Chapter 164: The Second Step - Dance of Rebirth
He always thought his bloodline might be divine, although he wasn't wrong... It was the fact his phoenix bloodline was that of a fallen or evil divine.
'I am the divine son of the fallen sun cult...'
However, while these memories flooded his mind, Verena also changed—his blood directly flowing into her body caused a substantial change in her as she easily tore herself off the spear and vanished from sight.
Asura felt Verena's aura change like a priest becoming a devil.
He felt the drastic change as her magic density exploded in number and purity. It was a shock that Verena surpassed most people he had fought. It rose above even the demon empire soldier who drove him to his limit, almost causing his death by pushing him too far.
In return...
'She looks unsightly...'
The more she drank his blood and became a 'vampire', it distorted her humanity and visage, creating a strange monster with a beautiful yet disturbing look.
"You cannot defeat me anymore, Asura. Become my man; let me devour that delicious blood, and I will show you heaven that the puppet onahole could never show!"
[Don't listen—each word she speaks uses illusion and brainwashing magic!]
Verena's voice became oddly charming and warm. His body shivered from the slightest touch of her fingers and how much he wished to embrace her.
Her words... 'Those soft fingers are so small and pleasing.'
A sudden pain, his blood spurting across the ground where he died as her sharp claws, like small blades, tore apart his chest, tearing several dragon scales off as she placed them in her mouth. He watched, snapped from the strange state, feeling disgusted as her long, slimy tongue sucked them as if to clean them of all blood and his fluids.
'Fuck... what the hell is she doing?!' Asura muttered with a hint of frenzy as his blood stirred within him.
"STOP IT!"
Asura used his weapon as support, ignoring the fact he stabbed himself in his attempt to stop her, the blood pouring down to the floor as the bitch could still teleport and vanish whenever she wished.
"Fufu, you finally responded."
"What!?"
Asura's eyes widened, and her hand brushed his cheek like a lover as she stepped over twenty metres in a blink. 'If Verena is this strong... Why did she act like a weak slut!?'
"Why do you look so surprised? Your blood is not normal. It is quite special. It gives me more power than a hundred men like Shang Luo could provide if I drank them for their lifetimes... Soon, I will surpass my sister's bloodline and full form..."
"What.... didn't... you love him?"
All this time, Asura felt convinced she loved him. Why carry the man's baby if she didn't adore him?
"Love? HIM!?" Verena roared like a witch about to curse as the blood magics rose around her body and a magical barrier created by her blood. "Do you know how many men I tricked and slaughtered? Made them believe they tasted my body when they just kissed a filthy prostitute from the street?"
"Heh. You fucking bitch." Asura gripped his spear tightly as he swept across his chest, her hand still caressing him as it howled with wind magic to increase the speed of the attack, making it possible to see a sonic boom in the air as he forced himself to lean forward to make sure it connected with her face.
"What's wrong? Angry, you wasted so many years hating yourself for loving a fake?" Her answer was cold, without remorse, as her black hand, like steel, stopped his lance. "I have seen the way you act when you are drunk and heard you shout her name in your sleep.
For me, it was an excellent method to feed on your negative emotions while taking pleasure from knowing you were fucking her dead body for a decade... no, knowing your power, I now regret not fucking you."
Asura could only smile at her bitter words.
Her casual reply caused him to become apathetic towards her. "I want to kill you. Fuck, why are you so powerful for such a lousy woman?"
NovelFire,mp|y|r hosted
'Screw it, I'm killing you now!'
A black flame erupted in the room, Asura's eyes glowing red as the power increased more than he could control. It was now or never. His cultivation and the monoliths were already apart from his phoenix monolith, but since entering the tower, it had become strange. The black tower spoke to him, whispered, and told him secrets, guiding and enticing him onto the path of destruction.
'Fuck... Phoenix Blood! Let me kill this vampire with your flames!... You can't say this bitch is superior to your bloodline created from a divine right!?'
"Hahahaha, these black flames again? You realise they cannot hurt me, right? You cute man." Her mocking voice caused his ears to ache, the distorted tone like a harpy's shriek.
A red flame surrounded him, and a white plume covered in destructive force floated above his head. It looked divine yet imitated a terrifying sense of power that one feather could burn the world to ashes...
[How!? I sealed this flame... Asura! Don't...]
Asura dropped his lance... or rather, and it melted into red and blue particles before entering his body, a swirl of black and white flames that quickly circled his entire body like a serpent of death.
"What is going on!?"
Verena tried to attack him, but the moment she touched the white and black flames together, her blood evaporated, yet the flames didn't stop... crawling and lingering, they burnt her entire hand. "What!? Get out! What is this?" She panicked before slicing off her arm from the elbow... her eyes filled with shock as the discarded limb burnt to ashes in a few moments.
[Asura... this path is the same as....]
'Auros, I know. But I am not him, and he is not me. There is a reason you never spoke to the others, right?' Asura tightly gripped the divine feather as his arms became encased in the black and white flames. "I choose to take this path. It is what I want. Now, grant me this desire."
[Asura....]
'Don't be so negative. Since I'm doing something like this, I already saw the consequences, so this time... How about you hold back that darkness that lingers for a little while longer?'
[!?]
'I promise, within a year, I will grow strong enough to endure that thing, my true self... Then I will set you free, Helliana. You have suffered as my wife for far too long?'
[....]
He could feel her intense emotions inside his spirit palace, and he knew there were countless things he still didn't know, but thanks to the tower and dreams since he had awakened, Asura could guess a few things, and she never spoke to the others because she didn't feel convinced they were her husband or her future.
'Just like I needed time to accept you and Lorem. You needed time to accept Sura's death and wait for his final rebirth for him to return completely, right?'
[Hahaha... you, why were you always so sharp at the most stupid things? You didn't know I loved you since we were kids until I asked to become your wife!]
'That's because....'
Before he could finish, agony, suffering, the pain of his body being torn apart and pierced, penetrated by millions of sharp nails and blades tearing, ripping, flaying his flesh like a fish. The destructive flames burnt away his spirit while the flame of rebirth and phoenix feathers cleansed it.
'Phoenix blood is destruction, but it is also the flame of reincarnation.'
[Unlocked the final Monolith - Monolith of Destruction and Rebirth]
"What's happening... you..." Verena couldn't approach, her body now held in place, the flames wrapped closely around her body as she looked at the cocoon of flames in the centre of the sky.
Asura felt his life drain away from his body. The flames in the room slowly dwindled, the building almost crumbling to pieces—his blood burnt away as the air became stained with a poisonous feeling of death.
Memories of nine lives poured into his mind: he lived as a villain, a doctor, a kind student, a murderer, a playboy, the cuckold, and a silver prince. Nine plumes fluttered around his body, but only two entered, the black plume resembling Sura and the white plume resembling Auros.
[Cultivation Level - Fourth Layer of the Earth Cycle - Third Plume (Auros, Sura, Asura)]
⁜ Elemental Affinity ⁜
Ice: S+
Fire: Divine
Wind: AA+
Earth: C+
Magic Density: 2600 (Average Stage Four 1000-1900)
Magic Capacity: 5000 (Average Stage Four 500-1000)
***
Despite the words spoken in Helia's voice, his entire body felt as if he was in hell. Suffering for the sins of his past lives, the traitor, the sacrifice and the coward. 'You did not become me, and I am not you... You are just my past!'
Asura clenched his fist and punched the cocoon. The flames hissed, a sea of fire and destruction. This was not the fire of the phoenix that would reincarnate the souls of those worthy.
It burned anything and everything a flame to destroy while his features changed little—his black hair now had two long plumes from the centre like ahoge, one a different shade of black to his hair, like the void, and another white.
His dragon horns seemed to be dormant when in a normal state, but his tail and scales still existed, and his pupils were now vertical slits instead of dots.
If anything, his figure returned closer to the pure Asura before the other bloodlines affected him—now it seemed the black monolith dominated them all, like a master pillar.
He finally stepped through the flames with beautiful, pale and youthful skin. His back grew four black phoenix wings, and beautiful white eyes were painted on several feathers.
"Hello, Verena, it's been a while," Asura said elegantly. His deep tone seemed to gain her attention as the flames vanished, no longer flooding the room, freeing her.
She couldn't feel any danger from him or his magic density, as if he could not use magic at all! The moment she realised her eyes widened, with narrowed pupils, her body vanished, appearing in front of him with her mouth wide open.
"Ah~ the no-mag useless Asura is back... I am going to make you mine... let me devour your blood. You love me, right?" She placed her slender arms around his neck, wrapping her leg around him to seduce him.
Her teeth almost sunk into his neck, not at all concerned he could no longer fight as she licked his soft skin, nothing like before, now smoother than a newly born demigod after discarding his mortal body. "Ahh... your scent became better... the taste of your flesh is making me so wet!"
His eyes, those not of prey but a predator, looked at her for several moments as if contemplating something before his palm pressed against her abdomen, just around her womb upside down. "Oh? You're finally in the mood. Don't worry, I'll drink you dry down there too!"
Yet, he didn't even react to her words, tongue, or body. He simply sighed, with a whisper in a strange language she didn't understand.
—Profane Phoenix Arts - Devouring Flame of Oblivion.