Is That A Wisp?

"Once I devour her, I'll be able to control us all while we're in demon beast form. That's when our race shall truly become the overlords of the God Realm!" That voice resounded with laughter. "This realm shall tremble just from the mere mention of Spirit Aberrations after that!"

Spirit Aberrations were a mysterious demon beast race that hardly ever interacted with other demon beasts. Then again, although their interactions with people could be counted on one hand, they were recorded in the history of the entire region and beyond. 

After all, every meeting resulted in an unprecedented disaster. They were more or less breathing, living calamities. They weren't called the strongest demon beast race with the greatest room for growth in the God Realm for nothing.

The God Realm was incredibly vast that no one even knew all of the mysterious races in existence. Even though that was the case, the fame of the Spirit Aberrations still traveled far and wide. Alas, a flaw in their demon beast cores prevented them from ever ascending to the Semi-God Realm, not even mentioning beyond that. 

If not for that, they would have decimated the God Realm long ago. Moreover, the flaw in their cores was truly severe. Their human form was even weaker than Silver-Winged Mouses, for they were unable to use any laws in this form.

Moreover, the very moment they swapped to their demon beast forms, they would lose all semblance of intelligence and sentience, turning into mindless monsters that devoured everything in sight. Every interaction of them was recorded as such. 

They raged on throughout the lands until powerful Semi-God Realm cultivators stepped in to eradicate them. Unsurprisingly, decimating the lower realm Spirit Aberrations was no easy feat. They had to work together in groups. 

A group of Semi-God Realm cultivators grouping up to deal with a lone demon beast with a lower cultivation realm. It was a laughing matter if anyone came to know about it. But in retrospect, it showed the terrifying strength of the Spirit Aberrations.

If it wasn't for the fact that they became mindless monsters in their demon beast forms, they would have ruled every place they visited. As their human forms were pitifully weak, they constantly struggled to survive. To overcome their fate, they were in search of Beast Tamers.

Beast Tamers allowed a demon beast to maintain the same sentience and intelligence it possessed while in human form. This was what the Spirit Aberrations desired. Unfortunately for them, every Beast Tamer they had found failed to live up to their expectations.

The Beast Tamers were unable to control them as their mind shattered. And every time that happened, one of their brethren had to remain in their demon beast form and thrash about until it was discovered by the cultivators and eventually killed.

Once they took on their demon beast forms, they had no way of returning to their human forms ever again. Even while giving birth, they had to take a lot of precautions to prevent the one giving birth from going back to their demon beast form.

To add to that, the moment the baby was born, they used all their techniques to forcefully make it take a human form. Considering all the difficulties, their population had dwindled since then. 

The Spirit Aberrations were one of the oldest races living on the God Realm. Their history dated back to the first chaos cycle when the God Realm was still forming. The chaotic laws and the ever-present disorder in it were what birthed the Spirit Aberrations.

Spirit Aberrations were numerous back then. But once the God Realm stabilized, no new Spirit Aberrations were naturally formed. Thanks to their racial limitations, their population steadily dwindled up to the present day, where they now numbered in the double digits.

"This is the first time a cultivator with such divine abilities in the Beast Tamer profession exists." The demon beast in human form stood up, talking with a tone akin to a chorus. "She's the one we have been searching for since time immemorial."

"The God Realm has finally given us the hope we need," the one that seemed to be their leader spoke. "The moment I consume her, I shall become a Heavenly Aberration."

"Heavenly Aberration!" Everyone echoed in joy.

A Spirit Aberration was called a Land Aberration the moment it attained the Godly Fusion Stage. They were known by this name until the peak of the Nascent God Realm. They were called as such since when they assumed their demon beast form, they would take root in the land. And once that had been done, they wouldn't be able to move from that place ever.

The only way for them to move away would be to assume human form and walk away. But since they lost all sanity upon assuming demon beast forms, they were permanently fixed to the region. This was the only reason they could be killed, despite their outstanding strength. 

The cultivators battling it would just spam attacks from a long distance away and slowly whittle it down until it died. The reason why it was feared was that by consuming a cultivator, it would instantly gain the comprehension of all the laws the respective cultivator had comprehended. 

It was a demon beast that became stronger the more it ate. Of course, knowing all the ordinary laws like the elemental ones and time, space, and destiny wasn't rare in the God Realm. Once above the Semi-God Realm, a cultivator and demon best would most likely have comprehended them all already. Nevertheless, time was needed. Being able to comprehend everything by just eating someone was truly shocking.

However, if one of them consumed Krune, it would instantly gain comprehension of his Calamity Laws, Balance Laws, their respective sub-laws, and all the other laws he had comprehended. It would become overpowered soon after. After all, it could consume more cultivators at a later date once it finished digesting Krune. 

"Let's chase after her," the leader said before jumping on a Zenith Plugger. After numerous attempts before this, they had finally managed to tame one. Though, since none of them were from the Beast Tamer profession, the Zenith Plugger fully expressed its beastly desires.

The Zenith Plugger opened its mouth, trying to bite a Spirit Aberration in human form. The leader pulled its reins, barely managing to keep it under control as another Spirit Aberration opened a large bag of meat and tossed it into the Zenith Plugger's mouth.

"Charge!" The leader shouted the very moment everyone had mounted on its back, watching the Zenith Plugger snort and remain unmoving. 

"Charge!" He soon kicked its head, watching it wail a bit before starting to run. It crashed and tumbled along the way, failing to heed his commands spontaneously. It then shook its head and continued to sprint, occasionally jumping over sections of the path that caved in.

"I see Trivar has noticed our approach," the leader muttered, seeing the damaged path that spanned before him. Then again, he was unconcerned about it as he spent most of his attention on controlling the Zenith Plugger. "Damn it, just run straight."

…

The moment he activated the Mind Splitting Technique, Krune felt that his task had become easier. A steady stream of Godly Energy gushed out of the Rank Two God Stones and entered his body, alleviating his expenditure. 

The influx was a tad greater than his expenditure, so the Godly Energy in his body continued to increase at a steady pace. 'This mission is not profitable at all for the other mercenaries.'

Krune looked at the figures of Vardin and Diana, noticing that they were now exhausted, barely scrapping by somehow as they tumbled their way through the defense. They were close to running out of Godly Energy and didn't seem to possess any supplementary sources like his mental energy. 

Krune stopped supplementing his attacks using Mental Energy, solely sticking to his Godly Energy and Divine Sense. Even though the situation was dangerous, he planned to keep his Mental Energy in reserve for when the situation called for it. 

In his current condition, he was only able to recover his Godly Energy. Recovering his Mental Energy was a time-consuming process, especially since he was in the midst of battle. Mixing his Mental Energy into his Godly Energy would make his attacks stronger, so he was saving it up.

After all, the more he observed, the more peculiar the current situation felt. The caravan was speeding through the air right now, resisting house-sized boulders that were tremendously heavy. Every mercenary was struggling to keep up with the boulders. At the same time, all the caravan members also helped out to share the burden.

Unsurprisingly, they were steadily losing their ground. But despite everything, Trivar didn't take any action. Krune had inspected Trivar's cultivation base while meeting him at the inn before using his Divine Sense, slightly surprised when it was blocked.

But, when he used his Mental Energy, he was able to penetrate his defenses easily. Krune was shocked because Trivar wasn't anyone weak, despite being a merchant geared to earning money. Rather, it was not wrong to say that he was the strongest in the caravan.

First Stage Nascent God!

If he wished to, he could share the load of the entire caravan for an hour while all the mercenaries rested and recovered their Godly Energy. But Trivar didn't do anything of the sort. 

"Kyah!" Diana shouted, watching the activation of her technique fail as she ran out of Godly Energy, failing to stop a boulder that crashed into the carriage under her. 

"No!" The caravan members on the carriage roof shouted in alarm as the boulder crashed into them, forming a massive hole through the carriage. Diana barely avoided the impact as Vardin arrived beside her, helping her as they moved over to another carriage. 

Krune noticed how the reins connecting the Zenith Plugger and the beams connecting them to the carriage remained intact while the remainder of the carriage fell off. With a quick glance, he determined that they were at least Nine Stars God Foundation in grade. 

Such instances like this continued to occur as the mercenaries ran out of Godly Energy one after another. The boulders crashed into the carriages they were protecting and destroyed them, spilling out all the goods in them.

The mercenaries barely avoided dying and congregated around their team leaders, trying their best to recover their energy. The Zenith Pluggers were fine, since four caravan members were on the backs of each to protect them from harm.

Moreover, they were capable of defending themselves. Whenever a boulder flew towards them, the air would faintly fluctuate before the boulders would tilt a bit and avoid the Zenith Pluggers. 

They were demon beasts that were experts at manipulating air. So, even though the carriages were destroyed, the respective Zenith Pluggers pulling them were unharmed. Moreover, the caravan members on its back immediately disconnected the harness and reconnected it to the nearest intact carriage.

'There's gonna be a lot of losses here.' Krune thought when he noticed how they changed the harness without any hesitation. The moment he saw the contents spill out of a broken carriage, Krune frowned as he noticed that they weren't the same items he saw at the beginning of the caravan. They were just normal decorative items that weren't worth anything.

Not only that, but Krune activated his Mental Energy scan as he was suspicious, extending it to the bottom of his carriage as he noticed numerous hooks in place. Surprisingly, hung upside down from the hooks were bird-type demon beasts.

Judging by their aura, they were the caravan members he thought were crushed by the boulders and were sent flying into the bottomless chasm below. As it turned out, they had taken flight immediately and were hiding underneath the carriages. It was as if they were waiting something.

"Just…what the hell have I gotten myself into?"