The Abyssal Fruit was a legendary treasure of the Netherworld. Anyone lucky enough to eat it will not only become a supreme expert, they would also become eligible to become the emissary of the Chief Sovereign of Death.
Whether it was Kannal, Osiris, or Mathias, none of them had any interest in becoming the Chief Sovereign of Death's Emissary, but since it was the only way to meet the Sovereign, they smoothly ascended the mountain and collected the fruit.
Unfortunately, in the process of doing so, they unknowingly killed two of the children of a couple of the current Sovereign's Emissaries. Said Emissaries tried to kill them to avenge their children.
At that point, Kannal and his group weren't quite as powerful as they were now; as such, it ended up being a pretty even fight between both sides. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Osiris ate the Abyssal Fruit – upon doing so, his mind was flooded with wave after wave of insights into the Edict of Death.
Not only did he immediately condense a new Divine Clone based on the Edict of Death, but said clone broke straight into the High God level – the insights only stopped coming when Osiris's Divine Death Clone became a commander.
Although in terms of insight, it was weaker than his Divine Darkness Clone, the latter was still only a Full God – following the path of a Supreme Genius – as a result, his Divine Death Clone immediately became the more powerful of his two clones.
The only negative about the Abyssal Fruit was that after swallowing it, just like when fusing with a Divine Spark, it became impossible to improve any further in the Edict of Destruction. Still, because Osiris never had an affinity with the Edict of Death in the first place, it was a more than worthy trade-off in the long run.
And because of that, Osiris was able to tip the scales on their side, but before they could kill their opponents, they were frozen in space by the Godrealm of the Chief Sovereign of Death – a beautiful red-haired woman named Imoiya.
The two emissaries begged Imoiya to avenge their children's deaths, but the Chief Sovereign, who had been deeply impressed by Kannal and Osiris, warmly invited them to become her newest Emissaries.
Kannal and Osiris obviously refused, pretending that they were already the emissaries of Beirut so as not to further offend the Imoiya.
The Chief Sovereign's tone became cold, asking what they wanted. In response, they respectfully told her the reason for coming to her in the first place.
Imoiya snorted but wasn't in a hurry to reject their request. As a Sovereign who had been alive for billions of years, she spent a lot of her life bored. Seeing Kannal and Osiris, two incredibly promising geniuses, so desperate for her help, she decided to give them a chance.
She said that she would find the dead mortals and saints they wanted, but they would have to pay for her services using Planar War Military Merits. For every ten commander badges or 1000 soldier badges, she would find one person.
Her terms were seemingly impossible, but whether it was Kannal, Osiris, or even Matthias, they all readily agreed.
It had to be remembered that even Mathias could be considered a peerless genius. Even though, as an expert of the Edict of Destruction, it was impossible for him to follow the path of a Supreme Genius, the fact that he had reached the level of a weaker commander in only 3000 years was more than enough to showcase his talent. And that was even more true for Kannal and Osiris.
Even if they weren't capable of defeating commanders easily at that point in time, they were confident that by the end of the Planar War, they would be. And if not, they could always ask for help from the rest of their friends.
Whether it was Ace or Killian, both were already more than capable of slaughtering commanders with ease.
Unfortunately, Imoiya had no way of knowing that. She thought it was strange that the trio were so willing to accept her terms, but she refused to believe that they would be able to improve so much in such a short amount of time.
As far as she was concerned, each of them was at least several hundred thousand years old.
Whilst Killian and the others were talking amongst themselves, slowly making their way back towards the Stellar River, Ace and Hemmers were now engaged in a large-scale battle against the forces on the side of the Divine Plane of Darkness.
Like his friends on the other side, the disturbance the duo caused wasn't small, and similarly, it caused the Dark Side's forces to team up to deal with them, but although Ace and Hemmers were only two men, both were Invincible Commanders; as such, high numbers meant nothing to them.
But things changed when a certain man appeared on the battlefield – his name was Fotu, and the moment he took action, Ace immediately understood who he was and where he came from.
Ace remembered the conversation they had back on the Yulan Plane. At the time, Killian had just volunteered to head to the Netherworld to try and find Mathias' son, but Beirut stopped him, explaining that one of the two Intermediate Sovereigns of Death, Matadall, was a man who liked collecting and experimenting on soul mutates as he was one.
Why that was important because Killian was only the second known three-way soul mutate; the first was Matadall's head Emissary, Fotu. But where Killian was still a Full God, Fotu had long since become a High God in all three elements – he was the true strongest existence under the paragons; in fact, according to rumours, Fotu had once gone toe to toe against a paragon and managed to fight them to a standstill.
His power was simply terrifying, and yet both Ace and Hemmers eyed Fotu like he was fresh meat.
Both Ace and Hemmers were battle-hungry maniacs, and the stronger they became, the harder it was for either of them to find an opponent worthy of them going all out. It was why they preferred sparring each other, or rather, Hemmers preferred sparring Ace.
Ace's rate of improvement meant that Hemmers could no longer provide a worthy challenge for Ace. It was why Hemmers decided to take a step back and allow Ace to fight Fotu.
As soon as the fight began, Ace immediately found himself on the back foot. With his Will-charged Golden Sun Manifestation, Ace's divine power only matched that of a normal High God, whilst Fotu's was literally 100 times more powerful than that. Not only that, but as an expert who had become a soul mutate millions of years ago, not only had he reached at least the level of a seven-star fiend for each of his elements, he had fused a high number of Profound Mysteries of separate laws.
Still, even as Ace found himself suppressed on all fronts, his excitement never waned. He entered a rare state of focus as his blood began to thrum with joy.
It was when he entered states like this that he truly improved the fastest. Unfortunately, he was already one foot away from reaching the peak with either path. Or so he thought originally…
Fotu's three laws were the laws of fire, light, and wind. And the more Ace watched, the more insights Ace gleamed into their fused state, namely the fusion of fire and light.
Unfortunately, because of the decision he made when he first became a deity to fuse his Divine Spark with his original body instead of splitting his soul and creating a divine clone, he lost any chance of comprehending the laws of another element. But that was when he remembered his master – back when Aiden came up with wielding the concepts of an element through a weapon, Aiden hadn't been able to sense the laws of Wind.
That was when he understood that concepts weren't like Laws. Whilst Laws and Edicts required one's soul to literally communicate with the essence of that element to further one's comprehension, Concepts didn't!
With that realisation in mind, Ace began focusing on the Laws of Light and how they interacted with the Laws of Fire before stripping it down and infusing the concepts into his glaivesmanship, and as he did, a miraculous change took place.
The realm of his [Blazing Glaive Art] stepped back into the Full God level, but he didn't lose any power; in fact, over time, his Glaivesmanship not only became more skilful, but its power gradually increased.
It still didn't change the fact that Ace was being suppressed – his body was riddled with cuts and bruises. Still, the excited gleam in his eyes never left as his glaivesmanship reached all new heights.
When Ace thought of light, four words came to mind: pure, radiant, overwhelming, and fast – unbelievably fast!
The more he focused on those four words, the more his already otherworldly glaivesmanship began to embody them.
The first big change happened when his glaive art returned to the High God level. At that point, he was finally able to barely hold his own – a feat that came as a shock to all those watching, especially Fotu himself. Unfortunately, Ace's rate of improvement didn't seem to have any intention of slowing down.
And slowly, as Ace's glaivesmanship reached all new heights, Fotu gradually found himself on the back foot, slowly being the one suppressed. Something that he hadn't experienced in an extremely long time.
The change caused him to have thoughts of fleeing; unfortunately, due to the nature of Ace's glaivesmanship, the moment he focused on attempting to escape instead of blocking, he would undoubtedly face a devastating strike, and things just went from bad to worse.
Looking at Fotu, who was on his last legs, his body bloodied, bruised, and battered, Ace grinned excitedly as he thanked him for his help, as without him, he had no idea how long it would've taken to come up with his new and improved Glaive Art – [Blazing Radiance].
Now that the very foundations of his Glaive Art had improved by so much, he felt so much more confident about facing what was yet to come.
With that, he turned his attention to the sky to face a man he didn't recognise, but from the incredible power and pure, undisguised killing intent he was radiating, he had no problems guessing who he was – Ballmer!
------------------------------------------
Please check out and support my new novel - A Tale of Pride!
-------------------------------------------
Story Complete!
Currently 68 chapters ahead!
Head over to the P atreon if you wish to read to the end uninterrupted!
P.atreon.com/AceInCoilingDragon