At the bottom of the lake, Varos carefully picked up the book and swam back to the surface. It felt a bit heavy, almost like it didn't want to be held by a weakling.
Once he reached the shore, he took a closer look. The cover of the book was strange, it was; dark, wet, and made of a material he couldn't recognize. In the center of the cover was the creepy maw of unknown creature.
Above the maw, written in bold, sharp letters, were the words:
"Devouring Scripture of Nine."
Just reading the title made his skin crawl, as if something old and dangerous had just noticed him.
His instinct screamed at him to cast it back into the depths of the lake, but curiosity got the better of him, and he opened the first page, the first words he saw were warnings;
"To anyone who finds this book, either seal it away or destroy it if possible, for it is destined to bring about an era of doom."
"The era of Doom?" Varos muttered under his breath, intrigued by the elegant font style of the words. His fingers traced the red ink, which glowed faintly with a golden hue, as if it were activating.
He hesitated for a moment, wrestling with his options: should he continue reading or not? Then, an unnatural urge compelled him to proceed.
"But if you choose not to, ensure your mind is unshakable, for this book carries a price. Its knowledge will seep into your thoughts and your body, twisting them into shapes you cannot unsee. It will haunt your dreams, claw at your sanity, and test the very limits of your will. Proceed at your own peril, for the doom it brings may begin with you."
Varos paused his reading for a minute when he came across the second warning about the negative consequences the book might bring.
But curiosity got the better of him again, and he thought, "I'll just take a glance at the next page." when he turned the page, he saw that the font style had changed; the words on the second page differed from those on the first. Frowning, Varos wondered, "Did the previous owner leave these words as a warning for others?"
Varos' eyes examined the second page, the words across the page were writhing like veins pulsing with something vile.
Then, the whispers came; soft at first, seductive, insidious, and they gradually grew, "Kill. Kill. Kill. Slaughter. Rend. Maim." "Devour the flesh. Devour the soul. Devour the name. Devour the history." "Erase. Obliterate. Reduce all to nothing."
A nauseating hunger clawed at his core, black formless tendrils slithering into his mind.
The words dripped from the page, crawling into his body starting from the hands. His vision darkened at the edges, and then the whispers increased in intensity.
"Feast upon creation. Let the heavens weep in terror." "Swallow the stars. Grind the realms to dust. Consume the will itself." "Praise No gods. No kings. No laws. Only the unholy hunger."
Varos felt something change inside him as the words coursed through his veins, settling in his stomach without realizing it.
He struggled to stop the whispers that threatened to drive him insane. His own thoughts no longer felt like his own. His lips parted, his breath hitched, and before he could stop himself, he found himself repeating the words.
The whispers screamed in ecstasy "Feast upon the origin! Drink deep of eternity's corpse! Let existence become your altar of ruin!"
Varos quickly closed the book, and as the whispers within it faded away, he felt his situation slightly improve. However, he soon realized he was extremely hungry—very, very hungry at that.
Everything around him suddenly appeared delicious. For a brief moment, he was captivated by the tempting sights of the rocks on the ground before snapping back to reality.
He fell silent for several minutes, trying to quell his growing hunger, but it only intensified to the point where even a divine stone on the ground looked more appetizing than anything he has ever seen.
After several minutes, Varos finally gave in to the gnawing hunger. His body moved instinctively, his rational mind clouded by the overwhelming urge to consume.
If only he had held on for two more minutes, his Undying Will trait would have activated, quelling the hunger effortlessly. Unfortunately for him, unseen forces were at play here.
In the depths of Varos's soul sea, Mortevant watched, his gaze narrowing in doubt. Something was wrong with what Varos was experiencing.
"The book…It wasn't supposed to be this book." Mortevant thought.
He had left behind a book filled with soul techniques, a compilation of knowledge and law techniques he had personally inscribed.
That was why the lotus had such potent soul power; it had been affected by the law techniques recorded within his book and the soul energy the book emitted.
And yet, the book Varos found was entirely a different book. "Someone changed it…" Mortevant realized, his unease deepening. "This isn't the book I left here." Who had interfered? And who ruined my plan?" Mortevant cursed.
Varos took out one of the herbs he had found at the bottom of the lake from his pocket dimension, and consumed it.
Almost instantly, his stomach began digesting the herb with unnatural speed, he was surprised when he noticed a slight increase in his soul strength of 0.0000001%. The change was so insignificant that he could hardly perceive it, but that was not what shocked him.
"What!" Varos exclaimed in confusion. "How can a herb that is supposed to soothe souls increase my soul power? Did the herb mutate, or was it the book? What did it do to me?" As he pondered these questions, he introspected and discovered that dark runes had been etched into his stomach. "It must have been the book… yes, that is the only likely answer."
He could see dark runes crawling like parasites along the wall of his stomach; they were the reason for his intense hunger. Then he recalled what was written on the second page, referencing the first chapter of "The Devouring Scripture of Nine." That chapter mentioned the first-level starved parasite.
He then realized, "I have to feed these parasites to satisfy this unnatural hunger."
He then took out another herb know for its ability to strengthen the soul. The moment it entered his stomach, it disintegrated into pure essence, and the runes etched within him greedily extracted the herbs essence.
Almost instantly, his soul strength increased by 0.1 percent, a seemingly small amount, but for someone who would need to meditate for ten years to achieve such a small gain, it was monumental increase.
Moreover, without the devouring art, the same divine herb would have only provided a mere 0.001 percent increase—a hundredfold difference in efficiency.
"Although the parasites are dangerous...but something that can elevate my soul power this easily is a rarity," he murmured, his mind torn between the dangers of the technique and the undeniable temptation of its power.
He then retrieved the small soul spike from his pocket dimension. The moment his eyes fell upon it, a deep, primal hunger stirred within him. His stomach growled, and the rune-like parasites embedded in his stomach flared to life, amplifying his craving to an unbearable degree.
The soul spike radiated such an intoxicating allure that, for a fleeting moment, he almost threw it into his mouth without hesitation.
"That was dangerous," he muttered as he returned the soul spike to his pocket dimension. The sheer density and pureness of the soul power and soul essence contained within the spike was staggering, far beyond anything he had encountered before.
Even before the parasites took root in his stomach, the soul spike had been appetizing. But now, with the parasites intensifying his hunger, it had become nearly irresistible.
He clenched his fist, forcing himself to calm down. If he weren't careful, this newfound hunger would consume him before he could master it.
Vyrinox and Zarrakis, who had been observing Varos from afar, felt a minuscule yet unmistakable increase within their souls, an increase of 1/1,000,000,000 of their strength.
It was an almost imperceptible fraction, but it confirmed a crucial truth to them.
The plan was working.
Varos's ingestion of the divine soul herb had set the mechanism in motion, proving that the parasites had successfully connected his growth to theirs.
At that moment, Luscith and his fellow conspirators, sensing the same minute increase, reappeared within the grand hall. Their expressions were unreadable, yet their eyes gleamed with the thrill of inevitability.
"As you have all felt, the plan proceeds as expected," Luscith said, his voice laced with satisfaction. "Good work, Callisthene and Kismetor."
Callisthene grinned and slightly opened her mouth to talk but before she could, Noctyra spoke. "No, good work to all of us."
A muttering of agreement rippled through the gathered primordials.
They reveled in the prospect of reaping the hard-earned rewards of others—the power painstakingly forged through relentless effort, the strength cultivated over countless eons.
Once nurtured by their rightful owners, the fruits of sacrifice and perseverance would soon fall effortlessly into their grasp.
Like parasites clinging to a dying host, they would siphon the essence of those who toiled, devouring the legacies built through sweat, blood, and ambition.
What others had fought to achieve, they would claim without struggle, turning eons of cultivation into mere sustenance for their insatiable hunger.
To create something like this, something that allowed them to siphon the strength of others without lifting a finger, was an achievement beyond comprehension.
The Devouring Scripture of Nine was their masterpiece, the ultimate instrument of control, deception, and cosmic robbery.
"We can now create more books containing the same devouring technique and spread them among the Ascendants, especially those with weaker connection to their progenitors," Luscith said, his voice cold and calculating.
"Through them, we will siphon power unnoticed. And as the number of practitioners grows, the book's influence will spread like a plague, setting the stage for inevitable conflict."
His eyes gleamed with malice. "Soon, the Ascendants and the Primordials will turn against one another. That is when our true plan begins."
A sinister smile played on his lips. "When they are weakened, we will harvest the Primordials themselves, seizing their power without ever exposing ourselves to danger. Let them destroy each other; we need only wait for the right moment to claim what is rightfully ours."
"HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Their laughter echoed through the grand hall, filled with malice and triumph. "What an ingenious plan," Ashrel said, his voice laced with satisfaction.
His eyes gleamed with cruel delight as he glanced at his fellow conspirators.
"Indeed," Noctyra added, smirking. "While they fight, we feast. While they struggle, we grow stronger. And when the time comes…"
"We will be the only ones left," Kismetor finished, his tone dripping with finality.
They reveled in their own brilliance, drunk on the certainty of their eventual domination. The seeds had been planted.
The war was inevitable. And when the chaos reached its peak, they would harvest their prize, power beyond even the other Primordials' comprehension.
Back to Varos, he took out another herb and consumed it, the runes etched within his stomach flared to life as they extracted its essence.
A surge of power coursed through his soul, reinforcing its foundation. Encouraged by this, he devoured several divine soul herbs, his soul strength doubling within moments.
Next, he consumed an herb meant to fortify the body. A cool sensation spread through his skin as the herb's essence seeped deep into his body. The change in his body was not much but It was nonetheless a slight increase in bodily strength.
Had he absorbed the herb's power alone, without those leeches leeching off him, his body's resilience would have doubled.
After absorbing dozens of herbs, his strength surged by another 10 percent, bringing him to just 10 percent of the way toward rank two.
Under normal circumstances, such a leap in power would have taken him an estimate of thousand of years, yet he had achieved it in mere hours.
The contrast was staggering, and Varos felt an almost irresistible pull toward the path of devouring.
However, this path came with a cost—without a solid foundation of laws, comprehending the deeper laws would become exponentially more difficult as he advanced.