Grotesque Lord: Ascension

Last Day II

About 45 minutes later...

'hooo'

"... that was mentally exhausting it took almost an hour to reverse the time of a single isolated space... heh I still got it." as he said this Derygortheus had an arrogant smile on his face.

A few seconds later he noticed Eleanor walking toward him, she was wearing black and red military styled clothing, although the cuff-links and epaulets on her blazer were pure gold as well as the heels and soles of her black leather shoes that were reflecting the sunlight as if they had been polished for hours. Eleanor's hair was tied back in a long ponytail. She stood at 6ft2in, making her seem even more authoritative.

"You're as conceited as ever, my dear brother." she teased, grinning even more arrogantly than him.

"Huh? What's this? Tsk tsk even with Celestials Thought Processing you can't comprehend how amazing what I just did is? Why did I ever bother teaching you how to awaken it then?" Deor retorted while shaking his head slightly.

"I admit your arrogance transcends even the Astral realm but alas you still lack the pride of a true demon." as she said this her purple demonic energy fluctuated violently, completely suppressing Derygortheus' divine energy.

"N-no...don't...don't...stop!" stuttering Deor twisted his heels away from Eleanor and ran toward the newly repaired cabin.

"Hahaha! Why are you running!?" in the blink of an eye she was in front of him, her hair and eyes were now completely purple.

Then he saw them, the things he wanted most but could not have because of his body constitution. Demon horns, Eleanor's horns, were a dark purple color and protruded from the side of her head, half coiling around it before stopping at her temples and tipping upwards.

Deor looked at them with envy before letting out a depressing sigh "...why are you here? And why did you kill my 'personal guards'....? let's go start explaining yourself." He gestured for her to enter the cabin. Eleanor let out a childish giggle before skipping toward the cabin.

"Not cute..." Muttering under his breath, he trailed behind her into the cabin.

Derygortheus' sanctuary was not large, it only had two rooms which were his bedroom and study. The cabin had many simple decorations littered around neatly, which gave it a humble atmosphere. His 'study' had crudely crafted chairs and table, and in his room was a single twin-sized bed with grimy blankets.

The two of them were currently seated opposite each other in the study, a deathly silence echoed throughout that made the previous playful atmosphere seem nonexistent.

Derygortheus broke the silence "So it seems like you're busy with military affairs..." he narrowed his crimson eyes that seemed to gleam before continuing "... why is it you're here?"

Eleanor looked at him calmly before putting a small white cube that looked to be about twice the size of an ordinary dice on the fragile table and continued to pouring demonic energy into it using her index finger. The cube lit up with a beautiful yet eerie violet glow. Before long a sheathed sword that was slightly curved hovered above the table, landing with a dull thud the next second.

The sword's sheath and the handle were both pitch black and embroidered with artistic precision and care in bright red flowers similar to the flowers that are a common sight only in this subspace.

"I had this custom made for you its mainly made with a special alloy that contains the bones of an elder dragon, I created it using chaos law to break down, compress and change the properties of the skeleton so its potent magical energy wouldn't deteriorate when combined with a metal."

"..."

Eleanor giggled gracefully "It took me a total of 257 days to forge this blade, I spent 6 hours daily on it, I had to ask father to store it in his special space 'Demon Kings Domain' to keep it from getting destroyed when carrying out my personal duties."

"..."

"Will you accept it?" she looked at him with a faint but tender sisterly smile.

Deor shook his head in disdain while looking at the sword and then he stared at Eleanor with an exasperated looked "Have you lost your mind? You know I'm going to die in a few weeks, yet you're wasting your time on such trinkets. At least prepare me a feast with beautiful women and good wine."

Eleanor rolled her violet eyes at her brothers' words "Aren't you married?... and can you even get it up in your condition."

Deor wave his hands completely ignoring her remark that gouged at his very soul, "Enough nonsense! Hurry up, explain why you killed the men stationed by father!"

Eleanor hesitated before opening her mouth "Tomorrow is the last day of the transference ritual."

"...what?"

Anger.

Eleanor could feel the ridiculous amount of rage coming off that single word. "Don't be mad at me Deor, it seems father is in a hurry to expand our territory. He seems to be looking for something."

Deor ripped out his hair. He was agitated, scared, most definitely angry, but he tried to keep his calm. 'This should not be too bad the spell is almost ready, it's just...'

"...How long do I have?"

"4 hours." She said this in a completely cold and blunt tone. One might wonder if she was bipolar.

Deor bit his lower lip. No, he started chewing it. "Not enough."

"Deor, calm down. I wasn't done telling you why I made you the sword. Can you hear me out, please?"

Deor glared at her like a murderous spirit. "Are you serious right now?"

Eleanor nodded softly. Seeing her like this, Deor let out a long, endlessly forlorn sigh. "... what profound reason do you have?"

"You see..." she hesitated shyly for an entire two minutes.

"Tsk! Damn it, have you forgotten how to speak!?"

"It's just...don't be mad, okay...?"

Deor was helplessly dumbfounded by her attitude. "Just say it! I'm boiling with f*****g anger already. You already wasted two minutes of my precious 4 hours!!!"

"Ah... well please...form a soul bond with the sword!" She lowered her head towards Deor.

"Fwahaha... I see, I see. So you're planning on fully monopolizing my death? I taught you well. Hahaha!"

Forming a soul bond with a weapon has great benefits. If the weapon has a high enough grade, high-level beings can attach their souls to them. This makes the chances of a weapon becoming sentient extremely high, but the downside is that your power may dramatically go down and even the rate of your cultivation may slow down permanently if not done right. The reason being, the souls of gods and demons are almost completely fused with their flesh and bones. To separate them you need to have ridiculously high mental strength, otherwise causing damage to your soul and body would be inevitable.

'Wait...! haha. Isn't this a blessing? If I remove 30% of my soul, my spell should be perfected in 4 hours! Plus, I'll just summon the sword to me later on! So there are no losses for me! Thank you, sis hahaha you really are the best.'

Seeing Deor's reaction Eleanor started getting annoyed "I bet you think I don't want to perform a soul bond because of the risk, right? You think I'm an i***t! I'll have you know my mental strength and spell casting is in no way inferior to yours!!"

Putting his thoughts aside, Deor looked at Eleanor with a playful smile and asked, "Oh? Then your true intentions are?"

Noticing the abrupt change in Deor's attitude, Eleanor blushed and said, "Because once the sword becomes sentient, won't it be like a mini-you in a sword? That way I won't be too upset about your death."

Hearing this, Deor cringed a little before carefully asking, "El, your true feelings for me...are...?"

His reaction made her burst into anger "Sisterly love!! Sisterly love!! Do I need to spell it out for you!? Forget it! I'm leaving enjoy your 4 hours alone!"

Deor quickly grabbed her wrist before she ran away "Ah, I'm sorry I didn't mean it. It was a bad joke." he looked at her sincerely before continuing, "Yes, I'll form the soul bond."

Eleanor was fervent, "Really! Thank you!" if one didn't know her true personality, 'angel' would be the best word to describe her at this moment. Deor knew her gratitude was genuine.

'No, thank you for making me such a great sword.' He diverted his eyes to hide his true thoughts and said, "ahem. yeah, I'll fuse 30% of my soul into it, yes?"

"Sure sure, I didn't even expect you to fuse 2% of your s-!!!?"

'What!?!?' Eleanor's brains froze. In fact, any demon would understand just how crazy his statement was: 30% was not just a tiny increase, Eleanor didn't even expect him to fuse 5% maybe 2 or 3 if he was feeling generous.

"Do you want to corrupt your ego before the transference ritual!?" She realized how absurd her own words were immediately after she said them, after all this was a man that awakened an overpowered skill just because he didn't want to lose his mind and dignity. She knew how prideful her brother was. 'Then the only explanation is...'

"Haa~ I'm stupid, you're still confident your plan will work even though your time has been reduced from 33 days to 4 hours?"

"Of course."

A confident answer with zero hesitation.

"Really? I thought you said every second was important. Why won't you just tell me? Maybe I can help."

"No."

"Tsk."

She could only click her tongue. Eleanor had been asking about his plan for 6 years, only to be met by the same answer every single time.

"Well whatever, but that's even more reason why you shouldn't fuse 30% of your soul. Even father only fused 8% because of the risk."

Sarkaima could not separate more than 10% of his soul even if he wanted to, and no one would look down on him. The process is similar to removing the liquid in a cell without damaging the cell itself and doing this to millions of body cells, muscles, bone fiber at the same time was, to say the least, mentally exhausting.

"Ah, father he was still a Demon Lord when he fused his soul, no? hmm...? about 53000 years ago. But the only difference being our talents are like heaven and earth, plus I have 『Celestials Thought Processing』. He's not even on my level."

"Oh yeah, I guess that's true... but the question is....why would you do it for me?...wait, no. You fucker, so you don't even plan on me keeping this sword, do you?"

Deor scratched his scalp slyly "Haha, so you caught me. You made the sword for me anyway, right?"

Eleanor nodded softly "Go ahead then."

Deor unsheathed the sword. The blade was also pitch black except for the six white lines that resembled the lines on a circuit board.

"These are...?"

"They look cool, no? And they act as mana amplifiers"

"By how much?"

Eleanor stuck out her tongue while winking "If you ever use it you'll find out."

Deor shrugged his shoulders. Mana was barely effective against transcendent beings. He had no idea why she was acting so cheeky.

"Okay, I'll get started now." after sheathing the blade again, he held onto it with both hands, closed his eyes, and started focusing on the spell.

Eleanor pouted. She felt like her work was being undervalued, but she didn't stop him.

A pitch-black aura with a faint golden hue surrounded both Deor and the sword. This was the color of his soul if a normal human were to be exposed to this, their minds would dissolve into madness followed by cardiac arrest. Eleanor, however, didn't even flinch.

Slowly. He had to make sure to separate his divine energy from every one of his individual cells, muscle tissue, and bone fiber evenly. At this time 『Celestials Thought Processing』 was working at its full potential.

The black aura surrounding Deors body was gradually absorbed by the sword and after 5 minutes all of it was absorbed.

Cold sweat was running down Derygortheus' body and he was breathing heavily "Haa... Huff... Okay, take this. One day it'll be gone from your side... that'll be the indicator that I'm still alive."

"... oh..." She took the sword from Deor while slightly surprised. But she couldn't help asking "But if you live, won't you immediately take it from me?"

"I know you're confused but I can't say much, let's just say it could be 40-200 years for you."

"Huh?"

"Okay, get out now." Ignoring the confused Eleanor, he walked towards his room and sat crossed-legged on his bed, entering a complete meditative state.

"...okay, I'll see you in about 3 hours. Bye." Just like that, her figure disappeared.

"3 hours."

Sitting on the bed, a faint smile appeared on Deor's face as he muttered those words under his breath.