Chapter 410: An existence that breaks common sense.
"Umu, Umu." Victor nodded several times in satisfaction as he watched the performance of three red-haired girls.
"Apparently, you didn't soften in training."
"Ughnyu.... We know that if we stopped training, you would get even stricter when you came back."
"Oh..." Victor flashed a small satisfied smile when he heard what Pepper said.
And as if it was a black hole, everyone present looked at Victor's smile, a natural occurrence. After all, he was just obscenely handsome.
And this attracted the attention of a certain group of Valkyries, considering that, due to lack of clothes, Victor was wearing the common WarFall uniform.
Despite being called a uniform, this was more like heavy armor.
...Actually, it was heavy black armor, so he looked like a black knight who came out of the depths of hell, a knight that many women wouldn't mind letting kidnapped them...
Adding to the fact that he had always been of a wild personality, with this armor, he looked wilder than before.
Because of this, the current Victor would steal glances from the Valkyries from time to time, especially Rose and Eleanor, who were training not far from them.
Despite not wanting to admit it to himself, Rose knew this man was quite dangerous, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration that his charm could bring countries down all by himself.
'God... If he were weaker, he'd be fucked...' Rose thought to herself as she imagined the possibility of Victor having this beauty and not having the strength to defend himself.
She shook her head a few times and withdrew that thought as she began to instruct the Valkyries.
"Girls!"
"Y-Yes!" They stuttered a little and quickly went back to training.
Worthy of being called the elites of Clan Adrasteia, the Valkyries had an impressive focus, and with just a few words, they refocused on their training.
"Ugh, this is bad for my heart..." Pepper commented lightly with a red face.
"Indeed... I still remember the vampire who was kidnapped by my mother... Now, that vampire has become our father."
"..." Siena's face darkened when she heard what her sister said:
"He's still not our father! He didn't defeat my mother! And she doesn't know about her feelings yet, so she doesn't count!"
"..." Lacus looked at Siena impassively; 'Seriously, what is her problem? One minute she defends Victor, and another time she attacks him...fucking bipolar.'
"It's good that you took my advice… At least, almost all of you." Victor looked at Siena, and when his gaze was noticed by the woman, she quickly turned her face to the side while whistling.
"..." Victor's eyes narrowed slightly.
Sensing that things were going to turn bad for her, Siena quickly spoke up:
"V-Victor, what about you?"
"Hmm?"
"What about me?"
"You trained? I mean, you're not satisfied with your power now, are you?"
"Hmm, I'm satisfied, but for the things I need to do in the future, I need to get stronger. Unfortunately, I'll have to find another way instead of waiting for my adulthood to arrive."
"Yes, Yes!"
"Hmm?" Victor looked at Pepper, who raised her hand.
"What happened, Pepper?"
"I was thinking about that while you were gone."
"Thinking of what?"
"On how to best use your powers, and before I knew it, I made a story about it."
"Huh? Why did you do that?" Victor was confused.
"I mean, I was bored, and there are no animes or mangas around here, so I imagined you as an anime protagonist, and somehow my creativity was lit up, and I couldn't stop writing."
"...So that's what you were doing on the sly..." Lacus muttered.
Pepper disappeared with her vampire speed and soon returned with a red notebook in her hand.
"Look!" She pointed at Victor with an expectant face.
"...." Victor raised an eyebrow and walked next to Pepper.
Lacus and Siena also appeared near the girl and looked at the open notebook.
Soon the group began to read.
It was a cliché story of a vampire fighting hunters, somehow twisted, as the vampire was the hero who was trying to save the world from the evil hunters.
He used his powers of the elements of fire, water, ice, and lightning to become something close to an assassin and attacked hunters' bases that were using vampires as experiments.
It was a typical story of a hero fighting villains, a hero who was very… lethal.
A very dangerous hero.
The group read the story silently, and after 30 minutes, Lacus and Siena couldn't help but say:
"Cliche."
"Ugh, I know, okay? That was my first time." She pouted.
"Actually... I thought it was pretty good."
"…Eh?" Pepper, Siena, and Lacus looked at Victor.
"Leaving aside the fact that you made me a selfless hero, the story is interesting, especially the way he uses his powers..."
'The character in the story uses power more efficiently, more lethal, and accurately... It's a completely different style than I use it.'
'Lethality... Lethality, huh?' Victor's smile couldn't help but grow slightly.
"D-Did you really like it?"
"Umu? Yes, I liked it." Victor was honest. Clichés aside, the story was interesting to read.
"Hmmm...Ohh...G-Good, I think..." Pepper was a little red, and her body was trembling slightly, setting off a chain reaction that made her breasts that were the size of her sister Ruby's quiver, causing quite an incredible sight.
Her face was hidden by her red hair, and all Victor and her sister could see was an unnatural smile.
'...Well, shit...' Lacus and Siena thought at the same time when they saw Pepper's face, they knew that leaving this girl too close to Victor was a bad idea! She is becoming like him!
"...." Victor laughed lightly and pated Pepper's head.
Feeling the caresses on her head, Pepper looked up, confused:
"... Fueh?"
"This way of using my powers, how did you come up with these ideas?"
"Well, I've watched a lot of anime, and I have confidence in my imagination." She patted her chest with pride which made both national heritage sites sway.
Victor noted this, but his eyes were focused on Pepper's eyes:
"I see... Anime, huh... Maybe I should watch more anime?"
"!!!" Pepper's body visibly shook.
"If you want to fully enter this world, I can recommend some good anime!" She commented quite fervently, wanting to bring Victor to the dark side.
'Thank me, Sister Ruby!'
"Sure, when we get back, I'll watch some you recommend."
"...." Pepper shook again, as a smile threatened to escape her face, but she held back!
"But before that... I will train, I will come back in a few hours, and we will continue your training." Victor spoke to the Scarlett sisters.
"Don't worry, don't worry, it can take as long as it takes. In fact, I hope you take a long time." Siena commented with a gentle smile, but her words weren't kind at all.
"...." Victor narrowed his eyes at Siena, and soon a small smile appeared on his face as he thought of something interesting to make this woman suffer-... I mean, train.
"I will be back soon." That was the only thing Victor said before he disappeared in lightning.
"...." Siena's body trembled slightly when she saw the look Victor gave her.
"Pfft, she dug her own grave." Lacus stopped herself from laughing.
When Victor was no longer close, Pepper couldn't contain herself anymore, her smile grew distorted, and she screamed:
"Yoshaaaaa!"
"!!!?" Her scream caught the attention of the Valkyries and her sisters.
Seeing Pepper's smiling face, as she seemed to mumble something at superhuman speed, it even looked like she was reciting some sort of curse that no one could understand.
The girls couldn't help but sweat coldly.
Has she gone crazy?
...
Victor was in a forest outside Clan Adrastea's city.
'That book was interesting...'
[Indeed... I think since we should wait to become an adult completely, we must refine our techniques.]
'But I was already doing it.'
[Yes, but you were more focused on your martial arts, focusing on your powers in a secondarily... You didn't think of better ideas for your powers, and from the beginning, you use your powers very directly, so, consequently, you spend a lot of energy when doing things. Of course, it doesn't really matter that much because you're a walking battery, but it's not as efficient as the character she wrote.]
[For example, your fire, what would happen if you could increase its temperature even more? A temperature so high that your fire would turn blue, or even white… or maybe if you could combine the elements and become a new element?]
'...That's true...' Victor couldn't deny the thoughts of being inside him.
Arriving at a deserted place, Victor said:
"This is a good place, and there are no monsters either."
[What are you planning to do?]
"Become more lethal, more creative, make less unnecessary moves, become more dangerous…"
"While reading about Pepper's story, a thought came to my mind."
[Maybe I was wrong all along?]
"Yes... I don't need other people's powers. I just need to refine mine...'
If Scathach were here, she would smile with satisfaction when she heard what Victor said because that was the same thought she had when she was younger and seeking power.
"Let's go with baby steps..." Victor raised his hand, and a ball of water started to form in his hand.
"What would happen if I harnessed the power of water?"
[.....]
"The body of beings are mostly made up of liquid, the clouds in the sky also have some presence of liquids in them, so it is no exaggeration to say that water is one of the most important elements in the world. Even Earth itself is mostly covered by water..."
A dark being appeared beside Victor:
"You're getting something wrong. You control water, not liquids. I don't think you can control clouds or a human's body with that power."
"I'm not very good at science, biology, or those subjects, but everything in this world needs water."
"So it is no exaggeration to say that water is everywhere."
"Well, it doesn't hurt to try. It's no use talking about theories that even you don't know if it's possible."
"Indeed." Victor plays a little with the water in his hand until he stops controlling that water.
The water splashed to the ground, but Victor ignored it, and looked up at a tree.
He approaches the tree and places the palm of his hand on it, and closes his eyes.
"Focus... Let your instincts guide you..." Victor took a deep breath and let the air out of his chest.
He repeated this action a few times until he entered a dormant state.
His world goes dark, and all that existed was him and the tree in front of him.
He took another breath, and with that act, he suddenly felt a 'pulse' leave his hand, which resounded throughout the tree.
As if it were a sonar, a sonar that told him everything he had to know about the structure of that tree.
He opened his eyes, and suddenly, he could see 'veins' in the tree and instinctively knew that this was water.
The water that the tree absorbed to give it nutrients.
The planet Nightingale was on was different from Earth. In a place where there was no sun, and it was an eternal night, the planet's ecology evolved differently.
Victor was not deeply studied in physics, but... He knows that a planet can't have life if it doesn't have a star like the sun nearby.
The planet would become barren and a giant ice block in space, but... Nightingale wasn't like that. Even if it was an eternal night and there was no sun, life existed here, and there was an ecosystem.
And in a world where gods existed, Victor wouldn't be surprised if there was some stupid explanation for how this planet could have life.
And even Victor can think of an explanation. The world tree, according to what he read, that tree alone could terraform an entire planet, and from what he read, the world tree was what kept the planet 'alive'.
Returning to the subject, Victor tried to control the veins of this tree.
And the process was smoother than he expected, he smiled a little, and then he came back to reality.
While he had his hand on the tree, he walked away from her.
And something started to happen.
As Victor moved further away, a dark 'water stream' came out of the tree, looking like threads.
And in just a few seconds, a black ball was in Victor's hand, and the tree he'd touched was… dry.
"Victor, this is..."
"A discovery..." Victor's eyes gleamed slightly as he looked at the black liquid, he could feel the 'water' in that liquid, but he could feel something else.
"A soul." It was insignificant, like a little glass ball, but it was definitely there.
In his hand, in the core of all that black liquid, Victor was holding a soul.
"... Everything in this world contains a soul... It's not surprising. After all, trees are also alive."
Victor looked at the dark being.
"But the souls contained in the stones, trees, and plants in all nature are insignificant compared to the souls of beasts and beings."
"They are not worthy of attention."
"..." Victor looked at the liquid beside him, and some thoughts went through his head:
'I don't think they are insignificant...' Victor approaches the tree again and points the black sphere at the tree.
Soon the black threads flew towards the tree, and it regained its vitality as if nothing had happened.
"If I destroy this tree, it will not die, its nutrients will go to the earth, and in a few years, a new life will be born... But if I take its soul away... This cycle will be broken."
Victor felt that he finally understood what that giant tree said.
'That's not the power a mortal should have...' And in the process of that thought, he understood why his Odachi was so strange.
'The odachi was made with my blood, a part of my soul is in that sword, despite being insignificant, it is there... The blood of a progenitor who is a being capable of manipulating souls...' And when he thought this, he opened his eyes a little:
'Is that why that weapon can kill an immortal?' He remembered the scene of him slaying the immortal monsters.
'When Mizuki created that sword... Did I unconsciously touch the power that Vlad used to destroy the souls of the Elder Gods?'
Victor just realized that the gift Mizuki gave was much more meaningful than he imagined.
'That doesn't mean that if I get stronger, and I use Odachi better together with my blood power... I can kill a god?'
A click in his mind was heard, and Victor's eyes widened. He'd only just realized how frighteningly erratic his existence was.
"…..." The dark being just smiled with a big smile when he saw the state of Victor. He looked at his hand and realized that his finger was slowly disappearing, it was an almost invisible process, but he could see.
And that made him happy.
'He finally began to understand... As expected, the answer to getting stronger lies in refining his powers... The more he learns about himself, the more he knows himself, and the more the limits of our existence are removed. '
'The answer has been inside you all along, parent.'
"From now on, I suggest you train in new ways to use your powers. Forget about martial arts for a bit."
Victor woke up from his stupor and looked at the dark being:
"Yes... I will do it."
"Don't forget to pamper your-... Hmm... Anyway, don't forget to pamper Pepper."
"It's thanks to her that you started these thoughts and had an inspiration."
'The power of anime is strong. Maybe we should watch more anime to get more ideas?' He thought of a joke that contained a bit of seriousness.
Remembering the girl with the red hair and cute expression, he chuckled gently:
"... Indeed, I will do it."
...
