Standing at the top of the clock tower, Negary observed the fluttering blue petals and shook his head.
He had already given Olga her opportunity, the same way he had done for Darr.
In this city, there had been many heroines who were praised and adored by the people throughout history.
For example, the female knight Horst, who had donned her husband's armor and subjugated a supernatural creature in revenge for her late husband. Her story became widespread, turning her into the embodiment of female heroism of the century.
Or the embodiment of feminine chastity and faithfulness, waiting for the return of her beloved until her death – the Awaiting Miste.
Not too long ago, the soul linking substances that they left behind were granted to Olga by Negary.
The reason why Olga was so slow with forming the necessary connection was that she did not inherently have a lot of 'contribution', thus giving her difficulty in anchoring her existence in history.
However, if she had fused with the soul linking substances of those two, she would have quickly gained a great amount of contribution, rapidly transforming herself into a soul lifeform. At that time, she would have become a Valkyrie, a 'God-chosen Heroine Fallen-in-combat'.
But ultimately, Olga was unwilling to become a Valkyrie, instead choosing to sacrifice herself and ensure that Chromie would not forget her for the rest of his life.
Olga was someone with great potential, and if she had been able to escape from the influence of her emotions, her eventual achievements would have been undoubtedly great.
〖 What a foolish choice 〗despite saying so, Negary's tone did not contain any hint of mockery or criticism. It had always been people with such level of perseverance that managed to draw Negary's interest, 〖 How regretful, it seems that the Heroic Spirit project will require a different experimental subject 〗
"Lord Negary, everything has been prepared" the shadow behind him flickered, several Shade Attendants with one knee knelt to the ground manifested themselves and reported to Negary.
〖 Oh? Then let's begin 〗Negary curtly replied. After such a long period of preparations, there was no need for any hesitation.
Negary headed inside the clock tower, the interior of which had been weaved full of Mysticism formations. This could be considered the embodiment of Negary's entire wealth of Mysticism knowledge so far, even Eternal Heat would find it difficult to influence him through so many layers of protection, and even if he tried to approach with force, this place would buy Negary enough time to react and retaliate.
The biggest issue for Negary so far had been the lack of an [Origin], thus he was unable to simply release his [Origin] to further improve the quality of his soul, as well as obtaining the crucial Principles within an [Origin].
For example, as Shennai obtained the Principles of 'Impurity' from his [Origin], he was able to follow the Principles and develop his own Pathway.
From studying the vast numbers of magic-related documents he had collected, Negary found that axle rituals served essentially the same function. Through axle rituals, the user would become closer to an Evil God, during the process of which their soul would also begin to conform to the Evil God.
Ultimately, they would be fully assimilated by the Evil God, their soul structure, the quality of it, as well as the Principles contained within would become infinitely close to the Evil God, eventually turning into a clone of the Evil God.
This was the same with releasing one's [Origin], by slowly releasing the [Origin], one would also become closer to the entity that their [Origin] came from. However, the means they used to do so was much more advanced compared to Evil Gods, and their aim wasn't just to create a single clone.
Because of this, the reason why both the axle ritual and the release of one's [Origin] could make an individual stronger was that during the process of release or the process of axle-ing, the individual would take on the radiations of entities greater than themselves, thus literally grow closer to those great entities.
This would be the simplest pathway to follow because there was already a template.
It would be at this point that one usually found themselves in a vicious cycle: If they wanted to go any further on their pathway, they needed to rely on the greater entities, but if they did that, they wouldn't be able to help themselves from being assimilated by those same entities.
If there truly was no other way, Negary would have only two choices left.
The first was to accept a new [Origin], study from it, then change the old into the new, thus forming his own pathway. However, since the pathway would still be formed upon the foundations of the Principles derived from the [Origin], even if he changed the old into the new, he would still be essentially working for the benefit of the [Origin]'s originator.
The other choice was much more troublesome. Principles naturally existed in the universe, manifesting themselves as phenomena and knowledge. Each piece of knowledge, no matter how crude, was a compilation of Principles; the more advanced the knowledge, the more Principles would be encompassed within it.
He would need to compile those Principles bit by bit, then rely on those Principles to modify his own soul. Not only did this require a large amount of time, but there was also a very real possibility of either reaching bottlenecks or going off the pathway due to certain factors, which posed a lot of danger.
Neither of these choices was particularly great, nor did they fit Negary's own needs. The Gear plan was then put into motion due to these needs.
In the Disaster world, Negary had used his Spiritual Inception germs to infect a large number of humans, then guided them to achieve the second stage of release through Disasforce.
Because their souls were infected by Negary's soul virus, Negary was then able to use their Soul Essence to rebuild his own soul, furthermore copying their abilities' soul structures.
However, this method was no longer suitable for the current situation. Firstly, this was a vastly different world; and secondly, Negary's Soul's Blood was now insufficient for his needs, using this method left too much room for him to be taken advantage of, thus becoming his weakness.
Combining the axle ritual, the existence of [Origin], the previous infecting method of his soul virus, the power of Impurity, the error property, the aspects of reality, etc., Negary had finally devised a plausible remedy for his plights.
And the very first step of that was to completely overhaul Soul's Blood.
During the past few years, Negary had been researching the structure of the soul and the soul linking substance to further improve Soul's Blood.
Soul's Blood was able to act as a host for Negary's soul and infect the souls of others through his remnant willpower contained within; it also had a mutual connection that allowed Negary's soul to freely transfer between each unit of Soul's Blood.
However, Soul's Blood was merely the product of a combination between his germs and the dragon's bloodline. The reason why Soul's Blood was insufficient for his needs was that its connection was merely the dragon race's bloodline connection. With Negary's current prowess, even he could easily interfere with it, never mind the enemies that Negary felt troubled by.
Negary's control over germs came from his own ability, his soul structure naturally afforded him a strong force of manipulation against germs and their branches.
Even after Negary had combined Lan Shan's ability with his own to strengthen it, he had only managed to improve the range and accuracy of his manipulation, so this ability had now gotten a bit redundant as well.
Entering the secret room, Negary dismissed the Shade Attendants then carefully examined everything in the room as well as all of his prepared items to make sure there were no hidden means from any other entities.
After confirming that there were no issues, Negary's soul extracted itself from Soul's Blood, then began to change. A large volume of white Soul Essence began to pour out. Ever since he created Soul's Blood to act as the host for his soul, he basically had no use for this Soul Essence, so it was only now that they could finally exert their usefulness again.
The lifeforce contained within was removed, turning the Soul Essence into pure soul linking substance, the huge amount of soul linking substance that he had been accumulating over the years.
This soul linking substance began to fuse with Negary's soul, turning into Negary's soul shackles.
A mass of golden liquid was now hovering in mid-air, Soul's Blood.
Negary's soul shackles then reached into the Soul's Blood, connecting to the Soul's Blood from a different aspect of reality while deeply altering Soul's Blood at the same time.
