Inside Alex's Space Ring.
The lifeless space was filled with floating items, including greatswords, purple whips, spears, and armor. Every one of them was a High-God Artifact, and they all seemed to be of good quality. Every artifact Alex had collected was a treasure.
At the very back of the Space Ring lay a large quantity of Inkstone and Azure Stone. What puzzled Hodan was that they were worth only about a hundred billion Inkstones—not even as much as Hodan's own wealth.
That couldn't be all the money a Seven-Star Fiend had. The three Six-Star Fiend clan chiefs from earlier had each possessed several hundred billion. There was no way Alex had only a hundred billion Inkstones. And since the ring had recognized its new master through blood, Alex was truly dead.
Beside the Inkstone and Azure Stone sat a jade bottle. A crimson orb about ten centimeters in diameter rested on its mouth. Why had Alex kept this strange orb in his Space Ring, and why had he placed it right beside the piles of Inkstone?
Hodan noticed wisps of dark gray smoke rising from the Inkstone and Azure Stone, then gathering into thin strands of mist around the crimson orb.
The instant Hodan saw the orb, a yearning stirred in both his body and soul.
The yearning urged him on: "Quick, absorb it. Right now!"
Hodan felt that absorbing the orb would greatly improve his strength.
He picked up the crimson orb in his right hand and examined it. As his soul leaped with excitement, he made a small cut in his left hand, then pressed the orb against the wound.
The orb quickly softened against the cut and flowed into Hodan's body like blood.
A strange energy coursed through him. His body began absorbing the surrounding Thunder Element and Destruction Divine Power on its own, strengthening itself without any conscious effort.
Then the energy seeped into his soul. Suddenly, Hodan felt that his understanding of the Lightning Law and Destruction Rules had grown tremendously. His potential in both had also been steadily enhanced and unlocked.
Under the power's influence, if Hodan's talent in lightning and destruction had been a one before, it was now ten thousand. Even without deliberately cultivating the Lightning Law, his body would grow stronger under the energy's influence until he naturally became a Lightning Highgod in a few hundred years.
Cultivating on purpose would be even faster—he could probably become a Highgod in half a year. But Hodan wouldn't do that. It was best to fuse Mysteries at the Mid-God stage. Hodan had originally had little talent in lightning, so he had planned to let his Lightning Clone cultivate slowly. Now, his talent in lightning had increased ten thousandfold.
Of course Hodan wouldn't miss this opportunity. He intended to fuse all the Lightning Law's Mysteries while still a Mid-God, then complete the fusion the instant he became a Highgod and achieve Paragon status.
Cultivating the Destruction Rules would be even simpler. The Four Rules had no Mysteries to fuse; he only needed to comprehend them. With his newly enhanced talent, Hodan believed his Destruction God Clone would soon become a formidable powerhouse.
The orb had even broken through the limits of Hodan's body. His body had already reached the level of a High-God Artifact, and he had thought it couldn't grow any stronger. But ever since absorbing the orb, he could feel his body becoming stronger by the day.
Could this orb really enhance his talent and strengthen his body?
Hodan suddenly seemed to understand. Could it be a Heaven and Earth Wonder?
Legends said Heaven and Earth Wonders were precious treasures born from nature, containing unimaginable powers. Could this orb be one of them?
Hodan immersed himself in the energy. Suddenly, an image appeared in his mind.
It showed a giant born in a vast and extraordinary Material Plane. No other creatures lived there, and the place was filled with lightning and the power of destruction. After nurturing it for countless years, the Material Plane finally gave birth to a life.
He was born there and grew up there. He had planned to leave the Material Plane for the various planes once he reached maturity and set out on adventures.
But on the day he came of age, two people fighting in the Spatial Turbulence destroyed his plane. He died in the aftermath of their attacks.
At that sight, Hodan instinctively understood the giant's race: the Destruction Giants. Born of Heaven and Earth, they were unique among the countless planes. Even Beirut had a fellow member of his race, but the Destruction Giants had no others. Across all the planes, there was only one of them. In that sense, a single individual made up the entire race.
From the moment they were born, Destruction Giants had bodies as strong as High-God Artifacts, and they could grow by absorbing divine power from the Elemental Ocean. Eventually, they could reach the level of Sovereign Artifacts.
Young Destruction Giants were surrounded by yellow mist flickering with yellow lightning. Growing Destruction Giants were protected by purple mist flashing with purple lightning. Mature Destruction Giants were encircled by black mist lit by crimson lightning. Each stage corresponded to Lowgod, Mid-God, and Highgod.
Destruction Giants were born favored by destruction and lightning. They needed no cultivation; they were gods from birth, and took only a thousand years to reach maturity naturally. A mature Destruction Giant's body had already reached the level of a Sovereign Artifact. Combined with the power of a Highgod, even without fusing a single Mystery, it could strike with the power of a Seven-Star Fiend. Fuse four Lightning Mysteries, and it would have the attack power of a Paragon.
What Hodan had absorbed was the Blood Essence of a Destruction Giant. Perhaps Heaven and Earth couldn't bear to let such a race vanish, or perhaps it was the giant's own unyielding will. Either way, its body fell through a spatial rift into Hell.
After a long passage of time, its body disappeared, leaving only the Blood Essence, still imbued with an undying will. By a twist of fate, Hodan had absorbed it.
To absorb a Destruction Giant's Blood Essence, one had to cultivate both a Lightning Divine Clone and a Destruction Rules Divine Clone. Alex had cultivated the Earth and Fire Laws, so he couldn't absorb it.
But Alex would never give such a treasure to anyone else. He had accidentally discovered that when the Blood Essence was near Inkstone, it could refine the Sovereign's Might within it on its own.
Everyone knew Inkstone and Azure Stone contained trace amounts of Sovereign's Might, but few could refine it. The only publicly known expert in Hell who could do so was the powerful Aiken. Other Paragons or people with Soul Mutation might also be able to refine it, but they had never made it public.
So Alex had converted his wealth into Sovereign's Might to protect his life. What Hodan was seeing was the Blood Essence refining Sovereign's Might by itself, though the process was slow: it took about ten years to refine a single drop, and consumed a fortune of ten trillion Inkstones.
Before you continue