Hearing Pandora's nonsensical words, even Ryuga stopped in his tracks.
"If you mind, I can use other methods."
Ryuga was quite considerate of his subordinates. Artoria was different from Lancelot—she belonged to the voluntarily following type of servant, naturally deserving special treatment.
Hearing Ryuga say this, Artoria was immediately very moved.
She hadn't expected Master to care about her this much.
She immediately shook her head and glanced at Lancelot.
"Master, you don't need to consider me! In this world, even Lancelot is female, and Guinevere isn't the individual I'm familiar with either. Of course I wouldn't mind—please handle this as you see fit."
This was the truth.
The legendary love triangle from "Arthurian Legend" were all women—such chaotic relationships left her unable to find a place to care even if she wanted to.
Anyway, she wasn't familiar with Guinevere, and the other party was originally an enemy. However Ryuga wanted to handle enemies was his own will.
If she minded this point, she wouldn't have actively captured Guinevere before.
"That makes things convenient."
Seeing that Artoria truly didn't mind, Ryuga continued forward, approaching Guinevere step by step.
"Rakshasa King, don't come over, don't come over!"
Facing Ryuga's approaching step by step, Guinevere retreated step by step.
But after retreating a few steps, she felt herself bump into hard armor. Looking back, it was Lancelot.
"Sorry, my beloved child! I must follow my master's orders."
The female war god directly blocked her path, not letting her leave.
"Uncle..."
Cornered, Guinevere slumped to the ground powerlessly. Watching Ryuga approach step by step, she clenched her fists and looked at Ryuga defiantly.
"Rakshasa King, don't force me. Do you think I really have no power to resist?"
With these words, dragon-serpent-like scales appeared on Guinevere's body surface, and the aura unique to Heretic Gods faintly showed, proving she wasn't lying—she really still had hidden power.
However—
"Resist then! The more fiercely you resist, the more excited I get! Kekekekeke!"
Facing Guinevere's threat, before Ryuga could say anything, Pandora had already assumed a villainous expression.
"Pandora, you're forcing me!"
Guinevere stood up from the ground, her expression much more solemn. Her attitude toward Pandora was no longer respectful.
Ryuga could sense Earth Mother Goddess divine cores condensing within her body.
As a Divine Ancestor, as a descendant of Earth Mother Goddesses, as long as Guinevere had such thoughts, she could abandon the dragon-serpent seal at any time and return to Earth Mother Goddess form.
However, such behavior was irreversible—Guinevere was risking her life to resist.
Facing this rebellious attitude, Pandora's opinion was—
"I am forcing you, so what?"
Seeing that the other party might return to dragon-serpent form at any time, Pandora wasn't panicked but instead showed a triumphant attitude.
"Want to use the Divine Ancestor's hidden method to transform into a Heretic God? Fine, go ahead and transform! For little Ryuga, you as an Earth Mother Goddess are much easier to deal with than you as a Divine Ancestor. Come on, transform!"
As an Earth Mother Goddess herself, Pandora knew exactly how many ways there were to deal with her own kind.
So she understood very clearly that the other party was just bluffing.
If Guinevere dared return to Earth Mother Goddess form, Ryuga wouldn't even need to use his newly acquired technique—he could directly make her a subordinate.
"Damn!"
Having her weakness exposed, Guinevere indeed didn't dare transform.
If she didn't reclaim her divine core, she couldn't resist at all. If she did reclaim her divine core, that would be walking into a trap.
Thus, while Guinevere wanted to resist but didn't dare, Ryuga pierced Guinevere's chest with the Salvation Knife's blade tip.
Using the materials Pandora provided, [Sword Origin]'s plundering technique activated, directly plundering and absorbing all of the Divine Ancestor's spiritual core into Ryuga's body.
Then, the same phenomenon as with Lancelot occurred—under Ryuga's blade, Guinevere was completely reborn as his retainer.
"How about it? Will you tell me the pseudo-god manifestation technique now?"
Seeing Guinevere open her eyes, Pandora came over to ask.
"I absolutely won't do such a thing!"
Guinevere immediately gave an extremely firm response, her tone resolute, her temper exactly the same as before.
However, her body unconsciously walked directly to Ryuga, and after preparing all the knowledge in her mind, she involuntarily puckered her lips as if waiting for Ryuga's favor.
Seeing this scene, Pandora laughed gleefully.
"Hehe, even if you're unwilling with your mouth, your body still has to obediently listen! I love seeing you unable to resist like this."
"Mmm~"
Guinevere wanted to retort something, but the contract originating from her soul made her involuntarily stand on tiptoe, wanting to quickly complete the knowledge transfer.
Ryuga naturally wouldn't refuse his retainer's dedication and directly lowered his head to accept it.
After a while, when the knowledge transfer was complete, Guinevere wore a dejected expression, but her body honestly took out the grail she treasured like a precious jewel.
"This is curse power I've collected for thousands of years, originally intended for the Last King."
Now that she'd become Ryuga's property, she had no choice but to hand it over even if she didn't want to.
Regarding this grail, Ryuga indeed wasn't polite.
"A grail filled with the lives of several Earth Mother Goddesses—once completely absorbed, even an ordinary Campione could grow to a level rivaling the Last King."
"However, this kind of usage purely for filling energy is still too wasteful. Rather than this, what I want to study more is the divine cores."
With [Sword Origin] technique complete, both the Salvation Knife and Magic Grail in hand, plus gaining a knight and a maidservant.
For Ryuga, this harvest was already quite good.
After organizing everything, he refocused on his consistent priority—divine cores.
As mentioned before, Heretic Gods' divine cores were structures formed when certain existences from mythology descended and manifested in the present world.
When Heretic Gods returned to mythology, the gods' own will would depart, but the already condensed divine cores wouldn't necessarily dissipate.
Ryuga had previously explored the core structure inside divine cores and discovered a material structure temporarily named stellar particles, but currently didn't know if this structure had the effects he predicted.
Originally, trying to explore internal stellar particles apart from divine cores was difficult.
Divine core structures were complex, making it hard to eliminate structural interference from the cores themselves.
But now, having completed the full simulated divine core technology from Guinevere, he could create simulated divine cores with exactly the same effects as divine cores.
Through controlled variable methods, it would be easy to find differences between the two.
So the question was: what differences would there be between simulated divine cores constructed purely with curse power and the real divine cores Ryuga possessed?
If stellar particles truly existed inside divine cores, then the greatest difference between ordinary divine cores and simulated divine cores would necessarily lie in the stellar particles!
With this thought, Ryuga began his research.
To be continued...
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