The Void Emperor 35 The Second Trial - Part 2

While Ryuu and Xingyue were in the first trial, Ryuu was wondering why this area containing the nine trials was called "The Devil's Domain" because, apart from the pain from the waterfalls, Ryuu didn't find anything else worth the 'Devil' word in its name.

But only in the second trial did he find out why it was called as such.

Ryuu and Xingyue were currently walking on a path going toward its end, as the mission required. Occasionally, Ryuu's eyes flashed purple and he observed their surroundings and he found out an interesting thing - this was an Illusion. If it seemed that the distance they went over was a kilometer, in reality, it was only ten meters. He noticed that, but he didn't tell Xingyue because he wanted her to find out on her own. Ryuu showed her how to enhance her vision with Spirit Power and Spirit Energy combined and she was surprised when she saw the faint flow of Spirit Energy in her arms and body, but when she observed Ryuu, she only saw someone who didn't have a single speck of Spirit Energy in his body. There wasn't even a core in his body. She asked Ryuu about it on several occasions, but he told her that if she wanted to know, she had to find out herself or wait several years and only then would he tell her.

The intention behind Ryuu's reasoning was to teach Xingyue to use her own head and not rely on what someone else tells her - the thing which made Ryuu's previous world so boring was precisely that. Humans on earth never used their head to think and only listened to the 'educated scientists', but didn't notice that those so-called prodigies and scientists were humans, exactly the same as them. Ryuu believed that a similar situation would occur on this planet as well because demons and humans were pretty much alike, the only difference being the Soul Spirits that were unique only to the demonkind.

Long Xingyue was annoyed at the beginning but when she realized that her brother may be making her do that in order to help her catch up and gain insights by herself, she felt warmth in her heart and along the way, a bright smile was stuck on her face which made Ryuu smile a bit as well.

As they advanced further on the path, Ryuu found out that his initial a.s.sumption about Spiritual Pressure was off - there was no pressure of any kind, only the illusion and sometimes the creepy feeling of those invisible beings which they named 'The evil spirits'.

Several times there was a moment where one of the spirits attacked Long Xingyue with their Spirit Power but they never dared do so to Ryuu because of the terrifying aura that oozed out from him when they scanned him over with their Spirit Power. Long Xingyue managed to turn the situation around and they found that when that floating evil spirit was killed, their Spirit Power would rise a little, to be precise - for the part of the difference in the amount between the spirit and the one who killed it.

Ryuu decided to let Long Xingyue take all of the 'kills' in order to enhance her Spirit Power and bring it up to the limit of 999 after which her Spirit Sea would form. Ryuu hoped that her Spirit Sea would manifest as he could help her out with it so he helped her with his Green Dragon Soul Spirit so that her state of mind would always be at the peak, but she didn't notice that because Ryuu didn't use his Purple Dragon Soul Spirit which could be felt and only used his other Soul Spirit a little so that he wouldn't be found out.

That's how the two went on the path for several days. It seemed as if they pa.s.sed over a hundred kilometers of distance, but in reality, it was only a kilometer and the entire path was long exactly three kilometers in reality, which meant they pa.s.sed one-third of the path.

If it was someone else instead of them, they wouldn't be so fast because a 'normal' Spiritist had around 200 - 300 Spirit Power and they'd be mentally exhausted from that many mental attacks from the evil spirits, but unfortunately for the creator of this trial, Xingyue had Ryuu with her who was like a walking bane for any spiritual-type beings.

Long Xingyue wasn't the only one who benefitted from this because when she and a spirit had a 'spiritual duel', Ryuu would observe with his purple eyes and found out how one's Spirit Power can be used to attack and defend which opened an entirely new door for him.

-----

While Ryuu and Xingyue were walking along the path, in Ryuu's Spirit Sea, Little Dragon observed the outside situation and in the free time that she didn't, she looked at the nine dragons beside her body around the Black Hole and her thoughts would occasionally drift away to the past when those brothers and sisters who were now only Soul Spirits were actually alive and dominating across the heavens. However, she didn't know that each of the dragons observed both her actions and Ryuu's and exchanged their thoughts and ideas with each other with telepathy so that they wouldn't notice anything unusual about them.

Old Green: "Hehe, this kid already found out how to merge our powers together, what a guy... right, Little Purple?", an old voice asked.

Purple Dragon: "Hmph, old green - don't try your luck with me. Even if Ryuu used us at the same time, that doesn't mean you have a chance with me so scram!"

Old Green: "Ay, ay... How cold of you. What do you think, Goldie?"

Golden Dragon: "..."

Old Green: "Meh, you're no fun at all, right, little Silver?"

Silver Dragon: "Hey old man, why is karma so unfair?"

Old Green: "Ey? What do you mean?"

Silver Dragon: "How could Ryuu release an old pervert like you and not let us, Gold and Silver duo out to play?"

Old Green: "Hehe, don't worry. You'll be his official Soul Spirits as far as I figured out when he goes to that academy that our elder sister made."

Golden Dragon: "Hm? What does that mean?"

Old Green: "Hehehe, he'll limit our auras and only the two of you and another one will be visible to the 'outside' while the rest of us will be masked. That's what I found out from the technique in the elder sister's manual when he was setting it up. I guess he doesn't want to be a guinea pig as the first-ever person to have ten Soul Spirits, after all, so he'll limit it to two or three of us."

Silver Dragon: "Why do you think it'll be us?"

Old Green: "Well, goldie will most likely be a guarantee because of his properties of strength and explosiveness, and you'll be the second Soul Spirit because of your elemental control. Now for the third, it's possible that it'll be little purple because he's getting used to using it all the time, but he occasionally lets me, old blue or old crimson outside as well so nothing's certain yet, ke-ke-ke."

"..."

A silence came after that because each of the dragons was thinking for themselves about what Old Green said. Even if he was a shameless pervert, he was smart and among the eldest ones among them so they respected him. Currently, Golden and Silver, Black and White Dragon Soul Spirits were not released by Ryuu because there wasn't a situation where they were specifically needed but that didn't make them sad as they saw how high is a potential of this human who was fighting on his own instead of relying on them which made them proud and happy.

"We are destined to be a part of his legend.", each of them thought.

-----

Ryuu and Xingyue pa.s.sed the one-kilometer mark in the real world while in the illusion it was a hundred times longer and suddenly, a cold, creepy aura descended on them as they took a step forward. Ryuu and Xingyue recognized this aura - Killing Intent. Ryuu found it out first because he possessed one as well from the Illusion Realm when he took the lives of countless Spirit Beasts while Long Xingyue recognized it when she remembered the morning when her father attacked them with the similar aura and remembered what Ryuu told her that it was.

Asura Ryuu: "It seems that my initial a.s.sumption wasn't that far off, hehe. This is becoming interesting...", he thought.

Long Xingyue: "Bro, what do we do now?", Xingyue's voice filled with unease asked.

Asura Ryuu: "Endure."
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Long Xingyue: "...", she became silent as Ryuu's previous strong and decisive voice sounded in her mind. "I'm so foolish, I want to catch up with him yet here I am being scared from this little thing. Get yourself together, Xingyue!", she told herself in her mind.

Ryuu felt all of her changes and in a certain moment, it seemed as if he could even hear her thoughts which intrigued his curiosity and he tried it out while faintly summoning Crimson Dragon Soul Spirit as the skin under his clothes had a faint scale-like crimson pattern but wasn't visible to the eye.

To his disappointment, Ryuu found out that even if he summoned his Soul Spirit and merged with it, he couldn't feel Xingyue's thoughts but when he tried out the combination of Purple Dragon and Crimson Dragon he heard the last line Xingyue thought about recollecting herself and couldn't help but chuckle. Luckily, his chuckle was almost silent and it escaped Xingyue's ears but he was happy as he succeeded in the thing he tried - he successfully heard her thoughts.

However, Ryuu decided against using it on his sister as it should only be used to read the enemy's thoughts in a battle.

He even tried doing it on evil spirits but the only thing he heard was different kinds of screams which even made him feel uncomfortable because they were filled with despair and killing intent. That's how Ryuu found out that these were actually the souls of dead people who suffered injustice and couldn't reincarnate again. But even then, he didn't feel pity. Ryuu knew that empathy was useless in this world as it doesn't help anything before the real power and that's why he was usually seen as a cold-hearted person but he didn't mind. Even when Xingyue was crying while remembering the past, he didn't console her too much but instead awoke her desire to change the way things currently are. That's just the way he is.

Even for these evil spirits, he showed not a bit of empathy despite their desperate and despairing screams and coldly watched as they tried to hurt his dear sister who resisted. There were even times when killing intent flashed in his eyes if the evil spirit was too strong and almost hurt Xingyue because he would never let any of them succeed and would destroy them in the place, but since they were under the pressure from the killing intent in this area, Xingyue didn't notice Ryuu's killing intent else she'd be shocked from how strong it is. Each evil spirit that came under the influence of Ryuu's killing intent paused for a bit and that allowed Xingyue to turn the situation around and absorb them and enhance her Spirit Power. Like this, the killing intent from the outside and evil intentions of these spirits gave birth to faint killing intent in Long Xingyue which Ryuu noticed and smirked.

Asura Ryuu: "She'll have an advantage in a fight after we pa.s.s these things. Father, you helped us out a lot, thank you!"

And like that, they continued along the path for a full week because their speed was slowed down under the outside killing aura which slowly nibbled on their will and spirit. Apart from the killing aura, the evil spirits became stronger and those two factors combined made them rest several times but they steadily neared the end despite all of the hards.h.i.+ps along the way.