novelraw Chapter 216: Taking What's Mine [2]
Chapter 216: Taking What's Mine [2]
At the same time, Louis looked at the still-living Spirit Orb covered in blood and veins, then swallowed it in his dragon form.
"Gulp."
Instead of forging it as a Soul Treasure, he used Alchemy to synthesize and fuse it directly with his Dragon Heart.
FLAAASH!
The refinement and fusion process began. Louis sat cross-legged on the ground, gathering and converging the energies within his body.
Randolph had been a Rank 4 Spirit Master with four formidable spirits that loved him and refused to let go of their bond. They fought desperately from within Louis's soul, trying to destroy it.
Louis instantly recognized them:
The Azure Lance of Victory Spirit.
The Golden Knight's Armor Spirit.
The Shield of the Lion King Spirit.
And most importantly, the Boundless Treasure Mimic Spirit.
The first three were useful, but the fourth was what he had truly wanted. Still, he aimed to claim them all.
He encircled each spirit with Nirvana Flames and slowly burned them. As their wills faltered, Louis used his consciousness corruption ability as a Fractured Spiralwalker to consume and corrupt their minds.
"You are now mine."
It took a full hour, but once he finished, the four spirits belonged to him. They had evolved, infused with Nirvana Flames and his other elements.
"Hoh, interesting."
He summoned them before him with a grin to inspect their new forms.
The Azure Lance of Victory Spirit had become the Crimson Dragon Lance of Promised Victory Spirit, now red, gold, and purple with a large eye-shaped dragon jewel.
The Golden Knight's Armor Spirit evolved into the Crimson Dragon Knight's Armor Spirit, darker and more draconic, wreathed in Nirvana Flames.
The Shield of the Lion King Spirit transformed into the Abyssal Hydra Shield Spirit, a dragon shield with three roaring heads.
And finally, the Boundless Treasure Mimic Spirit had become demonic. It grew three times larger, with enormous razor-sharp fangs, a long tongue, and dozens of crimson jewel eyes. Its pristine white and gold form had turned monstrous, glowing with dark purple and black.
At the same time, Louis gained something similar to a Spirit Orb. His own could not grow further, but these four could. The first three were still too weak, so he decided to fuse them.
"Combine."
He forcefully merged the lance, shield, and armor into a single giant armored knight holding both weapons. It overflowed with draconic, cursed, chaotic, and demonic phantasmal flames, its glowing red eyes visible beneath an empty dragon-head helmet.
"Perfect. From now on, you are Pendragon, the Cursed Dragon Knight Spirit."
"Yes, Master."
Upon receiving a name, Pendragon roared with immense demonic, draconic, and chaotic power. Louis laughed as he admired his new spirit.
He renamed the mimic "Pandora." The name, empowered by his awakening divine dragon powers, caused it to evolve further into an even larger, more monstrous form that breathed noxious poisonous and demonic flames and gases.
"Now come."
Louis ordered. Pandora nodded and leaped over him. He grabbed the giant mimic with his dragon claws, pried open its jaws, and gazed into the endless void within.
He could not store physical items inside his Fantasy Domain, and ordinary storage items were limited and vulnerable. This spirit, however, offered bottomless storage that he could access freely. It was also the very place where Prince Arthur had stored everything he wished to carry.
Piles of gold, treasures, resources, and more lay neatly arranged inside a golden vault, with pillars of gold decorating the vast treasury.
Louis entered using his Soul Avatar, walking through the space in awe.
"This is incredible. Hahaha!"
He laughed and moved toward a special chamber filled with the most legendary treasures. Among them was the Holy Grail, the legendary chalice said to have once held the blood of the divine. It shimmered with otherworldly silver-gold light, its surface etched with glowing runes that pulsed like a living heartbeat.
Surrounding it were other priceless relics of Camelot's ancient glory: fragments of the true Scabbard of Excalibur, vials of luminous water from the Lady of the Lake's hidden springs, and crystalline orbs containing echoes of Merlin's greatest spells.
Louis's eyes gleamed with unrestrained greed and fascination. The air inside Pandora's maw was thick with pure, radiant holy aura, utterly incompatible with his cursed, draconic essence. Yet that very contrast only fueled his excitement.
"Such purity… such untapped potential," he murmured, reaching out with a spectral dragon claw. The moment his fingers touched the Grail's rim, a surge of searing white light erupted, scorching his avatar's scales and forcing him back. Pain shot through his soul connection, but he laughed through it. "Hahahaha! Of course it resists. It is not meant for monsters like me. But that is exactly why I want it."
He withdrew his hand and let the burns regenerate under the influence of his Nirvana Flames. There was no need to force it yet. The Grail was a vessel of divine will, a conceptual treasure tied to purity, redemption, and sacrifice. In his hands, it could become something far more twisted: a tool to corrupt holiness itself and forge a counterfeit divinity born from despair and domination.
He wanted to embrace his mother's inheritance, but he knew deep down that alone would never be enough.
Louis stepped back and surveyed the rest of the hoard: piles of enchanted gold coins, mountains of near-perfect spirit stones, rare herbs preserved in stasis, and legendary weapons and shields that hummed with latent power.
"Randolph was merely the key," Louis said aloud, his voice echoing through the golden halls. "But this… this is the real prize. Now I wonder, where is Excalibur? It is not here. That prince must have hidden it somewhere else, perhaps within his own country. The rumors of him carrying it were fake. Only fragments of its scabbard remain, still precious, but not as strong as the sword itself."
With a thought, he commanded Pandora to open secondary compartments. He began siphoning selected treasures into his Shadow Storage: a crystal vial containing Saint's Blood Elixir, Starlight Gloves of Dexterity, and several tomes of forbidden royal magic detailing ancient summoning rites.
He left the Grail untouched for now. It would require careful preparation and a ritual to taint its essence and bind it to his Cursed Dragonoid Rune Tattoo without destroying its power. He intended to use the precious Grail as material to forcefully awaken his Divine Dragon Divinity.
Emerging from the mimic's maw, Louis returned to Randolph's unconscious body on the training grounds. Handy hovered nearby, keeping the boy alive in a comatose state.
"Let us make sure he remembers nothing of tonight," Louis said, kneeling beside him. He activated his psychic powers and mind corruption abilities, combining them with Handy's power to manipulate pain and emotions. "Let us plant false memories of a grueling solo training session that exhausted him. He will wake believing he pushed himself too hard. No traces of my presence. We will leave a fake Spirit Orb inside, so he thinks he broke it and the spirits died."
Handy nodded silently. Her ethereal hand wove threads of illusion and forgetfulness into Randolph's fractured mind, successfully altering his memories.
Louis flexed his fingers, feeling the new weight of the stolen spirits within him. Pendragon stood partially manifested at his side, a towering, armored silhouette wreathed in cursed flames. Pandora coiled nearby like a living treasure chest, its many eyes watching with slavish devotion.
"And you, my new friend," Louis addressed the mimic spirit, "will serve as my vault from now on. No one will ever suspect a thing."
He turned his gaze toward the distant spires of House Camelot's castle, where Prince Arthur slept unaware. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face.
"Thank you, Prince Arthur. Your treasures, your spirits, your legacy… they will all feed my ascension."
With a final glance at the subdued Randolph, Louis melted back into the shadows and vanished into the night.
"I'm sorry, Arthur. I do like your attitude, and I hope you continue growing stronger. I will make sure to force you and your house to grow either way. But I had to do this for my own future and that of my kingdom."
Louis Drakeheart sighed as he disappeared into the darkness, heading off to rest for the remainder of the night and prepare for what the coming week would bring.
-----