Chapter 1203: Clearing The Grey Rot 2
If you asked Elle, she would be able to agree with you on this. She preferred to get into the thick of it most of the time when fighting, so when the grey rot manifested what seemed to be a monster True God it one swallowed in the form of a minotaur, she naturally engaged it head-on.
The clumsy manifestation swung its pole axe wildly, causing winds and shockwaves to occur, but Elle easily avoided them before striking it with a kick laden with chaos energy from her law.
「Name: Elle Leone – True God
Level: The Law of True Chaos (Basic)
Divine Energy: 100%/100%.」
「Law of True Chaos - Divine Law
Grade: EX+
Effect: The main focus of this law is the domain of chaos, which is one of the two reality-controlling rules of the universe. Chaos warps all things into other things at random, but a being with the law of True Chaos is able to control the degree of warping to an extent, but even if they are unable to obtain their desired solution, the warp will always be in their favor.
This law is neither offensive, defensive, nor supportive… it's chaotic.
Sources: Chaos God (Divine Class) + Chaos Control (Passive Skill).」
Elle's chaos-infused strike hit the grey mist monster in the arm, causing its already ethereal and foggy body to become blackened as if ink had been poured on a sheet of paper. The area where Elle struck began to warp, turning from a thick arm into a wood pole, a scaly, fish-like appendage, tentacles, and more.
The horror of the two reality-bending laws was that one could not negate them unless they had Destruction or Creation energy. The only other way was to either not meet a person with these laws, be their friend, or just not let them hit you at all.
Unfortunately, this creature did not do that. It stood there and took the hit, and now it was undergoing a chaotic warp that changed its arm from its normal set to different types in existence.
However, what left Elle solemn was that this seemed to have little effect in the long run because… because somehow the grey rot was eroding her chaos energy!!!
That's right, the entire arm which had been polluted and was rendered useless was now reduced to its elbow-to-palm area, and was shining rapidly as the grey fog in its body roiled and consumed the dark chaos energy.
She was deeply puzzled. This was fucking chaos energy bruv. Even if she was still at the basic law level, it was not something anyone or any thing could just shrug off. Yet the grey rot displayed even stronger ability than destruction energy in eroding it.
Her face fell greatly. She expected to cheese her way through and be the most significant contributor in the Golden Savages group due to her unique power, but it seemed like she was the rather the one who was most countered!
While Elle was in a gloomy mood, Shadowheart was feeling pretty intrigued.
Combat-wise, he had never claimed to be the strongest, but the others always told him that he was one of the strongest, so he graciously accepted the title. He also recognized that his group, the Golden Savages, was full of monsters of tremendous power, but he still had his own ideas.
These ideas manifested in the law he chose, which was the furthest from combat among his group.
「Name: Shadowheart – True God
Level: The Law of Perpetual Energy (Basic)
Divine Energy: 100%/100%.」
「Law of Perpetual Energy - Divine Law
Grade: EX
Effect: This Law focuses on producing energy in the form designated by the user by converting first their Divine Energy, then their various other resources, into that chosen energy. This produced energy can be consumed personally, shared with others or used to cast spells, manifest skills or simply used in a raw manner.
The efficiency of the Divine Energy to Chosen energy conversion is based on the law's rank.
Sources: Eternal Magus (Divine Class) + Eternal Source (Passive Skill).」
His law was a monstrous one, allowing him to designate ANY energy, even Origin Energy or Aurora Energy, and continually produce it with his law. Of course, such a rule required input because only Refinement at the origin stage could produce something out of nothing.
So like any law, its conventional utility would be to provide Shadowheart with its effect in exchange for being powered by his Divine Energy. But then, what if Shadowheart chose to produce Divine Energy itself?
Well, it came down to his conversion rate. His law was already at the highest quality, so if he could raise its rank to a point where the efficiency was great, he could achieve infinite energy.
Even at the basic rank, his efficiency was simply unheard of. If he were to produce one unit of Origin Energy, he would only need 7 units of Divine Energy! Why is this amazing?
Well, if energy were converted up and down using units like currency, it would be 100 worldly energy made 1 aether energy, 100 aether made 1 divine energy, and 100 divine made 100 origin energy.
To use only 7 units when 100 are needed and at the basic law rank, you tell me if that's broken or not. The law is called 'perpetual energy', not 'energy converter', so the efficiency was very important when producing the energy in terms of sustainability and longevity.
In this case, Shadowheart used it to manifest destruction energy, which was obviously the best tool for dealing with the grey rot. However, even as he produced destruction energy, Shadowheart had to be extremely careful.
He was not like a native destruction-aligned being. Such beings had constitutions, bloodlines, or passive skills that negated the negative effect of the energy on themselves but Shadowheart did not have that.
If he made a mistake, he would end up disintegrating himself before touching the grey rot, which would be a great blemish on his impeccable record. As such, he held his staff and channeled his law through it, forming a wave of destruction energy at its tip.
The staff was pointed away from him, in the battle stance of typical wizards, and towards the inactive grey rot that did not know the fate that was about to befall it. Since Shadowheart could only accumulate and disperse the energy, he could not and did not dare gather such energy into a ball or wave, simply firing it out like a beam.
When it struck the area where the grey rot, the mist was vaporized instantly and even parts of the ground below it was turning into a void of nothingness. Shadowheart was greatly satisfied at first, but his face changed greatly when he noticed that there was no system prompt.
He checked before him and saw that yes, the grey rot had truly been cleared, but he gained no rewards. He could only sigh because he knew that he was facing the greatest problem that non-destruction energy wielders faced, the inability to loot or gain rewards after using this powerful energy type.
Even Draco suffered from this limitation for a long time in the beginning before he eventually managed to resolve it, so Shadowheart had no option but to discard the convenient destruction energy for something else.
He didn't dare to create abyss energy because that had the same effects as the grey rot but worse and he had no interest in using chaos energy because he saw what happened to Elle. He did not use order energy nor did he use origin or aurora because the conversion upwards would be steep and not useful.
In the end, he simply settled for the void energy of space, releasing it continuously like how a fumigator would spray a house bit by bit to kill all the critters within. The fellow used one hand to control the staff to spray the petulant and futilely resisting grey rot while the other flipped through a book on the Origin of Serpentine Warlock Bloodlines, written by a fellow called Linley.
Finally, Nightwalker was the most focused of the group, understanding the cruelty and power of the grey rot from the first instance, so he didn't bother to experiment like the others.
While he was confident in his law, he straightaway began using class skills with divine points to clear his side, showing remarkable efficiency compared to the others who purposefully made it difficult for themselves in order to experience what it was like to be a normal, unremarkable person.
「Name: Nightwalker – True God
Level: The Law of Apocalyptic Death (Basic)
Divine Energy: 100%/100%.」
「Law of Apocalyptic Death - Divine Law
Grade: EX
Effect: This is a dangerous law that grants its user the ability to deliver demise upon any target by selecting the most suitable Apocalypse that counters their existence. The strength of the Apocalypse at the time of its creation depends on the rank of the and the amount of energy infused into it. This law cannot be blocked or avoided, only resolved.
However, it can only be used offensively and not imbued into the body.
Sources: Calamity King (Divine Class) + Destruction (Active Skill).」
Nightwalker had many choices, like the Law of True Apocalypse, the Law of Calamitous Destruction, and the Law of Endless Pandemonium, but he chose this one because it suited him best.
Before Umbra, he was a fixer in the Central Country who was well known for his terrifying assassination rate which was perfect. It was only when he was given a job by Loving Aunt to pick up Krona that he found out about Umbra and got entangled in all this.
Nightwalker smoothed his sleek black hair and shifted his tie. He always wore a black tuxedo in the game, with his hands covered by black gloves, simply out of professional habit.
They say one should fight fire with fire, but that was only when there was an absence of water. If there was a well full of water beside you, you would have to be the king of all retards to neglect it and light up more flames to fight the initial blaze.
However, in Nightwalker's case, this was apt. He did not have water, so he had to fight fire with fire, one apocalypse versus another. According to his analysis, the grey rot was an uncontrollable apocalypse with no master behind it.
Rather, his theory right now was that this was the fluff of some powerful abyss creature that had somehow made it to the Divine Realm and was sleeping. This was also somewhat corroborated by Draco who found this out through some of his experiences earlier on.
Nightwalker's expression became gloomy when he thought that this crisis that could even make his own bloodline feel a bit of difficulty was simply some offhand, insentient fluff of a sleeping creature.
He noted that its mode of spread was to slowly corrode the very laws of the realm at the new spot it was moving too, covering all molecules and even the smaller quarks with its essence and warping them.
However, it didn't actually destroy anything, just sort of attach itself. That was why one could clear it so easily by attacking the spots in which it existed, because when it was destroyed - along with what it previously contaminated - it would not regenerate unlike the previously contaminated substances.
However, it was intensely energy resistant. It could corrode any energy that entered it into nothingness, which was different from how it treated matter and substances by simply attaching itself.
This likely meant that the source creature was basically immune to energy based attacks and could only harmed physically… made through a punt?
Nightwalker couldn't help but be amused at this thought. How could it be possible for a creature that could cause all this to be small enough to kick? It must at least be the size of a small planet to release so much fluff to cover the entire Divine Realm like this.