The Invincible Full-Moon System

Chapter 1829: Almost a God (1)

Rex had only absorbed about five percent of the energy within the Absolute Effect Manual.

His Invincible Spleen is growing stronger steadily, but he decided to avert his attention.

During his meditation sessions, he constantly lost focus. Nivellen’s warning kept seizing his mind. That more Lunirich Gods are behind the interventions that almost took his life. That Kaiser is now making a move again in silence to catch him by surprise.

It was worrying.

He remembered the enchanted sneak attack from Morgana in the Tomb of Heroes.

Had he not evolved into a Blank, that attack would’ve decapitated him.

Considering that the attack was backed by Kaiser, his soul might’ve been damaged, and his life would be lost for real. He wouldn’t go back to his original body in the Mortal Realm. And that realization was making him anxious.

I can’t let that happen again.

Rex clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. His murderous mind fixated on the Gods above.

Being caught off guard is normal in the path of power.

But being caught off guard twice meant he was a fool. Unworthy of the power he wields.

Rex sat down at the center of the underground chamber he dug out, grabbed one Blood Moon Crystal, and closed his eyes. He allowed his body to relax—so that he could absorb the divine strand within the crystal faster.

Against the Lunirich Gods, he realized one glaring weakness that he needed to handle.

He couldn’t sense when they were coming.

Despite his incredibly sharp senses and supernatural intuition towards danger, his senses seemed to fail when it came to the Lunirich Gods’ attacks. It wasn’t because they weren’t working properly—or that they were suppressed by something, but it was something else entirely.

Had that been the case, the System would’ve notified him of the suppression.

Nothing can bypass the System’s senses.

Only now did Rex realize that perhaps he couldn’t feel the higher form of energy they were operating at. That must be the reason why he couldn’t sense them coming. Even back then—when he was face to face with them inside their own realm, his senses were muted.

Sure, he can sense their unfathomable moonlight energy.

But he reckoned the moonlight energy was only the product of their higher form of energy.

It was the energy the Lunirich Gods use to touch the realm of mortals, not their actual energy.

”Increasing my divinity should do the trick.”

Right now, Rex’s divinity was at the Three-star Demigod.

He did not know the ranks for divinity. He wanted to know—but he didn’t want to purchase it from the System. It wasn’t tied to the Gods directly, but he reckoned the information would be expensive. And sure enough, it costs him 500 million gold.

Sure, Rex can go around and kill voidal monsters to reach that amount.

But he was going home soon.

Recalling the Spirit Conversion method—he would probably need gold to convert everything he gained in the Spirit Realm into the Mortal Realm. It’s a good idea to keep a few hundred million gold in reserve, lest the cost exceed his expectations.

Swish...

It took fifty thousand divine strands for him to reach the Four-star Demigod rank.

One Blood Moon Crystal provided him with four-thousand divine strands, and he had two-thousand divine strands before absorbing the crystals, so he had burned twelve of them already. However, there were still a lot of crystals left.

He gained ninety from his endeavor in the Sky City, and three of them are of a better quality.

So, there are still seventy-five normal crystals and three more high-quality crystals.

Rex kept going.

He didn’t know how much time passed since he started, but he simply kept absorbing crystal after crystal.

Increasing his divinity was completely different than making a breakthrough in rank. Achieving a rank breakthrough felt like the slow and familiar transformation of turning stone into a diamond. Stronger and purer, but still stone at its core.

But the sensation he is feeling right now was something else entirely.

It felt like turning stone into marrow. As if the rock itself had decided, after millennia, to grow warm— and learn to beat. Flesh knitting where there was only mineral. Blood waking in veins that should have never known a pulse.

Every mortal part of him was unmade, and then remade into something foreign and superior.

And it was more intoxicating than the sensation of achieving a breakthrough.

Swoosh—!

Another pulse of energy bursts from Rex’s body like the force of two tectonic plates colliding.

Everything around rattled.

Everything around would’ve shattered had it not been for the preparations Rex made.

Rex’s skin had turned into crimson glass. His eyes were glowing with a blinding light like a window to his very soul. All the divine strands inside him fiercely flew across his entire body repeatedly, causing him to float.

But he hadn’t realized it yet.

He burned through the normal Blood Moon Crystal and now took one of the bigger ones.

Despite feeling overwhelmed, he couldn’t stop himself from absorbing more.

For everyone who walks in the path of power, becoming addicted to power is almost natural. That also includes Rex. But the sensation right now was even more intense than his usual addiction. Every inch of his body was hot.

And the only way to appease this scorching heat is by absorbing more divine strands.

Soon, that overflowing feeling turned for the worse.

It turned to pain that scorched every nerve ending inside him and charred his flesh and blood.

Rex flinched at the sensation as the level of pain could even startle him.

Rex read the warning notifications and gritted his teeth.

He checked his divinity progression and saw that it was nearing the five-hundred thousand mark. Just a little bit more—and he might be able to push into the next rank. But the pain didn’t increase gradually. It spiked to an unbearable degree extremely quickly.

Should I stop?

Rex looked down at his hand and saw that the high-quality Blood Moon Crystal was almost depleted.

Just a bit more and he’d finish it.

But that would mean risking imploding, and that sounded even worse than dying by the Lunirich Gods’ sneaky attempt. I don’t need to rush these things. Yes. No need to endure this when I can easily continue it later when I’m ready.

After everything, he couldn’t risk dying here out of his own recklessness.

What the hell am I talking about?

A feral smirk crossed his lips as his body began to convulse.

I’m going to kill Kaiser. I’m going to take down the Lunirich Gods!

Slowly, inexorably, even as the divine strands ravaged his essence from within, he transformed into his beastly form. His body swelled. Bones lengthened with wet, splintering cracks. His jaw reformed into a snarling snout. Muscle tears and reweaves itself, layer stacking upon layer, each fiber stitching tight to forge something larger and fiercer.

As long as I can achieve that, what pain can’t I endure?

As long as I can achieve that, what risk can’t I take?

Bring it on!

Kaboom—!

Rex had never been scared of pain. In fact, pain is his lethal companion. His beastly form revels in pain. It has the innate ability to convert pain into pure, unbridled anger. And with it, his body grows stronger and stronger.

Even with the spiking level of pain, Rex kept going.

In his palm, the Blood Moon Crystal that was once barely containable by his grip had dwindled to the size of a marble. Its light pulsed faintly, a dying heartbeat. And deep within himself, Rex felt it—the pressure building, the fault lines spreading. He was approaching the breaking point.

He rose higher and higher with each passing second.

Every wave of power that his body emanated rammed against the chamber wall.

Its rocky surface cracked, and the small pieces that fell melted into blood before splashing against the earth. A lick from his energy was enough to turn rock into blood. Rex felt an urge climbing up from the base of his throat.

Growl—!

Like a berserk monster, his claws began to rake across his entire form.

Deep down, he could feel that the divine strands had already transformed him into a superior being.

Now, it was time to be reborn.

Rex raked his claws across his own crimson skin—glass-like, brittle, a shell too small to contain what thrashed within. Each furrow splintered the surface, and from every fracture, blinding light bled forth. He dug deeper. Tore harder. Until the cracking became shattering, and the chamber was drowned in the crimson light.

Meanwhile, a few miles away, Linthia was swimming through the ground.

She kept her eyes open and senses expanded in search of Rex.

Even though the others told her to wait until he came back, she couldn’t sit around and do nothing.

Dorn’s message sounded urgent, and she wanted Rex to know about it as soon as possible.

”Where is he...?” She muttered aloud, looking left and right sharply. ”They said he’s somewhere near.”

Just then, Linthia stopped.

She felt a sudden shift in the air before finally seeing it with her naked eyes. Seconds ago, the currents had resisted her, going against where she was heading, pushing back. Now, the currents tilted sharply to her left, drawn hungrily toward something unseen.

Linthia was halfway out of the ground.

Her body emerged from a pool of shadowy liquid that rippled like oil, the evidence of her power.

But the shadowy liquid, and even the earthy tone of the ground around her, suddenly turned red.

Like there was a light from underground seeping through.

”Rex...?” She looked at where the air was going.

And faster than she can perceive, a celestial beam of red tore a hole from the sky and struck the ground.

For a second, Linthia saw the ground wrinkled, then ruptured. The topsoil sloughed away, revealing the raw bedrock that was flayed. Once her mind wrapped around what was happening, the force struck her like a hammer.

BOOM—!

”Kyaargh—!”

A yelp escaped Linthia’s lips as she was hurled away when the shockwave hit her.

She reached desperately for her energy, grasped at the familiar current within, but found only dead air. The shockwave had scoured the air of its normal trait, leaving it hollow and unreceptive. Her power sputtered, refused to even form in real space.

And then, the shockwave took her.

Linthia turned into a debris in the next, painful minute.

The ground met her again and again. She must’ve bounced a dozen times already until an impact struck her head and stopped her from counting. Shoulder. Hip. Ribs. The world was a blur of stone—and sky trading places.

She rolled, tumbled, ragdolled across the flayed earth.

Pressure clamped her chest, stole her breath, and choked every attempt to gasp properly.

And when she finally stopped, it took her a moment to realize she was still.

Another moment to remember how to draw air through her lungs.

The first gasp tasted like blood and dust, but it was hers.

”Rex must’ve broken through again...” Linthia climbed up to her feet weakly. Before she knew what was going on for sure, she already knew that this must’ve been Rex’s doing. And he must’ve gotten a lot stronger again, ”His growth is, as always, monstrous. Never stopping. How strong is he now?”

She could hear the splashing sound of water.

And her nose caught the smell of blood.

For a second, she thought it was coming from her, but it was not.

Linthia’s eyes widened, and her breath was stolen away again.

A few meters before her is the start of something unfathomable. She was quite sure that the area was a flat plain earlier, but now, what greeted her was a sea of blood.