Zatiel was in a meditative position inside the black dimension, and his face was perfectly calm.
One's soul is constituted by the Primordial Essence formed by the fusion of a piece of the parents' Primordial Essence and soul force belonging to The Eternal River of the Afterlife. Only the core of your soul can be considered truly yours.
Once an individual reached Peak Rank 3 and comprehended a law to the Potential level, his soul would undergo a qualitative change. Under the guidance of the Universe Will, his Primordial Essence would begin to consume the soul force that was granted to you by The Eternal River of the Afterlife.
When this process is done, your Primordial Essence, the part that is the core of your existence, would have grown powerful enough to be solidified and form the True Soul. This massive change is the reason why Rank 4 life forms are so powerful and can have access to devastating powers like Law Avatars.
Zatiel's Primordial Essence was currently swallowing the soul force around it in a ferocious manner. This process generated an immense strain on the individual's consciousness and life force, but the Neo-Demon was in the prime of his life, and his consciousness was extremely sturdy, so he faced no problem.
After a couple of hours, the soul force that belonged to The Eternal River of the Afterlife was gone. In Zatiel's soul dimension, the only thing left was a sphere of shining light.
Right now, what should happen was the Universe Will tempering the Primordial Essence and forming the True Soul.
However, before that mighty entity could act, a greater power presented itself inside the Neo-Demon Realm. It forced the Universe Will away from the White Sun, but not before taking control of its soul tempering capacity.
The reason why a Neo-Demon needed to undergo their advance to Rank 4 inside the Neo-Demon Realm was that they needed the help of a force that could overpower the Universe Will, and that was the Incarnation of Death and Destruction's Omega Law.
The moment the Omega Law appeared, Zatiel's face became solemn as he prepared to face the unique transformation that a Neo-Demon had to endure.
Under the control of the Omega Law, a giant whip of elemental chaos entered Zatiel's body and reached all the way to his soul dimension. There it began to feed the Neo-Demon's Primordial Essence.
Any other Rank 3 life form would have their bodies destroyed the moment this dense and volatile elemental chaos entered their bodies. However, from the creation of their Elemental Chaos Heart all the way to the completion of the Elemental Chaos Body, Neo-Demons had been training for this moment.
This was a race that dared to use elemental chaos to temper their brains with the goal of enhancing the compatibility of their Primordial Essence with this power.
Zatiel felt a great pain attacking him, but the years he endured with that horrible wound on his soul had already prepared him for this, not to mention that this sensation was several times fainter.
As time progressed, the pain increased just like the size of Zatiel's Primordial Essence. After three months, the Neo-Demon's face was pale, but his entire focus was on what came next.
The nurturing phase had ended, and a thin white light appeared in Zatiel's soul dimension. The power in it was so great that spacetime twisted and broke inside the True Neo-Demon Doomsday Chamber. Luckily, it also released an aura that protected the Neo-Demon.
This white light could be considered the sharpest blade in the universe, and with a speed that could amaze even an Archangel with the Shooting Star bloodline, it split the giant mass of Primordial Essence into three equal parts.
"AHHHHH!" Zatiel released a cry of pain as the white blade cut his Primordial Essence. He bit his tongue to maintain his focus while he waited for the agony to end. No matter how many times he experienced it, having your soul split apart was not something he could get used to.
Zatiel had allowed a stream of elemental chaos, something that could rot the body of a normal Rank 3 life form, inundating his Primordial Essence only to split it apart when it reached its maximum size.
One of these Primordial Essences was golden, the other was blue, and the last one was black.
He had accomplished the first and deadliest part of the Three Severings. What came next would not put his life in danger but was going to determine how solid his foundation would be.
Just like the Universe Will was going to temper Zatiel's Primordial Essence into his True Soul, the Omega Law was going to do the same with each of these pieces and create three different Paths of Power by harnessing the unique powers that each of them had.
The first would carry the Neo-Demon determination and perseverance, the part of him that always pushed him forward.
Inside Zatiel's soul dimension, something that had never appeared before in the universe was going to be born, a True Will.
The True Will is the metaphysical representation of Zatiel's will, using his Primordial Essence as the core material to form it. It granted many skills such as enhanced resistance to pain, protection against mind-controlling abilities, scanning powers, and you can even impose your True Will on the elements around you. However, those were just auxiliary abilities whose main focus was defense.
The True Will had two fundamental purposes. One is to grant the Neo-Demon the capacity of suppressing the consciousness of heavenly bodies and consume them. The other is to make sure no change in ego or personality occurs in the rest of the Primordial Essences.
Just like any other Path of Power, the True Will must be trained. Not because your will was strong meant that your True Will would become strong immediately. Nevertheless, a firm "will" will help to reduce the presence of bottlenecks as you advance in the Ranks.
The first five Ranks of the True Will are Star Holder, Star Defiant, Star Breaker, Moon Shatterer, and Sun Collapser. They were all divided into Early, Middle, Late, and Peak.
The True Will must always be the strongest of the Paths of Power a Neo-Demon had to avoid a problem with his ego and help the other two paths to advance faster. This is the reason why Zatiel cared so much that his people would have resolute hearts.
Training the True Will was exhausting since not only it needed Origin Power but also the tempering of powerful negative emotions. However, now that it had yet to finish its formation, Zatiel could use elemental chaos to increase its power.
Unfortunately, although that type of strengthening was fast, it was also incredibly painful. Unlike the agony that Zatie endured in the Beta Heavenly World when there were times of rest, this pain would be present each second.
There was no fear in the Neo-Demon's heart as he sent the command and made the elemental chaos that filled his body enter the golden sphere of Primordial Essence that would become his True Will.
Zatiel's body shivered once that dangerous energy touched the golden Primordial Essence, but the next second he became solid as a rock. He was enduring the kind of pain that would drive even monsters crazy.
By the time the first day had ended, Zatiel was clenching his fist and teeth so hard that blood fell from his mouth and palms.
In the middle of the 9th day the Neo-Demon began to shake uncontrollably and did not pass long before he could not keep his body straight. Despite all that, Zatiel did not stop the stream of elemental chaos.
"Keep going, keep going, keep going..." That was the only thought in Zatiel's mind when the 20th day was reaching its end, and he kept pushing forward.
Right when the 21st day started, Zatiel's body stopped shaking. The Neo-Demon had fallen unconscious.
The Omega Law stopped the golden Primordial Essence from swallowing any more elemental chaos since it could collapse now that Zatiel was no longer using his determination to keep it steady.
Using the tempering abilities that it had taken from the Universe Will, the Omega Law began to give form to the True Will. The sphere of golden Primordial Essence was condensed until it formed a small golden humanoid.
This humanoid had no features at all, and the aura around it was very mild. This was the aspect the True Will would present at the first Rank, Star Holder. However, a change began to occur in the next moment as all the energy Zatiel was able to give it proved its effectiveness.
The True Will began to gain form and slowly became a perfect copy of Zatiel, down to the smallest detail. The golden humanoid taking form meant that the Neo-Demon had reached Peak Star Holder.
However, things did not end there because the True Will began to open his eyes. It took a long time until they were fully open, and the moment it happened, the eyes of Zatiel, who was still unconscious, began to glow with golden light. He had reached Peak Star Defiant and could thoroughly suppress the consciousness of a star inside his body.
By reaching Peak Star Defiant, even if the other two Paths of Power reach the Rank 5 level, the Neo-Demon would have no problem keeping their ego in check. Nevertheless, Zatiel's True Will had yet to finish his transformation.
The eyes of the True Will were empty, but a second later, a spark of light manifested itself in them. That moment an aura was released from the golden humanoid that appeared to tell he was the one and only king of the soul dimension in which he resided. Nothing could defy its will, and even the consciousness of a million years star could only crumble under its might.
By enduring more than twenty days of unimaginable agony, Zatiel had managed to push his True Will to the Low Star Breaker Rank.
