Chapter 147: The Chaos Crystal and the Refinement Blade Art

Ah!

Crunch!

A sound like shattering glass echoed. Gern and Lilia, having poured their entire being into the effort, finally extracted the pale purple Chaos Crystal.

“Roar!”

At that very moment, Gern’s hold over the monster vanished. It instantly flung both him and Lilia away.

Gern had also lost his status as a Chaos Godchild, along with his control over the creature.

Concurrently, its power rapidly withered. This wasn’t an instantaneous loss, but a gradual, progressive weakening.

Despite this, the monster still possessed Sixth-tier strength. They were no match for it yet.

Gern and Lilia crashed hard onto the ground, stars blurring their vision. The immense impact momentarily paralyzed them both.

The Chaos Crystal, dislodged, rolled to the side. Seeing this, the monster shrieked and lunged towards it.

‘We can’t let this thing take it back!’

Gern struggled to reach out, his fingers closing around the Chaos Crystal. He tried to stand, but his body felt utterly drained.

As the monster drew closer, the aura around it continued to diminish.

Only moments ago, it had been at the level of a Sixth-tier Knight. Now, it had plummeted to the peak of the Fifth-tier, and was still falling.

Gern gritted his teeth. He had to hold on, no matter what. ‘Perhaps in a little while, the creature will drop to the Fourth-tier.’

With that thought, Gern drew his longsword with his free hand and plunged it into the ground, using it to laboriously push himself to his feet.

Just as he found his footing, the monster struck him like a sudden gale. Before he could fully stabilize, he was sent flying backward once more.

Mid-air, he coughed up a mouthful of blood, his head spinning violently as his consciousness teetered on the brink of oblivion.

Even at its current Fifth-tier peak, Gern found himself utterly unable to retaliate. This was the most frustrating battle he had fought since his rebirth.

Cough, cough…

There was no one left around to help Gern.

The force of the impact had left Lilia unable to move.

Even with her extraordinary talent and genius, she was currently only at the peak of the Third-tier, still lacking the strength to enter the Fourth-tier.

At this moment, he was the only one capable of contending with this creature.

Gern took a deep breath, wondering if his Dragon Girl form could withstand the Chaos Crystal’s corrosive influence.

The reason he hadn’t used his Dragon Girl form until now was his uncertainty about Kindling’s precise tolerance limit. If Kindling were to be corrupted by Chaos, he would be a sinner.

As he wrestled with his dilemma, the monster once again appeared before Gern.

Its speed remained terrifyingly swift. Even with its power diminished, its current velocity was still far beyond anything Gern could match.

Boom!

Dust billowed upwards.

The monster’s colossal claw plunged directly into Gern’s chest, splattering blood everywhere.

As it was about to triumphantly retrieve its Chaos Crystal, it discovered its other arm had become completely immobile.

Glancing down, it saw a longsword, radiating a crimson glow, embedded in its left arm.

Pinioned to the ground, Gern revealed a triumphant smile, a hint of mockery playing on his features.

“You beast, you finally fell for it.”

No sooner had Gern’s words faded than the blood-red glow of the longsword in the monster’s arm intensified, rapidly siphoning away its internal power.

The Refinement Blade Art—its name alone suggested its renown for ‘refinement’.

This ‘refinement’ involved absorbing the enemy’s power and converting it into one’s own, ultimately leaving the drained foe a desiccated husk.

Naturally, this premise only held true if the enemy’s realm was lower than the user’s. In the current situation, Gern could only absorb the monster’s power to sustain his own life.

This was also the fundamental reason why he was unkillable in his previous life, always able to be reborn from the ashes after facing near-death.

The very last time, however, Lilia had caught him. Having dealt with him for so long in his past life, she understood his cultivation methods and martial arts intimately, leaving Gern no chance at all.

In this life, this martial art remained one of his greatest trump cards for survival.

Feeling its internal energy constantly being siphoned away, the monster began to rage. Its massive claws thrashed wildly against Gern’s chest.

Its thrashing snapped his bones, driving jagged fragments into his surrounding flesh. Cold sweat streamed down Gern’s forehead; while the Refinement Blade Art sustained his life, it could not mask the agonizing pain.

He gasped for air, his consciousness blurring. ‘Can’t sleep, can’t sleep, it’s not time to sleep yet.’

He forced a shred of his spirit awake. This was now a contest of who would fall first; if his consciousness succumbed to oblivion, the Refinement Blade Art would naturally cease to sustain him.

His eyelids grew heavier, feeling as though burdened by a thousand pounds, crushing the air from Gern’s lungs.

His consciousness began to waver, a multitude of thoughts swirling in his mind. Memories from this life mingled with those of his previous one, where Lilia had relentlessly pursued him with a blade. His mind was in turmoil, and the grip on his sword gradually loosened.

He could no longer hold on. His consciousness plunged completely into darkness, and as his awareness faded, the blood-red glow of the longsword in his hand vanished without a trace.

“Roar!”

The monster roared towards the sky, then turned to grab the Chaos Crystal, only to find Gern’s hand—which had held it—now empty.

****

Once his consciousness had completely succumbed to darkness, Gern felt himself arrive in a strange space.

He moved forward, exploring, one step, then two.

The surrounding darkness solidified, and Gern felt as though he was adrift in an ocean of shadows.

There was nothing else around, so he walked aimlessly forward. Gradually, he perceived a faint glimmer of light in the distance.

He unconsciously quickened his pace, his mind devoid of thought, moving onward like a marionette.

The light grew larger, as if dispelling the surrounding darkness. The moment he stepped into the radiance, the scenery around him abruptly shifted.

The blackness vanished, the light ceased to be blinding. All that remained was a desolate expanse of grayish-white.

Everywhere his gaze fell was grayish-white, even his own body had taken on the same muted hue.

There was no division between sky and earth, no vibrant colors—only an expanse of deathly grayish-white.

Just then, a fissure suddenly opened in the space above, as if a colossal eye was slowly parting.

The eye was immense, almost filling the entire sky. It held no divine luster, only a dull grayness interspersed with faint wisps of white light.

As if countless stars swirled within its depths, it gazed at Gern for a long time. A wisp of black mist then merged into its form, and immediately, its entire body turned a profound, inky black.

As this colossal eye slowly closed, Gern regained his awareness, looking up at the desolate sky.

He remembered those eyes; he had seen them before, back at the academy.

‘That was… the God of Chaos!’

‘Was I just gazed upon by the God of Chaos?’

Gern clutched his head, his eyes now stained pitch-black. Whispers seemed to echo in his ears, ceaselessly assaulting his mind.

“Haha… ahaha, hahahaha, Chaos… Lord…”

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