Chapter 97: Zareth
Azrael scoffed at the words he heard in his mind.
This was his soul bound sword, Zareth.
"What is that?" The sword asked. "You can return me to your sword heart if you do not like being with me."
Azrael sighed. "Again with this threat?"
"Hehehe."
Azrael did not dawdle.
He got into action immediately.
"Full release," he said, straightening his posture. "True Decree."
The entire space seemed to black out.
Even though it was within the sacred space of Azrael’s Sea of Consciousness, the power did not care.
The eye on the sword opened fully, faster than any mortal eye could follow.
A rip tore through the space itself in the next moment, as if it could not carry the weight of the eye opening within it.
Azrael remained still as he felt his essence begin to drop at a rate he could not maintain for long.
He stayed calm regardless.
Then he swung.
"Collapse," he said.
His slash seemed to enforce those words as the arc of essence shot through the air.
Everything it passed through was reduced to nothingness.
A pitch black void.
The arc hit the remainder of the star, and for a moment, there was no change.
Not a single shift in the star’s structure.
But it did not stay that way for long.
As if being pulled by a cosmic vacuum, the star began to collapse into dust.
Even the dust was destroyed before it could drift far from its source.
Azrael watched as the star crumbled to nothing.
He deactivated the full release instantly and the eye on the sword snapped shut as if it had never been open.
"I understand that you are grateful to me," Zareth said with a prideful voice. "So why do you not let me drink the blood of your next enemies? You do not need to use your fists and act like a barbarian."
Azrael’s brows twitched. "What is barbaric about using your fists?" He asked.
"It is so crude. It can never match the elegance of a sword."
Azrael ignored the sword.
’Seems like I am surrounded by proud inanimate beings,’ he sighed to himself.
"You know I can hear your thoughts," the system said, as if to remind him.
Azrael nodded.
"You can return now. Seems like I do not need you anymore," Azrael said with a smile as he looked at the empty space in the sky where the star had been.
"Wait, you promised to get me a sheath if I ever helped you destroy this star! Remember!" Zareth’s voice filled his mind as it disappeared from his palm in a flicker of white flames.
"I will get you one. That was a promise," Azrael replied to the air.
"One month of daily effort. That was how long it took me to destroy the first star," Azrael muttered with a sigh. "Too long. I wonder how long the others will take."
His gaze drifted to the next star, then the one beyond it, then further still.
The increase in size was exponential, not linear in any sense.
From the second star, it was already more than three times the first. The third was more than ten times the second.
He could not help but shiver as he looked at all of them.
"No wonder people spend so long at tier six. If you have to destroy all of these to reach tier seven, how long would it take?"
He made a quick estimate.
"Five years."
He gasped as the reality of it settled.
All the time he had spent in this world did not even amount to half of that, and that was what he needed for a single breakthrough.
"That’s too long," he sighed.
If anyone else were here, they would have vomited blood at the absurdity of what Azrael had just said.
A realm where most people spent close to a hundred years to advance through, and he was speaking so lightly of it.
He stopped thinking about advancement and focused on what he had just unlocked.
It was a simple skill, but one Azrael had suffered from countless times since arriving in this world.
The very first thing that had made him fear when he got here.
The ability to apply pressure to weaker beings.
A skill that imposed the weight of a person’s manifested Sea of Consciousness onto a target.
Looking at his own manifested Sea of Consciousness positioned beside the great silver river, he could not help but sigh.
What he had could barely fill a cup.
That was how little it was.
Looking around, Azrael groaned.
According to everything he knew and everything Jasmine had taught him, increasing the manifested Sea of Consciousness required increasing one’s mental stability.
As he thought of this, a smile surfaced on his lips.
’How can someone like Jasmine consider herself mentally stable?’ he mused, shaking his head at the paradox.
"How do I even increase mental stability?" He wondered, stroking his beardless chin in contemplation.
’I will never understand why all of them always say I will figure it out myself,’ he sighed.
Books, Jasmine, everyone he had consulted had given no detailed explanation on how to improve mental stability.
All they ever said was that the person would figure it out along the way.
Just then, he felt a slight disturbance in his body.
It was as though something were chipping at him slowly from the outside.
"Seems like my time here is up," Azrael sighed.
He willed himself out of the Sea of Consciousness instantly, not daring to stay a moment longer.
His body began to fade in the next instant, breaking apart like a glitch in reality.
Azrael’s body sat in the same position it had been left in, unmoving, as if life had been snuffed out of it.
But it was not for long.
A sudden jolt traveled through him.
His eyes fluttered open, taking in the sight of the bedroom slowly.
He remained still, choosing to sit with the silence for a moment.
Glancing outside, everything had gone dark.
He pushed forward from the headboard and lay down properly.
Thoughts of the next day began to form in his mind but could not take hold for long before he drifted into a deep sleep.