He gritted his teeth, unable to fight back.
Zera gave him no space, and her spear stabbed towards his throat.
He blocked her with his sword.
Blood started to fall from his eyes. The Void corrupted his body. His skin was torn apart, and his bones started to grow in haphazard shapes. Neo’s body was becoming an abomination.
The Void seeped deeper and corrupted his soul.
It started to grow like a tumor.
Zera kept attacking Neo with her spear. He had to keep blocking her while using his Concepts to slow down his body’s decay.
Her spear slashed out in a large arc and took out his arm.
Instantly, the Void Elementals drilled into the injury, not even allowing him a moment of respite.
His healing and blessings could not keep up with the Void Dragon God.
‘It’s not working.’
‘I can’t defeat her like this.’
Neo stopped thinking about why Zera was putting him through such training.
He swung his sword mindlessly without a break.
The more he fought, the angrier he felt.
Why was he being pushed back like this?
Because he was weak?
That did not—and should not—matter.
He was a Heavenbreaker.
A being comparable to a World.
Why could a measly God push him to the brink of defeat?
Neo tightened his grip around the sword’s hilt and attacked without holding back.
His techniques, his elemental masteries. Everything he learned was the path other awakeners took to become Gods.
A God was nothing but an inferior copy of a World.
Why was Neo following their path?
He was better than them. This path was inferior for him.
Neo retracted his Elementals and canceled his True Domains.
With nothing protecting him, the power of Void corrupting him increased several folds.
His skin fell off like it was being peeled. Deformed arms and mouths appeared over his back and other body parts.
Neo ignored the increasing corruption.
White wisps of energy materialized around him.
He was a Heavenbreaker. A being comparable to a World.
And that’s how he should fight.
His mind started to produce so much energy that space distorted around him. His soul and body ruptured.
Neo condensed it.
He took that unfathomable energy to create Sword Intent.
It was the only technique he knew that didn’t belong to Awakeners or Gods. A technique that came from Intent.
White arcs of energy shot out of his blade.
They did nothing to Zera’s Void Elementals.
But Neo didn’t stop.
He condensed more energy and attacked.
When the attack failed, he condensed more energy and attacked.
When it failed again, he condensed more energy and attacked.
His body and soul creaked, unable to handle the pressure building within his body.
However, Neo ignored all that.
He focused on the arcs of light flying out of his sword.
What was his Sword missing?
Why couldn’t it cut the enemy in front of him?
That was when Neo realized it.
He could cut the Void Elementals. But it didn’t matter as they weren’t killed.
To elementals, being cut apart did nothing.
‘I need to kill them.’
Neo’s body moved instinctively as he slashed.
‘Kill.’
‘Cut.’
A sword slashed. The slash cut. A weapon that could do as such was a sword.
Was a knife a sword?
It could cut an apple.
Yes, it was a sword.
But it was not Neo’s sword.
For Neo, a sword was not something that stopped at cutting its enemy apart.
It cut the enemies to kill them.
‘Slash.’
‘Cut.’
‘Kill.’
Neo felt he was becoming closer to understanding the true sword.
What was a Sword?
A weapon that cut its enemy.
What was the Sword’s job?
To kill the enemy.
Cutting the enemy was a step taken on the path of what made a sword.
‘First, a slash.’
‘Then, they could be cut.’
‘And death would claim them.’
The white flames covering Neo’s sword began turning black.
Alarms rang in Zera’s mind, and she hurriedly took a step back.
But it was too late.
Neo slashed.
The black arc of energy cut apart the Void Elementals. They couldn’t ignore the attack like before and began to disintegrate.
The black arc of energy continued moving forward and slashed the Void Sanctuary in half.
Void Elementals disappeared from the surroundings.
Zera and Neo returned to Tartarus.
She remained frozen. While she did push Neo, hoping to force an enlightenment out of him, she never expected him to create a technique that could destroy her Sanctuary.
‘Even if I’m weakened and I only used a Sanctuary instead of my World, I’m still a Stage-3 God, and he destroyed my Sanctuary with a single slash?’
Neo, now an abhorrent mass of flesh, crashed against the ground.
Pain clouded his mind. His body and soul had been deformed so much that he could barely use Intent Vision and hold a sword.
He had to heal himself.
But Holy and Life couldn’t simply heal a corrupted body.
He had to remove the corruption as if it was a tumor.
He used Darkness to devour himself.
Incomprehensible screams almost left his mouth. He forced himself to remain quiet.
He could vaguely feel like Zera was telling him to use a less painful method, and Elizabeth was looking on with worry.
But without ears and eyes, and in too much pain to use Intent Senses, Neo couldn’t be sure he was right.
He continued. There was no time to dawdle around. This was the fastest method.
The Darkness ate his body and soul, tearing it apart.
He regenerated everything piece by piece.
When Neo regained his consciousness, he was lying on a bed. Elizabeth sat on the chair near him and held his hand.
Zera was standing near the door with a guilty expression.
“You are awake!” A sense of relief appeared on Zera’s face when she saw him move.
She almost hugged him until she noticed Elizabeth’s glare.
“Don’t touch him. He is in a state like this because of you.”
“I was just trying to push him beyond his limits….”
Zera knew she had been wrong. She had banked on Tartarus’s Immortality and attacked without holding back as nothing could’ve killed Neo.
In retrospect, that was a poor decision.
Void could cripple him. Then, it wouldn’t matter even if he revived.
“I’m sorry,” Zera said honestly.
“It’s fine,” Neo said. “That actually helped me learn something good.”
Zera realized he was talking about the black energy that covered his sword and cut her Sanctuary.
“What was that?” she questioned. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“That….”
Neo hesitated.
He had created the technique after building upon his understanding of the Sword.
What would be its name?
Somehow, a name appeared in Neo’s mind.
“Death Sword.”
Something nagged in his mind that it was ‘Death Sword Intent,’ not Death Sword.
Still, Neo remained silent. It would be too awkward if he were to correct the technique’s name after creating it.
“Death Sword. So that’s the technique name,” Zera muttered to herself.
After knowing he was safe, Zera left.
Elizabeth followed behind her.
Left alone, Neo opened his status.
[Modification ‘Have a Sword Intent strong enough to cut a Stage-2 World’ completed. A slot has been freed.]
A faint smile appeared on his face.
The notification that had appeared during the battle confirmed his guess.
“Death Sword is the next stage of Sword Intent. Or should I say, it’s Sword Intent Lv. 2?”
Again, the nagging feeling within his mind returned.
Neo scratched his head.
Schizophrenia?
That’s not right; he wasn’t insane. But then why was he having such a nagging feeling? If Elementals were here, Neo could’ve chalked up the nagging feeling to Elementals speaking directly in his mind.
But they were not here.
Right?
“Unlike normal places where Elementals come into the world from the Elemental Dimensions, this place is filled with Tartarus World’s Energy and the Elementals Tartarus creates itself.
“It’s normal for the Elementals here to not listen to me or reply since they belong to Tartarus.
“Then, where is the nagging feeling coming from?”
A few days later, Zera recovered to an acceptable level, Elizabeth had stabilized her internal energies, and Neo was back to full health.
The trio decided to set out.
“Where are we going?” Neo questioned.
“To that giant tree,” Zera replied. “If I’m being honest, that is the only place where the Tartarus’ Core can be. We have to capture it if we want to save the Grand Expedition and complete our mission.”
“So we are doing this alone?”
“…?”
“I mean, we aren’t going to rescue those people up there to increase our numbers? Honestly, going against Tartarus with this number might prove to be difficult,” Neo said.
“That’s the plan for now. Besides, rescuing even one person from up there isn’t easy. We can only search for the Core and try to subdue it directly.”
Neo wanted to say how they could defeat the Core if they couldn’t defeat the vines.
But he kept his mouth shut.
Just then, Zera added seriously,
“We will search for Ava while moving towards the tree.”
“Ava was a part of the Grand Expedition?”
“No, she sneaked in,” Zera answered. “I can sense she is somewhere here, but I can’t detect her location since that’s beyond the scope of my abilities.”
Elizabeth stood quietly on the side.
During the past days, Neo had told her everything that was happening. It didn’t change the fact that she had not met any inhabitant of Tartarus other than Zera, nor did she know what kind of person Ava was to add her opinion on the topic.
“I might have a way to solve that problem. I have a blessing that can tell me the destination of anything I want,” Neo said.
“That’s… Artemis’ blessing?”
“Yes.”
Zera sighed in relief.
“Please, use it. We need to search for Ava as soon as possible.”