Chapter 493: Crown of Eight Paths

He activated the Colony Link.

[Special Colony Member selected.]

[One.]

[Summoning.]

Particles of light gathered in front of him and One landed on the ground, as soon as it appeared, its antennae remained completely still for a moment.

Lian noticed it, One was no longer the only member of his Colony and the giant ant had noticed this.

Besides that, there was a huge presence behind them which was his new Colony Member.

Two.

One turned its head toward its master, the feeling of a question through the link was almost clear enough that there was no need for words.

What is that?

Lian looked at it.

"I’ll explain later."

"For now, you should absorb the cores." He then pointed toward the hundreds of corpses.

One’s focus changed almost immediately, its antennae rose and a few seconds later it moved among the corpses and carefully took out the remaining cores.

One core.

Three cores.

Ten cores.

Many of the stronger wolves had suitable cores and the giant ant immediately started absorbing them.

[Multiple monster cores have been absorbed.]

[The First Evolution Saturation process has progressed greatly.]

[Saturation status: High.]

[The evolution condition has not been completed yet.]

"At this rate, I guess it shouldn’t take too long." The young Vorhelm looked at the notification, but it was still surprising that even all these cores were not enough.

In any case, he still had something else that he needed to deal with.

The Wolfcrown Fortress had lost a large part of its original height.

The central tower had broken in several places during the battle with Two and parts of it had fallen into the courtyard.

But the crown was still the highest point of the ruins.

Lian climbed using the remaining walls, whenever the path was broken, he created a platform of ice.

Several times he was also forced to use Thunder Step to cross the distance between two broken sections.

The higher he went, the clearer the true size of the crown became and from close up, the structure was even stranger.

Eight curved black branches came out from the main ring.

Their material was neither completely metal nor bone and the surface of each branch was covered with very small spirals and in the center of each one, there was a mark that looked like a closed eye.

He finally stood in front of the base of the crown.

The Celestial Book of Treasure almost came out of his storage space by itself.

The pages turned quickly and Lian placed his hand on the central part of the structure, the purple light of the book became stronger.

[Final analysis completed.]

[Crown of Eight Paths]

[Rank: S.]

[Creator: Followers of the Divine of Chaos.]

[Usage requirement: 3000 spirit.]

He opened the explanation.

[Eightfold Seal]

[The crown can create up to eight independent seals.]

[The seals can be divided between several targets or placed on a single target at the same time.]

[Each seal suppresses the target or targets.]

[Placing multiple seals on one target increases the sealing power exponentially.]

[Placing all eight seals on one target forms the "Eightfold Restraint."]

[The power and duration of the seals depend on the user’s spirit, the target’s power and its resistance to restraint.]

[Targets with a much higher Level or spirit can break the seals with enough force.]

[The crown alone was not made to restrain extremely powerful creatures for a long period of time. Using fixed anchors and prepared arrays can greatly increase the power and duration of the restraint.]

Lian read the last part again.

So this explained how the followers of the Divine of Chaos had been able to keep Two imprisoned for such a long time.

It was not only the crown and in fact, the entire sanctuary was part of the prison.

Eight paths, eight chains, eight anchors and the crown as the central core had worked together as a prison for the Wolf Of Eight Disasters.

Something at the bottom of the explanation caught his attention.

[An Eightfold Restraint is still connected to the crown.]

[Target: Special Colony Member — Two.]

The young Vorhelm raised his eyebrows slightly.

Even though it had become his Colony Member, the original seals were still on its body.

This was probably also why during the battle, even after breaking several chains, it had not been able to truly escape the fortress’s range.

Another panel appeared.

[Warning.]

[Removing the crown from its base will end the active Eightfold Restraint.]

He remained silent for a few seconds, if Two were still his enemy, this warning would have been a major problem but now it was a Colony Member.

"Then even better."

His fingers closed around the crown’s central ring, he pulled it out of its base.

CRACK!

The first branch that went from the crown toward the ground broke.

The second.

The third.

Until the eighth.

At the same moment, Two opened its eyes, the eight black marks that remained on its chest, neck, legs and spine lit up at the same time.

Then they began to crack one after another.

CRACK!

The first seal broke.

Then the second.

Within a few seconds, all eight seals disappeared.

[The external restraint of Special Colony Member "Two" has ended.]

[All eight seals have been released.]

[Two is now completely free from the Eightfold Restraint.]

Lian felt something through the Colony Link..

For the first time after an unknown amount of time, Two had no chains on its body.

It was free, after such a long time it could finally feel what freedom was like again.

It turned toward its master, bowed deeply without any extra movement and showed its gratitude from the bottom of its heart.

One immediately raised its head and looked at this scene.

Lian also smiled and at that moment Two stood up and released a howl, its first howl after being freed.

Then, in his hand, the huge crown began to change, the eight branches slowly folded and the central ring became smaller.

In less than a minute, the structure that had once covered a large part of the tower turned into a black crown with eight points that could easily fit in both hands.

He examined it for a few moments, an S-rank artifact that only had one ability but that one ability could be very dangerous if used correctly.

In any case, it was powerful enough to imprison the Wolf Of Eight Disasters at its peak.

He placed the crown inside his storage space.

Lian had just wanted to go down when particles separated from the side of his body.

For a moment he thought it was a reaction from the crown, but he soon realized he was wrong.

The particles gathered in front of him and took the shape of an egg and when it was complete, the Devouring Egg was floating in front of him.

He looked at it for a few moments.

"Did you finally finish your favorite meal?"

The egg moved slightly and nodded happily, it had been taken care of very well for the past few days and was very, very happy.

[Devouring Egg.]

[Completion Process: 52%.]

The hundreds of corpses he had given it before entering Wolfgrave had pushed the embryo completion process forward by a considerable amount.

The egg moved slightly and then turned toward the bottom of the tower, exactly toward where the wolf corpses were lying on the ground.

Lian silently watched it for a few seconds.

"Are you still hungry?"

The egg moved again.

"I guessed." He let out a short sigh and pointed downward.

"Go. They are all yours, just let One take the cores."

The egg almost immediately went down from the edge, when it reached the corpses, dark threads came out from its shell.

The first thread entered the body of a wolf.

Then five threads.

Ten threads.

Very soon, the huge bodies began to dry up one after another.

Lian looked down from above for a moment, he could have made a lot of money by selling all these monster corpses, but he was giving all of them to the Devouring Egg for free.

He only hoped that when whatever was inside it was born, it would be worth it.

Then he came down from the tower.

One was busy with the cores, the Devouring Egg was busy with the corpses.

And Two, after being freed, was sent by its master into the Colony House to recover and heal.

And Lian finally had time to look around him, after all, this place had once been a civilization belonging to the followers of the Divine of Chaos.

He took out World Memory.

The map, which had been incomplete in many areas before, was now recovering more information because of his direct presence in the center of the ruins.

The first important building was only a few hundred meters from the fortress.

[Hall of Eight Answers.]

Lian entered.

A large part of the ceiling had collapsed, but the eight inner walls were still intact.

A different answer to the same question was written on each wall.

Most of the texts had disappeared but World Memory restored parts of them.

[Chaos is not destruction.]

[Chaos is the moment when more than one answer still remains.]

He looked at the sentence for a few seconds.

Interesting.

Even until today, whenever he heard the name Divine of Chaos, the first things that came to his mind were disorder, destruction and madness.

But its followers seemed to have a different understanding, to them, Chaos was something close to possibility.

Absolute order was something like one path, one answer, one future but Chaos was different and allowed a second path to still exist.

On another broken pillar, a sentence had remained.

[As long as a second path exists, fate is not a command.]

"So this was the principle of your religion, to some extent, it is like you were trying to defy fate." Lian read it calmly.