Such a truth was undoubtedly a great humiliation for Xiao.
If he had been more vigilant back then, perhaps he would not have been killed so easily.
This was clearly a profound lesson learned at the cost of his life.
That is, in this world, one must never judge people by appearances, nor be deceived by surface impressions.
At the same time, one must maintain sufficient vigilance to avoid repeating past mistakes.
From now on, Xiao had to face every opponent with greater caution and no longer trust his first impressions so easily.
There is an enormous difference between reality and games or anime.
In games, everything is fixed by programming and will never change in the slightest.
However, in reality, everyone possesses their own unique way of thinking, and people will react differently as situations develop.
The complexity of the human heart is something even the world's most advanced computers cannot accurately calculate. A single mistaken judgment can lead directly to death.
From this day forward, he needed to be careful, careful, and even more careful; cautious, cautious, and even more cautious.
…
…
After briefly reuniting with the Blasphemous Serpent, Xiao created a Mini Fruit and tossed it directly into the serpent's mouth.
Her body had become far too enormous. She could not even leave the bottom level of Volcano Manor anymore. Such a size simply made it impossible for her to follow him around, so feeding her the Mini Fruit was absolutely necessary.
"Hiss, hiss, hiss~~~"
The Blasphemous Serpent licked her lips contentedly, seemingly very satisfied with the fruit's peculiar taste.
But soon after, the Blasphemous Serpent discovered a completely new law had appeared within her body.
"Ah!???"
The Blasphemous Serpent was completely stunned. This was a law!
It was something many demigods would never comprehend in their entire lives.
If she had not followed Xiao and devoured a massive number of corpses in the past, she would never have comprehended her own law and become a Divine Beast.
Yet now, Xiao had merely fed her a delicious fruit, and it allowed her to comprehend an entirely new law.
This was simply too outrageous. Completely unreasonable!
If the heroes of The Lands Between learned of this, they would probably die from anger and then revive only to die from anger again.
"Don't worry, there will be even more surprises waiting for you in the future!"
Xiao raised his hand and comforted the astonished Blasphemous Serpent.
The Mini Fruit was merely the beginning. Once she gradually became familiar with the Mini Fruit's power, he planned to bestow upon her a Human-Human Fruit, allowing her to gain the ability to transform into a human.
"Mmm-hmm!"
The Blasphemous Serpent immediately activated the Mini Fruit's power within her body, shrinking herself down to the thickness of a finger before transforming into a blood-red necklace that coiled around Xiao's neck.
"Our kin outside are celebrating. We shouldn't keep them waiting. I'm also prepared to introduce you to the descendants born after I left The Lands Between all those years ago!"
Xiao gently stroked the Blasphemous Serpent's head while speaking softly.
Returning to her former position and receiving her master's caress once again filled the Blasphemous Serpent's heart with joy. She continuously flicked her tongue and affectionately licked Xiao's cheek.
"Mmm-hmm~~"
The Blasphemous Serpent no longer wanted to say anything. In any case, no matter what Xiao wanted to do, she would raise both hands, both feet… and even her tail in agreement.
The man and serpent conversed continuously along the way. Especially after learning that Xiao could mass-produce Devil Fruits capable of helping others comprehend laws, her eyes immediately lit up, clearly already thinking about how to use this power to reap enormous profits.
"ε=(´ο｀*))) Alas…"
The Blasphemous Serpent suddenly sighed and said, "What a pity… If the laws of Empyreans and Great Runes could be linked together and transformed into a single, more powerful law like those of the gods, how wonderful that would be!"
Although there was only a fine line separating a god from an Empyrean, the gap between the two was immense.
All laws mastered by a god could be connected through the Elden Ring and fused into a far more powerful Elden law.
However, even if Empyreans possessed sufficient resources to comprehend multiple laws, those laws would still remain independent and incapable of being stacked or fused together.
This was similar to cultivation realms among cultivators. Suppose someone dual-cultivated both martial arts and magic, and both reached the Nascent Soul Realm.
Even if a dual cultivator was stronger than an ordinary Nascent Soul cultivator, they would still remain only within the Nascent Soul Realm. The only difference would be that they possessed more combat methods.
As long as they failed to break through into a higher realm, their strength would still remain within the limits of the Nascent Soul Realm and could not undergo a true qualitative transformation.
Therefore, even though Xiao possessed three Great Runes, activating all of them simultaneously would not significantly increase his strength.
This was because an Empyrean could only use the power of a single Great Rune at a time during battle. It was not a question of whether there was a problem, but rather whether it was even possible to do so.
The strongest Empyrean was still only an Empyrean. If besieged by multiple Empyreans, Xiao might not even survive a two-versus-one battle. This was precisely why Xiao was unwilling to be surrounded by numerous demigods.
Of course, quantitative change could eventually produce qualitative change, but that would require at least nine Great Runes. Only then could Xiao, like Marika, forge them together into the Elden Ring.
If possible, those nine Great Runes should ideally be interconnected and complementary in nature.
That way, the fusion of the nine Great Runes would become more perfect, and the resulting Elden law would become even stronger.
But if circumstances did not allow for it, then one could only imitate Marika: using one's own primary law as the core, occupying the shells of the other Great Runes, stripping away their original laws, and using the power of the nine Great Runes to strengthen one's own Golden Order.
Xiao currently possessed only three Great Runes, so naturally they could not produce a qualitative transformation in his power. Therefore, if besieged by numerous demigods, he would still die on the spot.
As for the law abilities bestowed by Devil Fruits, they were actually only a starting point. The real challenge lay in transforming those laws into Great Runes.
One should not think that Xiao forging three Great Runes at once was an easy feat.
In reality, the birth of those three Great Runes had already consumed the hundred years of foundation Xiao had accumulated, along with the power of faith gathered from several worlds.
Even for Xiao, condensing the Elden Ring through his own comprehension was extraordinarily difficult, let alone for other demigods and Empyreans.
Therefore, conflict between Empyreans was inevitable. They had to fight one another and seize each other's laws in order to gather enough Great Runes.
This was precisely why the Two Fingers selected large numbers of Empyreans and demigods in every era.
The essence of the system was that an individual's foundation alone was insufficient, so many powerful individuals had to fight one another, using a "raising gu" method where countless bones were trampled beneath one victor on the path to becoming a god.
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