Reborn as an Extra Chapter 565: The Curse of Eternal Suffering. Part-4.

Simply being in the presence of such a colossal horror could plunge anyone into deep existential dread, rendering their own life utterly insignificant against a creature of its vast magnitude and might.

‘Dozens of faces adorn it, and clearly... countless souls dwell within this enormous form...’

With his exceptional S-rank vision, Rio could clearly discern that the abomination featured numerous dragon heads perched atop the tree, all directed upward toward the heavens.

Amidst the array of those varied dragon heads sat the prominent central one belonging to the true shadow dragon king.

Every one of those heads remained with eyes shut, as though in slumber, and so far, none had detected Rio’s presence.

Rio glanced toward the roots of that enormous twisted tree and picked up on recognizable spatial ripples.

‘The far side of the sacrificial altar lies here, then...’

The enormous tree appeared to have enveloped the whole sacrificial array, with myriad tentacles dangling in anticipation, poised to ensnare and consume any approaching victim.

‘I’m grateful I chose the arduous route to arrive here instead of the teleportation array that would have flung me straight to the opposite end; else, I’d be ensnared within this colossal tree’s bulk...’

Rio sensed the immense dragon scales sheathing the twisted tree were incredibly tough and thick, with miasma surging through them without pause.

Without unleashing his maximum power, he doubted he could even scratch their surface.

‘A perpetually engaged world authority... what sort of world authority is this?...’

Were the twisted tree merely a mangled heap of flesh and skeleton, Rio might attempt to inflict harm upon it, yet shielded by an unyielding world authority, even at peak effort, he couldn’t inflict significant damage at present.

‘This command over world authority appears far superior to what typical deranged demonic entities possess...’

In his travels through the Spirit Realm, Rio had glimpsed numerous formidable SS-rank malevolent spirits from a distance.

Though many were already in dire condition from miasmic taint, they remained potent SS-rankers wielding authentic world authorities, albeit with feeble grasp upon them.

‘Could it stem from this twisted monstrosity being forged from the shadow dragon king’s form, which already commanded substantial dominion over its world authority?’

‘Yet that raises another query... does an SS-ranker forfeit their command of world authority upon descending into madness from miasma? Would their world authority potency diminish?’

Contemplating this puzzle stirred considerable intrigue in Rio.

‘Back in my homeland, uncovering the truth would be straightforward...’

Somewhere in the human empire, archived studies or confidential records addressing this might be locked away, though Rio lacked means to retrieve them while trapped in the spirit realm.

Humans bore the brunt of the battles against demons during the millennium-long demon extinction war, conducting extensive studies and trials on their foes.

Thus, records from that era ought to persist in storage, or perhaps digitized in classified military supercomputer databases.

As myriad thoughts swirled in his mind, Rio advanced with deliberate slowness and utmost caution.

‘Who would imagine such an immense and hideous entity lurks within the spirit realm...’

‘This bizarre tree-shaped construct dwarfs the world tree by leagues!’

Rio had beheld the towering spire of ascension, the grand world tree, and countless other imposing and mighty structures.

However, none rivaled this one in stature or immensity.

‘Might this explain the absence of any mature dragons in sight?’

‘Could the shadow dragon king have devoured them all, claiming their souls in the process?’

Beyond sensing the auras of numerous large and small souls within the beast, Rio observed many striving to bond and fuse into a singular unified essence.

‘This merging process once more...’

From his personal deductions and reflections, Rio believed his soul had blended with the pre-existing soul of the original Rio in this vessel.

Similar occurrences unfolded across vast swathes of the spirit realm.

It resembled miasma’s relentless trials to forge at least one entity boasting flawlessly integrated souls!

‘A staggering array of fusions and beings has been tested in this cosmic-scale endeavor...’

‘Evidently, miasma has tormented billions upon trillions of souls through such methods... Yet one aspect eludes me... why does miasma so fervently pursue the birth of a merged-soul being?’

Rio failed to grasp miasma’s fixation on cramming dozens of souls into a single frame and compelling their forcible union.

‘Is miasma attempting to replicate my own feat? Though I only emerged a mere three years back...’

‘Nevertheless, these peculiar miasmic trials date far further into the past...’

Whenever disparate souls are jammed into one form, they clash repeatedly, inflicting harm at regular intervals.

Rio had examined this pattern in various spirit realm creatures.

By assessing the harm to the clashing souls, he calculated the likely number of collisions to reach such degradation, thereby gauging the duration of their confinement.

To put it plainly, Rio could determine how long ago those souls had been thrust together.

And he had ascertained that most encountered monsters were centuries old, spanning hundreds of years!

This indicated miasma had pursued this trial for hundreds of years!

Rio stood apart from it all.

‘Even the shadow dragon king and its followers became mere test subjects for miasma...’

‘Such a harsh destiny... alas, King Allen’s retribution is no light matter...’

After all, Rio himself was an oddity who honed his abilities by tormenting criminals repeatedly, so he held no right to critique others’ handling of offenders.

All he managed was sympathy for the ill-fated shadow dragon kin who had crossed someone unmistakably formidable.

‘Navigating near this entity stirs a profoundly ominous vibe...’

As Rio crept around the colossal form for a better inspection of its structure, he detected diverse soul pulses that remained strikingly vivid and communicative.

Typically, severe miasmic corruption renders a being’s soul waves utterly disordered and inscrutable, with emotions spiraling into chaos.

Yet Rio perceived a single potent sentiment emanating from the vast malformed dragon tree, and that sentiment was,

Determination.

Unyielding resolve and steadfast conviction! Rio sensed this from the distinct soul waves radiating from the enormous frame.

‘Could it be that despite the atrocities inflicted upon its form, remnants of lucidity persist in the shadow dragon king’s soul?’

‘What fuels this resolve? Why do you... why do you gaze skyward as though...’

‘As though anticipating something’s arrival...’

The deeper Rio scrutinized the odd entity, the greater his bewilderment grew, prompting him to tilt his gaze upward in puzzlement, seeking whatever captivated all those dragon heads.

Yet astonishingly, the sky held nothing remarkable.

It was merely the standard miasma-shrouded expanse of the spirit realm, marked by sharp borders and ferocious spatial tempests churning wildly.

Rio’s intrigue mounted relentlessly, leading him to take flight and scour the area for hints, and fortune favored him as he uncovered one.

After soaring nonstop for roughly thirty minutes, Rio at last arrived at the far extremity of the gigantic tree’s mass, where a enormous stone slab lay toppled and battered across its surface.

The inscriptions on the slab were so immense that Rio had to ascend high aloft to scarcely glimpse the full expanse and the text etched upon it.

Fortune smiled on Rio once more, for the script was in Ezkina, the universal tongue devised by King Allen.

Beyond those concluding phrases, the rest devolved into meaningless scrawl, beyond Rio’s comprehension.

Still, Rio detected a distinctive soul signature from the colossal stone slab, aligning closely with the dominant and mightiest soul animating the mutated dragon tree.

Having deciphered the slab’s message, Rio verified that the shadow dragon king truly awaited some entity or occurrence, though its nature eluded him.

This revelation plunged Rio into uncertainty; he had arrived geared for combat, only to discover his adversary in such wretched straits it couldn’t engage.

The paramount challenge lay in his inability to approach nearer, thwarted by the impregnable world authority safeguarding it.

‘Argh, how on earth do I locate Ellie now...’