Rise of The Anti God

Damien's soul energy passed through the hound's body to its soul plane. Luna had told him that he can't resurrect dead beings that have been dead for too long since their soul would have already dissipated or if their cultivation is too high as his soul isn't powerful enough to raise them back to life.

The higher the cultivation the dead had, the more soul energy he had to burn to raise them back to life and to at least maintain their undead state for a while. Otherwise, they would immediately die again if it's too much for him.

Even now Damien was struggling a bit as he concentrated his soul energy on the dead hound. But within a few seconds, Damien stood up and said in a deep voice "Rise!"

As if hearing a decree from death itself, the corpse of the hound suddenly twitched and a crackling sound of bones were heard as it slowly got up. It's eyes were completely black different from the red eyes it had previously. But slowly it returned back to its original red color. It was as if no one would doubt that it was an undead ethereal beast. However, there was a strange circular jet black mark on its forehead.

Only when someone who had higher cultivation focused their spiritual perception would they notice that the soul essence of this hound had been clouded by a jet black energy and there was basically no life essence present in its body. They would sense that its ethereal aura was baneful and frigid just like the residual ethereal aura of a recently dead being.

*Growl*

A low growl came out from its mouth as it stood up. But when Damien's figure came within sight, it instantly retracted back its ethereal aura completely in respect and kneeled on its limbs as if it was kneeling before its creator in reverence.

'My idea worked!' Damien exclaimed inwardly seeing the undead hound kneeling before him.

Before Damien had actually analyzed about his ability to raise undead beings. But he thought that if they were not having their will or consciousness they would be just useless puppets who require commands from him for everything they do. Basically it wouldn't be any different than a slave seal.

Before he thought of asking Luna for advice, a sudden idea dawned upon him. What if he ripped out the soul fragments that contain their memories, personality etc from his victims and used them as a reference to instill and imprint their soul plane with an artificial or pseudo will and consciousness?

When someone dies the first thing that dissipates is their consciousness and will, since the part of the soul essence that contains these would cease to exist immediately once they die. So, when Damien instills them with a pseudo will and consciousness, he's basically filling up the gaps in their soul essence.

He felt that such an idea was similar to how robots functioned by themselves in his previous life but still listened and obeyed their master's orders. In fact, he can control the undead and the ones who are related to the undead ones wouldn't even realize they are dead unless they probe them thoroughly.

Since he is the one who instilled the pseudo will and consciousness attuned to his needs, they would obediently follow his every order and even revere him as their creator.

Even Luna was impressed inwardly that Damien was able to come up with such an idea quickly without asking for her help. She knew that the second stage of his Anti-God Art's was dreadful mainly because of this ability.

In fact, even if a powerful practitioner wanted to make a lowly cultivator as their slave, they could at most turn them into mindless slaves by placing a slave seal on their soul and it also requires both parties' consent no matter the power difference. Otherwise, if they forced a slave seal on a relatively low leveled cultivator, their soul essence would dissipate and die.

Still, as soon as these undead beings get further away from Damien or if Damien cuts off his soul energy link, they would die again without getting enough soul energy from Damien. It's not like they can replenish their soul energy on their own when they are already dead.

If he wants them to walk around independently, Damien would have to sacrifice some of his soul essence depending upon his victim's cultivation!

It is extremely dangerous to sacrifice even a small amount of one's soul essence as it's very hard to recover them and basically they would be cutting their life span short. And if the amount of soul essence goes down below a certain range, that life span is lost permanently and cannot be recovered unless the practitioner breakthroughs and gains more lifespan.

If Damien wanted to let the undead hound replenish its soul energy on its own, he would have to sacrifice at least 5% of his soul essence. And with his current soul cultivation, it would take him at least two weeks to recover that 5%.

Since it was an ethereal beast, he only needed to sacrifice 5% of his soul essence with his current soul cultivation. But if it was a human cultivator with superior soul cultivation compared to Damien and having the same ethereal cultivation as the hound then it would take more than just 5% of his soul essence.

However, whether the undead hound had a pseudo will or not, Damien only needs to convey his thoughts and the hound will exactly do as he commands. Though with a pseudo will and consciousness, it would be able to follow Damien's orders efficiently without having to be told what to do by Damien for every single thing.

The only drawback is that it would not be able to comprehend anything new and its cultivation would never increase no matter what. It simply functions based on the memories and habits of its life before it died.

The hound stood up as Damien mentally ordered it to stand.

"Your name will be Doggy from now on." Damien said as if he was naming a toy.

*Wmmm...*

It let out a whimper and wagged its tail as if it was happy and honored to be named by its creator.

'How docile it looks now.' Damien smirked. He felt proud of his ability to even make an ethereal beast a whole realm higher than him in ethereal cultivation, his slave. Even if he faces someone at the tenth level of the Nascent Ethereal Realm, he could simply let loose this hound upon them and finish them off without even lifting a single finger.

The best thing was that he can store this hound in his soul space since it was not a living thing but a dead one. The soul space Luna had bestowed upon him can store only non-living things.

'There could never be a better way to take advantage of a loophole.' Damien smiled smugly and couldn't help think if he had an undead army of his own.

But he shook his head thinking that he was getting ahead of himself as with his current soul cultivation he would have to sacrifice a lot of soul essence in order to have at least a few self-sustaining undead slaves.

Damien's chain of thoughts were broken when he suddenly spotted a familiar silhouette a few dozen meters away from him. Damien clenched his fist as he remembered that face from his memories.

'What a coincidence...looks like the time for you to die is nigh high.'