Rise of The Anti God

Valentina lowered her head and said in a low voice, "I still haven't grown bigger."

Damien chuckled and walked towards her, "Haha, is that what's worrying you so much? Don't worry, once you reach a certain cultivation, you will grow taller and stronger."

Valentina softly smiled when Damien tried to cheer her up but a certain thought still lingered in her mind as she looked at Damien, 'I want to grow up, so that I can meet his eyes someday.'

Seeing Valentina look at him with a dazed expression, he thought she must be still unhappy about her breakthrough.

"Still, you are now stronger than me by a whole realm in ethereal cultivation. I guess I should work harder to not get left behind haha." Damien said in order to distract her from other thoughts.

Valentina stopped thinking about other things and shook her head, "I think Big Brother is still stronger than me. That day when I saw you fight against that big bad guy, you were able to kill him even when he was way stronger than you. You are so awesome, Big Brother. Like you even made that scary ethereal beast your slave. How did you do it? It looks slightly strange including its ethereal aura." She asked with a curious expression.

Valentina wondered how Damien managed to make a Red Eyed Hound be obedient to him and why she sensed a strange ethereal aura from it before. She knew that it was a dangerous beast that was very bloodthirsty in nature.

But she already started to believe that Damien could do unimaginable things right from the first few days seeing him defeat enemies way stronger than him; so it didn't seem much incredulous to her.

Damien smiled and said casually, "It's something only I can do because, just like how you have awesome abilities, I also have my own. I can turn anyone who is less stronger than me into my servants."

Valentina nodded with an awed expression on her face. She didn't feel much curious anymore as she thought that since it is Damien, naturally he would have special abilities of his own just like hers. She admired Damien and felt that there was nothing that he could not overcome.

"Come, let's go to sleep. It's been a long day for both of us." Damien said as he laid down on the ground pulling Valentina towards his chest.

Valentina cuddled up to Damien and very soon she fell asleep in order to stabilize her recent breakthrough.

As he closed his eyes, Luna's voice suddenly sounded in his mind, "Ethereal cultivation? If you didn't notice earlier because of her rapid ethereal breakthrough, then you would find out that her soul cultivation has already entered the Early Soul Transformation Stage."

"What? How is that possible? She just ate a flower containing ethereal essence and that would only help her breakthrough in ethereal cultivation right?" Damien asked puzzledly.

"Yes, but her ethereal cultivation breakthrough is different in the sense that her soul cultivation increases way more compared to any other person's ethereal cultivation breakthrough. In fact, I feel that one day her soul cultivation might even overshoot her ethereal cultivation." Luna said with a hint of fascination in her tone.

Damien couldn't even imagine one's soul cultivation getting ahead of their ethereal cultivation since by convention, soul cultivation always lags behind ethereal cultivation by a bit. Even if one focuses on only cultivating their soul, they still wouldn't be able to move forward beyond a certain stage till their ethereal cultivation catches up.

It's more like ethereal cultivation is the foundation or base on which soul cultivation depends.

'What is her origin? Or what exactly is she?' Damien couldn't help but be curious about her origins thinking that the more time he spent with Valentina, the more he witnessed and learned mind boggling things.

Luna's voice sounded again, "Your soul is not simple as well. In fact no matter how much a person is more powerful than you, they wouldn't be able to read your soul aura. In other words, they wouldn't be able to sense your soul cultivation unless you want to reveal it using your soul essence aura. Or why do you think those old fogeys in the Alchemist Society didn't say anything about your Nascent Soul Stage? As I said, your soul is special."

All this time Damien thought that it was because of the bizarreness of his Fallen Flames that they were unable to sense his soul aura. He took a gamble that day in order to see whether they would be able to gauge his soul aura. If they did, he could just tell that he had neglected his soul cultivation and they would easily believe him since it is not surprising.

However, they would be amazed to find out that he could skip grades and that itself would be a huge news which could even get the other empires interested just like how he could concoct Supreme Tier Pills.

But now he learned that it was not the case but it was because of the specialty of his soul. He wondered what was so special about his soul and why it was special. He sighed inwardly thinking that the answers to his questions were beyond his reach for now.

——

It was the morning of the next day when Damien was back in his room in the imperial palace. There was only an hour left before the training session with Lily starts. Damien was thinking how there were only ten more days left to train Lily.

Yesterday a messenger had come to his villa informing him that the Celestial Princess had accepted his request of having an audience with her.

Damien wasn't that surprised that Lily was willing to meet him as Alchemist Azrael. Especially when he was the one who requested it. He knew Lily didn't like to meet with people just because they wanted to catch a glimpse of her face or have a sweet talk with her.

But he was betting on one certain fact so that Lily won't refuse his request. And that was his ability to concoct Supreme Tier Pills. After all, he guessed that Lily was always looking for a way to heal her Ancestor.

Which is why he wanted to meet her as Alchemist Azrael and offer to help heal her Ancestor as a backup plan. So that even in the worst case, she won't be alone without anybody to protect her.

In this way he thought he could help Lily without revealing his identity.

"I don't get why go through all this farce when you could simply reveal your cultivation level and help her." Luna came out from her Shard Of Essence and appeared before Damien.

Damien said in a dismissive tone, "You won't understand a maiden's heart. If I reveal my cultivation now, instead of feeling relief she would be more worried because of how weak my cultivation is. At least for now, she shouldn't find out."

"Why should you care about what she feels? You should just tell her to sit tight while you get the job done. As long as you are confident about helping her, then why worry about her feelings." Luna said in a carefree tone.

"Well, we mortals don't think like gods. You may not understand why we even care about each other's feelings since you inherently feel superior than all living beings. Maybe, that's what you are lacking in spite of being a powerful goddess. Only when you care about someone can you find meaning in your life."

"Hmph, why care about these so-called feelings. This goddess is above all those mundane things as it's just a waste of time and only makes you weak." Luna scoffed.

Damien didn't say anything more and only helplessly shook his head as he knew Luna's way of thinking was not the same as mortals.