ATAPOW Chapter 245
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Chapter 245: Ancestral Reversion Physique
The ruined city-state seared into her mind and the vast amount of knowledge scattered within her — They had become entangled with the sorrow and grudges engraved in her soul, instinctively driving her actions in this moment.
Inexplicable anger and hatred surged out, enveloping and consuming her like a flood that could not be stopped.
Her rationality was gradually consumed by pain tearing at her soul, as an insistent murmuring began to resound in her ears. Though its language was obtuse and difficult to understand, the meaning behind the words had already been etched into her mind.
The tyrannical emotions in her heart raged unchecked. An unexplainable sense of sadness and resentment radiated outwards in all directions, continuously expanding with Cherrywing at its center. It enveloped everyone present, drawing them into its depths.
Her fluctuating emotions whipped the air into a turbulent frenzy, quickly escalating into a raging torrent that cleared away rubble and debris with ease.
“You lowly species! The stench of your inferior body is making me sick to my stomach!” Cherrywing covered her head with half-clenched hands, which were drenched in cold sweat. Her eyes, blazing with murderous intent, pierced through the armored figure’s chest like a pair of sharp swords.
She felt hatred, an inexplicable sense of hatred for the person in front of her.
A steady stream of resentment flowed into her heart, and she found herself incapable of holding onto her sanity, which was gradually slipping away.
But why? She had never met this groveling creature before, so where did this intense and overwhelming feud come from? It felt like someone was manipulating her emotions.
She stared fixedly at the pathetic figure encased in armor. Her intuition told her that the source of this inexplicable hatred laid within this primitive lifeform.
She desired nothing more than to chop him into pieces and vent the emotions in her heart.
To her, Ji Bai was a complete stranger, an insignificant pest who had overestimated his capabilities. Trusting her gut feeling was the only logical choice here.
All she craved in that moment, was to crush this insignificant pest who dared awaken something deep inside her.
“Cower in fear and die, worthless ant.” Cherrywing channeled more [Divine Might] into her spell, the clarity in her eyes swiftly turning murky and vacant.
While memories could be erased and bodies altered, the soul alone remained the core of a living being’s existence, proof it had not been completely obliterated. Could it be, then, that the source of her hatred lay buried within the deepest recesses of his soul?
[Mental Disturbance]
A grating whisper, like a sharp object scraping against glass, wormed its way inside everyone’s mind, filling them with a potent mix of malice and restlessness.
This pervasive mental assault had a vast reach, tainting all living beings with its insidious influence.
The tenacious weeds on the ground swiftly lost their vitality, withering and dying at a speed evident to the naked eye.
The once-fertile soil turned sickly yellow, as if an unseen force was relentlessly draining all its nutrients away.
“Aaaaah!…” The corruption spread through the land and into the hearts of those present, as it preyed on their inner darkness — a vulnerability shared by all.
Such spells that preyed on the mind were rare and exceptionally difficult to master, exacting a heavy toll on those who dared to wield them.
Against those who were masters of both martial and arcane arts, such mental attacks were a particularly effective technique.
As the landscape decayed at an alarming pace, a lone figure stood out in stark defiance.
He rose, clad in armor, his gaze clear and unwavering behind the helmet’s visor. The insidious whispers swirling around him seemed to hold no sway over his mind.
“Hmm? My mental attack has no effect?” Cherrywing’s delicate brows furrowed slightly, as her eyes narrowed like a viper ready to strike.
In truth, it would have been far more surprising if such a trifling mental trick had managed to shake his resolve.
Despite being constantly subjected to all sorts of temptations and pressures to conform, Ji Bai had remained steadfast, like a small sailboat weathering a storm. He might have tossed and teetered at times, but he never lost sight of his true self.
The raging mental assault felt nothing more than a mere ocean breeze to him, a mere child’s play in the face of his resolve. His fortitude and tenacity, forged in the crucible of hardship, would not be extinguished by such a fleeting squall.
As a battle-hardened knight who had devoted his life to his convictions, the battlefield was his home, where the clang of steel and the reek of blood were his constant companions. He would stand tall and unflinching in death, before considering bending the knee to a demon.
“You really have some nerve, lowly maggot.” A hint of seriousness flickered in Cherrywing’s calm eyes.
With his arms severed and his helmet shattered and stained with blood, the armored figure was in a state of utter disarray.
Helpless, Ji Bai could only look up at her from the ground. Yet, his gaze held no fear, no subservience, only an unsettling calm that surprised Cherrywing; she had not expected a lowly human to show such composure.
His inscrutable expression had only served to fuel her frustration.
“How dare you mock me, you insolent ant?”
Her voice was cold and empty, like that of an emotionless string puppet.
Though he did nothing more than look at her, his gaze alone had spurred Cherrywing, now driven purely by instinct, into action.
Her consciousness had completely faded, leaving behind an empty shell controlled by her instincts and desires.
Guided only by those primal urges, she stiffly raised her palm to point at Ji Bai. The light in her eyes was gone, replaced with a desolate emptiness instead.
“…descendants. In the end, you shall have to pay for what you’ve done.”
“In the sinner’s blood, a sacrifice unto the spirits of the valiant departed. In the ashes of the Abyss, a tribute laid before our true ancestors. In the name of the Ancestral Vampire, Lasombra, so it shall be done.”
“Let divine punishment be wrought upon this blighted place.”
[Bronze Primordial Vein of Lasombra — The Divine General’s Wrath]
The dusky sky was ripped open, revealing a massive gash.
A massive, scarlet arm reached out from within, unleashing a pressure so terrifying that it brought the rotation of the stars to a halt.
An onslaught of jarring noises burst forth, heralding a raging storm.
In the same instant, an unseen force siphoned Cherrywing’s blood, funneling it to the arm looming above her.
The limb, conjured at the cost of some of the girl’s blood and immense magical power, belonged to a being called the Divine General — a former subordinate of the Scarlet Lord residing in an unknown plane.
Space itself fractured and yielded around the scarlet appendage, and even the raging storm was cowed into silence by its overwhelming might.
However, the colossal Primordial God towering behind Cherrywing showed no signs of dodging; it was ruthlessly crushed beneath its palm and reduced to nothing but raw magical energy.
‘A bronze-rank Primordial Vein spell…? How is that even possible? To unleash something with the power to irrevocably shatter the world…like it’s child’s play?’
As a mere mortal, Ji Bai felt the overwhelming disparity in their powers more keenly than any other.
The sheer gulf in power between them left him utterly dumbfounded.
She had cast a Despair-class skill, a Primordial Vein skill, and now a Bronze Primordial Vein skill, all in quick succession.
The way she wielded magic so effortlessly made him wonder if her body was some sort of bottomless well.
Even so, a question arose in his mind: Could she truly handle this magic, or was this reckless display just a disaster waiting to happen? When a caster released power that surpassed their control, it could lead to disastrous and irreversible consequences. That was why [Primordial Vein] spells remained the domain of only a select few vampire nobles, and why such magic remained out of reach of commoners with diluted bloodlines.
He stared, dazed, at the silver-haired girl, whose long hair was whipping around her in the wind.
Even Lilias had only cast a single Bronze Primordial Vein spell in front of him.
And yet, here was this girl, unleashing a spell of this caliber with such ease that it made a mockery of everything he knew. While formidable in its own right, basic Primordial Vein spells were still within the realm of mortal understanding; Any being with sufficient magical reserves, including humans, could potentially learn and master them.
But what she wielded was a force beyond the ordinary; This was a Bronze spell, a realm above its basic counterparts in power.
Yet even this was but a glimpse of the heights such magic could reach. Silver, Gold, Epic, Legendary—the sheer scope of the Primordial Vein hierarchy was almost beyond his comprehension.
And as if that was not enough, there were spells that went beyond these established ranks — spells bearing family names, whose power was reserved to those of the same bloodline.
A spell bearing the Lasombra name, for instance, was exclusive to vampires. It was utterly unlearnable by any other race, regardless of time or effort.
Such spells, tied intimately to their bloodline, were as difficult as walking on a razor’s edge; Even the slightest lapse in focus could potentially turn their caster into a withered husk.
Although Ji Bai had read extensively, observing and participating in many battles, the number of [Primordial Vein] spells he had mastered were few and far between.
However, what he lacked in practical mastery, he more than made up for in theoretical knowledge.
If a spell had a name, he was bound to know it.
Yet, despite racking his brain, he could not dredge up a single detail about this magic.
It was completely foreign to him.
‘Where in the world did she come from?’
The palm in the gash descended at an agonizingly slow pace, but Ji Bai showed no intention of escaping.
Against the Primordial skill’s absolute might and suppression, any efforts to escape and resist were futile.
“Crack, crack…”
As the otherworldly might bore down on him, Ji Bai heard his [Radiant Armor] splinter and crack irreparably.
[Bronze Primordial Vein of Lasombra — Oblivion’s Eternal Embrace]
A darkness as deep as the night sky appeared, seemingly devouring every other color in its path.
Like a relentless tide, it surged forth, carrying the undeniable finality of ‘death’ itself while devouring everything in its path: mountains, boulders, even the sturdiest walls, all vanishing without a trace.
This black wave of annihilation, in defiance of all known physics, then surged upward from the earth, tearing a gaping wound in the sky itself.
The magic contained within caused the heavens and earth to change in color.
And then, with one force descending from above and the other surging from below, the two terrifying [magic] collided against each other.
‘Who’s that??’
Ji Bai closed his eyes and dropped his stance, trying to reduce the impact of the blinding purple light that filled the air.
Though spared a direct hit, Ji Bai was buffeted by their powerful aftershocks. His Radiant Armor, unable to maintain its form any longer, distorted as fractures spread across its surface like wildfire.
Even so, the mysterious dark aura showed no signs of abating as it continued to repair his armor.
A constant cycle of destruction and renewal took place alternatively, creating a stalemate.
When the pressure faded away, Ji Bai slowly lifted his head.
The familiar aura he sensed told him all he needed to know without turning around.
A girl, resembling a spirited elf, had appeared. Her long silver hair danced in the swirling gale, carrying scarlet eyes that were filled with an inscrutable meaning.
Her eyes raised, she was staring at the girl whose iris and hair color matched her own.
‘Parasite…’
She was clearly the same person he knew, yet the aura she exuded was completely alien.
But as he took a closer look, he was certain it was Lin. Her long hair and eyes held a purer hue, and a pair of aesthetically pleasing black horns now curved gracefully from her head.
Her appearance had undoubtedly changed, but even more so, was the expression in her eyes, which had undergone a profound transformation.
‘What exactly happened…?’
———————————————
A few minutes ago.
Lin rose, her body fully regenerated and restored. Her gaze fell upon the fractured sky, then swept over Huo Lei clinging to life, Pian Zi lying unconscious, and finally, Ji Bai. He had lost both arms, yet his back remained straight and his spirit unbroken.
A wave of determination washed over her. She pierced the skin of her finger, letting a drop of blood fall onto the spider marking etched on her leg.
As if it had come alive, it began to gorge itself on the liquid, little by little.
At that moment, her body began to undergo a transformation.
———————————————
‘Is that…’
Upon noticing Lin’s changes, Ji Bai sifted through his memory.
The sight before him had evoked a scattered memory from the recesses of his mind.
He recalled reading about this phenomenon inside a textbook.
The vampire race possessed several unique bodily constitutions, including the Flame Demon and Frost Demon Physiques. The Ancestral Reversion Physique, however, was far more subtle in its expression, with considerably fewer side effects than the two.
It would remain dormant except in extraordinary circumstances.
Upon activation, the physique’s unique traits would emerge, drastically boosting the potency of the owner’s bloodline and magic.
‘Don’t tell me this parasite is…’