383 The Flames of War Erup (1/2)
”Beautiful, I'm counting on you. When I return, it will be time to put the Mortal Realm on its knees. Don't slack off.”
Konrad chortled before turning into black fog and vanishing in the ground. Having left behind thousands of life fruits in Zamira and Astarte's hands, as well as instructions for Krann, he had no worries.
In that form, he went till he reached the Ancient Crystal World's inner core. There, he regained his true appearance and sat crossed-legged to pursue the final layer of his art and break through its final shackles.
If Death Conversion allowed Konrad to become one with Death, and thereby control all the mysteries it contained, it still wasn't the final level. The Fourth Layer of the Blossoming Death Art only gave one ability: to open the door to the Underworld to do with its souls as one saw fit.
However, achieving that level required one immutable step: Kill Death!
This was an intuitively asinine concept that left most Death Embodiments beyond the Three Realms stumped. If death could be killed, how was it still death? Alas, it indeed was the final step, the one after which the cultivator could achieve Transcendence through Death.
As a Primal Law Embodiment, there were many things Konrad knew and understood without outside help. Things such as Transcendence. For those that managed to reach Embodiment in a Primal Law, if they fulfilled the conditions their path required, a higher stage existed.
That stage was Transcendence. Death Transcendence. Life Transcendence. Fate Transcendence and Truth Transcendence. Those were the four Transcendental Paths. On top of other abilities, transcending in one Law meant absolute control over it, and the inability to be affected by it, regardless of the opponents' cultivation level.
Right now, although Konrad couldn't be killed in conventional manners, a Death Transcendent individual could seal or rob his Embodiment level to make him mortal once more. Worse, they could use his Death Laws to make him a puppet to their will!
Only Transcendent Existences could claim supremacy within their road. Better, once you transcended in a path, you could restart the learning process of another. Therefore, it was theoretically possible to Transcend in all Primal Laws!
That mythical stage was also referred to…as one of the Three Layers of Supremacy! If anyone could reach that level, then even with zero cultivation, they could eradicate anyone or thing below! But at the moment, due to his limited existence level, Konrad could not see what the other two layers were.
Of course, at the moment, it mattered not.
In silence, he closed his eyes, letting his hands rest on his thighs as he fell into profound meditation and siphoned all the deaths across the Ancient Crystal World. Meanwhile, at the surface, the flames of war billowed!
Ilkaalt led an army of millions of Zenith Ant Saints into the Barbarian Continent to harvest lives as if it were nothing. The first to suffer her assault was the Eastern Barbarian Khanate. In less than three days, ten cities were razed to the grounds, and it only took that amount of time because, on the one hand, Ilkaalt and her soldiers wished to indulge in the screams of the feeble while on the other hand, they collected life essence.
”Hahahaha! Kill, kill, kill! It is those worms' glory to feed my growth!”
Ilkaalt bellowed in a maddened frenzy that echoed with her troops while taking time to refine the life essence they robbed for her sake.
And on this day, the reason for the Higher Realms' unconditional loathing of the Zenith Ants came to light. There was a unique way in which they relished in destruction. They needed absolutely no reason. The act was reason; and the pleasure it wrought, their greatest drive. No wonders Nessriane, the Ant Goddess, wished to sever that part of the bloodline.