Chapter 229: The Next Morning
-----
Somehow, everyone within the world of Bestia felt it. Not just when she defeated all those powerful robots imbued with the Heaven Fragments, but the moment the Heavenly Demon managed to do the impossible and forged into Anna’s physique and spiritual body something incredible.
The remaining mortals, the remaining immortals, and the two wounded Venerables sitting over their thrones felt it. The Heavenly Empress looked into the skies, her eyes widening.
“Anna…?” She had already grown slightly worried that she hadn’t come back yet.
Yet that powerful presence she felt in the distance was unmistakenly hers!
“What’s happening to her? Did she… Could it be?”
Her golden eyes widened for a second as she imagined something she could have never thought possible.
Meanwhile, within the largest metallic tree in the world of Bestia, composed of pure silver metal and blue neon circuits, something deep within it also reacted.
Its artificial intelligence, which continued to grow with each passing day, with each passing battle, and with each passing year, slowly began to evolve even further.
It simply couldn’t accept that its creations were defeated so easily—the creations it carefully weaved into existence to even beat the strongest immortals and even become actual threats against the Venerables!
It began processing information faster, calculating it, running simulations, and then beginning to create new digital blueprints and new beings using all its materials.
It simply couldn’t let this strange variable come here and ruin the efforts it had spent years making and destroy the legacy of their makers.
And at the same time.
Inside the dark palace of the Heavenly Demon, as the crow-beast man was dozing off over his crimson throne, trying to recover from his exhaustion, his servant came running.
It was a young, gray, and black-colored fox beast man no older than Anna herself. He opened his small fox jaws and screamed.
“Please forgive me for this intrusion, Lord Venerable!”
RUMBLE!
“Hmm?! Agh! What is it?! I was sleeping!”
“Y-Your disciple… She’s awake!”
“Oh… She is?! That soon?”
The Heavenly Demon immediately got up from his throne and looked into the distance, swiftly spreading his wings to go see her.
“Well, so be it! Now she’ll have to show me the extent of the powers she has gained through my efforts!”
Excited over the prospects of Anna’s new powers, which he helped create, he flew towards her room.
.
.
.
(Anna’s POV. Half an hour ago.)
The cold wind coming from the window slowly woke me up, as I felt a slight chill run down my entire body. I looked around; I was still wearing all my clothes, my entire set of armor, and accessories.
However, there was now a white mantle covering me, and it was incredibly uncomfortable to be like this. So I quickly used my Inventory function to unequip my armor, finally feeling less restricted in my movements.
“Phew… Well, now—ah, right.”
And then I quickly realized I wasn’t in the cave anymore. I thought I might have passed out there, but with my familiars watching over me, I would eventually wake up after a short nap.
But I wasn’t there at all!
I was inside a very fancy-looking palace interior, whose aesthetics were heavily influenced by ancient Chinese architecture.
It seemed slightly like the one the Heavenly Empress had, but much darker and, er, edgy?
There were sharp weapons hanging all over the walls as decoration, and even the hanged heads of mighty beasts.
…And people.
It didn’t strike me as hard because the people of this world look like animals, but I am fairly sure some of those heads look too small to be just a normal beast.
Yep, I think I know where I am right now.
I am inside the palace of the Heavenly Demon, the evilest man in this entire world and also the strongest.
Evilest… Maybe not anymore. Even after confronting him, I think he has mellowed down after growing weaker and then fighting the invaders.
But the title of Heavenly Demon is usually given to cultivators such as these, leaders of the orthodox faction, the pinnacle of evil!
Ruthless, selfish, utter psychopaths.
Yet, despite being very threatening, He was quite kind compared to other Heavenly Demons that would appear later on.
Although he still gave me a terrible quest—right, the quest!
I quickly gave the command, as the system notifications that were hidden appeared in front of me.
Ding!
[Congratulations! You have completed the {Special Quest}: {The Heavenly Demon’s Hellish Trial}!]
[Rank: SS++]
[Congratulations! You’ve done the utterly impossible and destroyed over thirteen thousand S Rank foes and above, freed the island from the three mechanical production facilities, and even gained the Heavenly Demon’s recognition before the Quest were to be registered as complete.]
[For that and more, you deserve a tremendous reward for your efforts and time spent doing this! The Main Quest of this Class Change Trial Scenario will reveal itself once you achieve certain conditions, which are very close to be achieved. Pay attention to everything around you.]
[Step 1: Hunt all Mechanical Beasts within the underground caverns: 13.538/13.538: Complete]
[Step 2: Destroy all three Mechanical Production Facilities: 3/3: Complete]
[Step 3 (hidden): Gain the Heavenly Demon’s recognition: 1/1: Complete]
[Completion Rewards]: [50.000 Plot Points] [Ki Restoration Potion (S Rank)] x10 [Ki Enhancing Pill (S Rank)] x10 [Skill Level Elixir (S Rank)] x10 [Random Martial Arts Scroll (A Rank)] x5 [Primordial Martial Beast Heart Fragment (??? Rank)] x1]
Oh, nice! The rewards are insane! Nice, very good! It HAD to be something this good, at the very least. I did way too much, right? Yeah, it is well deserved! I almost freaking died after all.
Is it almost double the reward from the previous quest? No, it is double the rewards, plus some martial arts scrolls as well. The Plot Points are nice, because I’ll be using them pretty soon.
Now, I wonder… Hm?
[The {Seamless Abyss} is looking.]
[They speak words that you cannot understand.]
[They wiggle their tentacles. Could it be recognition? It cannot be comprehended.]
What?
[The {Seamless Abyss} has given you a Title.]
[You acquired the Title: [Bane of Artificial Intelligence]
-----
[Bane of Artificial Intelligence]
A Title rewarded to someone who has slain over 10.000 beings that could be catalogued as Artificial Intelligence.
You’re the bane of robots and everything else that could be considered “artificial”. The moment you appear, they will fear you, and their bodies will naturally become weaker and rustier.
And you won’t stop fighting until you slay them all…
Effects: +500 Strength & Vitality. Grants access to the {AI Slayer} Ability.
{AI Slayer}: Whenever you’re fighting a foe that could be catalogued as Artificial Intelligence (AI), your Damage Dealt increases by +200%, you can ignore 50% of their Defenses, and All your Stats increase by +50%.
-----
[You gained +500 STR and VIT permanently after obtaining this Title!]
This is… a pretty good Title, all things considered! It might be extremely situational in most other cases, especially back on Earth. But while being in this world? It has suddenly become a sharper weapon than Gram.
“Thank you, I guess…”
[The {Seamless Abyss} closes its eyes, then opens them again.]
[Then closes and opens them again, and again, and again.]
[Their tentacles wiggle across the void.]
I don’t know if they’re happy, excited, or just being an incomprehensible eldritch horror beyond my comprehension. Whatever the case, I guess I should be grateful.
“Thanks again; this might be a real game changer here... I’ll use it well.”
[…]
I guess it finally stopped sending messages.
I should concentrate on what to do now and what has just happened.
First things first.
What the heck happened to my body?!
I sat down and went back into the bed to realize something very strange. As I was browsing through the system notifications, I noticed my arms were glowing blue and gold.
And then there were, like, tattoos? But they were made of light. They disappeared just when I realized it, but it did freak me out a bit.
“Err… Let’s see. I do remember dreaming that something weird happened to my Spirit Body.”
Spirit Bodies are the representation of a body’s supernatural form. Everybody with some supernatural energy develops a Spirit Body below their normal body. It is where the Pathways of Ki, Mana, and other energies recede, alongside the Three Meridians and any other Supernatural Organ.
Yet these tattoos that appeared over my arms and then legs, and then the rest of my body, weren’t normal. This didn’t come from any Skill or Technique either. I was fairly sure and confident that something had happened to me before.
I closed my eyes, concentrating my energies and senses into my own body.
And there it was.
I felt it.
FLASH!
“Oh… Just who… Who did this to me?”
All the impurities accumulated inside my Spiritual Body were completely gone and cleansed. My Meridians, which seemed rather weakened and slightly cracked, had been healed completely and were looking pristine.
And above all, the Parthways of Ki looked just as pristine as gold. Flowing endlessly with this energy across my body, perhaps ten times as thick as before!
“This is amazing…”
My Physique, my Inner Martial Core, and even my Cosmic Heart Core, they were all together, somehow fused? No, they were connected. But not a mere connection of temporary magical energies or cosmic energies.
No!
It was a permanent connection, one as strong as the blood vessels transferring blood across my entire body. And such incredible connections were all made using a black and white “thread” made of...
Heavenly Ki Essence?!
The energies of the Murim Worldlines heavens are an incredibly highly refined energy, said to be a step below Primordial Ki Essence, which is what has been thought to be the energy the Heavenly Golden Dragon uses to create Murim Worldlines.
And of course, it comes from the fragments of Heaven themselves! But I didn’t do this; who... Who the hell did this for me?
They completely healed me and even improved me entirely. Although my Physique has yet to evolve or change, this connection will probably help me immediately improve it once it reaches max rank. The same is true for my inner martial core.
No, it feels more like, by just training these new permanent connections and by letting my energies flow everywhere, I could probably already begin awakening this new power.
Like this…
FLASH!
I released a bit of cosmic energy, celestial energy, demonic energy, and Ki.
And all of them danced around one another, fusing together brilliant golden light and deep darkness, slowly swirling together as cosmic energy kept them together.
Usually they would be making a mess inside my body, exploding against one another, flaring my body to gain tremendous power but also great exhaustion and burden.
However, this time, they harmonized, dancing around one another.
Slowly, something surged, and visions within my head appeared.
The origin of all, as the endless streams of energies converged into one.
A swirling mass of Chaos.
“Chaos… Ki?”
As I held in my hands a small strawberry-sized sphere of amassed Chaos Ki, something I never thought I could create at all without killing myself, someone stepped inside the door.
“Hahh… I wonder if the young lady is- Ah! Aaaahh! S-She’s awake- Eek!”
A gray and black-colored young fox-beast man stepped in, only to drop what he was holding, seeing the sphere in my hands.
And then, the sphere released its aura, which I was unable to properly control.
FLUOOOSH!
RUMBLE!
A shockwave of darkness was unleashed as I saw the fox man run away from the room while the entire palace trembled suddenly. I panicked a bit and quickly deactivated the sphere of chaos ki, realizing how dangerous it was.
“I-I can’t fucking believe it…”
Chaos Ki was something that couldn’t be made normally, like, at all.
It required certain conditions to be made, but because the origins of all the ingredients were so conflicting with one another, creating it was almost impossible.
Yet my body has become the perfect recipient to create it without problems?!
I had conjured Chaos Magic before, but it was much weaker and also unstable.
But this was…
Did I just comprehend a bit of the Dao of Chaos, now that I think about it?
I did see a vision out of nowhere!
“Holy shit…”
BAAAM!
However, my train of thought was quickly interrupted as a tall crow-beast man stepped inside the room.
“My disciple! You are awake!”
-----