Chapter 9: Mystic-Gold Bloodborn Blood, the Ten-Color Bloomvine

Nathan perked right up. "That kind of deal exists?"

Wren pushed him up close to the Godstone and said with a light smile, "It's one of the Concord's perks. But only two or three newborn bloodborn a year, give or take, get a lineage inheritance. Don't get your hopes up too high—big hopes make big letdowns."

Nathan asked offhandedly, "Did you get a lineage inheritance? Any cool techniques?"

Wren snorted a laugh. "That's every bloodborn's biggest secret. Unless you're somebody super close to me, why would I ever tell you?"

Nathan gave another sheepish grin, knowing he'd overstepped. Following Wren's instructions, he stepped up to the Godstone, pressed both hands to its surface, and silently pushed his bond-power, sensing at this relic fallen from the Nine-Sphere Citadel. Very soon he felt a faint stir in his lower abdomen as a stream of bond-power flowed out into the stele. As the black-light vitae poured into the Godstone, everything in front of Nathan glowed faintly bright—there seemed to be a mass of dense, heavy cloud-light before his eyes, and within it the countless spirit birds, strange beasts, bloodborn, and fiends all came alive, baring their might at him, roaring without sound.

Nathan didn't sense the slightest blood-kin connection with any of the spirit birds, strange beasts, or bloodborn. The black-light vitae swept through that cloud-light without a moment's pause and kept pouring deeper into the stele.

In a blink, the black-light vitae smashed through eight masses of cloud-light in a row and plunged into the last one.

A faint understanding dawned on Nathan: these nine masses of cloud-light were the Godstone's nine-layered seal. The higher the mass, the mightier the bloodborn sealed within. The fact that his vitae had charged all the way to the ninth cloud-light in one go meant his bloodline was strong enough.

Just as Nathan was thinking he'd surely find his bloodline in the ninth cloud-light, the black-light vitae suddenly met no resistance at all—and punched clean through the ninth mass as well.

That shocked Nathan to his core!

The very next instant, Nathan felt his body go weightless. Everything in front of him blazed bright—he was no longer in the Cloudhall, and no longer inside the Godstone Stele's seal, but standing before a towering, many-tiered celestial citadel.

Untold celestial garrisons poured out of the palace, riding infinite primal energy, thousands upon thousands of relics and countless spells blasting in every direction, while layer after layer of Grand Ley-Circuits opened up, throwing off blazing fire, rosy mists, cloud-light, and divine radiance that shrouded the whole palace.

Bloodborn beyond counting were assaulting the palace in a frenzy under the leadership of seven peerless Titans—myriad spells, hallowed weapons, and relics colliding in the void.

Every second, on and on, uncounted bloodborn—and celestial garrisons too—fell. Bloodborn blood and the divine blood of the palace's troops turned into vast sheets of black aether, green light, yellow fog, rosy clouds, even wind and cloud, thunder and lightning, rain and dew and clearing light, spreading everywhere, blotting out sky and sun, blanketing the entire many-tiered citadel.

One peerless Titan clad in Mystic-Gold armor suddenly let out a piercing shriek. His body swelled violently, growing thousands of meters tall, and the pitch-black iron staff in his hand transformed as well, swelling skyward into a colossal war-mace. One vicious thrust, and divine blood sprayed across the heavens—no telling how many celestial garrisons died under that earth-shaking blow.

This Titan's target wasn't the slaughter of the Nine-Sphere Citadel's troops—it was a colossal tree reaching to the sky. That giant tree ran through every tier of heaven, its branches and leaves spreading without end; it was the very foundation of the palace, every layer of the palace transformed from its limbs.

In a single instant, who knew how many layers of the grand guardian warding arrays shattered; likewise, no counting the spells and ascendant lights, hallowed weapons and relics that hammered into that Titan's body—but none of it could stop his all-conquering momentum.

That one blow! It blasted straight through every defense the palace had and smashed dead-center into the colossal tree at the palace's root, knocking more than half its tiers clean off. The shattered palace broke apart into endless flashes of brilliant light scattering in every direction.

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The peerless Titan in Mystic-Gold armor had burned through all his primal energy with that earth-shaking blow, and now took countless spells and ascendant lights, hallowed weapons and relics head-on, plus the backlash of the palace's guardian warding arrays. He sprayed a sky full of Mystic-Gold bloody rain, his body shrinking rapidly—and another Titan, brawny, clad in black armor with a pair of crescent-moon horns sprouting from his head, scooped him up in one arm, flicked his fingers, and loosed tens of thousands of black thunderbolts to shield him from the Nine-Sphere Citadel troops' frenzied counterattack.

The brawny Titan's black thunderbolts blew thousands upon thousands of spells to pieces; even the hallowed weapons and relics could hardly stand against them...

Nathan felt a burst of heat on his face—a blob of hot blood, Mystic-Gold in color, drenching him cold to the bone. Suddenly he found he could move. His body twisted slightly, and eight streams of black aether, like monstrous pythons, reached out. His body writhed and coiled within the black aether, drinking in the essence of the colossal tree, growing at a furious pace.

Only then did Nathan discover that he was a burl growing on the colossal tree's body. Bathed once over in the Titan's Mystic-Gold bloodborn blood, he had actually developed self-awareness and split off from his parent body. He looked like a bizarre plant of countless branches and vines—but with roots that didn't burrow into soil, leaves that put out steel-needle feelers, and thousands upon thousands of clusters of ten-colored strange flowers blooming: a thousand petals each and no pistils, every flower's heart ringed by circles of black light, more or fewer, swelling and shrinking without stop, born with a natural, bloodthirsty craving.

Being the Ten-Color Bloomvine—words couldn't describe how wondrous it felt. But before Nathan could savor it long, the many-tiered palace faded into mist, the gruesome battlefield vanished too, and the next instant he was plummeting downward, fast leaving that half-real, half-illusory Sphere and falling back into the Godstone Stele's seal.

Passing through the ninth cloud-light, he happened to catch sight of a giant tree with an iron trunk coiled like a dragon, roots plunged into the void, flickering in and out of sight. Some deep-rooted instinct made him reach out both hands and pluck a branch from that giant tree—and then he could hold his form no longer, tumbling down through all nine masses of cloud.

A moment later, Nathan found his hands still pressed against the Godstone.

He stood there a little dazed. Everything just now had felt real, and yet it was untouchable—a dream, a fantasy.

Once he collected himself, he could feel the black-light vitae in his body swelling bigger and bigger, like he'd just eaten a huge meal. But what shocked him even more was that something new was thumping away at the center of his forehead. This newborn little thing was young, but tyrannical beyond compare—it kept swallowing his black-light vitae and growing at a furious pace, born with a fear-nothing, fear-no-one swagger.

While Nathan was still spacing out, with no clue what had just happened, Wren was already shouting in excitement: "It's the World Tree! It really is the World Tree! The bloodline you awakened is the Yggdrasil Line—that's one of the one hundred thirty-eight sub-tier bloodlines!"

Nathan's gut told him something didn't add up, but he kept quiet—didn't say a word about what he'd seen, and didn't plan on discussing it with anybody. He had a hazy feeling he'd just learned something enormous.

Wren was bouncing with excitement, pointing out a strange great tree on the Godstone that was giving off a faint glow.

Nathan remembered that tree very well—it was exactly the giant tree he'd casually snapped a branch off while passing through the ninth cloud-light. He didn't feel one drop of blood-kin closeness to it. What he did feel, faintly, was an appetite—he kind of wanted to peel it, boil it, and eat it.