Bab 171: Conversion 2

An unknown amount of time passed with Broly converting his energies into his soul. The process carried unbearable pain with it. After being reborn he was confronted with pain that not only targeted his body but his very soul.

With life pain had followed it. After struggling for years, he wouldn't flinch if his hand was cut open. Even if his body was impaled by metal rods, he would still be able to stand proudly.

His pain tolerance wasn't something most beings in the universe could compare to. It was ironic as he had one of the toughest bodies in existence. But even with that kind of tough body, he had suffered tremendously.

The main perpetrator was himself as he crushed every bone in his body at least a few times whilst training. This method of training didn't only raise his pain tolerance, but his willpower as pushed himself further and further in the next session. His body even adapted to the pain slightly and wasn't at the least bit satisfied after the training room didn't had any effect on him anymore.

Now he had to preserve through excruciating pain in order to complete the conversion and it became more unbearable as time went on. Solutus had stopped at the beginning after he realized that something went wrong.

Even if his plan succeeded to absorb another sword of a suppressed Broly and got another shot at the conversion, he would have failed miserably.

Broly didn't think during the conversion as the pain didn't allow for different thoughts to arise. He could only endure and count the seconds as the process continued on.

He couldn't be sure if it were mere minutes, hours, days or even years have passed since he had started. For him it felt like an eternity, but he knew that was only his perception of time.

He gritted his teeth as he felt like the skin was being slowly peeled off his body while being cooked alive. If he failed to stay conscious and discontinued to circulate according to the absorption techniques, he would fail the conversion. His energy cores would be in pieces and his soul would be incomplete.

He wouldn't be able to strengthen his soul or his energies afterwards. If that happened his only hope would be advancing with his ki, but he knew that would slow him down on his path to supremacy significantly.

With only his ki he would still be a lot stronger than most but to gain the ability to contend against gods would again take a lot of time.

Of course, even a half-converted soul would grant him a significant boost in strength but Broly didn't want strength for the price of cutting off potential in the future. Not to advance in the departments of magic, lifeforce or his soul would be a price too high for him to pay.

However, he needed to see this conversion through. He not only needed to find a way to get off this island with the others but with the guards' explanation he knew that this was the path to the absolute peak. This would be the first step to not only reach the level of gods but to even surpass Zeno himself.

No matter what, he had to preserve.

****

Time was ticking away while the other Exousians waited for his return. Broly didn't know how much time has passed but he realized that the pain had lessened for some time. He inspected his body and noticed that the cores had vanished completely, only the residual energy in the body was left.

The lifeforce and the magic power that had once reached every corner of his body was now being sucked into his soul. His body needed to be void of these energies and only then would the process be complete.

In comparison to dissolving his cores, to absorb this remaining energy was child's play. It didn't take him long to finally complete the process.

After the energies were absorbed, the pain vanished. After a moment of silence, his soul seemed to have a reaction.

The previous still soul was suddenly leaking tremendous amount of power that filled the void that the energies had left behind.

While that happened, Broly was blinded by a bright light. He covered his eyes until the light vanished again.

He didn't realize it immediately, but he was sitting on the throne in the hall. The guards were now kneeling in front of him. They didn't raise their head but had lowered them, not daring to look straight at Broly.

The black Kriegsmesser with the blue edge was unsheathed and hovered right in front of Broly with the black sheath floating next to it. Broly opened his palm and the sword sheathed itself again and placed itself in Broly's hand.

Broly closed the eyes and felt the power of the sword. Although he had held it before, he was now more sensitive towards its power.

After he had returned to the hall, his mind was being flooded with information. It was mostly information about the civilization called Pera and how it had waged war since it was able to travel to other multiverses.

They had conquered not only their multiverse but had stretched out their hands to the neighboring multiverse, but they soon realized that their power was severely weakened in other multiverses. They had studied the creature that inhabited these multiverses and searched what gave them their strength.

They created temples with statues that mimicked their powers and after a long time they were able to create living imitations of the most powerful beings that had inhabited their respective universe.

After creating life, they realized that the imitations were somehow able to retain warped memories of their real counterparts.

These creatures had rebelled and in a grand war devastated Pera's world. Of course, they didn't have the strength to overturn this civilization and were quickly eradicated.

Afterwards the civilization decided that if they couldn't create creatures to fight for them then they had to change themselves, so their power would become multiversal. Some of the higher ups were stubborn and kept on creating new creatures since they didn't want to throw away their work of millenniums.

They said that was the only way and it would be impossible to not be suppressed in foreign multiverses. The forest that was surrounding the abyss was one of that projects.

It allowed the development of different creatures, but it had a suppressing element to normal citizens of Pera.

Indeed, it was an incredible difficult task to make one's strength multiversal, but after eons and eons of waging war with different multiverses and experimenting with different methods, they had finished a conversion process that would grant their souls, the fundamental and multiversal source of existence, the power of different energies.

The crystals played a fundamental role as they would make the receivers' soul compatible with these energies.

However, the process was too difficult to complete. In ancient times only a few tens of the billion's inhabitants of Pera were able to succeed.

After tuning the process countless times, they retracted their troops in order to accumulate strength, but destiny wasn't good to them. Several overlords had attacked them with their armies. A long battle that ripped apart multiverses came to be and only stopped after this mighty civilization had fallen.

Broly opened his eyes after he took in this information. Perditus, even this island was only a fraction of what Pera used to be. They had tried to save themselves by using the crystals as a defense and to hide in the enemies' universes, but ultimately, they were found and eradicated. Perhaps only this island is left of the once glorious civilization.

Broly had to say that he found all this extremely interesting, but one thing had caught his attention in the memories. It seemed like one of the overlords that had attacked Pera was Zeno or his predecessor if something like that exists for the king of all, but what was important was the fact that one sword piece was kept save by Zeno.

There was also the question on why they were able to absorb these crystals. According to the information, it was only meant for Peras.

As he inspected his sword deep in thoughts, he suddenly saw something on the back of his hand. He turned his palm over and saw a golden triangle that was drawn into his skin like a tattoo. It was strange but he instinctively knew how to use this tattoo.

He stood up from the throne and placed his sword on his back.

"How long did the process take?" Broly asked the kneeling guards.

"About 10 seconds."

Broly was stunned but he only shook his head and smiled bitterly. He clenched his fist slightly, making the golden triangle shimmer. In the next moment Broly was teleported outside of the temple. The giant statues were reconstructed and guarded the temple once again.