Chapter 1417: The Angel Progenitor Becomes Mortal

Phei smiled:

"Do you know the worst punishment I can imagine for someone as you— a Progenitor of an entire race who once stood at the pinnacle of power?"

Marcus’s lips shifted faintly, but no answer escaped him.

Phei had not expected one either. He simply wanted the idea spoken aloud, wanted Marcus conscious enough to understand exactly what was about to happen before the last pieces capable of preserving his dignity were taken from him.

"Killing you isn’t it," Phei continued, his voice was so soft against the vastness surrounding them. "Pain isn’t it either. You people understand pain. You’ve fought probably wars for eons, destroyed even the strongest of the enemies and survived things even immortals couldn’t imagine. Even slavery isn’t enough, because somewhere inside that stupid ancient Soul you’d still know what you once were even when you become my slave; you’d still awaken your fancy power and bloodline on that overrated day."

Golden light moved over Phei’s face while his smile slowly widened.

"The worst thing I can do to someone like you is make you mortal!"

Something changed inside Marcus’s eyes.

Phei could see it as understanding crept in.

This was different from the animal terror dragged out of him by Dragon Dominance. That fear had been instinctive, born from one existence recognizing another as something monstrously higher in the moment.

What appeared now was sharper and considerably more personal.

—small object materialized above Marcus’s forehead.

An hourglass.

—it was anything but that!

It appeared slowly, rotating inside the air while threads of ancient light crawled around its narrow frame. At first glance the treasure looked almost delicate, elegant enough to rest beside jade seals and forgotten scriptures in the private study of some ancient emperor.

That illusion lasted only until the Heaven-Stealer fully emerged.

The remaining World Essence surrounding Marcus recoiled.

Golden liquid drew away from beneath the hovering treasure in expanding circles, leaving a hollow depression across the sea as though the Essence itself possessed some buried instinct warning it not to approach.

Even the radiant mist drifting above Marcus thinned around the hourglass, refusing to cross an invisible distance from its spinning frame.

Phei raised his eyes toward it.

Heaven-Stealer!

The name suited the thing beautifully.

"It’s going to be a pleasure watching you become useless mortal, Marcus," Phei said, settling comfortably beside him while the Heaven-Stealer continued turning above his head. "Imagine it. Danton awakens. The others awaken too; seeing your so called brothers awaken and become the Progenitors they once were and their old powers return and every one of them begins climbing toward heights this age can barely understand."

He leaned slightly closer, speaking with the almost conversational cruelty of someone describing tomorrow’s weather.

"And you’re standing beside them as a mortal!"

Marcus’s breathing changed. A small hitch entered it first, followed by a faster rhythm as the meaning settled properly.

Phei laughed quietly: "Would you even be able to remain standing when they stop suppressing their even a fraction of their pressure? Imagine knowing you once belonged among them, remembering every Realm you crossed, every enemy you crushed and every secret path you once walked, yet still being unable to do a damn thing with any of it."

The Heaven-Stealer spun faster.

Thin rings of ancient symbols began appearing around the hourglass, rotating in opposite directions while pale radiance gathered between them.

Phei watched the treasure for several moments before returning his gaze to Marcus.

"That’s where most of that arrogance comes from, isn’t it? Your bloodlines. Your ancient Souls. The knowledge that something older and greater sleeps inside you while ordinary people spend entire lifetimes trying to reach a fraction of what you were born carrying."

Phei’s smile disappeared.

"Good. Then let’s find out what remains of Marcus Heavenchild after I take that bloodline away."

Marcus’s pupils contracted so sharply that the reaction would have been comical under almost any other circumstance.

Phei enjoyed it anyway: "Let’s see what you awaken when there’s nothing left inside your body waiting to awaken. Let’s see what ancient power answers you after the blood that once carried it belongs somewhere else."

Of course, Phei knew perfectly well that Original Progenitors were not helpless fools whose entire existences depended upon bloodline they themselves were the first holders of.

The Progenitors were some not beings who had climbed to the heavens.

They were the ones who had set the first steps of the climb. Each had stood at the dawn of creation and shaped an entire race from their own Soul, carving the bloodline, the instincts and the cultivation path their descendants would carry for all the ages after with their mighty bloodlines.

Every Angel who ever spread its wings was flying a path Marcus’s ancient Soul had laid down at the beginning of time. They held memories older than the stars, laws of creation no cultivator could grasp in ten thousand lifetimes, and the origin of a whole race’s strength sealed within them.

If such a Soul ever fully awakened, it would not need to borrow power from its bloodline, because the bloodline itself had been born from it.

Even inside a frail mortal shell like Marcus here, a fully awakened Progenitor Soul would be a calamity waiting to happen. Give it freedom, time and resources, and it would not need to cultivate the way other men did, inching forward and praying for a breakthrough.

It would awaken!

Within its Soul slept the primordial knowledge it had once engraved upon the heavens, supreme cultivation techniques its race had never been worthy to inherit, and the forbidden art of forging a bloodline from chaos itself.

A single scrap of its knowledge could raise an immortal sect from the dust, and one lost technique could temper a generation of peerless geniuses. Insight alone made such a being more dangerous than any divine weapon, and a mortal body would not stay mortal for long. Its meridians would be reforged, its foundation rebuilt, and realm after realm would shatter beneath its feet as it walked the road it had paved at the dawn of creation.

Phei almost admired the thought.

But despite being capable of all this; there one small detail that turned the whole terrifying possibility into a joke.

Every memory they recovered, every forgotten law they understood again and every height they reclaimed would rise beneath the Mark burning on their Souls.

They could become gods again for all he cared; they would still be his slaves.

A chuckle escaped him.

"Actually, I suppose you could rebuild eventually, couldn’t you? You all know enough to do that. Ancient methods, forgotten cultivation paths, secrets your descendants don’t even know exist blah blah blah. Give a fully awakened Progenitor a mortal body and enough time and you’d probably still humiliate most cultivators born carrying powerful bloodlines."

Amusement brightened his eyes.

"But how exactly are you going to use any of knowledge when you can’t take a single meaningful step toward power unless I allow it?"

Marcus stared at him.

Phei spread his hands slightly: "Exactly."

That was the true cruelty of what he intended.

Phei was not simply stripping away Marcus’s greatest advantage and leaving him free to rebuild afterward. He was stripping the Progenitor down first and fastening the leash afterward. Every technique Marcus remembered, every forgotten path buried inside his ancient Soul and every secret capable of returning him toward greatness would remain perfectly intact inside his mind while becoming completely useless if Phei simply refused him permission to use any of it.

An infinite library sealed inside a man forbidden to open a single book.

Phei leaned closer again:

"But don’t look so devastated. You won’t be alone."

Marcus’s eyes twitched.

Phei’s smile returned.

"Your brothers will receive the very same treatment, every last one of them." Phei leaned closer, his smile widening as Marcus’s breath broke apart. "Oh, sorry about the part where I mentioned letting them awaken while you crawl among them as a mortal? I lied."

He tilted his head and drank in the trembling ruin of the man before him with open delight:

"I never meant a word of it. I only wanted to watch hope crawl into those eyes so I could see what it looked like when I crushed it. And there it is." He laughed softly. "That helpless, pitiful, pathetic face. Remember this moment, Marcus, because for the rest of your existence it is the only expression you will ever be allowed to wear before me."

Marcus could not hide it and Phei watched realization spread through his face with quiet satisfaction.

"Once I get what I need from them, their bloodlines, their abilities, their Souls and whatever useful little gifts their ancient existences are hiding, I’ll strip them too. Every last one."

The Heaven-Stealer quickened. Its spinning frame blurred beneath gathering light while the rings of ancient runes around it multiplied, layer upon layer, until they resembled a heavenly formation turning in the void. The surrounding World Essence shrank back from it, and a thin, piercing wail began trembling through the air, as though the Soul Realm itself had sensed what the treasure meant to do and was crying out against it.

Phei went on speaking through the rising sound: "Then all of you can stand together as crippled mortals and remember the heights you once ruled. You can watch the rest of the world cultivate, breakthrough after breakthrough, while every road you once dominated stays sealed before you, because I have decided you are no longer worthy to walk it."

Marcus’s eyes had gone impossibly wide.

Every trace of humor drained from Phei’s face.

"And after I have taken everything I want from you, when not a single drop of worth remains in any of you that I have not already claimed..." His voice sank so low that the vast golden sea seemed to still itself to listen:

"And I will kill every one of you for everything you did to me."

His amethyst gaze locked onto Marcus. "Starting with you!"