Chapter 557 The Forest Of Death (Part-1)
After that, he met Neal and made a deal with him. In the end, he blessed him with the death energy and respective platinum-grade Arcana (bone sword), which consumed his original Arcana, fire salamander. As a result, his DNA has been modified.
Then, he placed Neal 14 years prior to the timeline of his counterpart of this timeline (Neal). During that process, he used the tenth soul skill: the Rewrite to change Neal\'s identity forever.
Now, you should understand that this method is quite risky.
If something goes wrong while you are rewriting the timeline of an individual who doesn\'t even belong here, then, the entire timeline will be at the risk of going unstable.
The unstable timeline, depending on its range, might destroy everything into nothingness and you will incur the wrath of the gods.
Secondly, Neal and Neal Edwards, both of them might be from different timelines but they are essentially the same soul. Hence, the more these identical souls spent in the same timeline, the greater the chance they will get the attention of Moira, the goddess of fate.
Thirdly, the soul of Neal Edwards cannot go to the spirit realm as Neal\'s soul has already gone. Hence, it should be destroyed along with the body.
I don\'t know what the intentions of your future self are, but I hope he is doing something important and not playing around with the timeline."
The Reaper explained the theory behind this abnormal incident as they were on their way to the world portal point.
Sealing his soul orb, he stood in line just like a civilian teenager. After traveling to the portal point of the central city of the Arcana World, he paid the entrance fee and entered the city, then, went to the inter-world portal point and stood in line once again.
His turn came after two hours of waiting and midnight arrived.
"Where do you want to go?" asked one of the portal guards with the 5-star soul realm.
Azzy shocked them with his reply, "The Zero Point."
"Zero point?" The guard was taken aback at once. Naturally, he didn\'t take it seriously, "Okay, we don\'t have time for playing jokes, kid. Tell me where do you want to go? Be quick. There\'s a long line behind you."
Azzy looked at him and said, "Do you think I have time to joke with you? Just say the damn amount and send me there."
"Okay, that\'s enough. You are coming with us," The guard tried to grab Azzy\'s arm to hand him over to his colleagues, thinking that he is a runaway teenager.
However, before he grabbed Azzy\'s arm, the latter unleashed a basic sealing technique, the trap chains.
Translucent energy chains erupted from the ground and captured the guard\'s arms and legs, tightly binding him to the ground.
In an instant, the scene attracted the attention of everyone around.
"Nathan…"
As a couple of guards rushed forward to help their colleague in a bind, Azzy looked coldly at the captured guard, "Now, will you stop playing around and wasting my time?"
The guard named Nathan suddenly was scared of Azzy and his expression made that clear.
Meanwhile, his colleague, a fellow security guard of the place arrived and warned Azzy, "Hey, free him. We don\'t allow any aggression against anyone here."
Azzy furrowed his brows as he sharply stared at the one who spouted those words. "Aggression? Should I show you what aggression looks like?"
As the security guard took a step back in fear and gulped his saliva in nervousness for some reason, Azzy turned back to the captured guard and said, "I\'m a customer here and I want to go somewhere. It\'s your job to take the fee and teleport me to the location. So, first, you will apologize or else…"
Without finishing, Azzy then raised his hand. The natural energy from the surroundings swirled around his hand before it took the shape of a saber.
"Eek… I… I\'m sorry." The guard quickly apologized and Azzy swung down the energy saber, cutting down the chains that captured the opponent. "Now, get to work. We have a long line behind me and everyone\'s time was wasted because of your idiocy." He spoke in an authoritative tone.
"Okay." The guard proceeded with the activation of the teleportation formation and Azzy disappeared by the time the in charge of the portal point arrived there.
Meanwhile, Azzy teleported to the place called the zero point. It is a medium-sized island located in the vast ocean and was known to be unsuitable for living.
There are no stores or markets or any of those sorts on this tropical island full of palm trees. There is just one teleportation formation and one guard.
However, by the time Azzy appeared on the island, there was no one present. He scanned the entire place with his aura sensing and didn\'t find any creature or human.
But then again, it is not surprising for the guard to be missing as there will be no visitors either way.
The zero point isn\'t some isolated city or an insignificant location either. It is the only gateway to the three level-5 regions of the Arcana world and is considered one of the most important portal points.
With the island as a center, the three regions located in three different directions form a triangular formation and generated a barrier cast over the entire area of over 350,000 sq. km that included the three level-5 regions.
This barrier would restrict the entry of anyone coming from outside. One needs to be atleast a demigod to bypass this restriction. The others have to travel to the zero point from the central city and go to their destination from that place.
With the teleportation formation couldn\'t be activated by its guardian, Azzy ended up in a bind as he cannot return now and got trapped.
"Uhh… Chronos, what should we do now?" He asked.
In response, the Reaper chuckled, "Just apply \'Chrono Rewind\' soul skill on yourself and you will return to the Emerald City in an instant.
"Eh? I thought that soul skill cannot be applied to me." Azzy was surprised.
The Reaper clarified, "It\'s because you have yet to become a true master to the hourglass. Applying that soul skill to oneself is vastly different from applying it to others. I\'m going to lend you a hand. So, nothing to worry about."
"It is no good. It\'s been more than 9 years since I awakened the hourglass and I have yet to become its true master. There\'s another tough battle coming up ahead and I should raise my strength as much as possible." Azzy complained in his head, making the Reaper rather happier.
Lately, ever since Azzy lost against Fenrir, his thoughts were often leaning toward darkness. His latest act of dealing with Neal Edwards is the best example of it.
Unsealing his soul orb, Azzy powered up his body using soul energy before slowly rising into the sky and flying toward the northeast direction at his maximum speed.
It took him less than ten minutes to cover more than 500 kilometers before finally reaching his destination, a 12500 sq. km large island filled with a dense forest. The Knull Island or more commonly known as the Forest of Death.
Staring down at the forest from the sky, Azzy mumbled, "Well, I can see how dense the natural energy in this place is, which was left untouched for tens of millennia."
The Forest of Death is one of the three level-5 regions with monsters starting at the 9-star realm of gold grade.
The region lord is named Knull and it is its duty to make sure the monsters will not try to escape the forest island.
But, whatever they do on the island is not a concern of the region lord. It doesn\'t care whether those monsters kill each other or whether they just laze around.
And right now, as Azzy was descending to one of the beaches of the island, the nearby oceanic creatures as well as the ones living on the island suddenly became crazy.
The smell of an intruder itself is something new for several monsters here.
Azzy could already see more than a dozen monsters coming onto the beaches and looking at him. They all look like giant iguanas and giant seals. In the pitch darkness, all of their eyes are glowing.
"There\'s no one here to watch you and you don\'t need to care about the lives of anyone here either." The Reaper suggested going all out without caring about anything.
"Nah, let\'s not trouble the stronger ones. I\'m just here for the breakthrough." Azzy refused to fight as he doesn\'t afford such time. He plans to return to the academy by dawn.
Summoning the Death Scythe, Azzy raised it above his head and unleashed the soul skill.
"Soul Skill: Rain of Death"
A dark artificial circular cloud formed roughly about a hundred meters above Azzy\'s head and spread for 500 meters on all sides of him, covering about 785,000 sq. meters of area.
The black rain started falling. And the monsters started screaming and running away. The waters were affected the most.
Each drop of it was so corrosive that everything it touches starts melting instantly. The tough skin of the rank-9 monsters is no exception. Maybe, the platinum-grade monsters might have greater resistance but for now, these gold-grade monsters couldn\'t fight against them and are scared.
Of course, there are always exceptions and fools.
Azzy safely landed on the ground and the monsters of the above category jumped at him to shred his body into pieces.