The Invincible Full-Moon System

Chapter 1913: Divine Source (1)

It was a problem that had arisen in his mind from the very start.

Turning another into a Silverstar has its own risks, and one of them was the intensification of emotion.

Anyone who was turned into a Silverstar would have their strongest emotion towards Rex—intensified to the limit. Adoration would be intensified to reverence. Anger would be intensified to hate. It was the main reason Rex needed to pay attention to back then.

But the System made sure that the Betas wouldn’t be able to harm him in any way.

And depending on their strength in comparison to him, they would remain loyal to his words.

Davina, Lilliana—those from the Spirit Realm whom he turned are the main concern when it comes to this, as all of them are stronger than normal. If there’s a chance that one of them would be disloyal, then it must be one of them.

Right now, however, the notification before him proved otherwise.

"What...?" Rex read the notification a couple of times, making sure he wasn’t reading things. Making sure his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. "Kyran’s loyalty is wavering? Why? What did those bastards do to him?"

The Lunirich Gods.

His mind instantly went to them the moment he read the notification.

Kyran is reckless, full of flaws, but he wasn’t disloyal.

In fact, Rex could even argue that Kyran is the one who wouldn’t betray him the most.

Adhara, Evelyn, and Gistella could turn on him because of their love. Push them hard enough, and the time might come when they decide to turn on him. But Kyran? Rex couldn’t think of a single reason why he would ever turn on him.

Just then, he shifted in his position, remembering something. Or someone.

"Naela..." Rex’s brows furrowed together. "What happened?"

...

Objective: Consequence

Description: For harbouring disloyal thoughts to the Alpha, Kyran Cervantes must be severely punished. Perform the ancient Body-Mind Melting torture on the Beta Enforcer in order to make the prospect of disloyalty seem hopeless.

Penalty: All the inner pack Betas would be released from the Silverstar Pack.

...

Rex stood up abruptly. His eyes sharpened into focus, and his fangs elongated from anger.

He wasn’t expecting the System to react this strongly.

"System, did Kyran do something already? Or is it only in his mind?"

"He must’ve been pressured by the moment," Rex argued. Kaiser must’ve done something extreme in the Mortal Realm, and that alone could push Kyran past his limits. He might’ve thought about this due to the moment, not because he was really disloyal. "No need to punish him for something that he hadn’t done."

Rex clenched his fists.

As much as he wanted to stop this quest, it was already initiated.

For as long as he has the System, it has never retracted a quest when it was already issued like this.

"What even is the Body-Mind Melting?"

Rex asked the System about the torture method, and read how it went. His eyes widened completely at the explanation. "I don’t know if Kyran could endure this..." He exhaled through his nose. "But worse, I don’t know how he’d feel after enduring this punishment."

He never shies away from doing the extreme when it comes to the others.

But he has always done the extreme in order to make them learn something important.

So that they wouldn’t be screwed in the future.

Kyran hadn’t done the things he thought about inside—thus, he shouldn’t be punished for it.

And yet, the System already made the quest, and there’s no going back.

"I’ll think about it when the time comes," Rex massaged his forehead, already dreading the moment to come. His focus shifted back to the corpses before him, alongside the panels above them. "Focus on the matter at hand. I need to return to the Mortal Realm quickly."

It was clear that without him being there, internal problems would arise.

Rex now believed that the others, specifically Adhara, would be able to handle themselves.

Even when push comes to shove, they should be able to at least survive against the Lunirich Gods.

He wouldn’t even blame them if they chose to abandon the capital city or the empire if they were faced with the choice of preserving their lives or dying to protect the empire. At least, Rex hoped they knew he would rather they lived than died for his dream.

But without the head, the body would start to deteriorate.

So, he needs to come back quickly.

Meanwhile, dozens of miles away from the citadel, the clone cruised through the meadow with terrifying speed.

Back when Rex arrived in the God Realm, there was a barren place that he hadn’t had the time to take a look. Now, the task had fallen to his clone to investigate. After punishing a Gardener, it headed straight for the location, intent on going deeper to check.

Of course, the clone didn’t forget to store the whip in the inventory to secure it.

It followed the glowing line right beneath the surface.

Eventually, the clone reached the border of the barren land. Ahead stretched a wasteland of dead trees and grey moss that smothered the earth like a shroud, while behind was the meadow. The exact same chill seeped into the bones, but unlike Rex back then, the clone did not hesitate.

It stepped through and charged deeper.

No need to be afraid.

If it dies, then it won’t be a problem since it’s merely a clone.

And considering the chill, the clone could feel that the chance of death is high, being in this area.

Despite being a mere clone, the Nigh-Divine Adaptation skill changed Rex on a deep level, allowing his clone’s anatomy to also be compatible with using the adapted skill. Because of that, the clone has access to the Cavity Skipper.

It easily covered miles and miles in mere minutes.

Blinking in and out of reality like a phantom.

But even after crossing thousands of miles into the barren land, the glowing line still stretching ahead— there was nothing. Only the same brittle dead trees. The same grey moss. The same isolating sameness. Rex had suspected the cavity was vast, perhaps as large as the entire world he’d come from, but this was beyond reason. Too vast. Too empty.

He arrived in the Southern Part of the Cavity.

And it seemed even one part alone was bigger than he expected.

It took a whole hour of spamming the Cavity Skipper skill until the clone finally saw a change.

He stopped and went down to one knee, brushing his fingers against the glowing line.

Just now, he noticed the glowing line had thickened—swollen to nearly twice its former width. And its glow was tainted. It wasn’t pure white anymore. A sign that he took as getting closer to what the System called the divine source.

He gave a single nod and pressed on, the dead landscape unspooling around him in its usual monotony.

Eventually, at last, something changed.

In the distance, a brilliant light pulsed. A glow that reached far. And the terrain beneath him shifted with it. His feet sank into a puddle, and the liquid that rippled beneath his weight was black. Not dark water. Not mud. A dense, light-drinking black that seemed to deepen the shadows around it.

As though the puddle itself were an absence cut into the realm.

Several miles later, the clone stumbled across a downslope. A deep one.

And ahead, his eyes met with a sight so colossal that it dwarfed the mind before the eye and mind could fully comprehend it. Suspended high above the barren land hung a massive skeletal structure shaped like a perfect cube.

Enormous arcs and layered veins intertwining around the light like a divine cage.

The lattice pulsed faintly with light.

Each strand carried currents of energy that could even be seen and felt from where the clone stood.

Slowly, the clone slid down and approached the structure.

His eyes darted left and right warily, searching for any kind of danger that might emerge, but the coast was clear. Nothing in the area. The System had already scanned for any sign of life and found nothing. At least nothing in a ten-mile radius from this structure.

Beneath the skeletal cube rose immense natural stone formations.

Towering pillars and arced supports carved by nature.

They curved upward—like the arms of massive creatures, bearing the impossible weight of the divine construct above. Veins of luminous energy coursed through the stone, glowing deep within the rock like living blood.

It was the colorless energy again.

One that was unique to the God Realm. One that Rex couldn’t sense.

But the clone could tell that the power contained within these formations is immaculate.

Vast, pure, and immeasurable beyond his understanding.

Heck, the glowing lines that had spread throughout the entire dead land were glowing—because of this construct. "So, this is the divine source the System is talking about," the clone muttered inwardly, then he started climbing it to take a better look. "

As he climbed, the contamination of the light became more and more visible.

Halfway through, he saw that a few glowing lines had either died or been contaminated with stygian black energy.

One that Rex had assumed was caused by someone incredibly strong.

Not a Demigod—but a God.

Once he reached the top, the clone was immediately struck by a crippling rush of wind. He felt it. His energy churned, coiled, and thrashed against the walls of his form as though it wanted out. The bright light ahead was the source.

It blazed from within the skeletal cube, a cage of bone-white bars that barely contained the radiance.

Something inside it made his energy spiral, slipping further from his control with every second.

In fact, if he dropped his guard for even a second, his body would be disintegrated.

Knowing that being on the defense would only exhaust him further and further, the clone channeled his lunar mana and used it to protect his body. It did anything against the rush barely, but it’s enough for him to use the Cavity Skipper skill one more time.

Swish—!

He reappeared right before the cube and reached out his hand to touch it.

"System, scan it!"

Staying near the divine source for a minute is impossible, and the clone knew it instantly.

Just the breezing wind coming from the skeletal cage alone scoured the clone’s very essence from his body. His energy bled away in seconds, stripped layer by layer—scattered back. He was hollowing out faster than he could endure.

The System needed more time to scan.

But he had no time to give.

So, he made a choice.

He pulled every ounce of energy from his lower body, abandoning his lower part, and channeled it up to his torso. Every energy below his torso was brought upward. And almost instantly, his legs dissolved, peeled into ash and ember, blown away by the gale.

His hips followed.

Then his spine.

The dissolution climbed like fire racing a fuse.

But the clone kept his torso. His arms. And his head.

At least for a moment longer before the wind howled. Half his face unraveled, flesh—and skin peeling into luminous strands that the gale devoured. One eye remained. A fragment of skull. Still, his right arm held. The hand pressed firm against the divine source endured, but his flesh thinned to translucence.

Bone underneath glowed like molten glass.

It was when he was nearing his limit that the notification he had been waiting for finally appeared.

That was all he wanted from this trip. An answer to satiate the question in his mind.

And in the next second, what remained of him dissolved.