Chapter 224: True Will

"Oh, really?" Ethen smiled faintly, his dark eyes analyzing the two Angels standing before him.

"Haha, yes. The average lifespan of an Angel is around ten thousand years. Some can live several times longer than that," Ulric explained with a warm, easy smile.

Ten thousand years.

To a mortal, a single century was a grueling marathon against the inevitable decay of flesh and bone. Mortal lives passed in the absolute blink of an eye, a brief flicker of a candle rapidly extinguished by the cold winds of the world.

But Angels operated on an entirely different temporal axis.

These terrifying beings possessed extraordinarily long lifespans, and some of the true monsters had existed since the absolute dawn of time.

They could afford to spend thousands of years meticulously accumulating combat experience, slowly refining their divine abilities, and silently building their global influence from the shadows.

Naturally, their actual population hidden across the human territories was far, far greater than Ethen had initially expected.

"Interesting," Ethen nodded slowly.

He didn’t just understand it intellectually; he could already feel the massive, undeniable difference humming within his own physical body.

His vitality was practically brimming from every single corner of his newly forged anatomy.

The heavy, lingering exhaustion, the microscopic muscle tears, and the strict physical limitations that had once constantly troubled him seemed like distant, irrelevant memories of a past life.

His senses were infinitely sharper.

He could hear the microscopic shifting of the World Tree’s bark miles away. He could see the individual, glowing mana particles dancing lazily in the pristine air.

His bones felt as dense as compressed collapsed stars, his muscles coiled tight with an endless, terrifying reservoir of absolute kinetic energy.

Even his breathing felt fundamentally different.

He wasn’t merely pulling oxygen into his lungs anymore; he was casually passively absorbing and filtering the ambient conceptual energy of the world itself.

Honestly, he felt as though he could physically live forever.

Of course, Ethen’s cold, calculated mind knew much better than to take such an intoxicating feeling at pure face value.

Even immortal Angels could die. The massive, bleeding scars on the battlefield and the existence of beings like the Celestial Dragons were absolute proof that immortality was entirely relative.

If you could bleed, you could be killed. Ethen had built his entire ascension on that exact, violent philosophy.

Still, the physiological change was nothing short of remarkable.

"Come, let me introduce you to a few old monsters."

Mr. Mysteries smiled widely beneath his oversized top hat. He suddenly grabbed Ethen by the arm, his grip possessing the unyielding density of solid titanium, and pulled him toward another crowded section of the gathering.

What immediately followed was a dizzying series of high-level introductions that dragged Ethen through the absolute elite circles of the World Tree’s Domain.

Mysteries enthusiastically introduced him to the young upstarts, the bitter old veterans, and those terrifying few who had existed for so incredibly long that their origins had practically become foundational myths.

Some of these supreme entities looked like perfectly ordinary, unassuming middle-aged men you might find drinking in a cheap tavern.

Others possessed the flawless, unblemished appearances of young adults, radiating a terrifying, unnatural perfection.

A rare few carried the unmistakable, suffocating presence of beings who had brutally survived the collapse of countless different eras.

Their ordinary appearances were entirely deceptive.

Every single one of them had successfully breached the Angel level, a conceptual realm that permanently separated them from the overwhelming majority of all living things.

Their overwhelming strength had been meticulously forged through centuries of apocalyptic battle, relentless cultivation, and ruthless, cold-blooded survival.

Ethen wasn’t just shaking hands with nobles; he was meeting ancient, walking catastrophes wearing human skin.

"Hm? You’re the boy who struck Long Ra?"

One of the casually dressed Angels suddenly stopped mid-sentence when he noticed Ethen’s distinct, oppressive aura approaching.

The man’s sharp gaze lingered heavily on the young man’s imposing figure, and a look of deep, profound recognition rapidly spread across his scarred face.

He had personally participated in the apocalyptic battle above the ruined Celestial City.

Although the global battlefield had been absolute, blinding chaos, he vividly remembered Ethen moving like a localized disaster around the massive Celestial Dragon.

He remembered the young man repeatedly striking the proud beast with a terrifying, inexplicable sword energy that seemed to ignore the very concept of physical defense.

Most high-tier attacks, even from established Angels, couldn’t even scratch the outer layer of a Celestial Dragon’s pristine white scales.

Yet Ethen had brutally, systematically injured Long Ra.

The horrific sight of the dragon prince bleeding from massive, deep canyons of exposed flesh had left a massive, lasting impression on the older Angel.

"And this is Griffin," Mr. Mysteries said smoothly, heavily patting the scarred man’s broad shoulder as he introduced him.

"He’s quite young. If I remember correctly, he successfully became an Angel during the bloody battle inside the Falls Abyss."

Ethen took a silent, calculating moment to thoroughly examine Griffin.

The man looked relatively young, sporting a rough, unkempt beard and a relaxed posture, but there was absolutely no mistaking the suppressed nuclear power he possessed.

Like absolutely everyone else in this exclusive gathering, he had breached a level of existence that countless billions of cultivators would spend their entire, miserable lives pursuing without ever taking a single step closer.

Every Angel standing in this emerald plaza was a terrifying monster in their own unique right.

They were generational, peerless talents who had violently climbed to the absolute peak of the world. Each of them possessed a brutal history of massacres and impossible accomplishments that could easily fill several massive volumes in a grand library.

"Nice to meet you. I am indeed that person."

Ethen reached out, grasping Griffin’s hand firmly. The handshake felt like two colliding boulders, neither man willing to yield a single inch of physical ground.

By now, his unprecedented, violent exploits above Celestial City had become widely known across the highest echelons.

The global battle had simply been far too massive and significant to remain a hidden secret, especially with so many powerful, divine figures personally witnessing the slaughter.

More importantly, Ethen had accomplished something that the overwhelming majority of humanity’s elite had long considered completely mathematically impossible.

Celestial Dragons were universally famous for their absolutely indestructible scales.

Their massive bodies were widely considered to be among the most formidable natural defenses in existence, allowing them to easily withstand focused attacks that would instantly obliterate other creatures of comparable rank.

It was one of the primary, defining evolutionary characteristics that made the Dragon God Clan such a terrifying, oppressive race.

Their scales weren’t merely tough; they represented a fundamental, biological advantage that allowed them to casually dominate their opponents through sheer, unadulterated physical superiority.

For countless, bloody generations, this genetic cheat code had made them an absolute nightmare on any battlefield.

Now, however, a human had finally appeared who could actually carve through that flawless armor and hurt them.

"Fantastic!"

Griffin suddenly burst into booming, echoing laughter that rattled the nearby crystal goblets.

"Finally! We can hunt those arrogant, overgrown lizards down and properly flay them!"

Before Ethen could even formulate a cold response, Griffin suddenly lunged forward, pulling the Cosmic Tyrant into a friendly, suffocating headlock.

The man laughed uproariously, treating Ethen exactly as though the two of them had been drinking heavily together in a mercenary camp for decades.

Ethen raised a single, unamused eyebrow, but he didn’t actively resist the physical contact.

A mortal caught in that casual grip would have instantly had their neck snapped and their spine pulverized. For Ethen, it merely felt like a heavy, comforting weight.

Angels possessed very few things they could anticipate with such genuine, unbridled enthusiasm as large-scale, apocalyptic conflicts.

Having lived for thousands of years in relative stagnation, many of them had experienced countless mundane battles. The rare prospect of finally slaughtering a truly powerful, arrogant opponent was one of the very few things that could genuinely excite their ancient blood.

The Celestial Dragons had always been a particularly infuriating, insurmountable obstacle for the Bastion’s forces.

Their indestructible frames, violently combined with their unyielding, suffocating arrogance, made them incredibly difficult enemies to permanently deal with.

Even when fully surrounded by multiple powerful Angels, the dragons could lazily rely on their natural defenses to endure the bombardment and retaliate with overwhelming, area-of-effect destruction.

They were exactly the sort of enemies who could instantly turn a seemingly advantageous tactical ambush into a completely one-sided massacre.

And their bottomless pride made diplomatic negotiations almost as insufferable and troublesome as actually fighting them.

Now that Ethen had publicly, brutally demonstrated the unique ability to bypass their absolute defenses, the Angels could finally imagine a totally different outcome to the war.

"Haha, I’m afraid I’ll move far faster than my own shadow when they come looking for revenge," Ethen replied with a cold, knowing smirk.

He perfectly understood their violent excitement, but he wasn’t nearly foolish enough to believe that simply being able to injure a Celestial Dragon meant he could easily kill one.

His weapon, Excalibur, was conceptually capable of harming dragons, giving him a massive, unprecedented advantage against their royal kind.

However, that conceptual advantage still had its absolute, physical limits.

Being able to cut an elephant with a razor blade didn’t mean you could easily kill the beast before it trampled you into the dirt.

The exact same brutal principle applied here. Effortlessly breaking through a Celestial Dragon’s pristine scales was merely step one.

Overcoming its bottomless stamina, terrifying physical strength, and apocalyptic destructive abilities was an entirely different nightmare.

Long Ra had thoroughly demonstrated just how dangerously unhinged such an opponent could be when backed into a corner.

"Don’t worry! We’ll properly train you!" Griffin declared enthusiastically, slapping Ethen heavily on the back. "You’ll be our ultimate secret weapon!"

The surrounding circle of Angels instantly burst into roaring laughter.

Their booming voices echoed vibrantly throughout the massive gathering, and the previously polite atmosphere rapidly grew even livelier and more chaotic.

For a brief, shining moment, the heavy, suffocating concerns of high-level politics, bitter factional disputes, and the lingering trauma of the recent war seemed to fade entirely into the background.

Ethen found himself fully caught in the middle of their violent excitement, completely surrounded by ancient beings who had spent thousands of years patiently waiting for an opportunity to settle old, bloody scores.

He couldn’t help but let a genuine, dangerous smile touch his lips.

Perhaps successfully becoming an Angel wouldn’t be nearly as boring as his arrogant mind had initially expected.

Meanwhile, far away from the lively, crowded plazas, deep within the absolute core of the massive World Tree, four figures floated silently in a vast, empty expanse of conceptual space.

Directly before them hovered an enormous, glowing cosmic map, its brilliant surface filled with countless shifting territories and complex regions perfectly representing the Spirit World.

Various massive areas on the projection glowed with different, blinding intensities, strictly marking the specific territories that had already violently fallen under their supreme control.

The map was an extraordinary, divine creation, seamlessly allowing the gathered deities to meticulously observe the ongoing, bloody progress of their conquest across the entire world.

"With this, we have successfully conquered exactly seventy-five percent of the Spirit World. This is a monumental feat for the ages. Congratulations, brothers."

The speaker’s deep, resonant voice carried a heavy note of absolute, undeniable satisfaction that vibrated through the empty space.

There were exactly four figures present in this hidden void, and every single one of them was a fully realized God Almighty.

Morgran.

Bark.

Karth.

And Titan.

These four terrifying beings stood at the absolute, undisputed pinnacle of ultimate power.

Their sheer existence was far, far beyond what even ordinary, established minor Gods could ever hope to comprehend or challenge.

Each of them had patiently, ruthlessly accumulated an immeasurable amount of conceptual strength and absolute influence over the eons.

Together, standing as a unified front, they had accomplished something that would have seemed completely impossible to most common inhabitants of the Spirit World.

Three-quarters of the entire, sprawling globe had officially fallen under their iron-fisted control.

It was a staggering, bloody conquest fully worthy of being remembered and feared for all of eternity.

Although Bark—the newly ascended god almighty was by far the newest addition to their supreme gathering, he carried the suffocating weight of the World Tree.

But out of all of them, Titan was arguably the least understood presence among them.

Very little concrete information was actually known about him, and the desperate rumors that circulated about his true origins were often wildly contradictory.

Some ancient texts boldly claimed that he was among the very first primordial beings to successfully escape the crushing suppression of the World Will, firmly placing him among the oldest, most dangerous existences in the entire Spirit World.

Morgran himself had been violently born from raw wind, shifting earth, and chaotic fire at the very beginning of recorded time.

His chaotic, elemental origins were ancient enough to make him a living, breathing relic of the world’s earliest, most violent era.

Yet, incredibly, even the King of the Sky couldn’t possibly compare to Titan’s unfathomable, crushing age.

Whatever the hidden, dark truth behind Titan’s existence truly was, one thing was absolutely certain: he had been silently observing the board for an extraordinarily long time.

"Truly, this calls for a proper congratulations."

The four God Almighties slowly raised their glowing glasses, formally toasting their monumental, world-altering achievement.

For once, in this isolated pocket of reality, there was absolutely no need for veiled threats, political posturing, or overwhelming demonstrations of power.

They had quietly gathered to celebrate a total victory that had required an immeasurable amount of time, infinite patience, and rivers of blood to finally achieve.

The apocalyptic war between humanity and the invading Demi-humans had always been far, far more complicated than it simply appeared to the naked eye.

To the ordinary, suffering people fighting in the mud, it was merely a desperate struggle over border territories, rare resources, and basic survival.

Each side fought fiercely to protect its burning lands, defeat its ancient enemies, and secure a fragile future for its own people.

But the true nature of the conflict extended far, far beyond the bloody battlefield.

The four opposing Dragon Gods leading the beast-kin faction weren’t merely trying to rule over the mortal populations of the Spirit World.

Nor were they completely satisfied with simply pressing their heavy boots aggressively against humanity’s collective neck.

Their ancient, greedy ambitions were far, far greater than petty territorial control.

They wanted absolute conceptual dominance. They wanted to devour the very laws of reality itself.

They wanted everything that existed between the heavens and the earth.