Chapter 209
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 209
Chapter Title: Nyx
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A familiar buoyant sensation.
As Despoina had said, what poured from the jar settled thickly on my tongue like a cloud, then trickled slowly down my throat, through my esophagus, into my lungs, and burrowed into my heart.
I hurriedly assumed a meditative posture to control it amid this bizarre feeling, as if mist were filling my body.
But that energy, even wilder than divine power, thrashed about on its own, racing through my meridians and muscles without restraint.
"Guhk!?"
It felt like countless tiny razor blades were shredding my entire body, nearly drawing a scream from my lips.
But opening my mouth during circulation would scatter the qi I was barely holding onto, inviting true qi deviation.
I gritted my teeth with all my might, steadying my mind and focusing on the circulation.
The Five Aggregates Plague Art, Asura Reverse Heaven Art, Ghostless Heart Method, and more.
I mobilized every internal and divine art at my disposal to stabilize the boiling qi flow, trying to control the rampaging heavenly death aura surging through my body with my divine demon qi.
But as if mocking my efforts, the heavenly death aura went even more berserk, tearing through my insides.
"Kuhhh...!"
My esophagus twisted like a rope, and my organs felt like they were being ripped apart—the agony made me want to just black out.
I clenched my teeth so hard they might shatter, pouring every ounce of strength into reining in the qi threatening to run wild again.
A chill ran down my spine from the genuine fear that I might actually die.
Uncontrolled energy rampaging inside the body meant qi deviation.
Even mobilizing the unparalleled arts of history's greatest masters, I could barely prevent it from burrowing into my brain, dantian, and heart—let alone control it.
And as a backlash, the heavenly death aura thrashed even more violently, virtually shredding my insides.
-Drip, plip-plop!
A warm, sticky sensation filled my eyes. Lifting my eyelids with effort, I saw brackish fluid rising in my throat and red blood trickling from my ears and nose, soaking the ground.
'Dangerous!'
The Seven Apertures Bleeding.
Proof that the rampaging energy was physically harming my body—an early symptom of qi deviation.
'Did I rush into this too hastily?'
The heavenly death aura extracted from Oedipus and sealed in the spirit jar had mostly been purified by fire along with the doll and vanished.
According to Despoina, only the head remained, which she'd barely salvaged and amplified.
I'd thought a weakened, incomplete energy would be manageable.
Was this truly the most tragic fate of any hero in human history?
As the shadow of death loomed before me and I gritted my teeth...
-Thump! Thump! Thump!
My slowing heart suddenly began to pound fiercely.
"!?"
Like a mother calling her child, or a beacon guiding a shipwreck, the divine seed began to assert its presence clearly.
The heavenly death aura, rampaging like a beast with flames licking its fur, hesitated, then slowly gathered toward it.
'This is...!'
The brutal energies that ignored my control entirely turned meek as lambs, drawn by the divinity and slowly converging.
My insides already churned to mush, barely preserving my dantian and meridians, I could only dazedly observe.
Thus, the seed began absorbing the gathered energies slowly, as if savoring them.
Like a seed on the verge of sprouting, gathering nutrients—slowly, yet surely devouring the ominous fate of the world.
-Drip, drip, drip, drip...
Were these the sounds of my blood dripping in droplets?
Or the seed soaking into the rainclouds?
As I dazedly watched the seed huddled in the darkness absorb the moisture...
At some point, even the sound of water had vanished.
"....?"
Noticing this, I slowly came back to my senses, but nothing had changed.
The flickering candle barely clinging to life, the statue of the goddess of beauty that didn't resemble her at all, the stuffy wooden door blocking the way.
Nothing was different.
Yet a strange energy touching my dried blood lifted me to my feet.
My body should have been torn to shreds inside, but it felt incredibly light, as if I'd shed a heavy burden.
As if reborn, as if I'd expelled all the useless dregs.
This lightness was simply delightful.
[.....]
The long-lost lightness felt alien instead, so I flexed my limbs, when something beyond the door called to me.
Like being enchanted by a piper's tune, an irresistible silent summons drew me in. I followed it, slowly opening the door.
-Creaaak!
The door's screech tore through the silence, wrinkling my nose slightly.
But such noise was nothing.
From the Divine River's ancient ruins to the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, Shaolin's secret formations, Ghost Shadow God Throw's treasure vault and secret manuals.
Even I, who had devoured world-shaking secrets rare for a lifetime, couldn't close my mouth at the sight beyond the door.
The universe.
Countless—no, tens of thousands of celestial bodies flowed like rivers across an endless black expanse.
"....My God."
Amid the brilliant stellar display looming as if about to crash down, I felt insignificant for the first time.
I gazed up at the pulsing of colossal stars endlessly birthing, expanding, and dying.
Emptying everything, forgetting everything.
I wanted only to fill myself with this moment—what I saw, heard, breathed.
Gods or heroes.
Divine or demonic arts.
What use were world-shaking achievements or ascending to godhood?
I couldn't even touch the toe of that overwhelming cosmic pulse.
"....."
As I forgot even to breathe, witnessing the celestial throbbing, the grand bodies rippled like waves.
From the gaps in endless ripples and waves, a massive eye gazed down at me, meeting my stare.
[You reached this place far sooner than expected.]
Her voice, seductive as if fingers tracing it would draw affection and love, chuckled softly.
A familiar voice.
A familiar gaze.
It felt like a long-forgotten memory flickering in my mind.
'What have I forgotten?'
It was a voice I'd surely heard before, a gaze I'd surely met.
Yet the sudden anxiety of having already forgotten someone unforgettable gripped me.
[Hehe, don't strain yourself so much. Even a god can't control every strand of memory, every thread of thought.]
To begin with, I have few memories left I can even recall!
Vast eyes laughing merrily amid colossal celestial bodies like a curtain.
For a moment, I wondered if I was dreaming, but dismissed it.
I prided myself on seeing every bizarre sight in the world.
But I lacked the imagination to vividly conjure such an overwhelming, immense being.
The eyes gazed down at me affectionately, like a small child pondering hard, rippling ethereally as they chuckled.
[Hm... Oh dear! Mind yourself. It's been so long since a greeting, and here I am in this state?]
Her eyes widened as if she'd just realized, sighing, and the celestial bodies veiling her rippled, slowly receding.
Only then did I realize the infinite cosmos I'd so revered was her hair—or perhaps a veil.
[Sorry, you'll understand. Visitors rarely come this deep. I'm unused to taking form, so I slipped up.]
Since first encountering gods in this Greece.
The strongest would be Hera, the most beautiful goddess Aphrodite, the most impressive Athena.
Yet an overwhelming existence beyond comparison to them appeared before me.
The majestic cosmos that filled me with futility toward all my achievements was her hair.
The countless pale galaxies pulsing with endless birth and death were her body.
A goddess so enchanting the goddess of beauty seemed a candle under moonlight, making even goddesses of maternity and affection seem childish.
Those black eyes glimmered deeply, chronicling all history of creation and destruction since time immemorial, then smiled down at me with lips greedily devouring all worldly affairs.
An primordial darkness humans could never reach, no matter how they transcended humanity or eras piled upon eras.
An overwhelming being beyond explanation by science, religion, or martial enlightenment.
A god without faith.
Those from the beginning.
The ancient gods even Olympus's king fears.
[Is this our first greeting like this? I'm overjoyed to reunite. My last child. I am the mother who began the ancient night, who shaped you in this Greece—Nyx.]
The goddess vaster than mountains, darker than the night sky.
Thus began my first meeting with my mother, called the Primordial Night Mother, Nyx.