Chapter 358: Celestial Overlord

After a few minutes, Priam opened his eyes in his true body and stood up. Dandara and everyone else immediately turned their gazes toward him, watching as he turned around and calmly said:

"I’ll clean the place up first. Wait here."

With those curt words, he walked forward and entered the fissure.

However, as soon as he crossed the portal, he didn’t immediately begin absorbing the corruption.

First, he expanded his perception and carefully sensed the entire environment, making sure there was no one left alive—or rather, that only one person remained—or hiding among the ruins.

Then, he burned the portion of Ether he had managed to recover and quickly moved toward the center of the devastated city.

There, standing before the broken remains of a building, the Immortal corpse remained motionless. Its hand was holding a half-dead figure by the neck.

It was a young Sorcerer whom Priam had located earlier, protected at the very center of everything and surrounded by countless protective inscriptions. However, all those barriers had been summarily destroyed by the Immortal corpse.

That young man was clearly a figure of extreme importance. The exact moment the Immortal corpse approached, the young man desperately tried to activate a terrifying space-time power—something on a level Priam had never seen before.

It wasn’t an ordinary Magic Art; he was burning his own Bloodline to unleash it. In other words... Priam had struck gold.

Returning to the present, Priam approached and quickly stored the Immortal corpse in his spatial ring.

"I hope I find that flower again someday... having this at my disposal is way too fucking broken." He murmured hopefully, even though he knew he couldn’t rely on anything besides his own power.

Right afterward, he approached the nearly dead Sorcerer and checked his status.

[Race: God-Weaver]

Priam only read what mattered and nodded in satisfaction.

[Absorb?] [Yes / No]

’Yes,’ he whispered, a faint smile appearing on his face.

Within seconds, the figure convulsed violently, feeling his entire Bloodline flow out of his body. Once the process was complete, Priam simply delivered a finishing blow, causing him to explode.

This seemed to be a good space-time Bloodline, something he desperately desired.

Thus, he turned around and rushed toward the ruins, throwing the rocks aside until he revealed an entrance leading underground.

Like a bolt of lightning, he invaded the Sorcerers’ treasury. At the entrance stood a colossal library of Corrupted Magic Arts—profane knowledge that would soon be destroyed forever.

Although Priam could convert Ether into corruption and use those things... he simply preferred not to. The main reason was that these tomes would have, at most, the potential of Divine Magic Arts—something the sect currently had no shortage of.

Ancient Arts or Paragon Arts were far more powerful; there was no reason for him to desire something at this level right now.

He moved forward, reaching an underground entrance at the back. There, blocking the passage, was a complex runic protection formed by extremely high-level inscriptions.

Why was it so heavily protected?

The Sorcerers certainly weren’t friendly with one another, and they must have fought all the time internally; therefore, whoever commanded the place at the moment was the one who controlled all the resources and good stuff.

Priam snorted, focusing on the central rune. Fortunately, this barrier had its core exposed so that the leader could open it easily. He merely waved his hand, and the remnant of the Cursed Forest Elf Bloodline he possessed was burned.

A spark of black flame emerged from his fingers and approached the core...

*CRACK!*

With a violent shattering sound, everything collapsed as if it were made of glass.

When the barrier fell, Priam’s eyes were drawn to an empty hall with a single object at the back.

It was a fist-sized Orb, emitting an eerily bright golden light.

He swallowed hard, instinctively taking a few steps forward.

As he reached it...

[Overlord’s Will Orb Found!]

[Absorb and assimilate?] [Yes / No]

He grinned from ear to ear.

The sphere pulsed, moved through the air, and disappeared inside Priam’s body. ℯℯ𝘭.

[System Assimilation: Level 4 (UP)]

[New Innate Ability Acquired!]

[Celestial Overlord:]

[Whenever you destroy the body of a Celestial, it will be unable to heal, and the Celestial Mark will be automatically absorbed without emitting even the slightest fluctuation. Not even the creators were able to comprehend this. Once absorbed, you can easily assimilate all of its power, becoming its ultimate owner.]

[NOTE: For every Celestial Mark completely absorbed by the Nexus Seed, you will gain System assimilation points.]

Priam read everything with his heart pounding from sheer excitement.

So that was it: the Celestial Mark he had absorbed before had been practically useless to him until now precisely because he didn’t possess this World Power.

If he hadn’t obtained this resource and had continued merely accumulating marks, perhaps he would have gained something in the distant future; however, in the short term, the benefits would have been nonexistent.

It was an assumption, but knowing how the System had worked so far, nothing he absorbed or did was ever completely useless. Sometimes, it simply took time to show results.

But now, the situation had completely changed. He would no longer need to openly and blatantly kill a Celestial and strip away its mark.

Doing such a thing under the eyes of outsiders from the sect would certainly bring complications and dangerous suspicion. Fortunately, now all he had to do was destroy the enemy’s body for the entire process to happen secretly, without anyone understanding what had occurred.

Obviously, many people would find it strange that the Celestial had been unable to regenerate. However, without any concrete evidence against him, Priam could simply claim ignorance about what had happened.

Besides, he could barely wait to completely absorb all 50 Celestial Marks he currently possessed, eager to test whether he could raise the System’s level again and unlock even more rewards.

’Well, let’s get everything here sorted out quickly first.’

Priam turned around and visually scanned the area.

Scattered throughout the underground complex were another 23 treasure rooms, all packed with resources up to the ceiling.

Some stored Corrupted Artifacts that needed to be summarily destroyed. Others, however, contained spoils stolen from ordinary Mages and Sages over countless years of battles.

There had to be a gigantic arsenal of weapons, Jade Slips, and Ancient treasures that the sect would benefit from enormously.

But Priam knew he shouldn’t be too greedy at that moment.

Handing this treasure over to the sect would be an indispensable strategic move, ensuring that everyone accepted and trusted him without reservations. After all, Priam would inevitably have to give an account of himself and explain everything he had done there, as well as the nature of his peculiar abilities.

Making up some superficial story was out of the question—those people were far too experienced to swallow such an obvious lie.

Without wasting any more time, Priam set off and shot back toward the surface.

Upon reaching the open area, he took a deep breath and finally activated his devouring ability, sucking in all the corruption mist that still permeated the dimension.

Within mere minutes, the toxic aura disappeared completely, leaving the environment clean.

At that exact moment, outside the spatial rift, the observers noticed the immediate dissipation of the corruption and began crossing the entrance without hesitation.