Chapter 734: The Feast of the Abyss
Ethan looked down at the mutilated torsos lying on the ground, a wide grin spreading across his face that revealed teeth sharp as razors.
"It is time to eat," Ethan said.
To the side of the battlefield, Mary, Louisa, and the maidservants stood paralyzed, not daring to make the slightest movement. Although Mary and Louisa knew some of Ethan’s dark secrets, only Louisa had seen him in that terrifying form of black scales before. The young woman trembled slightly, praying in silence that the passionate nights of wild sex they had shared had sown enough affection in him to buy their lives.
Ethan extended his arm, and above his palm, the black sun condensed once more. The floating abyss emitted a deafening hum as its gravitational field began to distort the light around it.
Without hesitation, Ethan targeted Heidy’s body first. The vortex engulfed her instantly, disintegrating her remains in a fraction of a second to nourish the foundation of his cultivation.
Then, he turned his attention toward the living Great Ancestors.
The leader of the Thunder Dragon Sect was first. The black sun descended upon his torso, and agonized screams echoed across the entire valley. Because they were cultivators of such a high level, their vitality and spiritual energy were ridiculously dense; assimilation was far from instantaneous. The old man felt every single second of the process: his skin, muscles, meridians, and bones being crushed and torn apart fiber by fiber before being absorbed into nothingness.
One by one, the elders of the Evergreen, Black Mountain, and Heavenly Sword Pavilion sects suffered the exact same torment. Their screams of despair reverberated through the air as they desperately tried to hold their insides together with their stumps, but the black hole ruthlessly devoured their entire beings, consuming not only their bodies, but also their souls and their knowledge of the laws.
Finally, only Gusher remained.
Unable to move, the Great Ancestor looked up at Ethan with bloodshot eyes, spitting out a mixture of bile and blood.
"Curse you, Ethan! You vile traitor! The entire kingdom will find out what you are, and they will hunt you down to the end of your days!" Gusher cursed, his voice cracking with pain.
Ethan did not bother replying with words. He canceled the black sun and slowly crouched down beside him. The last thing Gusher ever saw in this life was Ethan’s massive jaw, packed with rows of black teeth, opening grotesquely before tearing his head off in a single brutal bite.
As he swallowed the final fragment, Ethan felt his body suddenly condense the overwhelming mass of energy. The invisible chains binding his cultivation began to shatter one by one, while that mysterious and elusive presence of the Dao, previously beyond his reach, finally revealed itself to his mind. It was an instant of absolute enlightenment, akin to the sudden understanding of a doubt that had plagued him for days; the feeling was a violent mixture of pure despair and unbridled euphoria.
In that precise second, he formally advanced into the Dao Manifestation Realm, breaking directly into its first stage: The Incipient Dawn.
Behind Ethan’s back, a colossal figure of pure darkness materialized in the heavens, casting an ominous shadow over the entire region. The faint amethyst glow of his lineage began to be suffocated by the gloom. His dragon tail slowly retracted until it was reabsorbed into his spine, while two dark horns emerged from his forehead and a hard keratin carapace molded over his torso.
Before anyone could behold the result of the mutation, a dense layer of energy condensed around him. A massive cocoon of purple and black enveloped his entire body, emanating a sinister and terrifying aura that made the ground tremble.
In the skies, the spiritual domain that had previously remained split into two exact halves began to shift. The tide of darkness surged with ravenous intensity, devouring every corner of the amethyst domain. But just when it seemed that the purple light was about to vanish completely, the amethyst glow exploded from deep within Ethan’s core.
The amethyst energy reacted savagely, as if the ancestral lineage felt deeply offended by the shadows’ lack of respect. An electromagnetic shockwave repelled all the darkness at once, forcing it to retreat.
Across Ethan’s body, the black carapace resembling obsidian and keratin began to crack with sharp snaps. Amethyst veins fought fiercely to reclaim their territory, embedding themselves throughout the entire organic armor. The bone mask covering his face shattered into a thousand pieces, revealing his handsome face once more—now framed by two dark horns and glowing purple veins tracing across his skin.
The three black holes emerged from his chest and floated into the air, merging with one another into a single mass of unfathomable darkness. At the same time, the amethyst light of his lineage reacted, condensing until it formed a second vortex of pure purple radiance. Both forces collided in the sky in a majestic clash, ultimately collapsing into a single entity: an imposing black hole surrounded by a dazzling and eternal amethyst accretion disk that radiated an aura both celestial and sinister.
The manifestation settled behind his head like a divine halo of destruction.
Ethan’s torso, now firmly sculpted and stripped of grotesque armor, remained bare, traced by glowing veins of amethyst energy that flowed through his arms, neck, and chest like rivers of ancestral power. From his dark hair emerged two crystalline horns tinted in deep violet. His eyes, once dominated by the abyss, now held a serene, cold, and dominant gaze; his amethyst pupils shone with a calm yet lethal glow, reflecting the cosmic halo floating behind him.
With the purple energy disk framing his silhouette against the gloom of the sky, Ethan no longer looked like a mere cultivator or a monster out of control: he floated like a true god of ruin—serene, majestic, and unattainable.
-------------------
From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.
Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.
Body Refinement Realm
Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement
Spiritual Gathering Realm
Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation
Spiritual Core Realm
Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)
Spiritual Soul Realm
Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion
Golden Core Realm
Prime Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction
Spiritual Sea Realm
The Melting Tide / The Tidal Horizon / The Sea Mist Ascension
Dao Manifestation Realm
The Incipient Dawn / Laws of the Domain / Reality Shatter
Spiritual Transcendence
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
------
Sword mastery levels
Sword Intent.
Sword Aura.