The Dawn of the New World

'What the hell is this?!'

It wasn't often Hao Xuan ventured inside his body in such a way, using the spiritual sense to see what exactly was going on.

But now that he had, he saw the strange growth attached to his heart. Or would it be more appropriate to say that it was a part of it?

It didn't look like something foreign but a part of his usual self but Hao Xuan knew he never had such a thing. And the more he stared at it the stranger it looked.

It wasn't following his heart's natural rhythm. It was always just a little bit slower, a fraction of a second but enough to make difference. And that along with its peculiar shape made it resemble another heart that was beating inside his own.

More and more Chaos Qi flowed towards his hearts and soon Hao Xuan felt a sudden burst of pure electrically charged energy coursing through his veins. Where the Chaos Qi resembled a cloud of smoke, this energy was much sharper and almost had a physical form.

It was yellow in color, just like the lighting bolts from which it was created. Their essence was stored inside the crystals and now was being absorbed into Hao Xuan's body.

The yellow energy that took the shape of liquid lightning struck the clouds of Chaos Qi surroundings the hearts. The Chaos Qi hummed and hissed before attacking the invading energy and stripping off the majority of its potency for itself and letting only a sliver pass on to the heart.

But even that small sliver was enough to make Hao Xuan's entire body shiver from head to toe.

'Ack!'

It felt like someone had poured lava straight down his gullet. The internal temperature started rising to an incredible degree making both his hearts glow with a bright purple hue.

Minute cracks started appearing on the top and bottom of each heart as they pumped with enough force that the air around him started to vibrate.

His chest puffed up with each rotation, making the hearts visible through the skin and bones. Thick rivulets of red and purple liquid started coursing through his arteries, towards each and every part of his body.

Hao Xuan lost track of what was happening the moment the energy from the teardrop spirit stone entered his body. It was so intense that he had to redirect all of his focus on not passing out from the pain.

Outside, the scenes were in much the same anarchy. Hao Xuan was burning off all the moisture from in and around his body that became searing hot steam, giving him a much-needed screen of protection.

The Nightmare Hounds that were already on guard completely lost all will to attack upon sensing the intense energy fluctuations emanating from within the ball of white steam.

The light from the teardrop spirit crystal illuminated the surroundings in flashes of yellow light just before they were pulled into Hao Xuan's body. If someone from earth was here they would think someone was doing welding in there.

And during all this the glaive was undergoing its own evolution of sorts. By absorbing such copious amounts of Hao Xuan's blood it was starting to stir. The weapon spirit that had been asleep for so long absorbed every single drop of blood that came its way and then even siphoned off a small portion of energy that was leaking from the teardrop crystal.

Although it took a while to describe the exact circumstances, the entire process didn't even last a whole minute from start to finish.

The Hounds let out weak whimpers of protests. They were far too cowardly to attack head-on, let alone when they couldn't even see what it was they were actually attacking.

They looked at each other and then at the leader, the largest hound that was at the periphery of breaking into the Ether Beast realm. Its eyes twinkled like freshly dug rubies as it attempted to pierce through the dense cover of mist.

It looked back towards Lazar who was still pretending to be asleep, although more alert than before.

The pyramid's seal was in still full effect. Every creature at or above the realm of an Ether Beast that entered through one of the webway portals fell under its effect.

The seal stripped them of all their true powers, sealed their laws by about 90-95%, and prevented them from venturing outwards.

All they could actually depend on was the strength of their physical bodies since that was the only thing still partly open. That was the reason why none of these all-powerful Ether beasts attacked head-on.

If it turned out that the enemy was stronger than what they could handle with their limited powers, then it could very well spell their doom.

Lazar was sealed within the pyramid for more than a few tens of thousands of years. Even for someone of his species, such a long period of time was no laughing matter.

His power continuously faded and now, he was a little more than a shell of his past self.

He watched and waited from the sidelines, making the smaller beasts do all the work in his stead.. But when he felt the vigorous energy coming from Hao Xuan's side, he couldn't help but make a move himself.