37. transcend 1.

After a while, apexion reappeared inside his base. He sat down and stretched out his right paw. Fwoosh! A floating, flaming, flat

transparent rune manifested in his paw.

He gazed at it intensely for a while, then muttered, "My assumptions were right. This Rune is a higher rank of true meaning, and not just one rank higher either. And just as the outer creature had stated, runes are the language of the world, words, or letters, but unlike normal words, runes can affect the world in many ways, I can only imagine...

but unfortunately, I have not even comprehended a percentage of this rune. The one in my paw is just a fake, a mirage nowhere near the real thing, and even then, if it wasn't for me using my flame as a power source, I wouldn't have been able to manifest it; the ordinary energy in my body just wouldn't work.

This rune in my hand meant the word 'flames.' What it basically does is triple all effects of my flames, and it also adds an eroding effect.

Even if just a finger of an emperor-rank creature is burnt with my flame, unless they comprehend something at the same rank of this rune, they have no hopes of healing, and like a Venom, it would slowly erode them and eventually kill them." Now that he thought about it, if it wasn't for the outside creature's will being chaotic, he would have mostly likely died in that battle.

'Now blood runes... let's comprehend the true meaning of blood first...'

The rune vanished from his paw. He closed his eyes and focused on the blood in his body. A few hours later, his body started to pulse with the true meaning of blood.

Apexion felt that he could control every drop of blood within his body.

His eyes flashed, and a small cut appeared on his finger, a small drop of blood floated from the cut.

He stared at it with burning eyes; he faintly sensed the aura of a rune within it.

Using the blood true meaning, he carefully part the blood, layer by layer. 'There!' Soon he saw what he was looking for: a extremely, extremely small rune, one that radiated a completely different aura from his flaming rune.

He could immediately tell that it was at a lower rank than his flaming rune, but unlike his flaming rune it was complete, which means it would be easier to manipulate.

This rune was also flat, and it was dull, as if it was in a dormant state. And to his surprise, the rune was actually

In the form of a rabbit.

He also noticed that the ascension particles would ignore the rune, floating around it, never making contact.

Multiple thoughts and ideas flashed through his mind. He grabbed a few ascension particles with his will and carefully injected them into the rune. The moment the particles made contact with the rune, they vanished or absorbed, and a faint, almost unnoticeable glow appeared on the rune.

Apexion's eyes flashed; he continued to inject the particles inside the rune. Seconds passed, minutes passed. Suddenly, the rune activated,

ding!

A ding sound rang out, and the rune started to shine brightly while radiating a strong aura that seemed to be enhancing the blood around it.

"I see," he muttered. Then he controlled the blood to re-enter his finger. The moment the blood re-entered his body, he felt thousands of blood runes activated in his fingers, as if the already activated one had triggered something, and he also felt the blood in his arm changing, becoming purer.

He could feel that his finger had become a little harder. 'So this was what Adonist meant by purifying his blood.'

He then opened his mouth wide and used his will to suck in ascension particles like a black hole, but he didn't allow it to enter his nexus sphere. No, he manually spread it throughout his body, making sure to inject it into his blood runes.

...

One month passed. Apexion was still in the same position, absorbing ascension particles. His body radiated an aura that faintly surpassed the supreme rank.

He was just one moment away from activating all the runes in his blood when suddenly his body started trembling, and his instincts screamed out at him not to go any further, or else what awaited him would be worse than death.

His thoughts fired at extreme speed. 'I see... yes, this is someone else's path. Who knows what price I would have to pay to walk it.' To be honest, he never planned to walk on someone else's path from the beginning. No, he planned to create his own, his own path transcendence.

He just wanted to test: how much could he purify his blood before touching that path? He was also a little confused about why was it, when a creature activate all their blood runes, they would automatically step one foot on that path.

This shouldn't be the case. He was sure that blood runes were something natural and innate, and have nothing to do with anything outside of nature.

'So why?…Don't tell me... Could it be that the creature that created that path was so powerful that it could influenced the laws of nature to such a large and great extent? Because it wouldn't just be his world; if what the outer will said is true, there were other worlds out there that walk that path. How powerful is that being to be able to accomplish such thing. Will I attain such powers when I create my own path?' He thought to himself, his eyes shine with desire.

He already had ideas on how to create a path; he just had to create something that allows him to shatter his natural limits and ascend to something higher....

He grabbed a corpse of a war ape that was beside him and pulled a drop of blood from it. Within it, he saw a flat blood rune in the shape of a war ape and activated it. He stared at it intensely, analyzing its formation and energy flow.

….

After a few days, he picked up the corpse of a sky clan member and did the same, then a Barbarian, then a Ruk. Corpses after corpses...

…..

In the blink of an eye, two months passed by. Apexion was surrounded by dozens of corpses. His starry eyes burned brightly as he stared at a transparent rune that floated in front of him.

Bap!

The rune suddenly collapsed. 'Still unstable,' he muttered. This was a rune that he was creating over the two months, but unfortunately, he was still missing a lot of details.

'And it's about time,' he thought as he exited his base. Outside stood his two top minions, Iron Tooth and Thallo, they unconsciously fell to their knees and shiver the moment they saw him.

It wasn't because Apexion used his will or aura; no, it was due to his blood. His blood was already purer than theirs before, so you can just imagine now. what they were experiencing was: [blood suppression]

Apexion gazed at them and said indifferently, "Gather the others and head towards the center of the three empires." After which, he vanished.

Apexion run across the sky at Mach 2, and that was just his base speed, no true meaning or anything. Having purified his blood, his overall attributes had doubled: strength, vitality, speed, defense.

His body started to pulse with the true meaning of speed and leg.

Boom!

His speed instantly increased to Mach 4.5.