Chapter 520: The Choice of Evolution

I punched the Sovereign away, watching his body tear into the debris below before activating Living Script, and glowing threads of gold bloomed from my back like wings.

Killing a Sovereign was too much of a nuisance, and at the moment I did not want to push Caldus to the extent that he would begin to burn his soul. A Sovereign without a Grimoire was still a Sovereign, and with time I am sure he would be able to create a new one, but if I pushed Caldus to the extent that he begins to burn the core of his soul, then I am sure that this would push him to at least the Transcendental grade, and I would be killed.

My body was at the peak of the Sovereign level, and I would not be able to withstand flames at the Transcendental level.

I had not used the Living Script in battle, but I was always keeping a portion of my abilities hidden unless they were important, so they could not be intercepted by the Sovereign when I really needed them, case in point, in times like these.

An active law shard was not like cabbage that could be picked up with the hand, but my Living Script could burn through the will of the Sovereign and refine it for my purpose.

Several of my golden threads reached across the vanishing city and plunged into the chaos, and wrapped around one of the targets that was streaking across like a star. I had aimed for several, but was only able to snag one.

I grunted and was nearly dragged off my feet, but I held on and kept wrapping more Living Script around it and tugging it towards me. It was as if I was trying to drag the moon down from the sky.

Like a fisherman dragging in his catch, I kept pulling while refining the shard and a few seconds later it touched my palms and was absorbed into my body.

[ Active Law Shards: 0 → 1 ]

There was no time to celebrate, there were still others to be grabbed, and I pushed my Living Script into the darkness, ignoring the cries of the world and the screams of rage from Caldus.

But I was not the only one who was seeking for benefits.

∞

I had not activated Living Script before so the first time I used it was purely to experiment, understanding the cost and the burden on my soul, now that I was familiar with it, I let loose, and threw Living Script across the breaking sky.

The scripts burst out of my body in a flood, this was a Sovereign Tier skill and it showed as my body glowed like a golden sun, and my golden threads wrapped around every piece of law shards I could see, even some of the Spirits of the Unconsumed were wrapped around in them and they were refined into nothing.

Then I let my domain expand and became the core of this city as I drew all the law shards towards me.

[ Active Law Shard — acquired. ]

[ Active Law Shard — acquired. ]

[ Active Law Shard — acquired. ]

[ Active Law Shard — acquired. ]

...

In total I gained ten new law shards... but remember what I said about others seeking for benefits?

I must have forgotten that my soul was filled with many... damned parasites! The active law shards had not even fully settled into my soul before they were chewed and divided by the red-eyed trolls inside me.

In the space of a second, the nascent dimension of the Moon Fox drew five of these shards, the Caeliths took two, the Hollow took two, and it would have taken all three if I had not held onto the last one as if my life depended on it.

∞

The entire city began to shrink far more rapidly without any law shards within it, all of my nascent dimensions that had displayed themselves quickly vanished and I was alone once more.

A mile away, Sovereign Caldus punched himself out of a broken hill that was rapidly vanishing. He was on his knees and he was staring at the shrinking landscape with disbelief as everything was vanishing into the void.

He reached out to the void, calling for something that I could not hear, or maybe I did not want to hear. For a man who pursued nothing but power, losing so much of it... how that must hurt.

Now he knows how it feels, when the world burns for your ambitions.

’We should leave, this entire area would be pushed into the void.’

I nodded and looked at the kneeling figure of the Sovereign one last time before I pushed myself through the seam below as the world rushed back at me.

∞

I reappeared in the air, as if no time had passed. The demons were herding the poor folks below to a fate worse than death, and the arms and tentacles of the Pale Matron were tearing at the Caelith buried inside the mountain.

I did not rush into action, knowing I needed to settle some pressing upgrades I needed to make before dealing with this disaster.

Looking around me, I could not detect any hint of the Grimoire, almost as if everything that had just happened was a figment of my overactive imagination.

Pushing the events that had just happened to the side, I focused on my status. Law Fragments were not the only resource that could evolve my skills to the Sovereign tier, I had discovered in the past that comprehending one of my lightning laws would allow me to link one of my skills with them, and that would usually evolve the skill to the Sovereign level.

When I had gained my law of stillness, I had used it to evolve my Lightning Resonance to the Sovereign level, now with the law of armor, what should I push to the Sovereign level?

Several of my Auxiliary skills had reached the peak of Arcanist, and there were several options I could pick, but that would be in times when I was not about to engage in battle, for now, I had three active spells, one of them had already been evolved by Hollow, the Heaven’s Tribunal spell, and there was no more barrier holding it back and it could smoothly cross over into the Sovereign Tier.

The other two spells, Lightning Edict and Loom of Lightning were at the peak of Arcanist, and I could immediately push any of these two to Sovereign.

Lightning Edict was my first legendary spell. It was the fusion of Spark, Arc Lightning, Lightning Cascade, and Abyssal Toll. It was the spell that allowed me to change reality with my words, as the commands I gave were obeyed by the world itself.

Loom of Lightning was my second legendary spell. It was the fusion of Threadwork, Lightning Dominion, and the blessing of the Anansi Web. It was the spell that allowed me to weave threads of lightning across miles. Every thread was a part of me, and carried my will.

"Choose carefully," the Hollow said. "The law you link will shape the evolution. The Armor law is about defense. About absorbing attacks. About not being unmade."

"Hmm, I understand, the foundations of my domain were changed by the law of stillness that was my first lightning law."

"Lightning Edict is about command. The Armor law would make it... different."

"Different how?"

"I do not know. The evolution is not predictable. But the law will influence the outcome."