Chapter 393: Throne of.. ????

From that day onward, when he almost died by drowning in the perverse nature of his own sin of despair, generated by the demon bloodline, he began to keep himself busy with all the work he had to do; he had to keep his mind away from all those dreadful memories actively.For it threatened to consume him... literally. Axel began to memorize the following fragment of the pseudo runes so that he could start working on Archon 2nd-tier rune tools.

The 24 basic runes were each divided into three fragments of pseudo-runes, and Axel had mastered and optimized the first of the 24 pieces of the pseudo-runes; two more remained.

To progress the entirety of the 2nd phase of his runecaster aspect, he would again have to master and optimize another 24 of those pseudo runes. After becoming a third phase, he would have to do the same for the last fragments.

Finally, when he manages to reach the 4th phase, he will have the ability to harness the true elemental might of the runes in all of its glory because the pseudo runes were each like an ability of a particular element of reality, far from its true might that could be gained through the free manipulation of the said element.

The actual reason why Axel, as a runecaster and his tools, had such broken power was not only because he possessed the runic eyes or the title of Absolute Runecaster, but also because of the insane affinity which the original Axel and Ashborn had, which Tyler stole from them.

More than that, a runecaster merely needed to master eight runes of the 24 runes, and learning every single one of them was considered impossible. Yet, he had done precisely that with relative ease.

Axel could not help but think that, as his original self, Tyler Cross, even his own soul might have had some affinity for runecasting, though only a very slight one. In that scenario, his runecaster aspect would be the amalgamation of three different existences coming together.

For even the monstrous Damien Nomrad, aka Durein Nightcrown, inside the trial world could not accomplish that feat.

This was also one of the reasons why Axel had to come out with a clean slate from the academy. Because in the final confrontations he had shared multiple of his tools with everyone fighting, and he himself had displayed power on a scale that was frightening for his level.

Anyone with two brain cells could infer that Axel had, in fact, managed to master almost, if not all of the 24 runes, or the royal family would have suspected him of being a halfbreed of the other races.

But now, with a clean start, he would have to present himself as a highly talented runecaster with great personal strength, but not to the extent that they would feel the weight of another budding Damien Nomrad.

Axel put those matters aside and, sitting inside his primary aspect chamber, kept staring at the new set of 24 pseudo runes; a spitting headache continued to throb in his brain.

For the great act of defiance he had committed against the world’s will had thoroughly angered it. He was paying the price for it with pain. The title he had gained by this, the cursed one, was the very essence of the anguish the world held towards him.

The suppressive effects of the world will were already 100 times horrendous compared to the opposition of the will he had faced within the trial world. But now that difficulty was 10 times greater, even with all the advantages he had as a runecaster with the runic eyes and the titles. The opposition of the will was almost too much.

Every moment that he continued to stare at the pseudo runes, trying to imprint them onto his memory forever, the compounding pain would increase non-stop, his eyes felt like they would explode, turning red in pain. But even so, he did not blink, for the moment he did so, all traces of the particular pseudo-rune he was looking at would vanish.

Even when the pain came to the point that blood was coming out of his eyes, his sight remained open. For the pain he had gone through was already too much; just this little pain couldn’t make him flinch. Despite such severe setbacks, Axel’s speed of memorizing remained as astonishing as ever.

In just a week, he had forever imprinted the following 24 pseudo runes in his mind. Axel chuckled, the tormenting pain of the world will only increased the inherent stability of his mind, for the will could not simply suppress him without giving proper prize in return.

Wiping off the blood from his face, Axel went towards a certain small garden within the area of their mansion. The Nomrad mansion used to have much more space around it, but again, under pressure from the Duskers, his father had to surrender much of it because it was located in the central hub of the Dusker region.

He saw a small garden filled with only one kind of flourishing flower; their scent was heavenly, and it seemed their scent was contained within the garden’s barrier by magic. He understood that the proper environmental conditions were simulated within that area of the garden, almost like a greenhouse.

The beautiful blue flowers bloomed only under those rare conditions. The petals of those flowers were exactly like his eyes and hair, for it was a garden cultivated by Axel’s deceased mother. Daniel had kept it just as it was, for her sake. His father was watering the flowers with his own hands.

Axel touched the blue flowers, taking in a scent that felt almost sweet, mingled with the ocean’s freshness. They really fit the name Sea Rose. However, Axel doubted whether the plant actually originated from the seas.

He spoke to his father, who seemed almost lost in catering to the flowers as if they were the most precious thing in the world,

"Dad, I have a lot of excess rune tools that I created in the academy. They need to be sold."

Daniel turned around and looked at his son in confusion, "Do you need money?"

Axel shook his head with a sigh, "Of course not. I will start creating 2nd-tier weapons soon, so the first-tier tools are no longer useful to me. Besides its time, we slowly go back to our original business of selling rune tools."

Daniel’s eyes sharpened as he realized what his son was implying. He asked, "So, who do you think you should sell the rune tools to?"

Axel let out a sigh, "Considering everything, Greaves commerce is the only option."

Daniel nodded with a smile. Since Vargas had given his son all the information on the obsidian trade, he knew his son would understand who to deal with and whom not to.

"That’s right, and more than that. They will not try to force the price down despite our precarious circumstances."

He added after a moment of contemplative pause, "One of their branches is nearby in the western corner of the Dire Forest. Take Vargas with you, or do you want me to handle this?"

Axel waved his hand dismissively, "Nope, I will be handling this," and he left the garden, leaving his father to indulge in the old memories of his mother. He himself jumped back inside his aspect chamber.

Picking up the engraving pen used by his grandfather, he laid down the exquisite, high-quality papers on the table. He began the usual, tedious process of rune engraving.

Pouring his mana into the engraving pen using it as ink, his hand moved through the special mana paper, trying to replicate one of the pseudo-rune symbols inside his mind. For every successful attempt, there would be countless failures, far more than before, for the greater opposition of the will.

There were three processes for every single pseudo-rune, just as before.

First was mastering the temporary engraving, flawlessly writing the character on the mana paper every single time.

For the permanent engraving mastery, it was the exact process, but only on an actual weapon, forged by his own hands.

Last but not least, continuously fighting against his rune phantoms and developing even further understanding about all the shortcomings there were in his engraving, until being able to engrave so flawlessly that its power output and energy consumption efficiency was near perfect.

A woman, an impossibly beautiful woman with hair as black as the darkest knights. Red eyes as vicious as the demons and a face— so cold and expressionless that she almost seemed like a deific statue, who had come alive.

She was standing in front of a gargantuan black pyramid, almost a kilometer long. Made up of glistening black large stones, the entire structure seemed to be radiating so much heat that a disturbing sizzling sound reached her ears despite the reasonable distance she was standing.

On the very top of that unholy structure, there was a chair, or maybe it was a throne. She wasn’t sure, as the object seemed to... escape from her perception in a manner that was inconceivable. Every time she looked away from it, the existence of that throne would be even erased from her memories.

Looking at that object with her powerful vision and senses, she did not understand what that throne signified.

But it would be pretty ironic if it meant that she was supposed to be the one to sit on that throne, while she was but a slave.

For a moment, she could not help but think why Prime Nexus always covered her species as ’Unknown’??

Because she knew for a fact that if there were anything in existence that knew what she truly was, it would be nothing but that vile prime that lashed onto the souls of every single Seeker in the continent like a fucking parasite.