King's Rule: Creating the Strongest Kingdom With My Broken Talent-Chapter 19: Difficulty: Life or Death

"Are you going to kill me?" Quenila asked while looking at the thing that bound her body as she trailed next to Vesh, one step behind. ’How is he able to create such potent magic? I can escape these vines, but they are getting stronger by the second.’

’And he is flying so fast. Way faster than how I fly using Wind. How did he learn this skill?’

Vesh was no longer grabbing her neck, but instead, he had tied her body by creating a hybrid vine with a crystallized structure.

"Kill you?" Vesh glanced at her. "That fatty was my first kill of a being who could converse with me. And yet, I had no hesitation whatsoever in ending his meaningless life."

Looking ahead, Vesh continued, "That’s when I knew what kind of people would die at my hands."

"What kind?" Quenila asked.

Vesh didn’t answer her. Instead, he demanded, "Speak about the cult and the reinforcement you have called."

Quenila blinked. ’He didn’t answer me. Does this mean I still have a chance to live?’

"Cult of the Great Tenebrous Light." Quenila named it and began speaking without hesitation. "Seed-rank are entry-level members, so I don’t know much. But there are two hundred and fifty-three branches of this cult in this world. Like the Sky Forge God’s Church, this cult also has unique teleportation technology that allows its members to travel to different branches. Apparently, they acquired this technology from a powerful kingdom in the far northwest a decade ago, which kick-started their growth."

"What about the source of this cult? What is the Great Tenebrous Light? What’s with these sacrifices? Tell me about this." Vesh asked.

"Let me catch a breath." Quenila rolled her eyes. A second later, she continued. "Sacrifices are for the Great Tenebrous Light. I don’t know what it is, but it’s this strange semi-liquid floating orb, completely black with undulations of purple and a sharp golden border around it. Fulfilling its demands gives you rewards. Extraordinary rewards. And these things are at every branch of the cult. I don’t know how it’s created, but it is sentient and gives out sacrificial demands with rewards attached."

’What the hell?’ Vesh frowned. He was not expecting something crazy like that. Curious, he asked about the so-called extraordinary rewards. "What do you mean by extraordinary rewards?"

Quenila paused for a moment before answering. "Tenebrous Runes. They can activate in your Life Nexus, giving you a talent. Sometimes, more."

"Spit it out." Vesh glanced at her.

"Transformation. For example... the person about to come here and kill you has a Tenebrous Rune, and he was compatible with it, so he has a powerful S-rank talent and a transformation of Storm Lord through the rune, though I’ve never seen how he looks as a Storm Lord."

Quenila sighed. "But I assure you, you can’t win against him. He is a Sprout-rank on top of that, with 3340 Sprout Force. He once killed five Sprout-rank powerhouses who had around five thousand Sprout Force when he had merely two thousand Sprout Force. Even if there are ten of you, you wouldn’t be able to touch his hair."

"I doubt that last statement." Vesh frowned. "But yes. I alone am not enough."

Vesh’s flying speed increased constantly as his Arcane Cultivation passively increased his Seed Force.

And since he was travelling toward a place with better magic potency and purity, his Arcane Cultivation was increasing his Seed Force faster.

[+13 Seed Force]

[+7 Seed Force]

[+4 Seed Force]

[+16 Seed Force]

’With this speed, I’ll hit ten thousand soon. But will a Seed Force win against Sprout Force?’

He had just gotten intel on the enemy, and the enemy could kill him.

Vesh looked at the fruit of his labor, the accidental enlightenment he had about his idea.

[Wheel of Elements | SSS | Potential: 5✧/100✧]

The eight elemental talents he had disappeared, and this single SSS talent awakened.

’More. Ultimately, a rope can’t win against a steel wire, no matter how intricately tough I make the rope.’

Suppose an average Seed-rank powerhouse was a strand of hair.

Above average was a thread.

Then Vesh was a thick and tight rope purely because of this talent—Wheel of Elements—and his current knowledge of Mana itself.

He could use the elements to replicate physical phenomena with his knowledge, so using Mana as a control nexus in the wheel, he could combine elements and weave and structure powerful skills like Death Trick Slash and Honey Diamond Barrier.

But after hearing about the incoming enemy, Vesh felt that they wouldn’t be enough.

’How to get more powerful fast?’

Honestly, Vesh didn’t know how.

So he could only do it.

’King’s Rule. I come up with a way to enhance my combat power such that I can deal with the incoming enemy, who may appear at any time.’

[King’s Rule Created]

[Difficulty: Life or Death]

[Previous rule overruled to execute this new rule.]

The previous rule of flying toward a rich magical place was overruled.

Vesh blinked. ’What does it mean by life or death?’

Before he could think further, a loud thump rang out from him.

Or more specifically, from his Seed.

Vesh had stopped flying. He was now just hovering.

’What am I doing?’ Vesh looked at the ropes that bound Quenila.

"You tightening this?" Quenila frowned as she saw the ropes squeezing and glowing.

Vesh was seeing three complicated weavings in his Wheel of Elements simultaneously, using all eight of his elements, with some elements present in all three weavings.

Quenila’s vision blurred. As she looked at Vesh, she said, "W-What is happening? It’s all fuzzy and warm... and good."

But all she saw was horror in Vesh’s eyes, and her reflection that visibly changed from glowing, youthful, and plump to shriveled, dark, and then nothing.

Darkness.

She died feeling fuzzy, warm, and good.

But Vesh was dumbfounded.

’What the fuck is going on?... No, wait, don’t get distracted by what I am doing. Instead, I have to focus on how I am doing what I am doing right now.’

Suddenly, he plunged toward the ground like a bullet and stopped right before touching it.

Spreading his arms, Mana whirled around and weaved into an exotic whirlpool of eight colors above him, its core being the seed, mana, and life of Quenila that he had just extracted.

Magic began howling from the surroundings.

Powerful and pure energy from far and wide areas gathered, entering the whirlpool, and from the whirlpool’s end, straight into his body—into his Seed.

In just three seconds, Vesh felt bloated with power.

His Seed Force hit 10,000!

Peak of Seed-rank lifeform!

And then, the Seed cracked.

Pain assaulted Vesh. His entire body trembled while blood poured out of his mouth, eyes, nose, and ears.

Because his Seed, the source of his power, had just cracked into two!

He was about to... die?

But that did not justify getting panicked, blanking out, or going haywire in thinking that would result in losing his focus. Not to him.

Vesh had locked himself into observing his controls, so he could control it and gain control over this life-or-death difficulty to push the favour towards life.

He was watching the processes happening inside the Wheel of Elements, the way he was controlling this crazy, colorful whirlpool that was absorbing and refining all kinds of energies from the surroundings in a range of kilometres, and how the energy it collected and refined was now going into the broken Seed.

It took him a bit, but he perfectly figured out everything he was doing and how doing all this would counter the incoming danger.

’Insane.’ 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

And when he figured out the kind of power this whirlpool was exerting and refining, Vesh couldn’t help but become a bit nervous, as it was akin to sitting under a nuke.

...

Naturally, the commotion caused by Vesh was not small. Its effects were resulting in shifts that any average Seed-rank powerhouse could feel in the air, not to mention Elder Forguin, the Sprout-rank powerhouse with a Tenebrous Rune.

"That’s where the compass is." He muttered as he looked in the direction of the whirlpool, now merely five kilometers away. He flew there like a bullet while sitting on a swiftly flying cloud.