Chapter 178: Cursed God (3)
The aquatic form of the cursed god was unlike anything Ki Song had seen before.
It was a fusion of a shrimp and a jellyfish, one that was gargantuan in size and strangely, ethereal Blue in color, with many terrifying sharp legs that resembled tentacles.
'This is exactly why I don't venture into the storm sea too often...'
Out of all the creatures in existence, those who survive in the depths of the oceans are the most harrowing.
With a grimace, Ki Song rushed towards the surface of the water in her Transcendent form, attempting to escape the pursuit of the terrifying god.
Hundreds of tentacles rose to follow her, spreading mist wherever they touched... However because they could do that, a horde of shark like abominations suddenly slammed into the cursed devil and started tearing apart its tentacles.
There were around a hundred of them, and each possessed a malevolent will behind them... It was only natural, as they were Ki Song's puppets.
Those were nightmare creatures that had died when she and the cursed god dropped from the sky like missiles. And because they died in her domain, they became a part of it.
The sharks were merely corrupted and fallen in rank but they should be able to help Ki Song...
That was because the cursed god was incredibly injured.
Its spirit had been damaged by Ki Song's will, and its body had been poisoned by beast's god blood.
If Ki Song's plan works right now, she'll be able to defeat it.
The cursed devil entered into a fierce struggle with the sharks, and Ki made sure to use her incredible adaptability to its fullest.
She had a few aquatic puppets in the storm sea, though she was not as proficient with them as she was with her other puppets.
No matter, she made sure to use each shark with careful navigation. All one hundred of them moved accordingly and skillfully, without obstructing the path of the others, to unleash vicious blows.
But even then, this pitiful number of creatures could not possibly harm the injured spirit.
The concept of stagnation froze most of the sharks, and at the same time it tore countless of them using its tendrils.
Ki Song did not feel too worried about that.
Her main body finally reached the surface and escaped the water. Landing on the ground, she assumed her human form and removed her helmet, breathing the fresh air.
She quickly summoned a memory from her soul sea – a supreme one that looked like a deadly crimson spear, inscribed with ancient runes.
Then, Ki Song cut herself and poured blood all over the icy grounds.
The blood rose and transformed into identical sharp spears, that were strangely too thick.
Ki Song gripped her supreme memory spear, and pointed it to the water.
As she did that, the hundreds of other spears rose to the air as well, controlled by her will.
She augmented her body with soul essence and then, she threw the spear into the water. The blood spears followed it one by one, until there was an army of crimson projectiles heading towards the abomination.
The cursed god finished off the last shark, and looked at the projectiles heading towards it.
Its sinister will washed over the spears, stopping some of them and freezing them in place. However, some had survived the cursed will, those were protected by Ki Song's own will.
The spirit of stagnation swam fast and evaded the spears, but just then, all of the spears, except one, exploded into thousands of bloody tentacles.
They each spread through the sea, rushing close to the devil and surrounding it from all directions.
If someone looked at the scene from afar, they would've noticed that the blood tentacles were forming an orb like net around the cursed god.
But that was not all.
The supreme spear rushed forward once again, guided by Ki Song through an enchantment, and hit the carapace of the devil.
Its second enchantment, which was to poison the blood of anything it touched, activated.
The spear was simply there to slow down the devil for a brief moment, and it did its job splendidly.
The net of blood finally finished, trapping the cursed god in place for a few moments.
That was all Ki Song needed.
A thin line of blood dove down and connected to the net, then, Ki Song pulled back with all of her supreme might, yanking the net, and the devil, out of the water.
The cursed god let out a horrifying, sickly scream as it was pulled out of the water and slammed into the ground.
The surface it had slammed into was surrounded by countless blood spikes, piercing its carapace even more.
Ki Song recalled her spear memory and looked at the creature... It was slowly dying, with the blood of beast poisoning it and the supreme poison adding even more fuel to it, it didn't have much more to live.
But more importantly, it was ki song's will that did most of the job, decaying the devil's existence.
Soon enough, its form glowed brightly, and shrunk down, reverting to that of the young woman ki Song had seen earlier.
Standing above the innocent looking girl, ki Song looked at her coldly for a few moments.
The young woman looked so innocent at this moment. Gentle and kind, like a loving goddess who blessed and adored her people.
No one would have guessed that she was a cursed god.
Then, without any mercy, ki Song stabbed the girl in the head with her spear.
The girl's dark eyes widened at first, before becoming more relaxed and suddenly, they briefly turned radiant.
Death washed over her body and cleansed her soul of corruption.
[You have slain stagnation.]
[You have received a memory.]
Ki Song was slightly startled by the spell notification.
And why wouldn't she? She has just gotten a sacred memory from the nightmare spell for the first time in her life.
Ki song had slain cursed ones before but no memories came from them, so this was a new experience for her.
More importantly, she now possessed a relatively intact body of a god which meant that there was a chance she could claim it as a part of her domain.
Ki Song bent over and extracted the four sacred soul shards, then, she allowed her authority to wash over the body of the dead god.
Its will, soul, shadow and spirit were gone, so in theory it should've been possible for Ki Song to claim it.
However it was not easy to do so. Her authority extinguished the last traces of the cursed god's will and ki Song's blood finally ran through its viens, and then...
The corpse stood up.
Ki Song let out an exhale as she felt her senses settle into her new puppet.
She was possessing the body of a god, something that was unheard of in history.
The dead body did not have the will of the cursed deity, nor did it have any of its abilities, however it still had the physical prowess of a sacred devil. Moreover, with ki Song's aspect and will augmenting it, she was no different from a pseudo spirit.
She clutched her pale hand, and then summoned a memory robe over the naked body of the sacred god.
Controlling a naked body, mortal or sacred, was unsightly, to say the least.
'Now for the main meal...'
Ki Song pulled her runes to check on her new memory.
Name: Ki Song
True Name: Ravensong
Rank: Supreme.
Soul Core: Supreme.
Attributes: [The blood], [Flames of divinity.], [puppeteer.], [sanguine monarch.], [Crimson soul]
Aspect: [Old blood.]
Aspect rank: Supreme.
Aspect description: [You are a creature of blood. Born in blood and bathed in it, you shall leave no corpse unturned. Both the blessings and the curses of blood are yours to command.]
Aspect abilities: [Decay], [Puppeteer.], [transference.], [ocean of blood.], [Domain of the dead.]
Domain: [Death.]
Domain members: [Stagnation], [Blood puppets], [blood wasp.]....[Beastmaster.], [lonesome howl], [Lightslayer.], [Death singer.], [Moonveil], [Silent Stalker], [sieshan], [Dire Fang]...
Memories: [Gàe bolg], [Mantle of blood.], [poison heirloom.], [chalice of blood]...
Ki Song had amassed thousands of memories over the years and so she had to scroll down to find the newest addition to her collection.
"There you are..."
Memory: [Song of ice.]
Memory rank: Sacred.
Memory type: tool
Memory description: [The three faced daughter of winter looked upon her father.
"The daemons have waged war upon the great gods and their armies are marching across the mortal realms. Isn't it time for us to take sides, oh dearest father?"
Her father was seated calmly atop his celestial throne.
"No. The other gods might ally behind the banners of the daemons, or perhaps join the side of the great gods, but it matters not. At the end of the day, doom shall consume them all." He looked into the stars and made a prophecy. "Once that happens, we will bring a new age of salvation, you and I."
His daughter, despite her immense power, did not believe his words.
"But father, how can we bring an age of salvation when our nature is rooted in stagnation and winter?"
"Did you climb the path of ascension to waver now?" The god of winter asked. "Upon my name, none shall enter our frozen realm, and our people shall not be harmed, as well."
And so, winter refused the call of war, remaining neutral and avoiding both sides.
A decision that the daemon of destiny had not been fond of, and so, the vile daemon tore his way into the realm of ice and winter, destroying everything in his sight untill he reached the god of winter.
And once he did reach him, the prophecy of ice was broken by the words of destiny.]
Ki Song read the runes with an intrigued expression.
The memory spoke of a divine god, and his daughter, who was most likely the spirit of stagnation. It also spoke of their refusal to take up arms during the doom war.
'He wanted to let the gods and daemons kill each other and rule what remained... But it seems Nether had other plans.'
From what she knew about the sinister daemon, he did not take no for an answer. You are either with or against him.
Perhaps he killed the deity, even, but he seemed to leave stagnation alive, for some reason.
The pair of father and daughter also seemed to be humans in origin, who had ascended to the rank of gods through long years of cultivation.
'Foolish... But I suppose it doesn't matter anymore.'
They were both dead now.
Memory enchantments: [Legacy of stagnation.], [sacred promise], [Heart of cold.].
Ki Song summoned a memory called [Creepy eye] which allowed her to read memory enchantments.
[Legacy of stagnation] enchantment description: [When activated, this enchantment freezes the owner of this memory in place, in that state, they become invincible to all forms of attacks.]
'An active invincibility enchantment... I can think of a few tricks.'
Thanks to her Awakened ability, ki Song has various ways of interacting with memory enchantments.
For example, if she was frozen in place in one body, but the others were still moving, would the enchantment work? Or will it freeze all of her puppets at once?
She would need to study it further.
[Sacred promise] enchantment description: [This Memory infuses authority over ice into the wearer's Domain. The extent of this authority depends on the might of the Domain.]
Ki song's eyes widened and a terrible grin spread over beautiful face.
An enchantment adds another authority to the domain of a sovereign was unheard of
With this, she would have an advantage over Anvil and the Dreamspawn.
'By authority it seems it'll be similar to my control over death.'
Now that she had this ring, she could function even better with the body of stagnation.
[Heart of cold] enchantment description: [The wearer of this ring can turn their blood into ice.]
'It's like I ordered a tailor made memory from Vale...'
She remembered when she used to do that, actually... Her, Vale, Aster, Smile of Heaven and... Broken Sword.
Letting out a sigh and studying the ring, Kki Song turned back and was about to leave.
She did not want to go deeper into the frozen wasteland, especially with how damaged her spirit and soul were right now.
As she was about to leave, Ki Song suddenly froze, feeling a chilling presence wash down upon her.
It was as if something vast and invisible enveloped her, effortlessly breaking her formidable defenses — the great fortress wall built around her mind, as well as the deep moat filled to the brim with her sinister Will.
She instinctually raised her head like a cowering beast, and as she did, her eyes widened.
In the fragmented skies of the frozen wasteland, the cracks in reality strangely aligned, almost as if they were forming a window...
And behind that window, was a gargantuan slithered blue eye, staring down at Ki Song like she was an insignificant ant.
And to it, she was no different from an ant.
A universe of corruption.
'A-an unholy one...'
Ki Song's body was still frozen in place but her supreme mind allowed her to process the situation.
The unholy one was in close proximity to stagnation, and so it must have been the once radiant god known as the god of winter.
From the look of it, he had survived his battle with Nether and fell into corruption, becoming a profane deity.
'No... A mere divine human could never withstand the power of a daemon...'
Aside from the gods, the daemons were the strongest beings of their ranks. And so, Nether must have spared the god of winter...
And instead of killing him, he simply destroyed his kingdom, broke the divine god and imprisoned him.
That prison was far more effective than anything she could imagine, as it had withstood the test of time even though eons has passed since the doom war.
Ki Song retreated immediately, not staying longer to gaze upon the unholy one, or be gazed upon by it.
She withdrew her authority, as well, leaving the frozen wasteland immediately.
Reaching the outskirts of Ravenheart, she exhaled with a pale face and looked at her sacred puppet.
Ki Song was face to face with an unholy god and for a fraction of a second, she realized that she was nothing. All she had built, all she had cultivated over the years...
Her aspect, her domain, her spirit... It all meant nothing in front of an unholy god. One that was sealed and weakened at that.
But she knew that won't be the case for long...
Whatever sorcery was keeping the dreadful creature locked wouldn't last forever, and one day the unholy one would descend upon humanity, perhaps to seek vengeance for his daughter, or perhaps to lay waste to everything.
When that day comes, she would not be able to defend humanity as a mere supreme.
She needed to go beyond that.
She needed to become a god.