"Tellus, what is this primordial death force?"
"I'll tell you what it is, Azrael," replied a voice in his head. It didn't belong to the Reaper but his clan founder.
It goes without saying that Azzy was surprised, as this never happened before to him. Usually, he had to go to the mind space to talk to his ancestor.
"The Primordial attributes are usually the ones that existed at the beginning of the creation. The true gods, Archangels, the united cosmic gem, cosmic beings, Chronos, Space, Life, Protos beings, etc.
Since these are all primordial beings, their attributes were too pure and untouched.
Now, the sword of radiance is a type of guardian sword with the spirit of an angel, each one dedicated to a separate realm. Lux was the guardian of the Abode of Death. Hence, it could use the primordial force of death without a problem. But, usually, only Thanatos could use it.
I faced one such sword of radiance in the past. It belonged to Eros, and it brought a terrifying headache to my love life... anyway, the point is that the sword of radiance can only activate its primordial attribute in the hands of a user born with a primordial attribute force.
I guess my theory is true after all. Our soul is indeed born from the consciousness of the Death jewel's fragment."
The clan founder's voice sounded excited at the end of his explanation, as if he proved his hypothesis. But Azzy wasn't completely convinced.
He asked, "Wasn't that Apostle of Death also a Death Jewel's fragment? How come Lux couldn't use the primordial death power against me or Vajra?"
The clan founder replied, "I think it is because you didn't give it an opportunity to use its full power from the start. Not to mention, Vajra has Protos energy, the negative primordial force that could effectively destroy anything divine. Death is still a positive primordial force.
Either that or the apostle isn't a soul born out of the fragment's consciousness but is merely a being that probably merged with the fragment. Merging with the fragment will mix your own soul energy with it. Naturally, the fragment will lose its raw form of energy."
"Hmm... that seems plausible," Azzy nodded.
Meanwhile, on the outside, the battle resumed already. Tellus was using the twin sword style to aggressively fight against Argus, who focused on parrying the attacks.
Tellus' stamina is also being recovered at a rapid rate by the sword of radiance.
Argus was still superior in reflexes and made sure not to let the sword reach his body as its blade has the power to injure even the gods and archangels, but when their blades met, the suppression on him turned out to be costly for Argus, and he was pushed away and away.
Tellus replied, "Only 17 hours have passed. There is still a lot of time left before their disappearance."
Usually, rank-4 or lower-rank spirit cores dropped from the dead monsters can be claimed for only 10 minutes. As their strength grows, the time will increase, too.
These rank-9 spirit cores will stay there for 40 hours, but the beast energy inside will also diminish after 20 hours have passed. As for rank-10, they can stay there for a week. Hence, Tellus believed that it wasn't an issue.
However, Azzy was a bit skeptical about it. After all, 17 hours had passed since the destruction of Hel's island, and Azzy didn't know what other powerful monsters were out there on Mt. Lo. 3 hours might not be enough.
Well, soon after, he found out that he was wrong.
As Tellus flew to the east and met Nidgorr, who was floating near Knull, the wingless demigod realm dragon immediately accepted its defeat, becoming Tellus' servant in the end.
Both Nidgorr and Knull took care of monsters on Mt. Lo within an hour. The divine cow didn't resist either. She admitted defeat. But Tellus didn't kill her. Instead, he spared her on the account that he won't be able to maintain that prison for eternity, meaning that Argus will be released sooner or later.
It is considered foolishness to unnecessarily gain his wrath.
To make sure Argus wouldn't chase after them for revenge, on Clan founder Azrael's advice, Tellus forced Lo to make a divine oath that she wouldn't be leaving the forbidden region without his permission. And if Argus ever tried to kill him, she had to fight Argus instead.
The divine oath is the highest kind of oath that could be enforced by divine beings. When one makes that oath, their existence will be bound to the oath, and failure to meet the promise will erase their existence for good.
The only way to bypass this oath is to either fulfill the conditions or kill the user who enforced the oath.
As a result of the oath, Lo was now restricted to the Forbidden region. Once it was done, Tellus released Argus.
As soon as the Aetherium prison dissolved and Argus got free, he was prepared to attack Tellus, but the divine cow floated before Tellus as a guard, telling Argus that she had to fight him if he raised the sword against him.
Argus saw his surroundings with his eyes. Once a formidable region enough for humans to fear visiting this place, it reduced to sinking islets left and right.
He couldn't help but sigh and put away his sword, saying, "My mission is to guard Lo from Lord Zeus and make sure the curse on her won't be broken. Even for the sake of my pride and my principles, I cannot fail my mission. As long as Lo is in front of me, it is fine. Leave this place, Tellus."
"Not before Little Azrael here claims those spirit cores," replied Tellus calmly, pointing at hundreds of floating orbs several kilometers away.