Seeing the effect of this title, Jiang Lin was completely dumbfounded.
Was this... the God acknowledging his combat methods?!
And even taking action to provide a disguise for him?
Because his blood qi was too terrifying, the God had bestowed a title, allowing him to disguise that blood qi as holy light?
At the same time, the holy light mark that had merged into his body began to change. Jiang Lin felt as if a new power was being injected into his body.
He received a new piece of information.
【Due to your excellent performance, you have obtained the opportunity for the God's apostle assessment】
【When breaking through the 2nd rank, you will no longer go to the God-blessed Land】
【Complete special quests to obtain the status of a God's apostle】
【After obtaining the God's apostle status, the upper limit of your life level will increase, and you will gain the qualification to become a supreme six-winged seraph】
【The apostle status must be kept secret. If leaked, the assessment qualification will be revoked】
【The time limit for the God's apostle assessment is 150 days. If the assessment has not begun after 150 days, the assessment qualification will also be revoked】
Seeing this message, Jiang Lin didn't react for a moment.
Was this... the God's apostle that the Lord Temple Master had mentioned before?
And what on earth was a supreme six-winged seraph?
Meanwhile, Jiang Lin felt the patterns formed by the holy light mark becoming more compatible with him, as if they were being engraved into his body.
Certain aspects of his natural talents also received an upgrade due to this breakthrough.
However, Jiang Lin began to feel some concerns.
He seemed to have caught the God's attention. If he used the system quests to sever the restrictions placed on him by the other party later, wouldn't he be in great danger?
But things had already reached this point; there was no room for turning back.
After all, if he didn't complete this quest, the system wouldn't teleport him out, and he would probably have to stay in the Blood Realm forever.
The holy light of the teleportation before him vanished, and the world in front of him turned blood-red once again.
The thick, unpleasantly metallic scent of blood returned to his breath, and a familiar sensation came from beneath his feet. Jiang Lin had returned to the Blood Realm · Trial Ground.
Almost the very instant he landed, a massive blood-colored sword qi slashed toward him again.
However, Jiang Lin had not yet exited the battle flow state, so his perception was exceptionally sharp.
Although he hadn't fully adapted to the discomfort of teleportation, he still instinctively swung a seven-colored sword qi.
When the two sword qis collided, it wasn't like the last time where they canceled each other out and the energy vanished.
Instead, the seven-colored sword qi was even more powerful, directly shattering the blood-colored sword qi before flying toward the mangled remains of the Blood Demon still lying on the ground.
That was right—the Blood Demon that had swung this blood-colored sword qi was still in a broken state.
Swinging that sword seemed to have exhausted all of its strength.
Seeing Jiang Lin return in an even stronger state, it stopped resisting entirely. Even its body, which had been continuously regenerating, ceased its recovery.
Jiang Lin didn't dare to be careless. He blasted several seven-colored sword qis at the Blood Demon on the ground until he had completely shredded the Shadow of Blood with his sword qi.
At the same time, he received a notification from the system.
【Defeated: 0-rank peak Blood Demon — Shadow of Blood】
【Trial of Blood (I) successfully completed】
【Obtained Reward: Pass the Trial of Blood to remove the current stage's life shackles; status independence, no longer restricted by the God】
【Detected that your life shackles have already been removed, therefore this reward is partially invalid】
【Detected the God's apostle mark. Forcing an independent status will cause danger. Generating a sub-status for risk avoidance】
【Sub-status generation complete. Transferring the God's apostle mark to the sub-status】
【Transfer complete. The main status has been successfully independent】
【Teleporting out of the Blood Realm in thirty seconds】
【Tip: The 0-rank peak Blood Demon Shadow of Blood is currently in a subduable state. Please choose whether to subdue it. You may use the mount brand attached to the knight class to subdue it】
Seeing the system message, Jiang Lin immediately looked toward the spot where the Shadow of Blood had been shredded.
He saw that the Shadow of Blood, which originally looked just like him, had now turned into a clump of crimson blood mist.
Jiang Lin hesitated for a moment, but thinking of the opponent's heaven-defying combat power and his newly acquired holy arbiter title, he strode over directly.
Then, he summoned a golden brand—the mount brand used by the knight class to subdue mounts.
Generally speaking, when a knight subdued a mount, they either searched for demonic beasts to see if the creature was willing to go with them, or they directly purchased trained spirit beasts to fight alongside them as mounts.
Of course, there was also forced subdual.
This was done by changing the original equal relationship within the mount brand into a one-sided master-slave relationship.
But usually, after a forced subdual, the mount might have a significant amount of resistance.
At that point, one would either have to influence the mount to gradually accept their position or choose to wipe its consciousness, turning it into a complete combat puppet.
However, if the consciousness was wiped, the mount's combat ability would drop significantly, failing to achieve a result where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
If a mount died, the mount brand would enter a cooling period, after which the knight could choose a new mount.
Currently, Jiang Lin was performing a forced subdual.
If the opponent became uncontrollable later, he would either wipe its consciousness to turn it into a puppet or dissolve the contract to find another mount, like Little Black or something...
No, Little Black was too weak. How could such a loser be his mount? It would just hold him back.
With very little time remaining, Jiang Lin stopped hesitating and made his decision.
He reached out his right hand, palm down, aiming at the clump of blood mist that was no longer writhing.
The magic essence within his body flowed according to the ancient rune paths of the mount brand.
A complex and profound contract array made of holy light projected from his palm, slowly descending to envelop the blood mist of the Shadow of Blood.
Buzz—!
The moment Jiang Lin completed the contract with the Shadow of Blood, the world before his eyes began to change. He saw a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
This wasn't the Blood Realm; the sky was no longer an endless blood-red.
It looked like a scene that had actually happened somewhere in the real world.
The sky was pitch black, while the earth was dyed blood-red by gore. Atop the mountain of corpses stood a blurry figure, holding a blood-colored longsword. The mountain of remains beneath its feet seemed to be its handiwork.
It was neither the Shadow of Blood nor Jiang Lin, but a figure that Jiang Lin found somewhat familiar.
However, he couldn't say exactly why it felt familiar; he just felt like he had seen it somewhere before.
At that moment, the figure slowly turned around, as if it had seen Jiang Lin watching, and their eyes met.
In the next instant, countless chaotic and violent fragments of will, like a desperate flood, frantically smashed against Jiang Lin's mental barriers.
A shrill scream that seemed to act directly on his soul exploded in his head!
"Ugh!"
Back in the Blood Realm, Jiang Lin let out a muffled groan. The veins on his forehead bulged, and his body trembled violently.
What was happening was completely unexpected.
The books didn't say this would happen when subduing a mount?!
Meanwhile, the teleportation countdown had ended. Jiang Lin gritted his teeth and hurriedly pulled the Shadow of Blood into his mount space.
Immediately afterward, he was teleported away.
The dizziness of teleportation returned.
Jiang Lin had lost count of how many times he had been teleported.
Furthermore, each time was a near-interdimensional, ultra-long-distance teleportation.
Combined with the mental shock from contracting the Shadow of Blood, Jiang Lin felt like he was on the verge of collapse.
Returning to his familiar dormitory, Jiang Lin knelt on the ground in pain. Bursts of blood qi and blood light uncontrollably erupted from his body, emitting a terrifying aura.
Jiang Lin hurriedly focused his mind to activate the effect of his epic title, holy arbiter.
In an instant, the blood light emitting from his body changed color and aura, turning into bursts of divine and pure holy light, radiating a sacred atmosphere.
He curled up on the floor like a small sun radiating light.
Little Black, watching from the side, was instantly shocked speechless.
What was going on?!
Earlier, it had seen a massive amount of blood qi suddenly explode from Jiang Lin, carrying a terrifying aura that even made it feel alarmed, before he was teleported away.
It knew Jiang Lin had gone to complete a breakthrough quest, but it hadn't expected Jiang Lin's pre-teleportation animation to look like that.
Did he trigger some special cutscene?
It had originally thought Jiang Lin might need some time to complete the breakthrough quest, but it didn't expect it to end so quickly.
Except, something seemed a bit wrong with him after teleporting back, right?
Was this the normal effect after someone broke through?
Why was everyone else full of life after a breakthrough, but this guy ended up like this?
And looking at him now, with holy light pouring out of him while he rolled on the floor in pain...
Was he really not being purified by the God as if he were a demon?
But Jiang Lin couldn't care about any of that right now.
Because currently, his mental world seemed to have been polluted by that terrifying figure.
Just by making eye contact, he felt as if a seed had been planted in his mental world, quickly taking root and sprouting branches.
As the seed spread, his body seemed to begin to undergo an abnormal mutation.
The desire to slaughter expanded continuously in his heart. He saw his nails becoming sharp, his teeth gradually changing shape, and his physical body evolving toward another creature.
He was incredibly shocked. He didn't know what kind of state he was in. He didn't know if what he had just seen were the past memories of the Shadow of Blood or something currently happening somewhere in the world.
Was this how all Blood Demons were created?
At the same time, he quickly thought of a counterstrategy.
He summoned the culprit behind all of this, the Shadow of Blood.
The clump of blood mist floated calmly in his dormitory room.
Jiang Lin reached out and grabbed it.
In the next moment, the mutations on his body stopped and receded like a tide. Those mad and violent emotions flowed through his arm and into the Shadow of Blood in his hand.
His body, which had begun to demonize, gradually returned to its original state.
Jiang Lin let go of the other party and panted heavily, his heart still racing with fear.
What exactly was going on?
He was filled with doubt.
However, the Shadow of Blood now seemed to have lost its initial hostility, showing no intention of attacking him.
He didn't know if it was because it had been defeated and contracted by him, or because it was too weak to continue fighting.
"What the hell is wrong with you, kid?"
Little Black asked as the holy light on Jiang Lin's body vanished and he returned to a normal state.
Jiang Lin shook his head.
"I don't know either."
He really needed to investigate what was happening to him.
He was about to ask about the God's apostle, but then he suddenly remembered the requirement that he must not reveal his identity to the outside world, or his qualification would be revoked.
While asking Little Black what a God's apostle was would surely be fine, asking about it the moment he came out would basically be admitting he had become one, wouldn't it?
Jiang Lin suspected that the previous rumors about God's apostles started this way.
Because they were dazed upon receiving the news right after coming out, they instinctively asked their elders if they had heard of it, only to have their qualification revoked.
And because their qualification was revoked, they couldn't participate in subsequent trials or prove themselves, so others would just think they were bragging.
Thinking of this possibility, Jiang Lin felt the urge to praise his own brilliant intellect.
As expected of himself!
So he swallowed the words he was about to say and turned to study the Shadow of Blood.
"Little Black, do you recognize what this is?"
Little Black looked at the blood mist, also somewhat confused.
"What is this thing?"
But as it looked closer, it instinctively flinched, a feeling of fear rising in its heart.
What was going on?
Did this thing have something that countered it?
After thinking for a moment, Little Black attributed this fear to the fact that its current body's underlying code was too low-quality.
It would need to reach the overlord-tier to be able to rewrite its own body's genes. It seemed its path to becoming a Demon Lord was still quite long...
"How can an evil god like you not recognize anything?"
Jiang Lin said disdainfully.
Little Black looked at him sideways.
"Do you want to learn any more skills in the future?"
"Ahem, let's go have grilled fish for dinner later..."
Little Black gave him another side-eye.
Then it joined Jiang Lin in studying the blood mist.
Since his mount brand was now imprinted on the Shadow of Blood, Jiang Lin found that he could perceive the Shadow of Blood's thoughts.
However, the opponent's consciousness was a chaotic void with no thoughts whatsoever.
Jiang Lin tried to make the other party change.
For example, turning into his appearance.
Then, the blood mist began to transform, indeed turning into the appearance it had when it fought him earlier.
However, the opponent still gave no reaction, merely standing there silently like a clone of himself.
Jiang Lin thought for a bit and applied the effect of holy arbiter to the other party.
Suddenly, the Shadow of Blood, which had been brimming with blood qi and killing intent, actually began to glow with golden light, emitting a sacred and soft radiance.
Jiang Lin stared at his mount in this form for a moment, feeling it looked strangely familiar.
If he let out a bit of the opponent's blood qi, plating a layer of dark red onto the pure golden light, added a cloak, and changed the hairstyle... wouldn't this be Golden Body Minato?!
He dared to say this was definitely the most accurate cosplay ever!
Rate on N.U.
