The Azure Dragon's blessing affected both the material and ethereal, but its effects were centralized in the body.
When that little blue wisp entered Damien's spiritual world, it immediately exploded into a rampaging wave of Divine Power that broke through the ethereal and flooded Damien's body from his head downward.
The pain began almost instantaneously. The second the mana broke through into Damien's body, the first thing it did was refine his brain.
And naturally, as his nerves were being directly attacked and restructured, he was subjected to unbearable torment that rid him of the ability to think at all.
"Ggghhhhh…!"
Damien gritted his teeth and let out a muffled groan as the Divine Power entrenched itself deeper into his systems.
The process of body reconstruction didn't need explanation. Damien had already experienced it many times and while this one was more intrinsic and targeted even his nervous system and other facets that were usually left untouched, it wasn't much different in the actual methodology.
He was broken down and put back together over and over again until he was fortified to a new degree.
However, the main physical focus of this ritual was never body reconstruction. Instead, it was "blood."
The blood circulating through Damien's body was dyed in black and white, mirroring yin and yang at the beginning of creation. This blood was created and fueled by Samsara, already placing it near the level of Divinity in its worth.
Even if it was the Azure Dragon, improving this blood was impossible. The Azure Dragon didn't have much expertise on Life and Death Laws in the first place.
Bloodlines, on the other hand, were a different story.
Bloodlines were indeed incorporated into the bloodstream, but they had an ethereal element to them as well.
Bloodlines weren't regulated by the heart and pumped through the body like normal blood. They were special and had their own metaphorical cores that held all of their base properties.
These properties included purity, bloodline memories, strength, and many other things.
As such, when one bled, their bloodline wouldn't be depleted, but it was still possible to burn one's bloodline to heighten its potential for a short period of time.
Generally, every individual bloodline in one's body would have its own core. The only outliers were those who had multiple different bloodlines from beasts of similar species, whose bloodlines had the possibility of merging.
The Void Physique naturally didn't allow Damien to follow this common path. When he was in the Fiest Dungeon and using Devour to rapidly grow his power, he devoured countless bloodlines that were all condensed into a single bloodline core, leading to a muddled and inefficient final product.
This problem was solved later when Damien used the Primordial Undying Tree's fruits to restructure his bloodline and purify it. His new bloodline was far stronger and aided him many times in the conflicts that occurred afterward.
Still, the question remained: why did the Void Physique make him follow such a seemingly disadvantageous path?
As time went on, this question remained unanswered and Damien's bloodlines gradually became irrelevant.
His strength improved too fast. He devoured thousands or even tens of thousands of beings, but they were either beings with lesser bloodlines than his own or Nox who didn't contribute anything to his bloodline at all.
If there was any place for Damien to find a hope of increasing his bloodline's power, it was the previous conflict filled with dying dragons. Unfortunately, aside from a few Black Dragons, Damien was unable to devour the rest of the countless enemies he'd slain.
It was almost as if the Azure Dragon was aware of Damien's flaws.
Damien kept his mind focused on the pain and his perception focused inside his body. He watched with as much lucidity as he could muster as tiny blue wisps infected his bloodline core and altered it.
It was an odd feeling that didn't contribute to his agony, but made him feel a sense of disconcertion and discomfort that stacked on top of the pain.
He didn't know what was happening.
Currently, he had two main bloodlines: Dragon and Demon. The first had clear origins and could be easily traced and improved, but the second…
Even Damien wasn't quite sure how he managed to extract this bloodline and internalize it, nor did he know its origin.
Damien always figured in the back of his mind that this bloodline had mysterious and powerful origins, but at the moment the blue wisps contacted it, his assumptions became truths.
Damien's bloodline core tremored as the Divine Power of an Ancestral Godbeast collided against the unknown power.
Bang!
His body rapidly morphed, becoming tall, pale, and demonic. The unknown bloodline bared its fangs against the Azure Dragon's influence like a prideful lion resisting hunters.
The bloodline's influence spread through his body and covered him in various blood runes, most of which Damien didn't know the identity of. He could feel the Azure Dragon's Divine Power reeling like an offended young master and preparing to strike back.
"…!"
Damien immediately became alert. If that collision was allowed to occur, his bloodline core would undoubtedly sustain damage.
His bloodlines didn't matter much anymore, but Damien couldn't risk that explosion affecting his soul or abilities in any way!
Whoosh!
Damien's worries were solved before they could properly manifest:
A stream of essence Damien hadn't seen in a very long time forced itself between the two powers.
The pure force of the Void Physique, different from Void Mana and Void Essence but sharing the same origin, rolled through Damien's body and reeled the many ongoing processes under its control.
Huu…
Damien exhaled slowly, believing he had a moment of respite now that the Void Physique would regulate the changes.
However…
Did he forget…?
The Void Physique was the very thing that turned him into a masochist who lived by the slogan: "Pain is power."
The bodily effects were controlled now, so they'd resume without the same pain or conflict they'd produced thus far.
Therefore, the ethereal portion of the process could finally start.
Gasp!
Damien's chest jerked forward. He threw his head back and his eyes widened into saucers as he gasped for air with everything he had.
Divine Power invaded the core of his being, the depths of his soul, and began a secondary metamorphosis.
This time, there was truly no other sensation besides pain.
Damien couldn't sense his soul yet, nor could he sense what was happening to it.
He only felt that it was being torn apart.
His ego was threatening to collapse directly. His mind almost shattered into a million pieces, mentally crippling him.
Damien urgently moved everything important to him into the Mind Prison. Emotions, memories, the World Core Fusion Reactor, and the manifestations of stars in his spiritual world packed the Mind Prison until it couldn't hold anything more.
And by the time he finished setting up this emergency countermeasure, he completely lost control of his mind and body.
He felt like he was floating in a white space with no sort of definition. The pain that resonated through his body yet didn't originate from it at all manifested itself as several bloody illusions in this space that kept Damien company.
With no witnesses, and to the knowledge of only a single remnant soul, a brand etched itself onto Damien's soul.
The brand…
…of "Azure."
