Hero of Darkness

The next day, inside the Heavenly King's personal training facility surrounded by hundreds of archaic formations and runes that not only isolated and protected this vast hall, but also held dozens of small pocket dimensions where Romulus himself trained without destroying dozens of kilometers from the real world.

Squirm!

Squirm!

A set of veins, flesh and bones squirmed and regenerated like moving larvae at a rapid pace while flesh and blood were sprayed across the floor.

A deformed jaw bone relocated itself, the teeth started growing again. A new left eye grew itself while an ear grew back. Finally, an entire left side of the skull was regenerated and a new layer of fair white skin formed.

As an aftermath of a failed attempt at learning Harnessing for the 73rd time… Atreus aka Kahn's entire left side of the skull and face blew up, exposing his brain and everything inside.

However, this time, his mind and heart were inside the True Dimension, averting his certain death again.

"Again!" exclaimed Romulus, Kahn's new mentor.

They have been training since early morning and every time Kahn lost control over the external world energy and failed to assimilate inside his body… he kept exploding from the inside, losing an arm, a leg, and even his eyes.

Every single time… the pain was unimaginable and agonizing as Kahn felt the feeling of death.

If someone else was attempting this dangerous technique… They would've died 73 times already.

Only an anomaly like Kahn who was a chosen Hero could stay alive after such self-harming and dreadful technique to gain strength in a short amount of time.

"This isn't going how it was supposed to be." said the peak 7th stage saint with an indignant voice.

However, it still didn't change the fact that even with Combat Technique blessings which allowed him to raise proficiency, Kahn still didn't make too much progress despite getting blown up by just using 0.5% of world energy he controlled using the Harnessing technique.

Even Kahn couldn't guess what was happening as he was doing his best but no matter how careful he was, his control over the world energy kept loosening whenever he tried to refine it using his own body.

[Could it be that his body has already been tempered differently?] wondered Romulus.

"Switch with him." he ordered.

Soon, the Peak Saint took control and Romulus explained his worries, suspecting that Kahn's different bloodlines were the cause of this problem.

"Leave it to me. I can find a way to resolve this situation and he will be able to perform Harnessing by tomorrow." spoke Rathnaar and left the training facility.

Soon, he returned to Atreus' current small villa that was given to him for staying.

Inside the villa, Vildred was resting while being undetected by everyone in the 50 kilometers range.

"Set up an ancient rank Shadow Realm barrier around this villa." he commended the royal dragon who was in meditation pose.

"Why? My current barrier is enough to hide everything from those below the 8th stage saint." said the lighting dragon emperor.

"There's something you need to see. And its aura will be known once we take it out.

But we can't tell Romulus about it." said Rathnaar, trying to maintain complete secrecy.

"Fine. But I'm not at my peak so it will take some time." responded the Sage of Preservation as he sighed.

4 Hours Later.

Vildred set up an ancient rank magic formation with over 3 thousand archaic formations and runes spread in 200 meters radius.

Kahn was astonished after seeing the result because he felt like they were no longer in the same plane of existence like the outside world.

This wasn't the True Dimension but it wasn't the real world either.

[What kind of formation is this?] He asked from the backseat.

"It's one of the most powerful formations in the world's history.

All the other isolation barriers are derived from it. Not even an 8th stage saint can create it easily." replied Vildred in a calm tone.

"It's exactly what I used to hide that thing from the world." said Rathnaar who was still controlling the blue wolfkin's body.

"It's time to use it again." he spoke and the very next moment…

Swoosh!

BANG!

Finally, a massive 3 meter tall golden slab covered with archaic runes of an unknown language appeared in the room.

The Tablet of Arcana.

As soon as Rathnaar summoned the tablet of Arcana, Vildred was flabbergasted and almost trembled in astonishment as he felt a sense of familiarity with it.

"Is this one of the 6 rumored creations of Demi-Gods?" he questioned with eyes wide open.

"Yes.

This is what I used to become a Peak Saint when I was alive." spoke Rathnaar in an indifferent voice while folding his arms behind his back.

"I see, the rumors were indeed true then.

Some of these runic engravings do resemble the Mask of Eternity we have. I guess both of them were created by the same Demi-God." revealed Vildred, breathing heavily.

"Oh, so the Dragon Empire has one as well.

Back in the day, I found that Lightbringers also had one of the six creations." he spoke in a stern voice.

[You mean Empire of Light?] asked Kahn from the inside.

"Yes. If my guess is correct… All the Heroes and Heroines of Light have been trained using whatever they have since the beginning of this whole thing started 3 thousand years ago.

Those guys have always been one of the first ones to become unnaturally strong even among the other Heroes." he iterated, revealing something unknown to most of the empires of Vantrea.

"That leaves the whereabouts of the remaining 3 creations.

Never mind, that's something we should leave for the future." he said and moved to the topic at hand.

"Maybe our approach was correct, just the place was wrong." he spoke.

"Remember how the Chamber of Exaltation changes your body itself in order to make you twice stronger than other Saints of the same rank…

Maybe that's why you can't practice Harnessing." he spoke with a worrisome countenance.

Vildred says…

"Wait! Harnessing?

Are you teaching him to control the outside world energy using his body as a medium to refine and restructure it?" queried the royal dragon with a surprised gaze.

All Rathnaar did was nod.

"Isn't that too dangerous for Kahn? He could easily die if anything went wrong.

He's not strong enough to keep practicing it for long." spoke Vildred, revealing his unhappiness.

Kahn then told the royal dragon about his regeneration and dimensional law abilities.

"This could work. But what if you run out of world energy to use as a source? You will definitely die." he spoke in a gloomy voice.

"We have this." spoke Rathnaar again and soon, activated Kahn's Dimensional Domain to reveal a particular blinding white spherical object that was 3 meters tall.

This was… the Peak Saint's core.

"So much world energy!

This source… I have never seen something like this in my entire life.

Even the remnant core of one of the ancient Elder Dragons didn't have so much world energy condensed inside!" exclaimed Vildred in disbelief, losing his decorum as a dignified 'strongest mage in the world'.

[How strong is it exactly?] queried Kahn again.

"Enough to obliterate everything in 800 kilometers normally.

If you use some external formation to increase the range like a chain reaction… It will go as far as 1200 kilometers." revealed the dragon emperor.

[Holy mother of Oppenheimer!

So I have been sitting on an unstable nuclear bomb all these years, huh?] even Kahn was perplexed after hearing these words from Vildred.

Rathnaar soon told Vildred about the function of the Chamber of Exaltation.

"This thing… It's like giving a Superior Dragon's body to Kahn." iterated Vildred in a dumbfounded tone.

One after another, he was receiving way too many mind-boggling revelations.

Both Rathnaar's core and Tablet of Arcana were probably one the biggest treasures in the entire world of Vantrea.

"If Kahn ever becomes a Peak Saint… He will be able to fight a Demi-God on equal footing for at least 2 hours." hypothesized the royal dragon who was the prime expert on world energy and magic among the three.

"That powerful?

Well… I didn't have a Demi-God to test out my full strength against. I only knew how powerful they were from the ancient records I acquired alongside the Table of Arcana." said Rathnaar, almost shamelessly flexing.

"The other half of my soul must know something about it.

That part also holds most of my powerful techniques and killer moves." he revealed.

[Only if you weren't so upstuck, you would have your entire soul.] said Kahn.

"Boy… like I told you when we made the pact; you're too weak to even enter the place I arranged.

At least become an 8th stage saint first and then we can think about it." he berated the oblivious fool.

"Alright, let me test my theory." spoke Rathnaar and soon, he and Vildred were sucked inside the Tablet of Arcana like entering a wormhole.

Inside this place, Kahn regained control over his body while a 10 meters tall figure of a white bearded old man donning a white and golden ancient rank armor and a greatsword appeared in front of them.

This was Rathnaar's true appearance in soul form.

"Let me show you…"

He looked at Vildred and spoke as a multicolored door appeared in front of them.

"The Chamber of Exaltation."