True Strength

[What I Call Art]

Hiro’s POV:

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We moved towards the portal to the Abyss where we had to enter when we took the entrance exam. Probably a large part of the resting room was mapped out. These quests all held parts of that map and the path to get there. This meant that the more quests we did, the more easily we could orientate in the Abyss, which was also a gift in itself!

When we arrived at the portal, we found a large group of cultivators in front of it. Aiko was also there. A few of them jumped through the portals, while others were taking their oath and handed over their World Crystals. Oh really, this is a new week, which means that this is an exam day. I thought upon realizing what was going on. We landed in front of the portal and greeted Aiko.

“Oh, hello you two. Taking up some quests? Ny…” She wanted to continue, but a ‘nya’ almost slipped in. Luckily for her, she shut her mouth in time. With a tint of red on her face, she continued - “Let’s see… how much did you advance~” With a playful look on her face, she used her mind power. It rushed through our bodies, unraveling everything. Her eyes opened widely, along with her mouth.

Slightly leaning backward, she exclaimed loudly and unbothered - “What the fuck?! Aren’t you being a bit too unfair? We have a True Divine Beast, but she is nowhere near as good as you. Just what are you doing? How the hell are you so quick!?” In the end, she was already standing in front of us, holding my collar and shaking me. I looked at Alice with a helpless face and nodding head.

I grabbed Aiko’s wrists, saying - “St- stop alr-eady…” Unfortunately, she was much stronger than me, so I had no way to stop her and thanks to my continuously shaking head, I couldn’t talk coherently. Alice saved the day by standing between me and Aiko, who grumpily pulled back her hands. “Finally… but why me? You could have shaken Alice as well… Why always me!?” I asked aloud with a questioning face.

“Everyone is alway shaking me! Shake her!” I said while pointing at Alice and then continued - “If you shake her, then at least I’ll see a pair of bouncing tits! But... me?”

“Hahaha~” Alice laughed at my words heartily, while Aiko only covered her face and shook her head sideways. The new students were looking at me weirdly, but I caught a few of them with lustful eyes. They paid the price. I swung my tail and cut out their eyes one by one. They screamed out in pain, but they soon turned silent. They wouldn’t be here otherwise. “Hmph… know your places. She is mine only.” I said arrogantly and grumpily.

Everyone was trying to steal my woman! [No… you are thinking too much into it. They were just looking and it’s not like they could do anything to me. Though I don’t mind your decision. I mean… look.] Alice rebuked me, but her words were followed by her actions. A few girls were sneaking ‘such’ kind of peeks at me, but their eyes also ‘disappeared’ from their sockets. Eh? Was I really that cruel and evil?

After shrugging once, I decided to not bother with it. I wasn’t a human anymore and it’s not like we did anything serious. Healing the eyes would take only a day at most and maybe even less if they focused on healing them.

“Such possession… You are so weird,” Aiko remarked while pulling on the sides of her mouth and quickly swaying her furry tail.

[We should get a hold of that…] Alice remarked, but then she remembered about Rin. Poor Rin.

[What poor? She is liking it when I do it, so it’s no problem!] Knowing my meaning, Alice denied my words and then summoned Rin. After her welcoming ceremony, which was a lick on our faces, she sat down between us. Aiko’s eyes sparkled with a never before seen light. She clasped her hands and appeared in front of Rin.

“Oh my, such a cute creature! Let me love you~” She said playfully with a smile on her face, and then moved her hand towards Rin. She naturally started growling upon seeing the incoming hand and pulled up the skin on her teeth.

Aiko pulled back her hand quickly, fearing Rin’s bite, and said with a betrayed face - “What? You don’t like me!? This is so terrible!” She then looked at us, saying that we should teach Rin to love her, with her hands on her hips. Both of us laughed at her antics and went through the portal while waving our hands. There was still a guy who took the oath quickly and entered right after us. He was the last of his group.

We had five people behind us. Turning around, with my hands on my hips, I questioned them - “What now… do you want to leech off of us?”

“What’s with you? You are being so bossy today. Hahaha~” Alice remarked on my behavior and then laughed loudly.

“I don’t know what is going on today, but I am in such a mood. I can’t help it. Ah… just forget what I asked. I’m sorry, I guess.” Realizing that I was in the wrong, I waved my hand and said with a helpless face. They heaved out with a sigh of relief. I guess our actions from before scared them.

While looking at one of them, my eyes turned into slits, my scales covered my body and Blank crept out from under my skin and scales, covering my body. A spear appeared in my hand, ready to use. Alice did the same thing, but she was using Infinis’ color, so she was dark purple. “Well, see ya’~ and good luck on your exams!” I said with a smile and after waving my hand once, we disappeared so quickly from their views that they probably barely saw our movements.

[So much showing off… though it was funny.] Alice though while laughing. A few monsters appeared in front of us, but we rushed through them as if they would have been ghosts. Only their mangled corpses were left in their places. Naturally, we didn’t leave behind the World Crystals. Hearing my apology was more than enough for them! Seriously… why is it so hard to say? I don’t understand. Was it because it was hard to admit that you were in the wrong?

Because we always wanted to be the winners? That might be so… [It’s useless to delve too deeply when it comes to apologies. It’s just hard to say, but you meant it honestly, which was enough! At least, in my opinion, it was.] Alice comforted me with a smiling face, though that looked quite creepy since her face was covered by Blank.

[I’ll remember you…] Alice remarked with an angry tone, but she didn’t take it to heart. Both of us laughed and also killed another group of monsters at the same time. We reached the same cave where there were many World Crystals before. On our way, we also went past a few groups and we found a few groups here as well. A similar horde of monsters was also here, fighting with the cultivators.

Since our Destiny’s Descent was being held stacked up, we just swung our weapons in an arc. A powerful stream of energy rushed out of our bodies, through our weapons, and went past the hordes of monsters. They were crushed on the spot, leaving only a long trail of blood and gore in its wake. Both the monsters and the examinees stopped fighting. With a clear path in front of us, we went through the whole cavern, unbothered. The World Crystals on the walls were inviting, but we knew that we weren’t allowed to take them away.

There was a surveillance system here. We weren’t punished for taking it away last time, only because we too were examinees. But now? Our salaries would be probably taken away.

[Do you really believe in that? I bet that we could bend those rules…] Alice thought evilly while touching a World Crystal on the wall. She rubbed it with her pointing finger and then turned towards me with a smile on her face.

[Eh? Do you want to crush the hopes of these people by taking it away? Hahaha~ You are such a bad dragon. But it would be taken away from us anyway…] I answered her while holding the side of my head, shaking it.

[Haha, don’t worry. I was just joking. We have more than enough for now and I’m sure that we won’t be lacking in it in the future either. Let’s go, honey~] She thought sweetly, melting my heart.

We turned around and after waving our hands at the newcomers, we left. That narrow pathway which was before the cavern was no more. Beyond it, the passage was wide and the ground was smooth. There were caverns on the right side of the trail, while there was only the wall of the Abyss on the left. A few bigger monsters were in those dens, who were at the sixth or seventh stage. Two of our quests had to do with these monsters.

Since we had to stack up our attacks anyway, we taunted these lazy bastards with our first three attacks. After summoning our clones, our stacks reached five in just a moment. At the same level, these monsters had no chance, which was kind of sad. I mean… we already killed half of them. We just had to record their dead bodies or their empty caves in a memory crystal. They wouldn’t leave unless they were killed or chased away, so as long as they weren’t here, our missions were done.

The boss of the area, a bat-like monster flew out of its cave and screeched. It was only at the eighth stage, so Alice welcomed it with widespread arms. She jumped into the air with a somersault and smashed her staff into its head. Thanks to Infinis’ enhanced ability, the bat had no time to react. Its head was crushed on the spot, but since Alice was rotating, she also used her tail. Its axe-like tip cut the monster’s body in half. She landed gracefully, with her legs closed and tail straight. Blood, brain matters, and body parts landed on the ground, all around her.

She used her energy to create a dome and keep herself clean. “And you said that I was showing off? Then what are you doing?” I questioned her while walking up to her and hanging a filament of meat in front of her, which landed on me, thanks to her attack. Alice grabbed my wrist and pushed it away while evading me and going ahead.

“Haha~ Interesting play, let’s see how you react now,” I shouted after her with a smirk and threw the line of meat towards her back. She turned around in a flash and spun her staff in a circle, in front of her. The meat was smashed away and she stayed clean.

“A dragon must be clean!” She exclaimed with her chest stuck out, in a proud manner, with her right hand held in front of her chest. We laughed at her tantrum, but at that time, a spider jumped down from out of nowhere, wishing to bite her. Before it could reach Alice, Rin also jumped out of nowhere and pounced onto the back of the spider. It was pushed away with a large gash on its back. Rin turned into a cloud of black smoke and then reappeared behind the spider. She swiped with her right paw and broke the legs of the monster.

It fell to the ground and before it could start regenerating or flying or literally doing anything, Rin was already on its back, biting its head from above. The skin on the sides of her mouth split into two parts and her jaws opened up. Since when did she have a dragon-like mouth? I swear that not even a snake could open its mouth so widely. Naturally, the spider’s body was crushed on the spot. Rin walked up to us with her head held high.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the proud behavior of these monsters… “What’s with you girls? Seriously… and she is even mimicking you! You are teaching her bad things, Alice!” I rebuked her jokingly. She made a pitiful face, while Rin rubbed her head on Alice’s. I shook my head sideways and jumped onto Rin’s back with Alice in tow. Rin roared, which echoed in this ever silent Abyss and ran forward. There was no wind to whistle in our ears. Rin knew where we wanted to go and strangely enough, we were there in a few moments.

As she stopped, we looked down at her with curious eyes. “Do you know the whole Abyss or what? I can only wonder about you, little Rin,” I said with a smile on my face and then patted her head, while Alice stroked her behind her ears. She purred and swayed her tail happily. This place was deep in the Abyss. Not as much as when I jumped down with Alice’s body, but we were quite close to the place where the monsters were at the Temporary Law Realm.

We were actually done with two quests already and the third one was in front of us! This time we didn’t have to kill anything. There was a long bridge, which led from this side to the other one. Before reaching the sixth Temporary Law Realm, we couldn’t fly. Such being the case, anyone below it had to use bridges.

If nothing else, then we had the ability to levitate, though we didn’t intend to test it out. There was a huge chasm between this side and the other one and the bridge was made out of thick vines with diameters of ten meters! But there was a problem. A report said that a group from Angelwood Academy sneaked in and destroyed the bridge. This was indeed true because instead of a thick and long vine-bridge, only the dark chasm was in front of us.

I looked at Alice with my brows raised. She turned towards me with a smiling face and then stomped on the ground. A thick layer of earth started appearing under us, out of nowhere. Since making anything grow out of the Abyss Stone was impossible, we had to create the foundation as well. The Abyss had strange settings. Relatively speaking, I should be able to create matter even on the other side of this chasm. But I couldn’t.

Both sides of the cliff were spacious. After Alice made a smaller mountain on this side, I focused on the nature elements and made huge vines grow out of the thick earth mountain. Strangely enough, I couldn’t grow it further than ten meters from me. Now I understand why was this a dangerous quest. Supposedly, we had to walk on top of the vine, which would hang in the air before reaching the other side. Considering that the other side was about a kilometer away, this was a bit risky.

Before I could step on the vine, Rin stopped next to me and rubbed her head on my left shoulder and then pushed me away. She turned into a shadow and appeared on the other side of the Abyss… “You aren’t called an Abyss Panther for nothing, are you?” I asked myself as I put my hand on my hips. Rin stomped on the ground and the same kind of mountain grew out on the other side, which was followed by a ridiculous thing.

Rin jumped into the air and a thick vine grew behind her. She turned into a cloud of smoke and flew through the air in that form. It took only a few seconds for her to reach our side. Her vine connected and intertwined with mine and finished doing so, exactly when she landed in front of me.

I made a surprised face while looking at her, standing there proudly. She was waiting for something… “Hahaha~ Who has the best cat in the universe!” I exclaimed happily as I embraced her around her furry neck. She rubbed her head on my shoulder and purred happily. Alice put her hand on her face and started shaking her head sideways, muttering…

“We could have used our monster forms and flown… This wasn’t even a hard mission!”

“Ah! Really… maybe I shouldn’t have used seven of my minds to fantasize about your body while being covered in chocolate…” I cried out in surprise upon realizing my mistake. The worst was that she just added fuel to the fire by doing the same. Love is stealing away our sanity! Since we wanted to try out the bridge anyway, we walked on it and reached the other side in a few seconds. Naturally, we ran… we didn’t want to waste our time.

We also made handrails on its two sides, so it looked perfectly fine. After recording its picture with a Memory Crystal, we moved on. Now was the time for the real deal! Instead of souls, we poured World Crystals into Rin, so that she won’t get left behind. So she was actually at the ninth stage already! Just a few step away from breaking through! I can’t wait for her to finally break through. She is going to be super strong! Her strength was basically twenty percent more than normal cultivators, which was a lot!

It didn’t take more than a few minutes of walking to reach our next and most powerful enemy up till now. This monster was of the spider kind. It has been reported that this monster was walking too close to the bridge and the other places nearby, so our mission was to kill it. It had eight legs and eight red eyes. Its abdomen ended in a spiky point, which looked really dangerous just from a look. Its mandibles and those purple tints on the tips of its fangs looked really threatening.

“Do you think that it’s poisonous?” Alice asked with a stiff face, but she quickly realized that it didn’t matter. Our bodies were resistant to poison anyway, but the white pill we took in Vertshadow provided us with immunity against poisons. We should visit a dungeon sometimes… except for the Phoenix Medal, all of our treasures were taken away, which was kind of sad! We worked hard for those.

“Yeah, we did. But we are unfair anyway, so getting our hands on other treasures shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s visit a dungeon after this-” Alice remarked upon hearing my thoughts while looking at me with her right brow raised, and then she started babbling about a dungeon. But I stopped her by mentioning the upcoming war, which was only a week away. We didn’t have more time to talk because the Bane Spider noticed us. We quickly merged into a single creature and then turned into our monster form.

Twelve draconic heads grew out of our bodies. Our body was only three meters tall and twelve meters long. That much was necessary to cause serious wounds on this monster. The black spider, with white spots on its abdomen, screeched loudly and then disappeared from its position. We felt a powerful aura coming from behind us. The wind whistled and the air trembled. We ducked down, but one of our heads wasn’t quick enough and it was cut off on the spot by the spider’s leg.

Our blood sprayed out of our missing neck, but the wound healed in just a moment and our head was already growing back. The spider appeared in front of us, thinking that we would turn around to attack it, but it was wrong. With our jaws opened widely, we were waiting for its appearance. Rin also appeared behind it at the same time and bit into the middle of its abdomen. We used six and five of our heads to bite its two frontal legs. It screamed out in pain upon feeling our teeth and our poison.

It couldn’t teleport away as long as we were holding it. I tore out its left leg and I wanted to bite its face, but sadly, that didn’t happen. It jumped into the air and teleported away. It wanted to land on its back and smash Rin into the ground, but before it could do so, she also turned into a cloud of smoke and disappeared from its back. It screeched angrily, looking for Rin, but it couldn’t find her. Using our bond, we sensed that she was actually right behind the spider, walking around it in a circle, waiting for the right moment.

Since the spider was looking out so much for Rin, we used our sixth move. A twenty meters wide, concentrated blade of energy flew out of our wings, straight towards the spider. It wanted to teleport away, but we were exactly on time to use Bolt of Silence. Our souls were at the seventh stage of Baby Soul, so our souls were actually stronger than the spider’s. At the same time, we also rushed towards its temporarily paralyzed body.

Just as it finished defending against our soul attack, our Wing Attack arrived in front of it. Unluckily, it didn’t go deeper than a few centimeters, cutting into its face, before the spider teleported away. Its wound was nothing serious. At least a few of its eyes were destroyed. Its left leg was already half back to our dismay, while our missing head was back in its full glory. Our only advantage was that our poison was in it. If only we would have the Binding Clock now… We could finish this in just a few moves!

It appeared on our left and it wanted to pierce our back from above with its pointy leg. We quickly moved aside and its leg smashed into the ground, making a tiny crack on it. We whipped our tail towards its face, but it teleported to our right side exactly at that moment. Using six of our heads on the right side, we welcomed it with our jaws opened widely. We used our Breath Attack straight on its face, while it pinned down one of our heads on the ground. Its leg penetrated one brain of our brains, while the spider buried its fangs into another head.

[Ugh… that’s kinky. It’s a bit painful, but… whatever!] I shrugged off the pain I felt, feeling happy that I found an interesting opponent. Finally! Our attack also struck its face, destroying the monster’s head completely. It spun in the air and landed on its back. Seven

After screeching loudly, it disappeared from where it was and appeared further away from us. A black light shone, and its head started regenerating with a visible speed, but Rin wasn’t just looking. She appeared behind the spider and tore off the pointy tip of its abdomen. The spider screamed out in pain, but we also reached its front and using ten of our heads, we bit into it.

Its head, its frontal legs, all of them were torn off. Suddenly, the spider shot a thread of web towards the ceiling and started rotating in a circle. Rin was cut across her neck, while another five of our heads were cut off. [Fuck this shit!] Alice thought annoyedly. Rin disappeared from where she stood and stopped further away. She focused on healing and we did the same, just like the spider. We poured Hydra Qi into our wounds and three of our heads grew back completely. We still had four missing, but we could heal that later.

Now was the time to attack! We whipped our tail towards its rotating body. The result was good enough. Although our tail was also cut off, but six of its legs were crushed in the process! Eight.

Rin teleported above the spider and cut off its thread and then disappeared again. She had a lime-colored light shining across her neck when she appeared. Her wound was barely visible. It seems like she inherited the best of our traits after all. The spider landed on the ground with a loud thud and missing legs. It quickly teleported away, not wishing to get struck by our attack. Rin focused on her soul and collected all the soul force she had. Doing the same, we prepared for a final attack.

I wonder how big this will be. Rin… Cover us. Hahaha~ I thought while wondering about the effects of our next attack. I knew how powerful the twelfth was when we were at the fifth stage. It’s probably not much stronger than before, but who knows. Luckily, we had only eight stacks. The spider started teleporting continuously and each time it appeared somewhere, it had more of its body recovered. It didn’t escape because it wanted revenge.

Using a few of the souls we had, we made a powerful formation, which locked space. Although we couldn’t do it ourselves, but the Space Locking formation did its job perfectly at such times. We used Hydro Mind on it, twelve times… since we had all of our heads back. One of our minds was focused on healing. The spider stopped in place upon being attacked with such a large amount of Mind Attacks.

Alice’s multicasting minds also finished the Space Locking formation at the same time and shot it towards the spider. Lines of runes appeared around the spider. Since it couldn’t teleport and it couldn’t walk either, it wanted to fly away. But at that time, not only Rin, but we as well used our soul force to attack it. It fell back to the ground and screeched in pain. [You’ll pay now you shitty bastard.] I thought upon remembering how it hurt Rin.

We moved our long necks and intertwined them into a single, long one. Our necks combined and a huge dragon head appeared in their places. We opened our single head. Our throat looked like a huge cannon. A powerful mix of our energies was already collected in it. We roared loudly, while our attack was also released towards the spider. It should have left when it had the chance. A fifty meters tall dragon head rushed towards its three meters tall, tiny body. The spider was in deep shit, but it didn’t know about it yet.

Just as it opened its eyes since it regained its consciousness, it saw the opened jaws of our energy attack. Eight it is. Even our body was thrown backward when we released this attack. It actually… went through the spider and destroyed its body completely and then moved ahead.

[Eh? The spider wasn’t a big enough target?] I realized why it didn’t explode on the spot.

[It seems…] Alice thought agreeing with me. We naturally recorded the death of the spider and the put away our Memory Crystal. The Eighth Form smashed into the wall of the Abyss and then hell broke loose. Rin jumped back into our world temporarily. Although our attack itself didn’t have an effect on us, but it had on Rin. When the green, sun-like energy shone and rushed past our bodies, Rin also appeared. But what we expected didn’t happen. There was no collapsion of space.

Although there was a huge hole in the wall of the Abyss, which had a diameter of five meters and it was ten meters deep, but space was completely stable. [Hmph! This is the true strength! It isn’t to kill someone at the same level as you but to go beyond the limits of numbers and the world. To defy the norms and create your own norms, beliefs. The strength to create something new. Something which isn’t a generic shit!] I thought righteously. In my past life, I wrote a novel in my free time.

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It was a lot of fun to do. At first look, it looked like a generic novel. Probably most of the readers never noticed the truth behind it. That it wasn’t just a generic novel. I hid pieces of me and my thoughts in it. I wasn’t just writing a novel. I was writing myself into it! When I was young, I never understood Art. I found it stupid.

But when I was writing that novel, I also realized what it meant. Art was a way for people to build themselves into what they were doing. Be it paintings, novels, music. Real art was something, which held the soul, sweat, and work of its creator. Maybe it was bad, maybe it was straight shit, but it held something in it. And maybe… but just maybe… it was worth to see. So if you see every creation an artist left behind, you might get a whole piece of his or her life, beliefs and viewpoints. The question was always… how much did they put into it?

What was truly generic? When they just made it and didn’t put anything into it from themselves. That’s what I called generic. They might have worked a lot with it, but without their souls in it, it wasn’t worth shit. Now… in a new life, I’m stronger, I’m more handsome, though I was never ugly. But the only thing that truly changed was that I had Alice beside me, who was worth more than anyone.

The truth was still the same. Did we really have to follow the ‘right’ path? The generic path? What if we used other people’s souls? Was it a ‘dark art’? Who said it? To hell with opinions, what truly mattered was what you wanted! I’ll choose the path of an artist and do something that hasn’t been done before! I’ll unite every pair in my own world. No… in our own world!

If you didn’t have the strength to do it and you were killed in the process? Then it was your bad luck. Like… touching Alice. I’d kill anyone, which would be his bad luck!

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We turned back into our human forms and looked at each other strangely. A burning fire was still lingering in my heart. Alice raised her brows and then said with a shrug of her shoulders - “Well… I guess this isn’t the Anchor for nothing. It is connecting numerous universes. It would be weird if it would be shaken by mere cultivators at the World Realm. Or we could say at the seventh level, considering the strength of this attack.”

I shook my head sideways and said with my hands on my hips. “Seriously though… This Destiny’s Descent is way too overpowered! In this form, we can reach only five moves, in our battle forms seven and in our monster forms nine. Once we merge, we can use only ten in our battle form and twelve in our monster form.”

“Yet look at this… even eight is as powerful as the attack of a cultivator at the middle stages of the seventh level! I really don’t know. How are we going to use this in the upcoming war?” I questioned with a frown upon realizing our problem.

If we were to release this in the upcoming war, then we would kill everyone in the World Realm… along with our schoolmates! Alice gave a kiss on the side of my face and then asked with a smile. “Alright artist-man, haha~ You know, this is all nice and good and we can go up to twelve stacks. But I have a question…”

“What happens if we hold it in and go beyond it?”