Chapter 856 Funeral Procession
A phantom of darkness, the Countess exposes herself to the world once again.
This is the third time Rex has ever seen her presence. However, her presence is still as mesmerizing as when he first saw it. Her black dress teetered as if she was underwater, and the explicit energy coming from her is cold and daunting. The presence of a God.
Rex, Calidora, and Delta could only watch her from a distance.
Out of the three, Calidora and Delta were the ones who reacted the most at the sight of the Countess. Calidora knew that meeting the Gods behind a specific race is even harder compared to meeting with the Origin itself.
Lunirich Gods were the power source of the Werewolves and were completely hidden.
Even if the information about the Lunirich Gods were not hidden, none of the other races would be able to meet them. Unlike the Origin that has a presence, the Lunirich Gods lived in the higher plane, away from the mortal realms.
Due to that, it\'s natural for Calidora to be awe-struck by the sight of the Countess.
With their eyes fixed on the Countess\' presence, almost like metals attracted to a magnet, the three of them saw the Countess slowly descends from the air and land on the ground without making a sound.
But in the instant she landed on the ground, there seems to be a disturbance in reality.
Another form of energy from another dimension brushes against their skin.
Foreign to their bodies, almost as if their instincts felt unnatural from being in its vicinity.
Swish!
Ignoring the gazes she received from the side, the Countess kept her dreamy eyes on the withered black rose. She then pauses for a long minute to look at the black rose, almost as if she was looking at the thing she treasured the most.
Hatred and anger she bore to the other Lunirich Gods vanish at that moment.
Rex can see it clearly as a person who has felt the full extent of hatred during the last time he met with her, the hatred and anger were burning inside her body silently. But now, that\'s all but been gone.
A cloud of gloom hovers above the Countess whilst the fireflies dance around her.
"Now that I think about it, I don\'t know anything about her..."
"Really? I thought you knew since you\'ve gotten her favor and gained her King Mark"
"I freed her from imprisonment, that\'s how I get her favor"
Currently, Rex only knows that the Lunirich Gods were the ones responsible for imprisoning her due to something she did in the past and created the Lunirich Edict that shackled her until she repent.
As for the sin itself, he doesn\'t know the specifics.
It was also because of that he realized that there should be two Lunirich Gods that represent the Dark Moon. The Countess is a banished one, while the one that favored Zegrath should be the current Lunirich God that replaced her.
Even the nature of their powers was different despite representing the same full moon.
On top of that, the information from the System regarding the Lunirich Gods was always very expensive to purchase. It\'s out of Rex\'s reach. No matter how much he tries, he would probably need years to save up enough gold to buy the information.
Almost as if the System wanted him to find out about the Lunirich Gods himself.
But even then, considering they were actual Gods, Rex should\'ve been happy that the System even have the capability to give him the information about them. It further pushes him to believe that the creator of the System is way out of his league.
Due to that, he also doesn\'t know much about the Lunirich Gods themselves.
Rex only knows that the Lunirich Gods are Gods of the full moons, they were the ones responsible for giving the path to power for Werewolves through King Marks, bestowed blessings, and favorability.
Apart from that, he doesn\'t know anything about their personal selves.
It\'s not even a stretch to assume that any information regarding them has been wiped from the ancient records. If he had to guess, then the only ones who knew about the Lunirich Gods would be the Werewolf Origin himself and his trusted aids.
\'Now that I think about it, Flunra must know about the Lunirich Edict. I should ask him\'
Back then when he was breaking the Countess\' chains that shackled her, he remembered Flunra shouting at him to stop lest he angered the other Lunirich Gods. So he must know more than his current self.
Since he came from the first generation of Werewolves, his knowledge is paramount.
After making a mental note to ask Flunra, the Countess eventually moved.
Rex was surprised when he saw the Countess suddenly go to her knees and curled her body on top of the withered black rose, almost as if she was trying to embrace it with every being of her body.
Upon seeing this, Rex becomes even more curious as to what the black rose represents.
Swish!
In the next instant, the purple Hyacinth around them started to emit a purple light. The fireflies absorbed the purple light before their bodies also glowed even brighter, fueled with the abnormal energy that appeared in this space.
<Sacred Pith>
Race: Mutated Lampirydae
Power: Ninth Rank (Peak) - Purifying Apostle (9)
Mental: 1
Strength: 1
Agility: 1
Endurance: 1
Intelligence: 750,510
Scanning the mutated fireflies, Rex\'s eyes widened in an instant.
Earlier when he saw the fireflies the size of his thumb he already scanned them, he did it out of habit and finds that they were nothing but normal fireflies, it seems they are below the sixth-rank realm and the First Breath suppressed their powers heavily.
But upon absorbing the light from the purple Hyacinths, this sudden change happened.
Rex\'s eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he saw the normal fireflies turn into ninth-rank realm mutated animals, the change was so sudden and drastic that he couldn\'t keep his expression at bay.
It\'s safe to say that these mutated fireflies are not normal mutated animals.
Additionally, despite being ninth-rank realm mutated animals, they were not suppressed by the First Breath and Rex also didn\'t feel like they were any threat to him. On the contrary, he felt at ease in the mutated fireflies\' vicinity.
Following that, the Countess straightens her back again reluctantly.
Pointing her hand towards the withered black rose, she then manipulated the mutated fireflies which then shoots a subtle beam of purple energy towards the withered black rose, giving it the gathered purple energies.
Even though the movement of the beams was slow, the dense energy is no joke.
\'I can\'t breathe...\'
Rex reaches out to his chest when he realized that the presence of the purple beams was strong enough to tighten his body so much that he couldn\'t even breathe, he also felt his body crushing despite not being the target of the purple beams.
Glancing to the side, he then intends to activate his Blood Moon King Mark.
Calidora and him will be fine as they could hold on for much longer, Delta on the other hand finds it very difficult as not only she couldn\'t breathe, but the air inside her lungs was forced out due to the tension.
But as he was about to do that, a wave of dark energy cloaked the three of them.
"Please, I sanctioned no energy until it\'s finished..." the Countess said, her voice shaky.
Upon hearing the Countess\' words as she glanced back at them, Rex dissipates his kingly energy as the dark energy that cloaked them protected them from the power of the purple beams.
It went on for a while, the withered black rose received all of that energy without difficulty.
Additionally, Rex and the others could see that the withered black rose started to regain back life again. It started to become lively again, slowly becoming upright whilst the flower started to bloom robustly again.
Rex watches this attentively and finds the black rose leak with black droplets.
These black droplets stained the ground beneath it, almost as if it was melting. But then Rex\'s eyes widened slightly in realization, \'No, that\'s not coming from the black rose... The Countess, is she... crying?\'
Even though he doesn\'t want to believe it, there was no other explanation.
Since the Countess is facing away from them looking poised, it\'s almost impossible to tell if she was crying or not. However, Rex is pretty sure that she is. Despite her best efforts to hide it, her shoulders are slightly moving up and down.
Now that he saw how the Countess is reacting, he realized what was going on.
\'Wait a minute... is this a funeral procession?\' Rex thought in disbelief.
Although he doesn\'t know what was going on earlier, assuming that this is a funeral procession matches the stark gloomy air, the withered black rose, and also the fact that the Countess, a God is crying.
Rex couldn\'t believe it, but he must believe what he was seeing right now.
But now that he knows, he couldn\'t help but asks himself, \'Who is buried in this place...?\'
It takes about ten minutes before the black rose has become lively again, it wasn\'t wilted any longer thanks to the purple beam. With that out of the way, the fireflies flew away and returned buzzing around the field.
As the purple energy was exhausted, they returned back into a normal firefly again.
Throughout the process, Rex, Calidora, and Delta kept silent to respect the Countess when Rex whispered to them that it was a funeral procession. It\'s a sensitive moment and needed to be respected.
Standing up once again, the Countess has become poised once again.
Glancing over her shoulder lightly with the same expression as she appeared before, the Countess fixed her eyes on Rex, "You\'ve done as promised, and so I will also return the favor. I\'ll grant you back my King Mark..."
Upon hearing this, Rex nodded his head, that\'s what he came here for.
Expecting a future fight against the Executor who would only become stronger and stronger the longer the World Awakening progresses, Rex already targeted to at least reach the first ascension on three different King Marks.
It\'s the only thing that would make him feel safe and ready to fight against the Executor.
Blood Moon King Mark has already reached the first ascension. Now that he gained the Banished Dark Moon King Mark again, he would quickly try to tackle the first ascension before moving on to gaining the third King Mark.
Out of the full moons, he wanted to find a neutral God. But that\'s going to be hard to do.
The only Lunirich God that he could meet right now is the Lunirich God of the Ice and Snow Moon through the Confide of Ice item. But then again, he couldn\'t expect it to go his way, that Lunirich God probably hates him too.
Just as the Countess was about to give her power again, the black rose suddenly glowed.
Upon sensing this glow, the Countess glanced back at the black rose that is now pulsating with subtle dark energy. It makes her eyes widen in surprise, she couldn\'t control her facial expression at the sight of this.
Rex was also surprised to find her like this, he has never seen her this surprised.
After that, a copy of the black rose made entirely of dark energy detached itself from the original body and floated over toward Rex, causing everyone including the Countess to turn their attention to him as well.
But Rex was confused too, he doesn\'t know why the black rose hovered in front of him.
It was then a prompt from the System appeared.
<A virtuous soul is asking to merge with the user, do you want to accept it?>
\'What does it want with me?\'
<It\'s a sign of favorability for the user, there was no direct impact aside from favorability>
Since it doesn\'t do anything to him, Rex decided to accept it without much thinking. Following that, the black rose slowly seeped into his body and merged with him, rejuvenating his body with its energy.
Not knowing how to react, Rex suddenly saw the Countess turns towards him.
"Okay... if you also favor him, then there\'s nothing much I could do except give him my all" the Countess mutters, she then made eye contact with Rex and continues, "Royal Black Prince, you resemble him... I\'ll give you my power without restraint now. You have my full support, so don\'t waste it"
"I\'ll now boost you to the first ascension, be prepared..." she added.