The Messenger of Death

Nana who was still midair, supervising her disciple, even she could tell that the temperature of the magma was increasing. Not that it was a problem or an inconvenience to her.

'Why is the temperature changing this much? Is there a natural anomaly here? This might be our lucky day.' She thought as she used her consciousness to survey the area. After probing, Nana wasn't able to find anything there.

She then chose to search the outer orbit of the core. 'There you are,'

Nana smiled when she noticed a red creature pretending to be asleep beside the core of the volcano. This creature looked like a human baby, down to the smallest details. The only difference was that it had a tail and blood-red skin.

Natural anomalies are intelligent spiritual beings that after thousands of years of accumulating violent QI and life force, start to form physical bodies that are capable of turning into formidable and fearsome monsters.

But they are only capable of that after they have grown in their physical form. If it is a young natural anomaly, then using its violent QI to cultivate was almost the same as possessing a Midas petal.

Technically, even the Midas petals could be considered a natural anomaly, but without intelligence, and one with violent and yet submissive QI.

Natural anomalies are hard to find, almost as difficult as it is to get a bloodstone if not harder. And they difficult to deal with. Before a cultivator can refine a natural anomaly, they will have to search for a young one and capture it alive.

Going after a grown-up natural anomaly is dangerous and in most cases, pointless. Once the anomaly has grown up, the violent QI in it merges with its life force, and then it becomes almost impossible to refine it.

The only way one can find a young natural anomaly is in a place with pure, extreme, and violent natural occurrences, its territorial place of birth. For example, the volcano that Nana and Alex were in now. Once they have grown, they will leave their place and roam the universe as they please.

A natural anomaly is born with the capacity to interact with the element most common and ubiquitous in its geographical place of birth, and in this case, the natural anomaly that Nana had found is able to interact with any substance related to fire.

Most of them were hostile to both their species and other species.

It was this Natural anomaly that was increasing the heat/temperature of the magma. It didn't like the fact that Al had stopped crying out and started chanting something that it had no knowledge of.

It wanted to end Al's life, painfully.

'While you deal with your purification process, I will capture that natural anomaly for you. Compared to the Midas petal, a natural anomaly can be said to be something of equal value. This should be able to make you forget about that guardian.' A small smile surfaced on her lips.

-Whoosh.

Nana disappeared from where she was, and a pillar of magma appeared in the position that she was in previously. The anomaly was trying to attack Nana.

As it was still young and irrational, it couldn't probe or gauge the cultivation or strength of other beings. So it didn't know that Nana wasn't an opponent that it could go against. It thought that its position was still unknown, oblivious to the fact that Nana already knew of its current location.

The natural anomaly smiled mischievously as it saw nothing when it searched for Nana's remains. It thought that the magma had burnt her into nothingness…

Meanwhile, Al was still trying to chant the sutra while going through excruciating pain that seemed to be increasing after it reduces for a few seconds.

He didn't know that he was being targeted by a natural anomaly, he thought that he wasn't reciting the sutra properly. He attempted to frown and that was when he realized that his face had burnt.

There was no skin on his face and he had no lips at the moment. His teeth and tendons were more durable and harder for the magma to burn, nonetheless, it was doing so slowly.

['It's getting hotter.'] Al thought.

The moment he did that, he lost concentration a bit and he felt more pain than he was already going through. Al immediately focused on chanting the sutra only, he now knew that he couldn't lose concentration or else things might get worse for him.

By the time Al had finished reading the sutra for the first time, everything that he was feeling subsided almost completely. His body that had been floating in the magma started to sink as if he was merging with the magma.

The natural anomaly noticed and tried to increase the temperature of the magma again, but it didn't get any reaction from Al even after it had done that.

Al continued to chant the sutra until he could think of other things and still be able to chant the words of the sutra perfectly. Suddenly, his mind became clearer and he was able to see the spiritual anatomy of his body. 

He saw 3 dragons flying and coursing to and fro around his heart. One of the dragons was made of pure fire, another was made of dark purple lightning, and the last one was also purple. It had a single horn on its head. The horn had little, twinkling lights that glow randomly as it moved.

As if the dragons knew that Al was there, the three of them looked at him at the same time. Looking at the bloodlines that he possessed, Al felt like he wasn't worthy like they weren't already a part of him.

Suddenly, the dragon that was made of fire shot at him. He tried to move away from where he was, however, he realized that he couldn't, because he wasn't there physically but mentally. The dragon collided with him and Al left that area.

When his consciousness returned to his mind Al could feel the new changes in his body. He felt the magma around him passing through his pores. Instead of corroding his body, he was actually using it to purify his blood.

And just like Mr. Guardian said, the sutra was helping him to focus on purifying just one of his bloodlines.

As the magma continued to enter through his pores, Al kept on feeling better, and stronger. He stopped chanting the sutra and focused on guiding the energy from the magma around his body. He chose to start from his navel.

When he started, Al saw the same fire dragon that he saw in his heart, beside his core. It was using the flames around its body to heat Al's core. What surprised him was that it didn't hurt one bit.

He ignored it and guided the energy up to his head, and while he was doing that, he saw the dragon following his lead.

It followed him everywhere that he guided the energy to.

Al didn't know of the difference that was occurring to his body while he was guiding that energy around his body. His body was healing rapidly and when it was done healing, it turned red.

Everywhere that fire dragon passed in his body, caused that part of his body to transform. Red scales that resemble pearls, appeared over his skin, and when it disappeared, it left that part of his skin stronger than before.

Strong enough to protect him from feeling any sort of pain or discomfort from the magma here. When his upper torso was done healing, the healing process didn't remove the scars that he had there.

But he didn't care much for them, whether he had them or not, it didn't erase his past and how he had got them.

The natural anomaly could sense the changes that Al was going through. It saw as his body was healing and that didn't please it. It was about to leave the orbit of the core of the volcano.

Before it could make its way to where Al was, Nana ambushed it. The person that it thought that it had killed, came to ambush.

The surprise that it got from that stunned and froze the natural anomaly where it was for a few seconds.

When Nana dodged that pillar of magma that it shot at her, she immediately appeared in the orbit that the anomaly was residing in. she hid her presence so it didn't know that she had been with it for a while.

While she was behind it, she was thinking of how to capture it. It wasn't as if it was going to be a hard thing for her to capture it, the difficulty was capturing it unharmed.

And she didn't want to gift Alexander anything bad, nor did she want to lose to the guardian of the petal. Nana decided to seal the natural anomaly first.

If she used too much of her ice ability, she would freeze the anomaly to death, and if it was too thin it would burn through the ice in no time and run for safety.

Since it is an anomaly, it is capable of hiding away from the eyes of those that are stronger than it. Just by returning to the place that it was born, it can deconstruct its physical form safely and return to its spiritual form while it waits for those pursuing it to leave.

Before the anomaly could react, Nana froze it and restricted its movement with her telekinesis…