Chapter 497 - Part Of The Truth Behind The Skill Scrolls

"For your own sake, do not lie, my child." Medes sighed as he looked at Thannath with a complicated smile and said, "If you lie, all that awaits you is doom and even your race may have to suffer the consequences."

Thannath froze when he heard the voice of the Lord of Heaven and once he raised his head stiffly, his eyes twitched as they met Uriel's golden eyes.

The beautiful archangel Uriel whose eyes were previously as yellow as gold had undergone a slight change. Those previously golden eyes now had a thin white cross that cut across the pupil and as she looked at Thannath a strange ripple of mana was released from her gaze continuously.

The emperor of the asura race felt as if someone was looking into his very soul. It was as if all his secrets were exposed under that gaze; it was as if any lie could not be hidden from those eyes.

In the end, Emperor Thannath's expression changed several times as if he was fighting against himself. After what seemed to be an eternity and under Uriel's intense gaze, he sighed and looked at Lucifer before saying in a low, but clear voice, "Your Majesty, I really don't dare to lie."

Thannath, for the first time in several thousand years, bowed his knees and slowly got to his knees as he touched the ground. In order to survive, this proud emperor had no compunction in kneeling before other beings and much less so considering that each and every one of the existences in front of him were beings far beyond what he could handle.

"That human named Bai Zemin actually used a magic spell that allowed him to increase the gravity of the giant fire trident. It was precisely that skill that nearly destroyed my most powerful barrier and even though I cannot deny the fact that perhaps he activated some treasure to boost the power of his magic, the truth is that in my life I had never witnessed a magical attack capable of comparing to an 8-circle magic spell of my race asura being cast by a being of the First Order."

The place that had previously been used as a battlefield and where the lives of tens of thousands were lost became deathly silent once Emperor Thannath finished speaking. Only the echo of his voice carrying words as heavy as steel was left floating in the void as if it wanted everyone to engrave those words in their heads.

"I see." Lucifer nodded after several seconds of silence.

Each faction had its own methods of discovering if someone was lying. Although these methods had similar limitations to the Heart Mirror that Bai Zemin had obtained not too long ago, a Fourth Order being could by no means avoid them unless they possessed an even more powerful treasure.

Besides, considering that the emperor of the asura race was willing to put aside all pride just to receive a little mercy and understanding, neither Lucifer nor any of those present believed that he would dare to lie knowing that his life depended on it.

"Hey, Lucifer!" Nikolay frowned and asked aloud, "That skill Gravity Manipulation is what I think it is?"

Lucifer looked at the leader of Immortal Bloodlust and sighed as he nodded heavily, "Indeed. It's the same skill from 1,000,000 years ago."

The expressions of most of the Higher Existences present changed for the worse when they heard this. Especially the Sixth and Seventh Order existences; the faces of all of them turned slightly ugly and only a minority managed to keep calm on the surface.

Approximately 1,000,000 years ago, the constellation belonging to the God of Gravity located in a distant galaxy of the Oblon World opened for all challengers who wanted to enter.

At that time, seven faction leaders of Higher Existences joined in an attempt to obtain what had been recorded as one of the most terrifying powers in the cosmos contained in the Firmament Fragment that slept within the constellation of the God of Gravity.

However, more than 20 Sixth Order beings perished before even reaching the end of the abandoned realm within the constellation, and had it not been for the support of the Eighth Order beings who represented the peak of the universe, the scythe of death would have fallen upon the neck of more than one Seventh Order being.

"Damn it! You're telling me a First Order dirtbag possesses that fucking skill? Bullshit!" Salazar shouted hoarsely as his aura began to spiral out of control.

Salazar was a powerful Eighth Order zombie who possessed the skill Gravity Maker. Approximately 1,000,000 years ago, he suffered one of the most crushing defeats of his life and his greatest humiliation when after activating his skill and creating extra gravity to crush Sixth Order monsters sleeping inside the constellation of the God of Gravity.

At that time, a Seventh Order monster with the skill Gravity Manipulation at an unknown evolutionary stage appeared and used the gravity within the unknown realm, as well as the extra gravity Salazar had created, to force the seven Eighth Order leaders to retreat.

A single Seventh Order monster had forced the most powerful beings in the universe together to retreat! 

The power of the black holes that this creature could conjure were capable of blocking magic spells and crushing physical attacks while slowing the attack speed and movement speed of all of them so that after fighting for several days and nights, Lucifer and the others had no choice but to retreat and watch in fear as the constellation of the God of Gravity disappeared without a trace as the stars fell from the firmament.

The memories of that humiliating battle came alive in Salazar's head and the Oblon World had to bear the consequences of the out-of-control aura of this powerful zombie.

RUUUMMMMBLE....

The entire world trembled in fear. The mountains that had formed after the explosions caused by Bai Zemin's attack were beginning to collapse as the earth sank and rose in other areas, giving birth to new mountainous regions.

"Salazar, calm down. You want to destroy the world and leave us all without information?" Medes frowned and said in a displeased voice.

At the same time, the other leaders released their auras and locked Salazar in a separate space bubble to prevent the latter's aura from continuing to wreak havoc.

The face of Emperor Thannath was pale as a sheet as he looked at the crimson barrier surrounding him. He looked at Fire Sorrow with eyes brimming with gratitude and was about to say something when she interrupted him first:

"Anything else you remember? Blood Manipulation? Bloodlines? Nothing?" 

Fire Sorrow asked everything at the speed of a machine gun as if she feared Thannath would run away the next instant.

"N- No... Sorry." Thannath unconsciously took a step back at the look Fire Sorrow was giving him.

It was as if her violet eyes always calm and wave-less like an ancient lake had suddenly turned into volcanoes about to erupt and spew magma into the air.

"Don't you remember anything else?" she tried to push on and the frown on her face showed that if she didn't like the asura emperor's reply, then the Oblon World might run short of a Fourth Order existence soon.

Just then, Lucifer appeared at her side and asked in a low voice, "Hey, where are you going with those questions?"

Fire Sorrow glared at Lucifer angrily but managed to suppress her voice as she slowly said, "Aren't you taking everything too lightly? Who cares what happened 1,000,000 years ago? Don't you realize what this could mean?"

Lucifer stared at her before sighing and shaking his head, "You.... What the hell is going through your head? Do you really think Sirius could have been reincarnated into another being after countless eons passed? Fire Sorrow... I think it's time you learned to leave the past in the past. As much as it hurts... That's how it is."

"Why not? Haven't there been cases of reincarnation in the past?" Fire Sorrow was not convinced.

"That was only possible because those who were reincarnated had skills meant for souls. Sirius only possessed skills to destruction." Lucifer frowned and slowly his voice began to tinge with a hint of discomfort as he said, "Besides, he destroyed the world he was born into when he left this place so he wouldn't feel like he was leaving anything behind. It's impossible for him to have reincarnated considering that the limit of reincarnation is tied to the original birth world!"

Fire Sorrow's eyes slowly darkened and even though she tried to find some excuse, it wasn't easy. After all, it was true that each and every one of Sirius' attacks was meant for annihilation (death) and not creation (life); therefore, it could be said that it was impossible for someone like that to reincarnate.

"Then... Then how do you explain the skill Gravity Manipulation?" Fire Sorrow thought of something and looked at Lucifer defiantly as she said in a clear voice, "Can your soul bear the weight of that skill without the support of a corresponding Firmament Fragment to help you contain the explosive power that ruling over a law connotes?"

"That is..." Lucifer suddenly found himself at a loss as to how to retort to Fire Sorrow's words and ended up frowning without realizing it.

There were several ways to learn skills but the most usual was by acquiring and then using scrolls obtained after defeating an enemy. Another method was the consumption of some godly treasure which were extremely rare to find similar to the Lightning Plant that Bai Zemin had fortunately found on the university campus. 

However, the most prized method was to learn X skill by one's own efforts as this had many benefits despite its clear disadvantage. The obvious disadvantage was that in order to learn X skill an existence needed to have reached a certain level of knowledge before so that the Soul Record could not oppose or negate such learning; on the other hand, the greatest advantage was that since one was slowly learning and evolving this X skill over time as the knowledge grew, the weight the soul would receive would never be too much since as an existence learned something, the soul slowly molded itself to that knowledge.

However, if one used a skill scroll, all that knowledge and pressure would directly hit the soul of the existence that learned it. Consequently, if one did not possess the ability to bear such weight, their soul would be crushed and subsequently destroyed.

If Lucifer were to learn a scroll that granted him the ability to immediately learn to control a law such as gravity, his soul would probably be crushed by that universal law.

It was precisely because of the aforementioned that experienced existences, especially Higher Existences, refused to learn skills from scrolls given by others.

Why did they refuse to learn from scrolls that others had obtained but were not afraid to learn skills from scrolls that they had obtained? Simple.

In contrast to what was believed, the Soul Record molded the Soul Power that would become X scroll in such a way that the soul of the victor could bear it. For example, if the Soul Power that could not be absorbed was abundant then the Soul Record would try to create a scroll with a powerful skill BUT always within the limit of the victor's soul; never above!

Very few knew how the drop of skill scrolls actually worked but it was definitely a lot more complicated than Lilith and the vast majority thought.

So, taking all this into consideration, Lucifer really couldn't retort to Fire Sorrow's words. After all, it was a fact that regardless of whether this existence called Bai Zemin had obtained the Gravity Manipulation skill scroll by himself or if he stole it from someone else, the truth was that his soul had withstood the law of gravity and had adapted to the rune without a problem.

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