113 Reinforcement

I sat in meditation as the space twisted into me being absorbed, various dark powers engulfed the room. It was as if I had isolated the room from the rest of the world, my eyes flashed open as space returned to the crevice of the hill.

My Abyss Devouring Meditation Art requires that I partition a space in the void and slowly consume the abyssal energies, void, spatial, and corruptive forces are devoured into me to nurture my Astral River.

The process was derived when I devoured the various void beings during the summoning ceremony. I learned to mimic their process of converting abyssal energies into their constituent parts and making it into their own power.

I warped outside as I saw Kathessa holding a blood red bead in her hands. She looked coy and docile in front of me as she raised her hands.

"Father offers you his blood essence, so that you may practice the Bloodline Scripture. In exchange, he asks that you reinforce our formation." She politely said but I was disinterested, instead, I focused my perception into the blood bead.

As my perception sunk in, it felt like I was wading through a sea of blood. I could feel the howls of terrifying beings from beyond the stars, they were sealed inside the sea of blood. I couldn't help but feel fear stir in me, to devour so many beings. No that isn't the word, no engulf would fit it better.

'Engulfing laws, the power to devour the heavens!' I had suspicions when the old man showed me his powers, but now I was sure. There was a legend in the books of Pagan gods, beings that transcended the powers of knights, mages, and even prophets.

They held the powers of the earth and were worshipped by beasts. In their domains, it was said that even the gods themselves would retreat! I was disbelieving when I first read about it, after all, they were just speculations. In the blood sea, I could the faint trace of a world-engulfing serpent!

'Jörmungandr, the Midgard serpent! The legends are true...' At the moment there was no more doubt in my heart, it seemed the nature of the world was not as simple as the gods are supreme.

But now by experiencing the power of bloodline this old man wielded I was certain of the validity of this guess. I levitated the bead over to myself, as I felt my blood howl with desire. The moment I devoured this, I would enter a whole new world of power.

As I level up and excavate the power of Cenir, I activate the bloodline powers I inherited as the bearer of his primordial source. It took Drrak's shadow origin to even activate my bloodline, I just needed a proper technique to harness its power.

"Very well, you can follow me as I finish the job." I coldly intoned as I floated up stepping on space that I partitioned, this method was inefficient but it helped me improve my spatial mastery.

Kathessa followed behind me as I stroll in the sky to the edge of the formation. It didn't take too long before I reached 1 of the massive great trees. Previously my perception found 99 great trees in the formation, each localized power into 9 spots in the formations.

With 3 core areas of magic being regulated and then at the castle was where it finally all gathered. I had a specific strategy to reinforce each set of areas to improve the quality of the formations. I went to each tree and released a volley of my devour runes.

They stamped into the tree causing it to ripple as veins of power appeared on it. The restrictions shined on the bark, as my devour runes altered the structure. My eyes shined with a massive microcosm of stars, and on my palm shined my devilish starbug.

A wisp of starlight came from my palm as I slammed it down on the tree. It hummed with power as the veins became filled up with a white light ascending to the top of the tree.

Along the tree appeared various starlights as it shined with a splendorous immortal light. Kathessa couldn't help but be enamored by the beauty as she stared at it with appreciation.

"What did you do?" She couldn't help but ask curiously.

"I reinforced the restrictions to be better aligned with nature, and then I added the power of the stars to increase the durability of the formation." I couldn't help but feel heartache, starlight was very hard to produce even for me.

I would be able to fill up all of the 99 trees and then my starbugs would need at least 1 month to recover. I still had some starlight stored inside of my Astral Cipher, but I still felt the pinch.

"Follow me, we have 98 more trees to reinforce." I said with a disgruntled look as I proceeded off to reinforce the various trees. Kathessa followed feeling further awe at my methods, and the enjoying the beauty of the trees after reinforcement.

They each shined with beautiful starlights, one could only imagine the beauty at night. But with each tree, my displeasure increased, although the thought of the bloodline scripture calmed my thoughts. After a few hours, we finished altering and reinforcing the trees and we proceeded the 9 power points.

Each of these areas, corresponding to the core areas of the kingdom. There were 9 schools for bloodline warriors, Kathessa and I strolled into the first academy. A middle-aged man greeted us and directed us to the center of the academy, where there was a spell circle engraved into the ground.

"This is the power core sire." He said in a polite voice

I disregarded him as I activated my devour runes, a vortex of devouring appeared around me as the runes flew at the power core. The middle-aged man couldn't help but feel surprised, any one of those runes could devour his entire being.

He himself led an academy blessed with managing a power core, the prestige was great. In his heart, he looked down on the expert the king sent to reinforce the formation, but now a deep fear was implanted in his heart.

The formation derived hundreds of new lines as it hummed with intense nomological patterns. This time I released my magical acceleration runes.

The blood red became an intense violet color as magical energy hastened around it. It transformed as a vortex of magical energies wrapped it with an obscure and profound feeling to those unable to see magical energies. It had reached the cusp of perfection!

"Such methods..." The middle-aged man muttered.

"Let's move on." I said with a cold tone as I warped out of the room and went to the rest of the academies to repeat the process. I moved on to the magic regulations areas, which corresponded with shrines for the serpent god along the hills near the castle.

When I reached the first shrine, my perception instantly scanned across finding the core. I entered the shrine and burrowed underground and found a well. I couldn't help but feel suspicious, but when I scanned it I noticed it was condensed magical energy!

Each drop of was the force of thousands of magical hurricanes and yet it was an entire well. I looked along the walls of the well and realized there were some interesting restrictions, they were magical condensation restrictions. I had previously researched the applications of magic in different states, but I couldn't condense magical energy and gave up.

'These beast's methods are quite profound, their understanding of natural law surpasses that of humanity's.' I noticed one fatal flaw was that the energy very quickly dissipated making the gains of condensing the energy only approach 5%. But for a formation of this size, a 5% increase in magical reserves is monumental.

This time instead of releasing my ciphers, I started to form hundreds of hand seals. I went to various places on the well cave throwing hand seals. My goal was to equip the well, with my vessel art and let it contain the magic water.

But the profoundness of my vessel art requires a careful and conscious exertion of force. So I proceeded slowly as I made each hand seal carefully and imprinted them on the well cave. Soon the cave was glittering with various hand shadows, and then the shadows recombined.

The cave lit up instantly as the magic energies rate of dissipation slowed down by 33%. Slowly the water started to rise as the cave started to fill up and seal.

I quickly left with Kathessa waiting outside the shrine. We proceeded to the next 2 caves and I repeated the process at the point of completion the sun had set and it was completely dark. Excluding the starlights that shined from the formation glittering in the night sky.

"Truly beautiful sire, thank you for your help." Kathessa said affectionately she enjoyed the beautiful sight, but I remained unfazed. Though the sky was beautiful it was merely a construct, it was nothing worth admiring.

My perception scanned the edge of the formation, as my face lit up with a devious smirk. I saw an approaching army of snake men, in the skies were banners of a massive 9 headed hydra, each of its heads held a different power as it controlled destructive powers.

"Looks like the tide is incoming..." I chuckled as I warped to the castle leaving Kathessa alone in front of the 3rd shrine. I bypassed every guard and protection as I appeared in the throne room. The various nobles looked with concern as I suddenly appeared, they raised their weapons ready to attack.

"Stop!" The old king roared as his bloodline power took away their ability to respond. He looked at me with hope as he ignored the frozen nobles.

"Are you here for the array core?" He asked he had seen my transformations of the formation and felt increasingly sure of his decision.

"Yes, I have one last alteration to make." I said with a devious smile, I would get to test out an interesting concept.

"Okay, here it is." He said as he tossed a disk was grafted with various patterns of serpents and at the center was the legendary world-devouring serpent. I smiled as I released every devouring rune I had and slammed into the disk, it started to rapidly shake as the runes reluctantly fused with the array.

"What do you intend to do with that." The old king asked anxiously, my method was forceful and wouldn't last he couldn't help but doubt me at that moment.

"It's better if I show you, I have an idea to help you with the incoming army. But this will only last for a very short while." I said with a devious smile, considering my terrifying methods the old king just wryly smiled and sat back in his throne.

My perception went into the array disk as it started to fuse with the formation granting me even stronger control than earlier. I looked out at the approaching army and noticed the young man in black robes with red flames along his body.