33 Risen#re

Over the years things had slowly returned to normal in the empress's manor, she pushed through all the accusations laid on her about foul play in the candidates' games, and with time even Efrideet was forced to stop her malicious attacks.

Taliyah regretted not killing that woman the moment she became empress; her advisors and husband made a big deal about how it would negatively affect her reputation, but they failed to mention the continues problems she would cause.

Of course, an empress ought to show mercy at times but that one moment of mercy had led to over three thousand years of annoyance so far and there would certainly be no end to it until Efrideet was dead at her feet.

She looked at the pod data with a worried glance, 72 open energy points was already a terrifying number and in the past years Lirian had admitted to her that the number was fake, for a second she thought that he used some godly technique to make it look like more energy points were open in his body than there really were but the truth was sometimes terrifying.

She had managed to open a total of 63 energy points in her lifetime, which was on top of her 23 naturally opened points giving her a grand total of 86 open energy points but he told that 107 of his energy points were open and that the last one could open at any time.

Due to that, he had been holed up in his room over the entire school holidays, he didn't even come out to celebrate his 15th birthday at the beginning of the year, while he had been found on the first day of the nineteenth month of the year his official birthday was in the new year when he was adopted.

While lost in her thoughts she felt a sudden change in the energy within the entire manor, it was being compressed tightly and the walls of the manor began to rattle violently, she could hear her teacup chattering away and her desk slowly began to tremble.

She followed the source and found that all the servants and her aides were moving in the same direction, the disturbance was alarming and it wouldn't be long before it spread to the neighboring manors and mansions.

When they saw that the energy on the top floor had been completely dyed silver they all sighed, it was Lirian again with one of his experiments, when they saw the empress, they quickly went back to their own work, they knew that she would take care of it and Lirian would be unable to sit around for a day or two.

Taliyah didn't care that he was a former god anymore, he wanted to be a child so she punished him like one when he misbehaved, she pushed through the energy and got into his, "Lirian we have spoken about this a hundred times already, no more..." she stopped in a stupor and looked at him, ", are you cultivating!" she shouted.

Lirian opened his eyes slowly to look at her, he frowned as he heard her words it was the most important part now and he couldn't afford to break his concentration, what was worse was that his mother was disrupting the natural flow of the energy and it was affecting his progress if he failed now it would set him back by a decade.

He furiously shook his head but Taliyah kept disrupting the energy flow, "Stop breaking the flow," he yelled quickly hoping it wouldn't damage his concentration, he didn't have the time to be respectful and in that single instant, he almost lost control.

Taliyah frowned but stopped fighting against his energy control and slowly the tension on his face vanished as the energy rushed into him, on closer inspection she realised that he wasn't cultivating but rather using the energy to do something.

A loud pop resounded in the room and every glass object shattered violently, the glass shards shred through the bed and curtains and rammed themselves into Lirians body, but he merely started to laugh wildly.

Taliyah looked on with worry, she tried to use her energy to stop the glass shards, but the energy disappeared as if it never existed, 'a tribulation', she realised.

She couldn't feel any difference in Lirian at all his life hierarchy was the same as before an ordinary mortal but she couldn't understand why he triggered a tribulation.

Lirian started to laugh erratically and his laughs began to sound like a man experiencing an orgasm, one after the other he seem lost in absolute bliss as the glass continued to shred through his flesh and vibrate as it sunk deeper and deeper into his flesh.

"YES, YES, YES!" Lirian howled in ecstasy, ", that's the freaking stuff," he murmured with a shaking voice like a drug addict that was getting his first taste of crack in years.

Lirian could feel the energy coursing through his body, it was so desirable and his entire body yearned for it, all he needed to do was grasp onto it and start to fill his body it was that simple.

The voices screamed at him to grip onto the power and take it for himself, he created this wild surge and it belonged to him, as the shards buried themselves deeper into his body he laughed more and took pleasure in the pain it was truly bliss.

He contemplated on what techniques he should use to absorb the energy, he couldn't use any esper or second accord technique he didn't have the time to set up for them and by the time he was ready to use those techniques, the energy would fade away.

As he made his decisions, he felt all the energy around him being siphoned away and a blood-curdling rage took over inside of him, "Who dares to take what is mine!" he growled, his eyes had lost their clarity and he looked at the person who took his energy away savagely, all he wanted to do was rip the thief's throat out and pummel them.

As he unleashed his killing intent the system released a shock throughout his body that stabilized his mind, he blinked in surprise, "Mom," he whispered while looking at her distraught face.

Trickles of cold sweat came rolling down her face and she sunk to her knees while trembling, she had stopped him from absorbing the energy because the consequences would have been severe for both of them, she couldn't allow it to happen but as soon as that killing intent feel on her she felt like a little child all over again.

She remembered well, how the fire fell on the fields like rain and traveled across the ground like the tide, it swallowed person after person, and her youngest brother who was out in fields melted into a puddle in a single second.

That was just the beginning of the nightmare as more and more elements fell onto the village from above, the people fled in a panic and caused only more deaths.

The killing intent reminded her of that day when she saw so many things, she couldn't even fathom, for in that killing intent she saw the embodiment of savagery and destruction, there were images of beings dancing in her head, dancing with the laws and riding them like the tides, there were tens of thousands of them all attacking a single figure shrouded in death.

With the smallest of movements, he broke their godly formations, and with a single hand, he crushed their throats and made them crumble into dust.

A god brandished his sword at the man, but he just shrugged as the sword smashed him in the chest with one hand he caught the god and completely overpowered him, he pulled the god closer and bent his neck in an odd angle, and buried his face in the god's neck.

Streaks of divine ichor poured into the man's mouth and stained his perfect white teeth all the while he smiled in pleasure while a motley cloth of flesh hung from his lips.

He moved again and pulled out his own sword this time.

When he swung his sword the world parted for him and blood rained down on his body, it sank into his flesh, and streams of steam rose up from his body fuelling his power, with every kill he only grew stronger and his blood lust became insatiable.

Piles of corpses began to litter the world behind the man, it slowly grew larger and larger no matter what the gods did they were only adding to the growing mountain but still they rushed in blindly like they had lost all reason in the face of the devil.

He stepped forward onto the sea of blood making great ripples that formed violent tides of red, coursing into his body endlessly, and raised his hands with an ecstatic look on his face.

He closed his fists with deliberate slowness as the gods who saw this began to flee in terror and cowardice, he smiled at their futile struggle but he had finally grown bored of the weaklings.

When he clenched his fists tightly the skies went dark and the stars were snuffed out leaving not a trace of light as every part of the world collapsed upon itself and reality folded in defeat.

In the end, not a single god could withstand his simple strike and withstand his imposing pressure.

The man in the shadows remained alone and his laugh echoed in the nothingness like a resounding bark, it was a laugh she had come know well a laugh she had come to love.

When she came to, she was lying on Lirians bed it was a complete mess, the bed had been shredded to pieces and Lirian was watching over her with worried eyes, his body was covered in golden-red blood but the glass shards had all vanished as soon as the tribulation passed.