CG Chapter 124: Mortal, dost thou know not when to stop?
The book didn't have a normal cover made of fabric. Instead, it was made of skin, and not just any type of skin but human skin that was stitched together using black and red threads.
What was even more bone-chilling was the thousands upon thousands of faces.
Some were laughing, some were crying, and others were indifferent, but the thing they shared was that all of them seemed strangely alive despite being made of human faces.
The title of the book was written with what seemed to be a dull tool that caused the writing to be inaccurate, as the handwriting was extremely rigid with an outline here and there, yet this only made it even creepier.
The title of the book was…
'Mortal Life'
The thousands of faces were none other than the faces that Aretius had taken on until now to reach this world, starting from his original face as Thomas Blackwood to Tian Long, and so on until his last face as the leader of Exodus.
And today, he was all of them in one. He carried the memory, the suffering, and the unimaginable pain of those lifetimes as he crawled to get here.
So to question whether his will could defeat the gods who gave up on themselves was simply a joke.
He might not have much hope in terms of actual power, but if you talked about will, then maybe only the monsters ruling the starry sky would have a chance, and even then, things were uncertain.
Once the book appeared, its pages quickly turned, but it didn't turn like a normal book. Instead, it went back and forth until it finally landed on a page with four words on top.
Looking at the title of that page, a rare sense of melancholy appeared on Aretius's face before quickly disappearing as he read its name out loud.
"The Primordial Tenfold Rings!"
"I call into the final ring, the ring of 'The First Hunt.'"
The Predatory Eight Rings and the teachings of Tian Chang back then represented Aretius's first actual step on the path of martial arts, and naturally, they had significant effects on his journey.
The latter is still evident in the way he uses everything to fight, from bows to spears to his hands. As for the former, he drew upon them and improved them, turning them into nine, and then creating the final tenth theoretical ring as the peak of the martial art.
Unfortunately, until now, he had been unable to achieve it, as it required an immense amount of power that he didn't previously have.
But with the help of the realm's laws, he could now show part of that power that he had been refining through multiple worlds.
From the name, you could guess what kind of power the ring would have. It would form the first hunt, but by the first hunt, it didn't mean his own first hunt. It referred to the imaginary descent of the first hunter.
However, to channel that kind of power, he would still need to rely on his own understanding.
In an instant, the world started to shift once more. The black sky began to turn red again, and piles upon piles of mangled and crushed corpses, spewing blood as if they were freshly slain, appeared.
These corpses had animals of every shape and form, humans of all ages, and species you couldn't even imagine.
In Aretius's right hand, a stone axe with dried blood appeared, and he transformed into that of a ragged hunter, wearing only a tiger's skin to cover his lower body.
Even his appearance changed, his hair grew longer and turned pitch black, with only his eyes remaining partially purple.
If the gods previously didn't care about angering the Heavenly Will, then after witnessing this scene, they no longer cared even if their godhood was stripped away, as long as they could escape.
Unfortunately for them, Tom wasn't going to give them that chance. He extended his hand forward and pulled back.
Creekkk!
From the endless piles of corpses, chains swiftly flew toward the seven hands.
The gods tried to retract their hands, but they couldn't even do that, as the chains were fast, and in less than the blink of an eye, they reached the gods' hands and wrapped around them tightly.
Once they wrapped around the hands, the chains began by leaving smoldering marks on the surface of their flesh.
However, that was only the beginning of the gods' sorrows, as the chains started to retract, trying to pull their bodies completely into this realm.
Normally, losing an arm wouldn't mean much to beings of this level, but if that body part contained a portion of their power, they would lose it forever, weakening them significantly and possibly turning them into mortals. In this case, the gods had a portion of their divine powers flowing in their blood.
Aretius pulling them here was akin to him threatening to take away the thousands of years of work they had done to reach their current position.
And knowing that if they had been put back in time, they might never reach this place again, they would naturally try everything in their power to stop him.
"Mortal, dost thou know not when to stop? We shall leave this world at once. Now restrain us not, and we shall interfere in your matters no longer."
Hearing their words, Aretius couldn't help but let out a loud laugh that shook the entire realm they were in.
In the next second, his bloodlust reached a new level as he spoke in a serious tone.
"Do you think you can come here when you want and leave when you feel like it?"
He stayed quiet for a few seconds, and these seconds felt like an entire millennium to the gods. But the words he said next while laughing made them truly understand the depths of the ant they had come to crush.
"Not to mention, I was the one who wanted you to come here."
Without wasting more time, he continued to drag them down.
But as they had lost most of their hopes, the gods, one by one, started to cut off their connection to this world. But not before getting their arms sliced through with Aretius's stone axe.
This meant that they had lost a great portion of the divine powers that they had worked countless years for.
Standing alone in the place that was noisy just a moment ago, Aretius did not waste time.
He planned on grabbing the world source, but not before he called out.
"Isn't it time for you to show yourself… Shaman… or should I call you by your true name?"
"…Heavenly Will of the world of Eldervale!"