Saint Ren was shocked, falling to his knees in wors.h.i.+p.One minute he was leading the boy, Lars, in the First Sacrament, the next, a divine conscient descended and enveloped the kneeling boy. Before he knew it, the boy was hidden to his eyes by a seething globe of golden Divine Light to the sound of a choir of heavenly beings singing an overlapping chorus of – as far as he could tell – all 7 Sacraments…
A burning yet soothing warmth like a curtain of air then suddenly swept into Saint Ren"s person, knocking him off balance, causing his b.u.t.t to be planted onto the ground. He felt a most holy presence and a bewildering pressure surround him.
A spiritual voice then echoed through Saint Ren"s mind, shocking him into tears unbidden.
"THIS IS MY FAVOURED SON, WITH WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED! I SHALL LEAVE MY MARK ON HIM – LET NO-ONE LAY A HAND ON HIM!!"
Overawed by the descent of the Divine Lord"s conscient, Saint Ren scrambled up from the ground, only to bow in wors.h.i.+p, falling prostrate with his forehead pressed onto the ground –in wonder and awe, not daring to raise his head to lay eyes on the Divine Lord, lest he die from the overly glorious sight.
"The Divine Lord… It is the Divine Lord! The Divine Lord himself is paying attention to Lars…! He truly may be the Fated One!"
Saint Ren was overjoyed as he continued to wors.h.i.+p, face down on the ground. Within a dozen or so seconds more, the golden globe began to dissipate, revealing the golden-haired youth kneeling within.
Saint Ren stumbled to his knees, casting a gaze of reverence upon the chosen child kneeling before the altar. The boy seemed slightly paler than before, the sight of which caused Saint Ren"s heart to tighten. He hurried to Lars side to observe. He dared not interrupt the Fated One"s communing with the heavens, so he chose to wait quietly by the side.
It was not long before Lars began to stir from his reverie. He opened his eyes and looked wan, then started coughing weakly.
"Esteemed one! Are you alright…? Here, have some water." Saint Ren helped a shaky Lars to his feet, taking the book of Sacraments from his hands and gave him a skin of water to drink from.
Once Lars coughing settled down and he seemed stronger, Saint Ren bowed deeply at his waist.
"I"m so glad… To meet the Fated One… O esteemed one, how many mult.i.tudes over the millennia have desired to see a Child of Light, and yet who would have thought I, Ren En Stinpeh would be the one who received the honour! This must be the most blessed generation to be born into!"
He was smiling at Lars as if he were looking at the most beautiful woman in the world, causing the hairs on Lars" arms and neck to stand on end.
Lars then looked away uncomfortably, and spoke softly with a raspy voice.
"T-thank you, Saint Ren… I-I"m… I need to rest. May we return…?"
Saint Ren"s eyes went wide as he realised how he had disregarded the welfare of the Child of Light in his excitement. His lips trembled in fear that he had offended the favoured son of the heavens, and, by extension, the Divine Lord as well.
Shaking, hands clammy and covered in sweat, he bowed deeply.
"Y-Yes…! My apologies, my deepest apologies, esteemed one! Let me bring you back to rest immediately…"
As Saint Ren led and Lars followed behind, for just a brief moment, the wan expression on Lars" face flickered, replaced by a hint of killing intent.
But in just a moment, it was gone, leaving only a pale-faced youth.
* * * * *
"Please, I"ll be fine. If I need anything, I"ll be sure to ring the bell. No, no, I don"t need any servants. Please…"
It was only after ten-plus times of urging that Saint Ren agreed to leave the room.
Once he could no longer hear Saint Ren"s footsteps, Lars checked his surroundings, using his Mythical-realm soul sense to ensure there was no-one eavesdropping, before sitting up in his bed and breathing out a sigh of relief.
"That was close, too close… The last thing I expected was for the Divine Lord to personally descend… Though it was just a conscient with probably less than 0.1% of the Divine Lord"s powers, that was too risky…"
"Looks like my premonitions are quite accurate. It"s a good thing I took that last precaution and submerged my main consciousness… Otherwise…" Lars felt a chill and determined himself to pay close attention to his intuition whenever it arose.
"Divine Lord, o Divine Lord…" Lars fingers rose to touch his own forehead, brus.h.i.+ng an invisible sun-shaped imprint. He channelled a wisp of Divine Light through the channels formed in his body from the First Sacrament, causing the golden sun mark to light up.
He called up his secondary mind"s memories and recalled how a divine sense far exceeding his main mind"s capabilities had locked onto him. The Divine Lord"s conscient had then smiled at him before speaking those words of declaration directly into his mind.
The last thing the Divine Lord had done before leaving was to touch his forehead, causing an instant of great burning pain before fading away.
"Somehow… Despite those words that I heard the Divine Lord speak and his smile… The way he was smiling at me felt more like a farmer looking at a prized cow meant to be slaughtered for a festival…" The killing intent returned to Lars" expression as he walked over to the dressing table where a mirror was placed to look at himself.
He saw that the weakly lit-up sun mark was about as big as his thumbnail and had 12 small marks around it in a radial pattern, like the hour marks on a clock. The marks looked like an artist"s rendition of a sun"s rays. Of these marks, only 1 was lit up very faintly.
Lars touched the pattern again while thinking.
"It"s a good thing it only appears when I use Divine Light, else I"ll have to walk around covering my face… Let"s see if there are any other abilities." He increased the level of Divine Light slightly, two budding wings of light emerging from his back. These wings were illusory, merely a phantasmal image of light and not a physical phenomenon – at least, not at the lowest Acolyte level.
However, the light emitted by the golden sun mark merely increased in intensity and another 1 sun ray was lit up.
"Hmm… Is it not enough…?" Lars slowly increased his circulation of Divine Light until the maximum he had cultivated. It was not much at this level, merely enough to cause minor burns if released as an attack. However, it was more meant to ward off darkness, dispel curses or promote healing.
"Healing…? From my observation, Divine Light stimulates the cell activity of the body – just like Earth Pulse, giving inner vitality…" He paused, wondering why the healing aspect was so similar to Earth Pulse, his intuition telling him there was something more than met the eye. However, he put this aside for now and continued to study the sun mark.
Even at the maximum output, the second sun ray was not fully lit up. Lars shrugged and stopped his experiment, deciding to look at it later.
Then he suddenly froze.
"Lars oh Lars… You forgot that everything so far has been made of formations…? Let"s see what this mark is made of…" He chuckled, shaking his head as he extended his soul sense to examine the sun mark.
When he tried to pry under the surface of the mark, he was shocked by what he saw. Even in just a momentary glimpse, hidden within the miniscule mark the size of his thumbnail, he saw an insanely compressed, terrifyingly complex formation with millions of lines and runes… No, it was not millions, it was far, far more; there were so many marks that he could not even begin to comprehend the magnitude!
"Even with Insight that makes my soul far exceed another Mythical individual, I can"t even start to imagine the scale of this formation…"
Before he could explore any further, a sense of danger encompa.s.sed him. He hurriedly withdrew his soul sense and raised his defences, but he was too late.
An instant later, a horrifying awareness locked onto the sun mark. Lars was filled with dread and tried to submerge his consciousness, but he was too slow – the awareness lashed out at whoever was trying to pry into it, causing Lars to be pierced by a nerve wracking pain that seized his main mind.
To his shock, he blacked out completely, only regaining consciousness a few seconds later. He leapt to his feet and circulated his full powers, preparing his last resort to split off his soul and survive somehow… But found that the awareness had already dissipated.
He panted, standing there and swaying – relieved to have retained his life.
"In-incredible! Even my main mind was subdued by that formation…" Lars was covered in cold sweat and his eyes shone with danger.
"That awareness… Did the Divine Lord intentionally spare me even after discovering my presence? No, that"s impossible – if it were just externally, there would be no traces of my nature, but since it touched my soul sense, my power of Sin would have incurred the Divine Lord"s wrath…"
"Most likely… It"s just a remnant of power meant to guard the sun mark – like a security system…" He let out a breath of relief.
"So this is the level of the world…"
With his encounter with the Divine Lord"s remnant awareness, the presence of the mysterious Darkness, the transcendental experience when cultivating Earth Pulse and now this absurdly complex and compressed formation, Lars fully realised that this world was truly, truly dangerous…
Far more dangerous than Earth or Yiluo planet.