Novel Full Chapter 374: The Race For the Heart (3)
Chapter 374: The Race For the Heart (3)
[A/N: will be back to Ash and things with the Earth Plane.]
—
Aurora and Isis stepped through the rift, light curling around them before flinging them into a strange, moon-like world.
They stood on cracked, pale gray ground beneath a sky of pure void, empty of stars or planets, with nothing but endless rocky plains stretching in every direction.
Nothing, except far off in the distance—two light years—a single pure white tower rose from the desolation, soaring a thousand feet high, piercing straight into the infinite darkness above.
Isis’s eyes narrowed as she spotted Xeros and his wives already making a beeline towards the tower.
“This feels wrong,” she muttered. “Are we walking into some…. trap?”
Aurora rose into the skies and before she could speak, Elysia sounded in her mind.
[She’s not wrong dear. Keep you head on a swivel and be ready for anything.]
Hearing this her eyes narrowed as well and she completely loss her teasing and mischievous aura. If Elysia was warning her… then she knew it was time to quit the games.
In that moment it was like her natural melodies gained the sharpness of a blade. As she began flying towards the tower, she spoke to Isis who was utterly baffled at the change.
“Let’s get moving,” she said softly. “It seems like this place is not so simple after all.”
And the moment Isis rose upward and began flying alongside of them.
Hum!
Aurora hummed softly as her divinity spread outward, and then they vanished.
Needless to say, the beings of the Constellations and Gods system currently lacked anything resembling mana sense.
However, as mentioned, divinity wasn’t just fuel—it was its own weapon.
With enough of it, one could do whatever they desired.
Without a moment’s pause, Aurora teleported them straight to the tower, putting them a light and a half years ahead of Xeros.
—-
In front of Aurora and Isis was not a simple tower, no, one must know that they were previously looking at the tower from light years away.
Which technically meant they were seeing it in a past state or what it looked like two years ago.
—
[A/N: This doesn’t apply to people like Ash or in battles because, more often than not, when someone is using Strata or higher Layers, distance becomes irrelevant.
That’s why they can see and talk to each other from vast ranges. Ash, on the other hand, instinctively ignores distance when looking from afar—not something he does intentionally, but a minor perk that developed naturally through his evolutions.]
—-
Floating directly in front of the tower—suspended in mid-air by chains of pure darkness with glowing runes—was a man.
He was enormous, easily tens of feet tall even while bound, body lean yet powerfully muscled, with pale skin.
His arms were stretched wide, wrists and ankles shackled by chains that pulsed with containment runes so dense they distorted the space around them.
His chest rose and fell slowly, each breath rattling the chains like distant thunder.
The moment Aurora and Isis materialized, his eyes snapped open.
They were empty—pure black voids without sclera or pupil, just an endless nothing that still managed to see.
A low, rough laugh scraped from his throat—dry and echoing, like wind drifting through an abandoned mausoleum.
“Ahh, finally someone has appeared…” he rasped, his voice thick with centuries of neglect and madness. “It’s finally time I break these cursed chains.”
Hearing this Isis and Aurora immediately got on guard, as his words confirmed Isis’s instincts. She felt like this was all to wrong…
I mean they were inside of a realm that was well sought after, but inside… Was nothing but a simple tower.
Yet, as they put their guards up, the Hollow prince tilted his head, chains creaking as the runes glowed.
“For nearly over 30 cycles, I’ve been long dead by the consideration of the Mars Plane. Ha..haha! But who would’ve thought I merely tried my luck within the endless graveyard?”
His hollow eyes fixed on Aurora and Isis.
“The Heart you’re looking for?” He grinned, lips splitting wide to reveal teeth like chipped obsidian.
“It’s still beating. Right here.”
Thud!
He thumped his chest once and a faint, rhythmic pulse echoed through the realm.
“And today,” he said, almost conversationally. “You won’t be receiving anything, but the honor of providing your fresh blood and essence. With that, I won’t be bound to this damn tower anymore.”
And as his words ended, he rose his shackled arms into the air, and as he channled mana, the chains glowed brightly.
HUM!!!!!!!
“HAHA, THIS PAIN IS NOTHING!” He roared as he then used a talent.
|Hollow Replication (Overlord)|
Millions of hollow clones erupted from his form—perfect reflections not only of himself but of the trans-concepts he had mastered.
He possessed only a few, exactly six, so many were identical.
Yet every one of them was a Peak Infinite Weaver, and they sprang into action the instant they emerged.
Aurora and Isis had already begun moving as well, “I’ll take the right, you take the left… and we meet in the center to kill this bastard.”
Isis told her as she disappeared, Aurora nodded and turned her attention towards the clones.
She took a deep breathe and her resolved hardened. Although she had trained for countless years… she had never taken a life.
Never even been a true fight against someone other than the family’s training dummy. As her thin white and blue sword appeared in her grasp.
She had a faint recollection of words Ash told her, and that was to do things because she wanted to and not whether it was right or wrong.
So, with the blade of genesis… she didn’t began slaughtering mindlessly.
“If I’m going to take my first life…” she spoke with cold eyes that—for just a moment—resembled Vaeloria’s sharp eyes,
“…I’ll just slaughter all of you.”
|Song of Birth (Tier One)|
Aurora parted her lips.
HUM!
A single, crystalline note slipped from her throat—gentle at first.
Then it swelled, layering, multiplying, weaving impossible harmonies that bent the moon’s fragile atmosphere.
The sound wasn’t loud; it was certain, inevitable.
It coiled around every hollow clone on the left flank like strands of invisible silk. In that moment, her Blade of Genesis multiplied—not into hundreds, not into thousands.
But into millions.
A flawless white-and-blue sword for every hollow clone rushing her from the left.
Each blade floated in perfect formation—tips forward, edges humming the same note she had just sung.
However, one must not forget during her training she mastered the essence of all her Mothers and Uncles.
Back then it was nothing more than her buffing her arsenal. But like Ash had said, he had a plan for Aurora and her path of power.
And honestly, he didn’t quite know it would turn out like this, but at the end of it all, it came out as expected.
As an Unus, Aurora embodied, Convergence. She was the Convergent Unus.
There was a single point where every Unus essence from her mothers and uncles merged, resonating together in perfect harmony.
This meant she could draw on all their essences, as well as anyone who might bond with Ash in the future.
It worked somewhat like Nia’s physique, which let her copy the abilities of those connected to Ash, but with a key difference—her essences didn’t act separately.
Whenever Aurora used this part of herself, she always wielded more than one essence at once.
Like now, when each clone of her sword carried both Vaeloria’s sword essence and Nia’s devouring power.
Aurora lifted her original blade high, and a million copies followed in perfect sync.
She brought it down in one smooth, graceful arc.
There was no explosion, no blinding light—just… absence.
Each sword moved faster than perception—straight, unerring, unstoppable.
They tore through the hollow clones with ease, as if they were nothing more than paper.
Vaeloria’s pure essence of blades sliced effortlessly through every defense—conceptual or otherwise—shattering shields and nullifying regeneration in an instant.
Nia’s devouring essence swept in right after, draining their very connection to the prince, from each wound and leaving behind only fading wisps with no chance to reform.
In a single heartbeat, a million clones were gone.
Their forms unraveled quietly, like smoke carried away by the wind.
In mere moments the entire left of the battlefield was erased.
The hollow prince that was still bound by chains at the center of the battlefield froze mid-laugh.
His hollow eyes widened—with the first real flicker of shock he had felt since being imprisoned.
Aurora lowered her blade.
The million copies of the blade of genesis vanished as silently as they had appeared.
She exhaled once—slow, steady—then looked over where Isis was already carving through the right flank like a crimson comet.
Aurora’s voice drifted across the desolate moon, soft yet perfectly clear.
“And… you’re next,” she said, locking eyes with the man bound in chains.
|Song of Birth (Tier One)|
As she moved, she activated her song of birth once more. This time, she didn’t just hum a single note.
No—the mission required the heart to keep beating. And if she didn’t know any better,
’Maybe that thing knew this prince was alive all along,’ she thought, beginning to sing.
—-
“You will remain. You won’t fade, won’t end.
You will be bound by the note that will not break, sealed by the breath that will not cease.
The heart will beat in the box that I raise, trapped in the silence of my making.”
In that moment, the Hollow Prince couldn’t even think of doing anything.
Bound by containment runes, there wasn’t much he could do in the first place.
His whole plan had revolved around capturing a few overzealous cultivators and using their blood to gain his freedom. But how could he have expected Aurora to erase his clones in mere moments?
Before he could even glimpse the destruction caused by Isis, who had just entered her full dragon form….
RUMBLE!
The tower behind him shuddered, rising from the moon itself and morphing into a box.
It fully encased the Hollow Prince, and once he was no longer visible, it shrank to the size of a Rubik’s cube and floated into Aurora’s palm.
She paused for a moment, closing her eyes before opening them again. In truth, it couldn’t be said she had truly killed her first person.
They were only clones, yet once more she understood what her parents had meant.
“Weakness is indeed sinful,” she muttered, glancing toward Isis. With the Prince sealed, the remaining clones were slowly fading.
Even though they were a rank above her, she was a master of Time, which allowed her to finally unleash herself, tearing through clones frozen for mere heartbeats.
“That heart… I need it.” The voice came from behind Aurora as she watched the last of Isis’ battle.
Turning, she found Xeros and his women. Her usual smile returned, and knowing his identity now, she had no reason to hide it.
“Well, I need it too… Elder Brother.”