CHAPTER 171: GREAT OPPORTUNITY

Everyone listened and took a deep breath. Howlyn looked at Darian, then nodded: "It’s possible to use this place’s connection to reach the Divine Dragon Academy. But... I can’t manipulate celestial corruption anymore without my abyssal heart."

"Hmm... if you teach me how to do it, and explain more about this celestial corruption, I should manage."

Darian answered casually. She had already said that celestial corruption was the raw power created by the Celestial Shadow. It wasn’t like normal corruption, but the supreme version the Risen Lords used.

She nodded and explained that the goal of all Risen was to evolve until they could control that power. The corruption in their bodies was like a basic level 1 version, while celestial corruption was level 100.

According to her, the abyssal heart of the Risen Lords could distort the universe’s laws. Using karma as fuel and mixing it with elements and energies from the environment. That’s why all life in the galaxies was wiped out. The Risen Lords turned everything into celestial corruption.

An entire galaxy created just a little bit of that... and that was already enough power to easily beat a Spiritual Guardian with eight rings.

Howlyn explained everything in detail. It only took ten minutes for Darian to nod.

Soon, a small black sphere appeared. Then he focused on using his rings to interact with the environment.

The sphere gained purplish-red tones.

Howlyn’s eyes widened. That was exactly celestial corruption!

"This is like a weaker version of my raw black power. But... since it’s identical, it might be useful." Darian muttered.

Creating this thing for fighting was completely useless, but it had its uses for tricking the Risen now. It was like getting a key that could open many doors in this universe.

"Great, now I should be able to get there without drawing immediate attention." He said and looked into Howlyn’s eyes. "Before anything... what exactly is all this on this planet? Those sealed Spiritual Guardians... on the other planets... are there more like them in the same situation?"

"Yes. In every galaxy with Academies, there are four groups of them sealed so we can make use of their ring power. I know because I was the one who created this method." She said, taking a deep breath.

"Before, the Spiritual Guardians were all killed. Sometimes we managed to capture a few and use their ring power. The weapons with cores were made with that power, along with other artifacts... and it was the Spiritual Guardians themselves who taught the Celestial Shadow’s will how to use their ring power."

Darian snorted. The traitors from his universe had done everything possible to screw this place over.

She continued: "Because of my mutation, I was the only Risen who could perfectly manipulate life energies. It was using that ability that I kept rising and moving up in rank among them. When I became a Risen General, I had the idea to create all this... since it was really hard to capture live Spiritual Guardians. This way, we just needed to gather a group and use them forever."

Darian understood. That seal and mechanism used life energy to keep them alive, and even that forest needed it to stay up. The Risen couldn’t manipulate that... but she could. That’s why Howlyn became valuable and took advantage of it.

She looked straight into Darian’s eyes, serious: "When I came up with this plan, the Academies were already full of traitor Spiritual Guardians. Since I was the leader and organizer of all this, I swear: I only sealed the ones who were traitors. Even when normal ones were brought in, I found ways to kill them and say it failed. These people sealed here deserved this punishment."

Everyone who heard that nodded. It was cruel, but traitors didn’t deserve much pity. How many lives had been lost because of their actions?

Nobody doubted her words. They could feel her genuine loyalty. Besides, Niara would’ve sensed if she was lying.

Darian quickly had an idea: "Can I pull them out of the seal? Can you hold everything for a while without alerting the enemies?"

Howlyn nodded yes.

He smiled slightly and turned, leaving. Everyone followed him, and soon they reached the surface again.

He turned to those weapons inside the huge pit. There were thousands, and two-thirds already had a core. According to Howlyn, every few years, the Risen Commanders came to the planets with this setup and took all the weapons with cores, leaving new ones behind.

The next pickup would be soon. He got lucky having so many ready, so he started storing all the weapons with cores in the space rings that were still empty. He was already running out of space for new things.

In the end, he focused on those sealed Spiritual Guardians. His black power flowed out, and then he created dozens of shadow runes.

These people had been sealed there for several centuries. Being almost pure souls now, they were semi-conscious, like stuck in an endless dream. In that "dream", they felt soul pain and constant agony. They had gone through a long punishment... now they were getting a chance.

The runes touched their bodies. At the same time, Howlyn nodded, touching the chains. All the spikes on them exploded, and the chains didn’t create new ones, like nothing had happened.

That whole thing was a simple inscription she had set up. Just using life energies, she could control it all.

In two seconds, the whole place got loud. The Spiritual Guardians opened their eyes after countless years. Then they felt their souls burning. Roars of pain came from them nonstop.

They saw their crimes, suffered more and more.

After just a few minutes, Darian smiled, satisfied. They all accepted that rune, understanding their guilt in all of it. They’d had plenty of time to think, sealed in that semi-conscious state.

Darian nodded. Sixty-six shadow spirits were created and stored. His black ring trembled, getting way stronger.

Normally, when he used that rune, it was always on hateful people he wanted to make suffer, not for recruiting. Because of that, he barely got 1% of what he should. Evolving the ring like that was gonna be tough.

Now, with these traitors captured for so long, he got a great opportunity to farm shadow spirits. Howlyn was the one who set all this up, and in every galaxy with Academies, there should be four places full of them.

From what he felt in the ring... if he could recruit everyone from the other three planets in this galaxy, he should get close to the evolution point. Then all he’d need was to devour a lot of karma and evolve the white ring. But... if he succeeded, there’d be no shortage of Risen to devour and get the final push.

The path to reach the top started getting clear for Darian. The first step was to take the Divine Dragon Academy.

He turned to the whole group.

"Might sound crazy to invade that Academy. But it’s our only real shot. Trying to go to another galaxy now would be suicide." He said openly what he thought. "I’ve got a plan against that lily. It’s a natural lifeform, and because of its power nature, we can exploit its weakness."

Darian had a lot of random knowledge about things no one had a clue about. All coming from that book. Meru’s mother wrote it just to give him some help, putting in tons of technical details. Now he’d use that in his favor again.

"As for that Celestial Shadow’s will... it’s got no real power on its own, and we’ll catch it by surprise. If we can get just a few minutes, it’ll be enough to reach the core and block reinforcements. Then all we’ll need is to activate the Academy core and the galaxy’s inscription again."

He spoke, and Howlyn still looked confused. The core’s power came from the Divine Dragon’s bloodline. It wasn’t just for storing power... the bloodline was the base of everything. Without any of it left, it’d be impossible...

"As for the core and the inscription," Darian said, looking at Howlyn, "My partner can handle it. She’s got a ridiculously pure bloodline and can do things only the Divine Dragon could."

Niara took a deep breath, lifting her chest. Neither she nor Darian really knew if they could pull it off... but yeah, there was a solid chance. The problem was... they wouldn’t have much time to think, or the enemies would catch them.

"Anyway, Howlyn, I’ll count on your help. Now and later." He finished firmly. She nodded, clenching her fists and trusting him completely.