Luka's Ambition

"But how is that possible? The energy to maintain such a thing can't be cheap." Minos said.

"Smart fellow, you're right again, which is exactly why I had to unfortunately cut off the energy supply to my followers, redirecting it back to myself."

"But why, what is the goal of all this?"

"Goal? What else could it be then to go against the accursed heavens!" The voice said, tinged with a deep sense of anger and rage.

"The heavens, what do you mean?"

"What could you understand as a human? While you're people aren't the most gifted in terms of cultivation, they still dwarf us Lukalu's."

"I originally thought that through technological ascension, even us Lukalu could reach the heavens, but how naive I was…"

"While I have never given up on the brilliance of the machine, I have to acknowledge that this path is simply too difficult, even for someone like me."

"In comparison, traditional cultivation has long since been a path that has already proven its potential, so why fight against the tides?"

"So you were trying to change the Lukalu people's natural talent?" Minos asked, both shocked and amazed at the audacity of such a grand scheme.

"Exactly. Though my study of the body went without much problem, the soul, alas it's always the soul."

"Talent isn't simply a physical manifestation, this is only the most superficial understanding. Rather it goes deep into the soul, and without having a soul that matches the body, you end up with…"

"With what?" Minos asked.

"A monster…" The voice replied, somehow causing the silence in the large cave to become even more apparent.

"Monster? Where?" Minos asked, his guard once again raised.

"Don't worry, that all happened a long time ago, by now those monsters have long since succumbed to time, unfortunately the devastation they caused was something I could never forgive myself for…"

"So is that what happened to your people?"

"Yes… Who knew that after spending a lifetime to create this empire, I would be the very one to destroy it?" The voice said with a laugh, though the deep melancholy within it made it clear that there was no joy here.

"But that still doesn't explain what happened to those Lukalu people outside of this realm?" Minos said as he realized this problem.

"Them? I called them all back when I thought I had figured out the solution, who knew they'd end up caught in the middle…" The voice explained, though Minos felt that such an answer was a little sloppy.

Think about it, even if he could call some people, there would always be outliers who couldn't make it, yet nothing, they were all gone.

Feeling that something was deeply off here, Minos wanted to escape, but before he could, the large voice once again spoke.

"You're very smart, you know that? Though just like me, your intelligence may be more of a detriment than a help."

As the voice said that, the sound of glass breaking began filling the area, green liquid flooding the floors as a few Lukalu people slipped out from their pods.

As their bodies hit the cold floor, they began quaking, their flesh distorting and morphing, expanding in size.

With a large shriek, one Lukalu person directly exploded into a bomb of skin and meat, Minos just barely avoiding the splatter.

Meanwhile, other Lukalu people directly collapsed into puddles of blood and guts, a thick stench of death filling the air.

Just as Minos was beginning to think all of these Lukalu people were duds, one managed to successfully transform, turning into a massive fleshy creature ten-meters tall and nearly just as wide.

"Hahaha, what do you think of my baby? The failure rate may still be high at this point, but success begets more success!"

"What the hell is that thing?" Minos asked, as he slowly backed away.

"Isn't it obvious? It's my masterpiece! After hundreds of years, I've finally created a superior Lukalu, of course their intelligence is a little lacking, but with you here, I should be able to fix that soon." Luka said with an uproarious laugh.

"So this realm was just an elaborate trap?" Minos asked, his pupils dilating.

"I wouldn't call it a trap, that sounds a bit too gruesome, rather it's an experiment, one that you are blessed to be a part of."

"As long as I can understand the connection between body and soul, I'll be able to perfect my people. While the Lukalu body is too weak, making my studies harder than they need be, the human body is just perfect!"

"In the meantime, enjoy your battle with my Lukalu V1, he's quite clumsy, but he makes up for it in strength." Luka laughed, the echoes spreading across the cave.

Looking at the massive beast of a creature that was slowly stomping towards him, causing the earth to quake with each step, Minos didn't attack right away.

He was aware that this thing was just a pawn, and unless he could solve Luka himself, he would just end up fighting waves of these creatures until he was completely exhausted.

Pulling his Heaven-Sunder Sword out, Minos aimed it towards the massive vat with the brain in it, before using the expansion ability to strike directly at the glass.

However, despite the glass looking fragile, it was actually incredibly durable, and Minos's sword, as powerful as it was, only left a small crack on it.

This wasn't to say this glass was stronger than the Heaven-Sundering Sword, but rather the many seals on the blade had left it massively weakened compared to its true form.

"You couldn't have thought things would be that easy, could you? Come on now, you're smarter than that." Luka said with a giggle, as if mocking Minos.

Ignoring his instigations, Minos instead focused on the many tubes that seemed to be supplying the brain the nutrients it required, but after striking one at random, he was appalled to find it was even stronger then the glass.

"Stop with this pointless behavior. Everything to do with my life has been thoroughly refined, so just fight and be a good little experiment."

While Minos wanted to test for more weak points, the large creature had already arrived in front of him, forcing him to divert his attention.

Fortunately, while it was strong, it was incredibly slow and had very poor flexibility, allowing Minos to run around it, slowly grinding it to death.

With a final blow to its achilles heel, the creature let out a painful cry, before collapsing, it's body soon dissolving into a bloody liquid like some of the others.

"Well done, you've killed one, only 999 left!" Luka laughed, shattering more pods and creating more of this creature.

Despite making it look easy, Minos knew he didn't have the stamina to last through a thousand of these things, so unless he could find a way out, he would eventually be exhausted to death.

With his Omniscient Eyes activating at full force and his split souls all operating to find a solution, Minos quickly ran through thousands of different possibilities.

As the hoard of goliath's was arriving, a light suddenly shone from Minos's eyes, his fingers tapping his spatial ring, pulling out a small book.

'I had nearly forgotten about you, but this seems like a good time to learn.' Minos thought with a smile, looking at the book that was titled 'Nine Forbidden Moves of the Sword Saint.'

That's right, after years of not touching this technique, having nearly forgotten about it, it seemed like the time was finally right to give it a read.

It's not that Minos had really forgotten about it, rather his life has been pretty hectic, giving him no good opportunities to learn this technique.

Not to mention he'd been living in relative safety up until this point, making such a powerful technique even less needed.

Seeing Minos pulling out what seemed to be a sword technique, Luka couldn't help but laugh even louder, nearly causing the roof to cave in.

"You want to learn now? It's not that I look down on you, but even if you could master that technique before my creations killed you, I assure you it won't have the power to change your situation."

Not bothered to reply, Minos simply flipped the book over, re-reading through the First Forbidden, Forbidden Thought.

Forbidden Thought was capable of cutting thoughts directly, and more terrifying than that was that if mastered properly, one could permanently sever a thought, essentially erasing it from a person's mind permanently.

If one perfected this technique fully, one could permanently sever all thoughts from a person's mind, leaving them completely brain dead.

It went without saying that such a heaven-defying move was far from easy to learn, and even the Nine Sword Divinity himself spent decades on this technique before he could get started, having never perfected it even until his death.

Having fully memorized the First Forbidden, Minos tucked the book back into his spatial ring, taking a deep breath before beginning to practice it on the first creature that had arrived in front of him.

While these creature's had limited intelligence, their minds were still filled with the thoughts of killing and destruction, which gave Minos something to work with.

Swinging his sword erratically, the blade passed right in front of the creature, leaving no physical damage, but a special sword energy had actually traveled off the sword and into its body.

Unfortunately the energy was incredibly weak at this stage, so after hitting the strongest thought in it's mind, the thought overwhelmed the sword's energy, shattering it.