They Betrayed a God: My Rise to Absolute Power

A True Master’s Despair

"A true master?" I echoed, my voice flat, completely unimpressed by the boiling, toxic aura rolling off the Tier 3 Grand Elder. "I've slaughtered deities who could sweep the floor better than you."

The Elder's eyes became venomous slits. “Arrogant trash, your First Layer core is nothing more than a flickering candle; let me extinguish it.”

He vanished.

He didn't run; it was just the force of his Qi that moved him forward, just like teleportation. The ground beneath him that he stood on crumbled to form a pit of mud. The green light was sickening as his jagged, poisoned longsword cut right through to my neck.

He was very quick! This strike was death to anyone else in Ravenwood City.

I had been involved in wars in worlds where time had become a weapon, though.

I didn't attempt to block. A Tier 3 weapon could not be used to hit My First Layer core. Rather, I just bent my head back slightly, a mere inch or so.

The blade was poised to kill me, to cut a single strand of my wet hair as it whistled past my throat. After the turn of the blade, there was a toxic wind that melted the collar of my shirt.

The shock registered on the Elder's face, though it was fleeting, but he quickly shifted his wrist and sliced the missed attack down at my collarbone.

"Die!" he roared.

I went straight for his guard and was close enough to his sword that it was not even able to function. I struck him in the elbow joint with the heel of my palm before he could recover his blade, and he staggered. I hit his elbow joint with the heel of my palm before he could get his blade back, and he stumbled.

Crack.

The Elder grunted, and his arm swung wildly, driving the sword into the muddy ground.

I whispered, "You're totally dependent on the density of your Qi. Your footwork is sloppy, your form has holes, and you're a peasant swinging a heavy stick.

"Impudent worm!" The Elder let go of the stuck sword. His unharmed left hand blazed with a huge, blinding ball of crimson energy. Crimson Lotus Demonic Palm. He was going for a headshot, and he hit it squarely in my chest.

Aria was not at the window anymore inside the villa.

A chill dread had swept across her when she had noticed the Elder's presence, his power so overpowering that it had engulfed the two hundred mortals. Kael was battling a giant. And if he fell, the monsters would come for her.

She didn't cower. She recalled the cryptic, last words her grandfather whispered to her on his deathbed: “If the shadows ever break the gates, Aria… bleed on the vault.”

Aria ran out of the wrecked bedroom, down the hallway to her grandfather's closed study. Despite the loud security alarms sounding out, she broke open the door. She tore a large painting from the wall and found a sleek, old metal safe set in the concrete. No keypad provided. A simple, flat, empty handprint.

Her hands shook, but her eyes were all clear. She picked up a broken glass from a broken vase on the ground, took one deep breath, and cut a deep cut across her own palm.

On the outside, the Elder's Demonic Palm hit me in the chest.

At least, that's what he believed.

Just half a second prior to impact, I directed all my newly stabilized core into my right hand and activated the Abyssal Devouring Art. But I made no shield. I focused the blackness into one point, a very small one on my forefinger.

I touched his blazing Demonic Palm with one finger.

The impact generated a huge shockwave through the lawn, scattering the rain sideways and overturning the armored truck that was next to us.

The Elder laughed, thinking that my body would burst into blood mist.

Suddenly his laughter became a hideous, sloppy laugh.

The black void on my fingertip was not only blocking his Tier 3 technique, but it was also stabbing it like a needle popping a balloon. The dark fog suddenly surged into his meridians, tearing through his arm and racing towards his heart.

"My... my Qi!" The Elder shrieked, staggering back. His left arm became a gray bone; his flesh was converted to ash in an instant. "What have you done to me?! What's this black magic?!"

The art that will devour this world," I said coldly.

I didn't let him get a breath. I stepped forward, grabbed his throat with my left hand, and lifted him off the ground.

"Wait!" The Elder's face lost its smugness, and he choked. He kicked his legs, and his Tier 3 aura quickly faded into me. The Triad will send the Grandmaster if you kill me! He... he is already..."

I don't care who he is," I said, my fingers clenching into fists. "I'll eat him too."

I unleashed the complete vortex. The Elder's screams were swallowed by the howling wind as the Abyssal Devouring Art completely consumed him. A river of pure Tier 3 spiritual energy surged through me, and it was huge and intense.

My inside belly roared. My core was cracked, and the pieces violently crashed.

Boom.

I released a dark crimson shockwave of energy from my body that instantly evaporated all the rain in a 10-yard radius.

The second layer is established.

I dropped the Elder's mummified remains into the mud, my power surging to terrifying new heights. I had crossed the divide and made it.

My success lasted only for one second, though.

Inside the villa, there was a loud, earth-shaking noise.

A bright beam of silver light pierced through the black clouds of a storm and climbed through the roof of a house. The bloodline of Aria had a more suffocating and ancient aura over the entire estate than ever before.

But it wasn't just her aura that I felt.

Masked by her silver light, a second aura spiked inside the house. The energy was vile, rotten energy—Tier 4.

The Elder's last words rang in my mind. The Grandmaster is already…

"Aria!" I roared.

I shattered the ground beneath me, rocketing toward the front doors of the villa just as a man’s sinister, echoing laughter drifted out from the broken windows.