Brand New Life Online: Rise Of The Goddess Of Harvest Chapter 2046: The Demon King’s Plan
Previously on Brand New Life Online: Rise Of The Goddess Of Harvest...
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In the darkest temple of the Netherworld, a tall figure made of pure white bones sat upon a throne built entirely of crystalized souls. His empty eye sockets glowed with alternating red and blue light as he silently admired a growing plant — a gigantic, abhorrent tree composed of black fleshy wood and covered in dozens of red, constantly blinking eyes.
From its swirling, tentacle-like roots, tens of thousands of corpses could be seen slowly being eaten and devoured. Skeletons, zombies, and even members of the noble races that had been captured by him were fed into his new "pet." All of them suffered in endless agony as both their bodies and their souls were gradually consumed.
As they were consumed, the aberrant creature produced horrendous new growths that resembled insect legs covered in hard metallic chitin. These twisted branches grew in abnormal and horrifying ways, producing more limbs but never any leaves.
However, as the necessary threshold was finally achieved, the skeletal figure’s eyes gleamed with an unnatural violet light. The entire creature began growing even larger. Its main eye — a gigantic orb set into the center of its trunk — blinked slowly and glared back at the one who gazed upon it in silence.
He cracked his skull with a dry, bony sound as he laughed viciously. From the tallest and ugliest of the branches, a beautiful blooming rose emerged. The flower itself blinked as a massive eye stared at him in complete silence.
The heads of countless agonizing souls surged upward from the roots into the tree trunk. They emerged only for a moment before being directed toward the flower’s central eye, which pulsed with dense netherworld energy and constantly spread a dark, mysterious fog throughout the temple.
He laughed maniacally and stood up from his throne, revealing his utterly massive size. He raised his skeletal arms high into the sky. Above his head, a crown of red and black floated silently while void energy surged rapidly around him.
The void energy twisted and warped the surrounding space until it shattered completely, revealing a vast sea of darkness. From within that darkness, countless stars shone and approached rapidly, condensing into miniature masses of pure starlight that settled into his open hand.
He fed the creature with the condensed stars, and the abhorrent tree continued to grow even larger. Its single flower bloomed further, the eye within it pulsing with greater intensity.
Then he looked behind him. There, crystalized inside protective nether crystals and beautifully preserved, lay a beautiful woman and two small children.
He extended his skeletal hand toward one of the crystals, but then stopped. He did not know who to choose. His wife? His daughter? His son?
He hesitated, his bony hands trembling. Was it truly possible for him to choose one above the others? To him, in the depths of his madness, they were all loved equally.
Perhaps this was the only little bit of "humanity" still left behind within him — the reason he had committed every atrocity he had committed. Everything had been for them.
If he could not bring them back properly, then everything would become meaningless.
And no, he knew very well the horrifying hell that came with becoming an Undead. He would never allow them the chance to fall into that hell by letting their souls simply depart or reincarnate.
Thus he had decided that the only thing he could do was to completely "revive" them inside a powerful new vessel — a creature existing between life and death.
For that purpose, this aberrant creation, a mixture of the legacy of the old gods and their ancient works combined with the corruption he himself possessed, was the only solution.
It was an existence only ever theorized to exist, one that the Ancient Cult of Yggdrasil had actually worshipped. Yet in his madness he could see no real difference between this creation and the things he had already killed.
It did not matter either way to him. She was merely a seed for this creature — fragmented, shattered, and destroyed. The core of all that power had been mutated through his own strength and that of the other demon kings.
Now it held the origin of a "new world." No longer would they have to obey the old "rules" and "laws." The bigger the tree grew, the more its existence would warp reality itself.
By feeding it stars — concentrations of Fate itself taken from the Astral Plane — along with the tens of thousands of souls of the damned, its reality-warping abilities only extended further with every moment of growth.
Ultimately he clenched his teeth and made the choice. He carefully took the crystal containing his dead wife and her tightly sealed soul, which remained eternally slumbering beneath the divine nether crystals.
He laughed like a madman while holding his dear wife’s crystal gently and raising it toward the aberrant tree.
The creature stretched its horrid tentacles toward the crystal, wrapping them tightly in slime and beginning to consume it rapidly.
The crystal was slowly eaten by the tentacles. It entered the trunk, and its contents began to dissolve within the tree’s ethereal stomach, moving through dozens of internal pathways toward the waiting flower.
As he roared, the tree suddenly grew twice as large and completely consumed the crystal. He watched in silence as the contents rapidly moved toward the blooming flower.
He muttered in disbelief, black miasmic tears falling from his empty eye sockets as he touched the flower gently but then pulled his hand back.
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