They Betrayed a God: My Rise to Absolute Power

The Grandmaster's Greed

I didn't open the front doors of the villa. I ran straight through the brick wall next to them.

I rushed into the grand foyer, and dust and broken masonry erupted. The air was thick and heavy inside the house, the smell of which was even fouler than the odour of a freshly dug grave. It was the crushing weight of an aura of Tier 4, a weight that was meant to push weaker cultivators to their knees.

My second-layer core was spinning so hard it was pumping dark crimson energy through my veins. Passively, the Abyssal Devouring Art did not let the gravity destroy me, making the way clear.

"Aria!" I roared and followed the blinding silver light down the hallway.

It took me 2 seconds to get to the study. The door was already made into sawdust, a thick mahogany door.

The inside of the room was in shambles. Bookshelves were broken, and the old desk was reduced to firewood. Aria was now on her knees, with her left hand bleeding and held to her chest, in the middle of the devastation. Her beautiful face was white, her breathing was short and shallow and her eyes were defiant and glaring daggers at the monster standing over her.

He was a tall, thin, gaunt man in a well-cut grey suit. His skin was black as ash, his eyes were black as pitch, and a dark corrosive smoke dripped from them.

The head of the Crimson Lotus Triad.

He had Aria by the throat in his left hand, lifting her just enough for her toes to brush the ground. He held a jagged, silver object in his right hand, which she had unlocked from the wall safe, and it had the same ancient energy as her crest on her forehead.

The Grandmaster hissed, his black eyes glaring intently at the silver relic. "Magnificent. A key to the Primordial Ruins. The old man actually left it lying out there. And we just needed the blood of a Sterling bitch to get in.

I said, "Put my wife down.

It was not a shout in my voice. The command was cold, absolute, and pierced the smoky atmosphere of the room.

The Grandmaster slowly turned his head. His pitch-black eyes fixed on me, scanning my blood-stained, wet clothes.

“Ah,” the Grandmaster smiled, showing a row of sharp, grey teeth. The famous live-in trash, I felt my grand elder's aura fade away outside. Second Layer? “You're a fine man to look like a beggar, aren't you?”

I won't say it twice," and I was in the room, my pupils blazing like a fire.

The Grandmaster laughed a croaking sound and threw his head back. You've vanquished a foolish Tier 3 Elder, and now you're going to talk to a god? A second-layer ant is still an ant! Kneel and beg, and I'll let you see me bleed her dry!

He didn't even bother drawing a weapon. He raised two fingers and flicked them towards me.

A dense blade of extremely compressed, decaying Qi struck into my heart. It flew twice as fast as the Elder's sword. It was an unmissable death sentence for a Tier 2 cultivator.

But I didn't dodge.

I lifted my right hand, and a swirl of black smoke flew out. Abyssal Devouring Art: Second Form - Devouring Maw.

The decaying Qi blade crashed into my palm and was immediately devoured by the emptiness. The Grandmaster's energy wasn't just broken down; it was violently torn apart, transformed into raw fuel and pushed right into my core.

My hand was unharmed; I lowered it.

A mocking smile froze on the Grandmaster's face. His pitch-black eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock. What…what was that? You ate my Qi? That's impossible! The difference between Tier 2 and Tier 4 is a canyon! It is not something that any martial art can penetrate.

Your tier system was created by children in a sandbox," I whispered, moving slowly forward. "I built the desert.

I didn't give him time to comprehend it. I vanished.

The marble floor was cracked under my explosive speed as my second-layer core powered my legs. I appeared in his peripheral vision, a thick, whirling cloud of Abyssal mist in my right fist.

"Impudent!" the Grandmaster roared. He lowered the silver relic, and it clattered on the ground, and then he used his free arm to protect himself from my attack.

He was anticipating a fight of strength. On impact, he was going to crush my bones with his Tier 4 Qi.

He was wrong.

When my fist hit his forearm, the Abyssal mist completely ignored his body. The empty maw bit straight into his meridians.

As a huge portion of his spiritual energy was ripped out of his body, the Grandmaster shrieked. His Tier 4 aura was briefly interrupted and subsided.

It was just what I needed.

I twisted around and took advantage of his temporary confusion, and my left hand went straight through the pitch-black smoke in front of his throat. I took the hand holding Aria and twisted it with a lot of force and snapped it back.

CRACK.

His forearm shattered. The Grandmaster let go and began to howl in pain.

Aria fell to the ground, gasping for breath. I caught her by the waist and gracefully spun her around behind me, protecting her from the Grandmaster's rotting aura, before she could reach the broken marble.

"Are you okay?" Not taking my eyes off the monster in front of me, I asked.

I... I got the vault open," she choked, holding the back of my torn-up shirt. "The relic..."

Okay, I said, "I got it.

The Grandmaster fell backwards, clutching his arm, which was entirely twisted. There was no longer any pridefulness. The God complex had collapsed. He looked at me as a real, frightening predator – not as trash.

You're not a hidden genius," he gasped, his black eyes shaking as they looked at the dark mist swirling around my knuckles. "That art... it devours everything. You're... you're a monster!"

Then, someone with a brain," I said, stepping over the silver relic on the floor.

I lifted my hand and was about to devour him into the void and take his Tier 4 core.

But the Grandmaster didn't attack. He was desperate, and in his suit jacket, with his unbroken hand, he took out a glowing, golden jade slip.

My eyes narrowed. It was not a Triad artefact. I recognised that golden glow. It was a top-class communication and summoning talisman.

The Grandmaster's blood drained from his mouth. “You think you've won?!” "You think the Triad acted alone?! We are but the shadow! You don't know who you're dealing with!

He broke the golden jade slip in his hand.

“Valerius Thorne sends his regards!” he bellowed.

As soon as the jade broke, a golden light burst in the middle of the study. It was no warning. It was an array for teleportation. The air in the room became distorted, ripping the fabric of space as an aura a hundred times as powerful as the Grandmaster started to flow through the tear.

It was an aura that I was very familiar with. The aura of the man who stole my core.

Valerius’s elite Vanguard had arrived.