline.

She fed all the Mid-Tier Soul Stones the duo possessed to AINOS, restoring its energy to 1%. Maximilian had been against the idea since the stones were the only source in the Riftlands capable of restoring Evangeline’s Soulforce. However, she still insisted on taking the gamble because of something important she had discovered after conversing with AINOS.

When they opened the remaining chambers of the control room, Maximilian found the materials they both needed to step into the realm of the cosmos, along with numerous priceless techniques left behind by his ancestor.

The Bindings of Hell, which he had used to bind the Nine-headed Lion that was clearly stronger than him, was one of the skills he had learned from the chamber. He could only unleash a fraction of this skill at his current cultivation realm.

As for the Soul-devouring Ape, it woke up a week after Maximilian arrived at the control room with Evangeline. Perhaps because of the effects of reaching Rank Seven, its sentience had grown even further, allowing it to take the form of a demi-human and granting it enough intelligence to hold conversations.

Maximilian had named him Wukong since he had enlightened to the void.

Since then, the duo had been hunting Rank-Seven beasts in the deeper areas of the Riftlands. Individually, they were no match for them, but together, their combined force was formidable.

"Vivi said that she will only reveal the surprising discovery she found once I have gathered all the materials for the Realm Ascension," Maximilian murmured, recalling her words as he flew through the air, breaking the sound barrier with his insane speed. "I can’t wait to find out what could possibly have made her this secretive."

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