Chapter 32 - Jade Door

'Power to break and consume souls in exchange for ancient energy?' Nash's brows lowered into a tight frown and asked Erys while his gaze was still fixed on the sword.

"What is an ancient energy?"

"Ancient energy?" Erys looked surprised by the sudden question, but still fell into deep silence to ponder before replying, "If I am right, ancient energy should be the purest form of ancient particles which only existed during the Ancient Era when only a few dimensions were in connections with the Ancient Dimension and the beings in it."

She then quickly added, "The difference between the two is like air on top of an ethereal mountain or in a city full of machinery and millions of beings. Both are the same, yet the discrepancy between the two is like that of carbon and diamond; you can't even compare the two even though they are almost 100% alike!"

"I see, but why only existed? Does it no longer exists or what?" Nash asked as he shifted his doubtful eyes at Erys.

"Well, you can't really say it's no longer present, but it's better to say it is extremely hard to find." Erys shook her head, causing her crimson hair to flutter gently, and said, "Because of the many dimensions that have opened throughout the centuries, the purity of the ancient energy became so polluted that now it only exists in the very center of the Ancient Dimension."

"Hmm..." Nash looked back at the sword with a troubled expression, not knowing what he should think and do.

If what Erys just said, then didn't this mean this sword's ability was simply useless as it cannot be activated? And without any ancient energy, it was more than likely that it was true and this weapon which possessed a terrifying power, turned out to be completely worthless.

But soon, this seemingly uncertain doubt turned out to be just a ridiculous and meaningless worry. Akin to sensing the doubt in Nash's heart, the crimson symbols on the emerald sword suddenly lit up with gentle light while a presence that shook even Nash's very core upon sensing it broke out of it with great power!

"!?"

Nash widened his eyes with surprising shock, but not because of the presence that broke out of his weapon, but rather as the essence from his body began to leak out of his body right into the sword in his grasp!

It was like a broken faucet with the water inside it pouring out in huge gushes, with him being the former and his essence being the latter!

• Essence: 600 -> 550

• Essence: 550 -> 500

• Essence: 500 -> 450

"Fuck!" Nash suddenly blurted out a loud curse when he noticed the rapidly decreasing amount of his essence, and without any hesitation deactivated the sword's power.

Swish!

And immediately after he did, the crimson glow weakened several degrees before it vanished completely, turning everything back to how it was originally before the unexpected event.

"Phew... That made my heart miss a heartbeat right there..." Nash sighed with relief, but suddenly noticed something was not quite right and raised his head.

"Huh?" looking up, Nash found with surprise that all of his Souls were shaking like leaves in a cold autumn breeze, while Revio was sitting on his butt with a fearful expression on his face, akin to someone who just saw his entire race's extinction!

Even Erys looked slightly pale, which made a scary contrast between her stunning ruby eyes and blood-red hair, while her hands which were clenched into tiny fists also trembled slightly, seemingly from dread.

"This..." Nash seemed to realize something and looked at his sword, now in a wholly new light than before.

It turned out that his Soul Breaker was not useless at all, but instead extremely valuable and terrifying too!

'So the essence in my body is equivalent to ancient energy? Then does this mean... Ancient energy and Essence are two, completely identical things? But how can that be?' Nash became speechless as he felt confused by the matter.

Although he was very far away from having a decent amount of knowledge about dimensions and their secrets thanks to his amount of wasted time inside caves, he at least got to learn from Erys quite a few things. She told him that while ancient particles were elements that existed everywhere, including the body too, they cannot stay in one place for too long as a mutation that could cause unavoidable death could happen rather fast!

Besides, not long ago, he has also learned that ancient energy was the same as ancient particles with only their purity being the difference, meaning they too cannot stay in one place or inevitable death will appear way faster than it would happen with ancient particles!

Yet, right now, not only did Nash use an Ancient Treasure with Essence which needed ancient energy as a fuel, but he even survived without dying, which didn't even make sense at all!

If his sword was able to use his essence as though it was ancient energy, then doesn't that mean the two were the same? But if that was true, then how was he still alive without his body yet to getting evolved?

Maybe his Essence was a type of energy that was akin to ancient energy but without its horrendous side-effect that causes certain death?

Nash twisted his brain over the matter several times, but as he couldn't come up with an actual answer he just shook his head and put the matter aside. What mattered for him at the moment was that his sword's power was working and he was still alive.

Except for these two things and a few others, Nash didn't care about anything else at all as he knew for sure that time will answer all of his doubts later if not sooner.

And in the exact moment as he thought about this, suddenly the entire hall around them began to tremble like crazy, forcing Nash to lower his body slightly to get a more stable stance to avoid getting fallen behind from the tremor.

TREMBLE!!

As the tremor continued to shake the surroundings without any sign of stopping, Nash and the others watched with widened eyes as the wall on the side suddenly began to split into two, revealing a huge jade door which was hidden all this time for who knows just how long!