Chapter 18: ‡※‡ Lily, The divine phoenix※‡
...
Oh, damn! I forgot my fire mode! Cyrus realized what happened as he regretted ending it fast. However, it was a good thing as he realizes that he has to put off the flames in this forest.
As he was still in fire mode, he waved his hands in gestures in letter 'S' and once that happened all the phoenix flames around the area was forcefully sucked by him.
(Cyrus knows how to do sign language, what he did was a sign language letter S.) (S=suck)
When he cleared the area and checked it twice that there is no more burning wood, he finally stopped his fire mode returning to his normal self.
He walked towards the dead wolf as he noticed how horrendous it was. the neck has been torn apart, and when he looked at the missing head of the wolf, he had noticed that it was split apart.
Jesus, my strength is still this powerful! Cyrus could not help to get shocked but he felt content with it, as his stupendous strength did not change after being crippled.
Cyrus can be described that he was still a little airhead as he had no idea how powerful is his strength is, much likely he has not realized what a hundred ton feel like.
...
A rank two demi-beast can kill a knight rank with ease and also can fight a paladin rank one on one if its a serious fight. But... Cyrus is already at paladin rank and had killed a rank two demi-beast using only a single pebble on the ground.
After checking the wolf is dead, he casually walked towards the dead phoenix and inspected it as he touched the phoenix's feathers.
Soon enough, a female voice came to his thoughts.
[Young man, please take my child I beg you, and in the future, it will give you a tremendous strength.]
Cyrus was initially startled, but then as he realized that the voice was coming from the Phoenix he was shocked!
"Y-you, are you the Phoenix?" Cyrus asked as he stuttered, he cannot believe that he talking in a divine being! "Why did you let the packs of mutts eat you?" Cyrus asked once again.
However, a cold voice rang in his head, [Stop asking goddamn stupid questions just save my child before I could tell you what really happened.] The phoenix angrily said to him, he was shocked, as he never thought that this mother phoenix was quite rude.
However thinking about what he had asked to her, he realized that he had degraded her existence as a divine being into a joke. What kind of an idiot would ask a legendary beast that has been living since the ancient times and has majestic flames that could turn people, mountains and even ocean to evaporation has been defeated and eaten by a pathetic small pack of wolves that had not even an anima flowing on its bodies?
Sadly, you have Cyrus in this case. He is idiot asking such a rude question.
Thinking like that, he realized it and immediately apologized to the bird as he bowed his head, after that he asked, "How can help you? Or to say, what should I do?"
[Simple, you only need to put your blood on my child's shell and the blood contract should be completed... Well that's it.] The Phoenix calmly said as her voice seemed to be relieved, but the way she says it contradicts to the sound of it. If Cyrus were to describe it, it was sadness or reluctance.
"Blood contract? Then, wouldn't that mean that your child will become mine?" Cyrus was shocked and... a little excited.
Who would not be excited if you had a divine Phoenix as your pet?
If one learned such thing, the whole continent of Celestia would shake violently due to absurdness of the idea.
[... Yes but no...] The Phoenix paused for a while before replying to Cyrus with her voice full of despise, because she can clearly what Cyrus had been thinking.
"Eh?" He was shocked as he was confused as to what the Phoenix had told him.
[Yes, it will become yours; however, I would never allow you to use my child's power for your own benefits...]
"..."
"I-is that so..." Cyrus muttered in disappointment.
[Go, after you made a contract with my child... I will allow you to eat my body, drink my blood, and take all my feathers and since you had an amazing fire element, you can melt my bones and when it was hard, enough it will become a metal and take it as a gratitude for taking my child.] When she casually said that Cyrus was shocked at what he had heard. For him, it was very inconceivable! Moreover, she said it casually!
"A-are you sure about that???"
However, Cyrus did not get an answer as if the Phoenix had finally died or just avoiding answering him.
With that, Cyrus could only sigh and do what he had to do.
Taking a deep breath, he moved towards at the side of the Phoenix to find the egg... Since this bird is a size of a hatchback car, it was easy to find the egg because its size should be also large.
...
When Cyrus was about to throw tantrum because he could not find it, he suddenly saw a shiny scarlet red shell beneath the wings of the Phoenix covering it. "Finally, I found you." He lifted the wings and took the large egg.
The wings of this mother Phoenix was incredible heavy despite having a strong strength, which Cyrus could not help to use his cultivation mode to lift it up.
When he carefully placed the egg in the most secure and soft place, Cyrus took a single step back and noticed that the egg of this Divine Phoenix was incredibly big! It was slightly larger than a beach ball!
Man, hopefully, this would not affect my cultivation to a bad luck!
Hesitating for a while, Cyrus could only bite his lips as he finally found an answer as he casually pricked his finger and bead of blood started to appear on it.
He casually pressed the bead of blood and spreads it into a character of 'seal' and soon as he finished. The scarlet egg emitted a golden light as it appeared to have a deep scarlet aura and his body was absorbing that Aura.
When it was finished the Egg disappeared on his sight in just a blink of an eye, and soon. A symbol of Phoenix has appeared above the yin-yang tattoo on Cyrus' chest.
Now, the Yin-yang tattoo had a scarlet bed of roses on the bottom, on the sides, there are both electric trees and now above that, there is a phoenix spreading its wings as if it was dominating the skies.
Because this tattoo was under his clothes, Cyrus did not notice it as he was still finding the scarlet egg somewhere around him.
I would never allow you to use my child's power for your own benefits... Remembering that cold and freaky voice coming from the divine Phoenix, Cyrus could not help to get cold shivers on his back.
Where the hell is that egg? Hm?
"!?"
Suddenly, his bodies seemed to get weak and still getting weaker as if he was being sucked by something, his leaking anima on dantian were quickly dropping in extremely fast rate!
Shit! Cyrus kneeled into the ground as if he was exhausted, and soon his body started to get paler and paler!
"This is bad, this is ba- *Guah*" He suddenly vomits blood as he still shocked to what's happening but he couldn't tell what happened to him because he felt that there was something that draining him... Inside of him!
Once he had noticed that the feeling was coming inside his dantian, he quickly sat on the ground in a lotus position and started to cultivate.
Once he had entered, he had not paid any attention to the surrounding as he quickly sat there on lotus position inside his dantian as he quickly cultivated in dual process.
If his dantian have been sucked dry, it would be bad for him. The things is... if he let himself to get completely sucked dry it would be bad for his healing half destroyed cultivation base.
So with that in mind, he quickly absorbs the nature's essence in the surrounding to quickly fill his shallow river once again as he pushed himself to his limit.
When he was slightly stable enough, he quickly scanned his dantian finding the cause of this. To his shock, he had found out that the culprit behind this was the scarlet egg earlier!
That bastard! How unfortunate of me! Damn it! Cyrus cursed on his thoughts as he quickly absorbs more anima to stabilize himself.
If this Phoenix egg keeps sucking his anima then his cultivation progress would be gone to worse! His mahika usage could only last for two or three use of fire arts and that would make his lightning mahika even more unusable for him!
Now that he had been half crippled and could only use ten percent of his strength then, because of that bastardly egg of the Phoenix, his fighting strength had been reduced to only five percent! Freaking five percent!
If this really continues, he could only fight for about an hour or even worse half an hour despite having a complete raw strength, he could not maintain using it because of extremely low reserve of his anima capacity!
Cyrus was quite angry because he had felt that that mother Phoenix had deceived him.
But soon...
After a couple of hours, Cyrus had noticed that the suction rate of the Phoenix Egg has reduced to two percent and this made Cyrus happy as he could only wish that the suction rate could reduce more.
Because currently, if he were to fight the same rank as him, it would be bad for him as he cannot prolong the fight and has to end it fast. However, such luck can't be given every time on him as fate wouldn't allow that.
There is one thing that Cyrus had noticed that made him smile bitterly, and that was his Cultivation mode. It consumes a little amount of anima when he uses his raw strength for about an hour, which is still, can be considered good for him.
However.
There is a problem, now that he is still half crippled, his cultivation was slightly unstable making him use only three times a day of using his cultivation mode.
In one day, if he is cultivation all day and night without rest, he can mostly absorb five percent of anima, but only 1/2 % of heavy anima can he absorb mostly.
What is heavy anima?
There are actually two types of dou qi (anima), the first one is normal that we all know and aware of, however, there is another anima that is responsible for a person to rank up, and that is the heavy anima. In fact, heavy anima can be called the real dou qi while the regular anima is called mana if one from earth had understood the structure of it.
(A.N: It is like a water and heavy water.)
Sensing that he could slightly relax, for now, Cyrus opened his eyes from the real world and stood up from the forest.
He had estimated that he should cultivate later to replenish his dantian for about five hours because if ignored it the repercussion of it is that he will experience what happened earlier once again.
Taking a deep breath and started his timer mentally, he looked at the car size dead phoenix.
Now, what should I do? Cyrus thought to himself as he walked towards the dead phoenix. He activated his last cultivation mode for today and quickly dragged the Phoenix towards the near river; as soon as he arrived there, he washed his hands off to remove the blood.
...
Damn! I forgot that a single drop of phoenix blood is already a national treasure itself! How wasteful!
As he realized what he had done, Cyrus could only cry deep inside and roll on the ground as he was frustrated by his actions.
"Damn it!" Cyrus cursed as he stood up and slowly walked towards the dead phoenix once again. He took the heart of the Phoenix, he opened his mouth and slowly squeezes it as he drank all the blood essence of the Phoenix, but this time, he is extremely careful not to waste a single bead of blood.
The size of the phoenix heart is extremely big, its size was two or three times big than its egg.
As soon as he finished drinking it all. Cyrus looked like a savage cannibal from the from the forest.
Soon after that, he started to pluck all the feathers and as soon as he was finished doing that, he had finally seen its white and tender skin.
It could be said that it was much softer than that chickens have and the tenderness of it was off the chart! Because this phoenix is birthed from fire, it cannot be cooked with normal fire to the point that it could only compare throwing a cold water on a warm ocean.
"Guess I need to use my fire mode." As he muttered that, his eyes turned Scarlet and his hair turned red, soon his surrounding exploded in fire.
Pointing his hands towards the naked phoenix, he let out a hot and efficient fire so he could not get exhausted very fast as he slowly roasted the Phoenix.
Cyrus could not help to feel sorry to Hephaestus as he remembered his awesome oath for him yet he used his fire just to roast a phoenix.
But hey, this is not a chicken but a freaking phoenix!
The Phoenix tender meat was quite hard to cook as Cyrus had thought, but what made Cyrus amazing is that, when his fire touched the meat, it was no different cooking an egg!
He finally realized that his fire is quite special.
...
When it was finally completely cooked, he could only smell the fragrant aroma of the cooked meat, which could even make gods drool over it, and if can gods can drool with it, Cyrus is no exception either! His mouth is practically river itself!
With his fast and swift hands quickly tore a piece of meat and ate it like a savage animal that had been hungry for ten years without eating.
Cyrus was mesmerized with its tender and juicy flavor of meat!
"Holy shit! This is freaking good! KF* is only fart compared to this!" He exclaimed. His face was unsightly to look at; his nose was bulging, as he breathes heavily not letting a single smoke of aroma escape his surroundings!
A.N: Hey! I like KFChicken...
Unknowingly, hours had quickly passed.
Cyrus had finally finished eating all the meat and nothing was left or wasted, even the intestine and internal organs of it was cleaned before eating it.
After that, he melted the bones then once it turned into a hot liquid like lava, he used the river water to cool the boiling hot liquid and the result of it was a shiny grey like metal.
Cyrus removed his upper clothes revealing his toned and refined body while holding his clothes he tore it apart and created a rope-like an object
He collected all the scarlet feathers and he checked it two times if there are remaining feathers because Phoenix feathers could be used for many things!
He tied the feathers like a hay with his crafted rope, and suddenly he realized something, "Oh shoot, it's almost time to cultivate!" He quickly sat near the feathers and closed his eyes as he started to cultivate.
As soon as he woke up from his dantian, he suddenly noticed as he saw a brilliant and gorgeous scarlet light hovering above him. Soon, a female figure appeared that made him awe in amazement.
It slowly descended down to the ground and when the light has finally vanished, What Cyrus had seen was an extremely beautiful woman, with a scarlet hair, a perfectly beautiful curve of brows, and long eyelashes, a fair jade-like skin, and her perfect nose.
Cyrus was at dazed as he looked at this woman as if he was paralyzed by it.
This is the first time Cyrus had seen an extremely, no, super extremely beautiful woman that could break the whole world in half by staring at her, this can make the most beautiful flower wither compared to her and can make the moon hide on the clouds out of shame!
Her hair was scarlet, and her beauty was combined with her fiery and terrifying aura radiating out from her body!
Her height was no different from Cyrus, she also wore a simple scarlet dress, and she wore a stocking on her long white legs that were so alluring and can captivate any man in this world!
Her eyes suddenly twitched and slowly opened her eyes.
She had golden scarlet eyes, and it looks looked fierce yet warm to look at.
Soon, she slowly opened her mouth and said, "Oh, you're here..." Hearing her voice had startled Cyrus as he awoke from his dream, its voice was like harmony to his ears, yet suddenly.
Cyrus realized that this voice was similar to the mother phoenix! However, her voice sounds younger though.
"S-so, you're the mother ph-phoenix..." Cyrus stuttered as he nervously said, because of her beauty Cyrus could not help to stop blushing at all!
"Huh?" Ignoring Cyrus, beauty had realized as she felt that there is something wrong, she looked at her hands carefully in confusion as she realized something important that made her frown.
"Tsk, so my power had been reduced to a Tyrant Rank huh..." She muttered.
As she was ignoring Cyrus, she looked around finding something. When her vision saw a giant scarlet egg, she revealed a soft smile and she suddenly vanished on her place as she appeared next to the scarlet egg.
W-what a speed! I could not even see it without blinking! Cyrus was terrified when he saw that.
He slowly followed her and saw that phoenix egg compared to her height was funny to look at because the egg's height was about to her chest. He could not imagine that this teen looking girl was the mother of that huge egg.
The beautiful girl lifted her hands and she slowly touched the egg as she softly caresses it. "Mother is back..." She softly muttered, and her voice was full of motherly love.
Cyrus smiled as he saw and heard it.
The mother phoenix bent her head and softly kissed the eggshell before looking at Cyrus.
Her soft expression turned to a serious and threatening look with a frown on her face, but despite this, she still looked beautiful. \
"So, how does my body taste?" Out of the blue, she asked about that!?
"H-huh?" Cyrus was taken back.
Suddenly, he realized something that shocked him.
I-I ate this beauty!?
Realizing that he had eaten a beautiful girl, he wished that he could suddenly puke and release the meat he had eaten out from his body and gave it back to her. But of course, that would be disgusting and it would be a big no-no.
"I-It was delic-" When Cyrus was about to reply while scratching his head he was suddenly interrupted by her.
"Okaaaay! Kid, that was a joke, I do not want to hear those things, please stop! Annnyway, what's your name boy?" She suddenly asked him.
Taken aback, Cyrus stood up straight like a soldier in front of this beauty and with a salute, "I'm Cyrus Baumgartner, call me Cyrus, yours?" He immediately replied as he stretches his hand offering a handshake.
The girl did not respond but she looked at him for a couple of minutes before finally replied to him as she took his handshake. However, she puts her hands above Cyrus showing that she is dominant here before shaking it.
With a faint smile on her face, she spoke softly, "I'm Lily, from Divine Phoenix clan..."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Dicky_Cummie
Dicky_Cummie This is only chapter for today.
I maxed it to 3.3k words, so it could be considered two chapters.
Like I had said, my average words are 1.5k and max is 2k
Thanks for reading!
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