Rising god
Chapter 98: Blood Lightning

Chapter 98: Blood Lightning

In the shadowed chamber of the underground general meeting, whispers buzzed like a swarm of insects.

The revelation that the Solaris Empire would not let Jin remain in Darkan sparked a cascade of schemes. For the underground leaders, this was a golden opportunity: wait for Jin to be pried from the Darkans’ grasp and then strike.

Ralph, seated among the Mistars, felt a chill of unease. Naturally, he was an exception to all of this. The thought of his brother Baines being taken by the empire or anyone else gnawed at him. ’What to do?’ His frown deepened, his mind racing for a way to shield Baines from clawing hands.

"What’s wrong?" Mirta, the Mistar leader, asked, noting his troubled expression.

"Uh, nothing," Ralph replied, shaking his head to refocus on the meeting. Mirta’s eyes narrowed briefly before returning to the platform.

Marron, the leader of the Maroon Marauders, continued, "Jin will leave, but that won’t stop the Darkans from being dragons," he declared. "I propose a solution."

"What is it?" voices demanded in unison, eagerness palpable.

"We band together," Marron said, his words slicing through the air.

The room froze, eyes locking on him. The idea was audacious, insane, even.

The underground had never united, their conflicting interests a constant source of strife.

Marron nodded as if he could read their thoughts, and with a gesture, figures emerged from the shadows, each radiating lethal intent. Just as they were underground organizations, some individuals preferred to work alone. And from the looks of it, Maroon had only gathered the best.

Black Hand, Night Chaser, Blood Sword Master, Sickle Man, and twin cutters. Their presence stunned the assembly; they were all figures who could found their own organizations.

"With these allies agreeing to our cause, we formally propose it," Marron continued. "Let us unite and take Darkan."

***

Meanwhile, while everything was happening, Baines sat cross-legged on his meditation platform, enveloped in a shimmering mist.

He had brewed a potent concoction from Silverdew, a rare plant with silver leaves that secreted luminescent droplets at dawn, known for enhancing recovery and purging toxins, and Soul Lotus, a violet flower blooming only under moonlight, which sharpened mental clarity and fortified aura.

Neither grew in Ashenfall, but their combined effect was a stronger aura connection, boosting resistance to spiritual attacks, and rendering the user temporarily ethereal while purifying the body.

Baines was currently a mid-6th star, and thanks to the formed aura stars, he could rival a peak 6th star. It was high time he broke through to the peak, laying the foundation for his domain, a hallmark of a grandmaster.

But his method wasn’t just meditating in aura, Origin arts could do that for him, and he was splitting his focus with the dual cultivation to gather more decay and cutting energy in his core. His true focus was a technique from the Blood Book, unearthed in the second treasure.

When he began reading the book, it began with its history. The blood clan.

They were very powerful, and as detailed in the tome, they rivaled the ancient Ashen family in power. It was almost a rule then; When you saw a blood demon, don’t struggle, just give up.

They were notorious, dangerous, and powerful. It was normally very difficult for a clan to become so strong without a god’s backing or a demon’s; however, there were a few exceptions, and this clan was among them.

Again, what destroyed this clan was ambition.

The most supreme cultivation technique they used was the Path of Crimson Sovereign, which involved absorbing the blood of others to build an internal blood palace that could even be deployed as a domain.

However, among all things, they had a very glaring weakness.

Fire, no, to be more specific, lightning, and among the world’s population, the number of fire users was enormous. One day, if peradventure, all their enemies with fire abilities wanted to get rid of them, they had nowhere to run to.

Baines had also seen this glaring weakness. In the fight against the blood deplorable, the blood units the Silvers sent out also knew it, albeit before their death, and their fight against the lightning knights in the Tyrell family.

So, once again, just like his other family, they thought. Why don’t we mix fire and blood, or better still, lightning and blood?

Whether the leader was a madman or not, the idea was well-accepted, and experiments began.

After so many hardships and failures, they got a good start, well after lots of studying lightning, they realized; it couldn’t coexist within their core where blood energy resided, hence they died, something they realized after the deaths of hundreds.

Then another crazy idea came about: why not try storing it in their body?

Luckily, there was a way for that.

They located nine points in the body known to be crucial areas where energies pass around the body, and decided to store it there. By the end, they learnt how to widen those nine points and called them nine vessels of gore.

After that, they encountered their first breakthrough.

They realized that those places could store fire and lightning, and it even felt like an extra energy core. Maybe it was where the idea of an extra core came to be; however, it proved useful for them.

They could then use fire and lightning, raising their strength to another level.

Afterwards, the experiment took hold.

They thought they had succeeded, and with their new power, they enjoyed centuries of bliss.

However, with the next war they faced, they painfully realized they were slowly turning into a clan of lightning users. They were blood users, not lightning users; they had to stick to their true selves. Naturally, it caused a rift, and after a bloody war, they split up.

Those who remained wanted a change, and the experiment was opened again.

Another person then said, Blood Palace was an internal cultivation, but it had no form. Maybe if they gave it a form, they could connect their lightning to it.

Thus began the experiment, left on the page, the blood deplorable ripped out.

Demon heart refinement.

That was what they called it. Using the blood essences of countless individuals to create another organ for the body to link the core vessels. This part was easier than the last, so they did it.

Luckily for them, there was a strange mutation between the blood palace and the blood essences. It brought everything, techniques, blood, and skills they had ever accumulated in their lives into one orb and called it the blood heart.

The next thing was to connect the nine cores to the blood heart.

That was where the records ended; however, anyone with a quarter brain could piece the rest together.

When the first person succeeded and the first blood lightning was released, they experienced the same fate as the Ashen family, no, maybe worse. This time, they weren’t prepared for it.

Now, this whole process was what Baines was about to begin.

He didn’t even need to achieve blood lightning, if he could just open all nine vessels, just if. He would soar in strength.

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